Author: Paul (Page 31 of 186)

October 2022 Review

07/11/2022 / Paul / 5 Comments

Somehow I managed to read 16 books again this month. Some were quite short though which probably helped. There was a good mix too, as you can see below. Sarah has now completed three cycles of chemo and has found a routine that works for her, but this week they found another lump in her other boob. 🙁 She described it as whack a mole, just seeing what will happen next. Anyway here they are:

Books Read

The Illustrated Woman – Helen Mort – 3 Stars

The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi In Folklore, Superstition And Traditional Medicine – Sandra Lawrence – 3 Stars

Wild Child: A Journey Through Nature – Dara McAnulty – 3 Stars

Wild Nights Out: The Magic of Exploring the Outdoors After Dark – Chris Salisbury – 3 Stars

All Island No Sea – Chris Campbell – 3 Stars

The Slain Birds – Michael Longley – 3 Stars

The Art of Jeremy Gardiner: Unfolding Landscape – Wendy Baron – 3.5 Stars

The Heath: A Year in the Life of Hampstead Heath – Hunter Davies – 3.5 Stars

The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens – Ben Dark – 3.5 Stars

The Travel Photographer’s Way – Nori Jemil – 3.5 Stars

A Song for a New Day – Sarah Pinsker – 4 Stars

At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond – Various – 4 Stars

Taverna by the Sea: One Greek Island Summer – Jennifer Barclay – 4 Stars

My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia’s Hinterland – Mary Novakovich – 4 Stars

Bunker: Building For The End Times – Bradley L. Garrett – 4 Stars

Book Of The Month

This is a heartwarming story of two brothers during the pandemic. It is about how Manni brought his brother Ruben back out of the self-inflicted silence caused by the care home he was in.

brother. do. you. love. me. – Manni Coe & Reuben Coe – 4 Stars

Top Genres

Natural History – 32

Travel – 22

Poetry – 15

History – 13

Memoir – 12

Fiction – 9

Science – 8

Science Fiction – 6

Environmental – 6

Photography – 5

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 8

William Collins – 7

Little Toller – 5

Gollancz – 5

Unbound – 5

Elliott & Thompson – 4

Bloomsbury – 4

Canongate – 4

Eland – 4

Picador – 4

Review Copies Received

West Cumbria Mining: The Silence Between The Shadows – David Banning

Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird – Ed. Manon Burz-Labrande

From Utmost East to Utmost West: My life of exploration and adventure – John Blashford-Snell

Tree Glee: How and Why Trees Make Us Feel Better – Cheryl Rickman

Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 – Ralph Izzard & Molly Izzard

On Travel and the Journey Through Life – Ed. Barnaby Rogerson

The Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature’s Seasons and Cycles – Rebecca Beattie

My Life in France: The Classic Memoir Of Food And French Living – Julia Child

Library Books Checked Out

Remainders Of The Day: More Diaries From The Bookshop, Wigtown – Shaun Bythell

Eric Ravilious: Artist And Designer – Alan Powers

Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses To Rural England’s Colonial Connections – Corinne Fowler

Wild Nights Out: The Magic Of Exploring The Outdoors After Dark – Chris Salisbury

Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain – Tim Moore

Into Iraq – Michael Palin

No Country For Eight-Spot Butterflies – Julian Aguon

Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing – Ben Short

The Slain Birds – Michael Longley

Wild Child – Dara McAnulty

The Ravens Nest – Sarah Thomas

Bibliomaniac – Robin Ince

Once Upon a Tome – Oliver Darkshire

Books Bought

The Bedlam Stacks – Natasha Pulley

Perfume from Provence – Lady Winifred Fortescue

Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials – Alice Roberts

Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape – Mary-Ann Ochota

Elements Of Italy – Lisa St. Aubin De Teran

The Industrial Past – Peter Stanier

Regency Riot & Reform – Jo Draper

Traveller From Tokyo – John Morris

Folklore Of Dorset – Fran & Geoff Doel

Apricots On the Nile – Colette Rossant

Night Trains – Andrew Martin

A Year In The World – Frances Mayes

Tree Tales: A Celebration of Exeter’s Trees – Jos Smith & Luke Thompson

The Rights Of The Reader – Daniel Pennac

This Luminous Coast – Jules Pretty

The Bullet Journal Method – Ryder Carrol

Dorset Up Along and Down Along: a Collection of History, Tradition, Folk Lore, Flower Names and Herbal Lore – Ed. Marianne Dacombe

Heathlands – Lesley Haskins

Dorset Dialect Days – James Atwell

The Flora of Dorset – Humphry Bowen

Toujours Provence – Peter Mayle

The Life of My Choice – Wilfred Thesiger

One More Croissant for the Road – Felicity Cloake

The Premonitions Bureau – Sam Knight

Gardener’s Nightcap – Muriel Stuart

Island Wife: Living On The Edge Of The Wild – Judy Fairbairns (Signed)

Seven Years in Tibet – Heinrich Harrer

Any that you have heard of from that (huge) list. Let me know in the comments below.

