This is a bit later than planned as I have just come back off holiday in Corfu. We had a wonderful time and it was hot. Properly hot. Anyway, here are the books that I read and packed into my house in June
Books Read
Dorset Before the Camera: 1539-1855 – David Burnett – 3.5 stars
Sustainable Materials – With Both Eyes Open – Julian Allwood & Jonathan Cullen – 3 stars
One People – Guy Kennaway – 4 stars
Salt Lick – Lulu Allison – 3 stars
Jacobé & Fineta – Joaquim Ruyra – 3 stars
Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland – Lisa Schneidau – 3 stars
A Curious Absence of Chicken – Sophie Grigson – 3.5 stars
Shadowlands – Matthew Green – 4 stars
The Ottomans – Marc David Baer – 3.5 stars
The Wild Silence – Raynor Winn – 4 stars
Field