Thirteen Ways To Smell A Tree by David George Haskell

04/11/2022 / Paul / 6 Comments

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for Thirteen Ways To Smell A Tree by David George Haskell and published by XXX.

About the Book

Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree takes you on a journey to connect with trees through the sense most aligned to our emotions and memories. Thirteen essays are included that explore the evocative scents of trees, from the smell of a book just printed as you first open its pages, to the calming scent of Linden blossom, to the ingredients of a particularly good gin & tonic:

In your hand: a highball glass, beaded with cool moisture.

In your nose: the aromatic embodiment of globalized trade. The spikey, herbal odour of European juniper berries. A tang of lime juice from a tree descended from wild progenitors in the foothills of the Himalayas. Bitter quinine, from the bark of the South American cinchona tree, spritzed into your nostrils by the pop of sparkling tonic water.

Take a sip, feel the aroma and taste three continents converge.

Each essay also contains a practice the reader is invited to experience. For example, taking a tree inventory of your own home, appreciating just how many things around us came from trees. And if you’ve ever hugged a tree when no one was looking, try breathing in the scents of different trees that live near you, the smell of pine after the rain, the refreshing, mind-clearing scent of a eucalyptus leaf crushed in your hand.

About the Author

David Haskell is a writer and biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, is an Editor’s Choice at the New York Times and explores the story of sound on Earth. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, he illuminates and celebrates the emergence, diversification, and loss of the sounds of our world, including human music and language.

My Review

Tree huggers have been around for a while, and as mad as it sounds, communing with nature in this way is mostly harmless, unless you have just hugged a holly… Whilst we may use some of our other senses when interacting with a tree, such as sight and touch we very rarely use some of our others. But there is something very pleasurable about walking through ancient woodland listening to the susurration of the leaves in the wind or smelling the resinous scents of a pine forest.

In this fascinating book, Haskell has taken thirteen trees that we have probably come across in some capacity or the other. Beginning with the acrid and oily horse chestnut, known to many small children for their conkers, we meander around other scents and smells such as the juniper and how it has flavoured gin, the way that the white oak is the main flavouring for whisky and how the scent of the ash tree is disappearing.

Not all the smells covered here are pleasant, the living fossil that is the ginko has a particular scent that it is thought was used to attract beasts that walked this planet a long time ago. The glossy green leaves of the bay have a scent that is one of my favourites, my parents have one in their garden and I always snap some leaves in half to smell it when I am there. Trees also give us smells after they have stopped growing, the scent of woodsmoke in the right context can be wonderful, but in a forest can be terrifying. The scent that I am most familiar with though is that of books, as I do have ‘quite a few’ around the house…

The delight I feel in the ponderosa’s aromas joins me to the communicative heart of the forest. Trees confide in one another. Insects eavesdrop and concoct. Earth and sky converse.

This is probably one of the most unusual title books that I have read recently. I really liked this and thought that Haskell has come up with a very novel way of getting us to engage more with the natural world around us. I like the way that he has selected a number of trees, and used that particular species to tell us a little about that tree and how we interact with it. He is a really good writer too, his prose is engaging and fascinating as well as being stuffed full of fascinating facts that can be dropped into conversations. If you want to read a very different slant on natural history writing then I can recommend this.

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Anne Cater from Randon Things Tours for the copy of the book to read.

The Turkish Embassy Letters by Mary Wortley Montagu

02/11/2022 / Paul / 2 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

In 1716 Mary Wortley Montagu travelled across Europe to Istanbul. She was there as the wife of the British ambassador along with a sizeable entourage to represent Britain’s interests in Turkey. This position that she held meant that she could get to meet people in positions that normal travellers would not be able to entertain, such as empresses and sultans.

This book is a collection of her letters that were sent to a variety of people and were subsequently collected together to make this book up. I don’t know the name of the people that were the recipients of these letters, but I can guess with the number of nobility scattered amongst the names that these were the great and the good of the society of the time.

The thing that I liked most about the letters is the incredible detail of the places and people that she encounters on the way there and in court life. There are details of her seeing whirling dervishes for the first time, the description of a dress that was dripping in gems and diamonds as well as the mundane and the most recent gossip she is gathering and passing on to her friends.

I thought that this was a well-written insight into life at the beginning of the 1700s. She is an astute observer of life in the court as well as shining a light on the almost unknown lives of Turkish women at the time. Her views on life are refreshing too, given the time this was written, though she does carry the deeply held views of similar members of her class in society of the time. The afterword by the late great Dervla Murphy adds context to just who this lady was. Well worth reading, not just for its historical importance, but as a unique travel book of its time.

November 2022 TBR

31/10/2022 / Paul / 1 Comment

Here is my November TBR. Yes, I know it is much shorter than usual, but I am focused on getting what I need to read for the Good Reads challenge and the Natural History book reading challenge. It may change as inevitably library books that I have out, get reserved by others…

Reading Through The Year

A Poem for Every Night of the Year Allie Esiri

Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year – Susie Dent

Finishing Off (Still!)

The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre – Tim Hannigan

This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race – Nicole Perlroth

Blog Tour

My Life in France: The Classic Memoir Of Food And French Living – Julia Child

Tree Glee: How and Why Trees Make Us Feel Better – Cheryl Rickman

What’s for Dessert: Simple Recipes for Dessert People – Claire Saffitz

Challenge Books

I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain – Anita Sethi

Wild Nephin – Sean Lysaght

Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky – Sarah Gibson

A Still Life: A Memoir – Josie George

Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness – Sicelo Mbatha

Library

A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World – Fred Pearce

Venice: The Lion, The City And The Water – Cees Nooteboom

What Abigail Did That Summer – Ben Aaronovitch

Any that you have heard of or like the sound of? Let me know in the comments below

The Heath by Hunter Davies

26/10/2022 / Paul / 6 Comments

3.5 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

Even though I have read bits and pieces about Hampstead Heath, a couple of books on the people that head to the ponds on a regular or daily basis to take a dip and it has come up in books on spies, both fictional and real-life examples. My mum and dad are both Londoners and I have been there many many times. But I have never been there.

Located four miles from the centre of London it is eight hundred acres of green space. It is not manicured by legions of gardeners, rather it is a place that most Londoners can get to on a tube that feels like the countryside. There are hills and lakes, rolling grasslands and wild parts (well for London anyway).

It is a place that Hunter Davies has known for a very long time. He was born in Scotland, but his home for the past six decades has been within walking distance of the Heath. This book, set over a year of life on the Heath and during the pandemic, is both a love letter and a eulogy to the place that he loves deeply.

Each chapter takes us to a specific place beginning of course with the swimming ponds. We meet some of the characters on the heath from the dog walkers to the rich and famous and the hippies that are using the space for their own particular ends. There are several visits to the pubs, he wanders along the pergola, a generally unknown spot as well as visits to the sheep that are making an appearance now.

I must admit I did think that this would be more natural history focused than it is, but that said I found this as informative as I did entertaining. Quite a pleasant surprise. It is a part of London that I know very little about so every page had some anecdote or snippet of information that I had not come across before. I liked the way that he explored different parts of the heath rather than just his regular haunts, but it is the places that he visits every day that you come to understand why he loves the place so much. If I had one minor gripe, I thought that the name-dropping did get a little tiresome.

A River Runs Through Me by Andrew Douglas-Home

24/10/2022 / Paul / 4 Comments

3 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

It has been a long time since I fished but the last time I did so was on the shores of Loch Lochy. Didn’t catch a huge amount, but we did have to odd success. It never really caught (sorry) my attention enough to carry on, but I can see why some people fall for it.

Andrew Douglas-Home has been in a fortunate enough position to have been able to fish some of Scotland’s best salmon rivers, in particular the Tweed. He would spend all day fishing as a child from the land that his father owned. When not fishing there, he would be able to cast his line at other places around Scotland that other family members owned. He did take it all for granted, especially the fish that he could land back in the 1960s in numbers that have never really been seen since.

This book is a series of short essays about his life spent fishing in all manner of places, but primarily on the rivers of Scotland. Woven into these short stories of a life spent thigh-deep in water is a glimpse into his family life from a child who would visit 10 Downing Street to see his uncle who just happened to be Prime Minister at the time. We learn a little about his wife and sons including the tragic loss of one of them as well as some of the insights that he has learnt from life.

He comes across as a good custodian of the land that he owns. There are a number of essays about the decline of the salmon and wildlife in general and has come to realise that the things that we have been doing to the environment are having a huge effect on the livelihood of the salmon. Some of his points made sense, but I did completely disagree with him about the introduction of beavers.

I quite liked this overall. He is not too bad an author and this is a fairly easy read. He is in a very privileged position, he knows it but does try to play it down in the prose. I think that he is slightly obsessed with his chosen sport. If you are not heavily into fishing with a sprinkling of hunting then this might not be for you.

All Island No Sea by Chris Campbell

22/10/2022 / Paul / 0 Comments

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for All Island No Sea by Chris Campbell and published by Alien Buddha Press.

About the Book

‘In this buoyant collection about wading through life, people trudge in and out of houses, decorating them along the way. Growing older brings all kinds of paint splatters – some bright, some painful. These poems chart the identity crisis of a human island that has lost its ocean, leaving only a squawk and some wet socks. Perhaps, once all the wet socks are gathered, water can return. Campbell’s images unfold like a stepladder for us to climb.’

About the Author

Chris Campbell is a former journalist living in Bristol. He now works in PR and is a Rotary GB&I Young Writer National Final judge.

‘All Island No Sea’ is Chris’ third poetry book following ‘White Eye of the Needle’ (2021) and ‘Bread Rolls and Dresden’ (2013). His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Dreich, Indigo Dreams’ The Dawntreader, The Waxed Lemon, Streetcake, Yuzu Press, Green Ink Poetry and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Chris won The Portico Library’s ‘Poetry Prize’ (2021) and has been featured on BBC Radio Bristol.

My Review

Life is a series of routines for most people, with the occasional memorable event thrown in for good measure. The big things can be memorable for good and bad reasons, but for some people, they can find joy in the everyday moments. Chris Campbell is one of those.

The subject of the poems in this collection are wide-ranging, from sitting listening in a flat listening to a saxophone play, a cleaner in a pub and the things we actually own and the aftermath of a rainstorm in August seen through a broken window and a conversation with a barber. Some of the poems have a subtle and occasionally dark humour, not to make me laugh out loud, they made me smile as I read them.

You’d have been ninety-nine today.
I wonder of your rhubarb still grows

if your books now gather dust on
Someone else’s shelf?

I really liked this collection. Some of the poems brought back memories of my childhood, in particular, September. I remember having a pocket full of conkers ready to take home and pierce holes in. I like that the form and tempo of each poem were different so each page felt fresh and inviting. A great little collection that deserves a revisit at another point.

Three Favourite Poems
Dear Alan, Alan, Alan
September
I Want The Past In A Cereal Bowl

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Isabelle for the copy of the book to read.

Socials:
Visit www.chriscampbellpoetry.co.uk.
Twitter: @Citizen_Chris

The Grove by Ben Dark

21/10/2022 / Paul / 3 Comments

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for The Grove by Ben Dark and published by Mitchell Beazley.

About the Book

There is a renewed interest in the nature on our doorsteps, as can be seen in the work of amateur botanists identifying wildflowers and chalking the names on the pavements.

But beyond the garden wall lies a wealth of cultivated plants, each with a unique tale to tell. In The Grove, writer and head gardener Ben Dark reveals the remarkable secrets of twenty commonly found species – including the rose, wisteria, buddleja, box and the tulip – encountered in the front gardens of one London street over the course of year.

As Ben writes, in those small front gardens ‘are stories of ambition, envy, hope and failure’ and The Grove is about so much more than a single street, or indeed the plants found in its 19 ½ front gardens. It’s a beguiling blend of horticultural history and personal narrative and a lyrical exploration of why gardens and gardening matter.

About the Author

Ben Dark is a head gardener, award-winning broadcaster and landscape historian working at the top of British horticulture. He ’s been described as ‘the millennial Monty’ by Gardeners’ World Magazine and ‘the future of horticulture’ by Horticulture Week.

He graduated with a degree in History from Bristol University and went on to study Horticulture at Capel Manor College, before completing his education with a traineeship at the Garden Museum and an MA in Garden and Landscape History at the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research. As a gardener he has worked for embassies, cemeteries, heritage bodies and oligarchs. He has organized a private flower show for the Royal Family and helped to build gold-medal winning gardens on the main avenue at the Chelsea Flower Show. As the creator and host of the award-winning Garden Log Podcast he frequently speaks to gardening groups and industry events. Ben has written about plants for the Telegraph and has been featured in the Independent, Gardens

Illustrated and the Financial Times.

My Review

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need – Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you are a regular visitor to this blog then you probably know that I like books. Whilst the house is not quite a library, it isn’t too far short, Sarah has a thing about gardens so we have a lot of plants around the place. I don’t know exactly how many plants she has in the front garden but the size of the bed is about 10m x 5m. Based on the words of Cicero, I think we’re sorted.

Even though he is a head gardener, Ben Dark does not have his own garden. He lives in a flat with his wife and son and when walking in the neighbourhood came across this street called The Grove with these rich and varied front gardens. It reminded him of the day, years ago, just after he had started horticultural college. He realised that he actually recognised a plant in someone’s garden Not only did he recognise it, but he knew its Latin name and could remember what he had recently learnt about it. From that moment on he was hooked on plants.

Each of the gardens was very different but they all had a particular thing in there that piqued his interest and for each chapter, he has chosen one plant to write about. Beginning with Wisteria, each chapter is on an utterly different plant, from Box to magnolia, Tulips to London Planes and roses to a plant that we have a lot of in our garden, Verbena. It gives him an opportunity to explore the origins of each plant and why we have them in London. It is endlessly fascinating, as we root around in the undergrowth with him, learning about each of them and what they bring to our gardens.

I had never heard of Ben Dark before coming across this book. But I can see why he is highly rated based on what I have just read. I did like the way that he uses a different plant for each chapter to explore the gardens of The Grove. The mix of culture, horticulture and history along with his own personal stories and anecdotes is just about right. He knows his green subjects too, drawing on all his experience as a gardener and he does that without me feeling that I was being lectured to as some of the gardeners can do.

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the copy of the book to read.

Return to My Trees by Matthew Yeomans

18/10/2022 / Paul / 8 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

Back in 2020, the world reached one of its pivotal moments in history. As the novel coronavirus swept around the world from China, countries dealt with the pandemic as it breached borders. In March of that year, the UK was put into lockdown and a plethora of rules and restrictions were put into place.

People coped with it in different ways, but one of the most noticeable benefits was that people began to notice the natural world once again. Matthew Yeomans was one of those who was discovering the natural world again. It was on one of his permitted walks that he had walked from a housing estate into a woodland. The beauty of it overwhelmed him and it was at that point that he decided that he wanted to write about the trees and woodlands of Wales.

But what was he going to write about? An idea formed; he would walk through the ancient and modern forests of his home country and write about them. He began to plan a route that in the end would take him on a series of routes from the border in England in the south, along the spine of the country to the west coast before heading inland and north. The route he chooses takes him past and through the history of the country from the ancient druid that the Romans feared, to the decays remanets of the industrial past.

He is joined by friends on some of the walks, old friends who provide good company and drinking partners. On others, he undertakes them alone which gives him time to think about his and our relationship with the natural world. A relationship that is under threat more than ever before.

The only way to save the world is to fall in love with it again – Brian Eno

Yeomans has a subtle and dry humour in his prose and has written an entertaining book that I really liked. His lockdown project to walk through the ancient and modern forests of Wales was something that gave him a sense of purpose, but he is also aware of the benefits that he gets from walking through these woods. This book calls for you to do the same and wallow in the peace that comes from being in a woodland or forest.

Looking for Transwonderland by Noo Saro-Wiwa

13/10/2022 / Paul / 0 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

This book is a good reminder that the past is a foreign country. Even though she was born and grew up there, she has Saro-Wira has lived most of her life in the UK. Whilst she returned regularly after her father was murdered, she hadn’t returned for a long time.

Returning there became safe after a change of government and this would be the opportunity to see her home country through adult eyes and see if she could find the things that her late father loved so much about the place.

It is a place that is full of life and people and noise and smells and brings the memories flooding back. Growing up there she was not allowed the freedoms that she now had to travel all over the country and find family members and speak to all manner of people. Having lived away from Nigeria for a while gave her an insight into the pulse of the country and its foibles and strengths.

She comes to realise what her father loved and hated in equal measure about the country. The corruption is rife, from the very top to the bottom and even though the politics is cleaner than it was, there is still a dark undercurrent. I really liked this book, the writing shows the passion that she has for Nigeria still and she is a great describer of the characters that she meets, both family and the people in the street. Even though this was published nearly 10 years ago, this is still worth reading for an insider’s view of Nigeria.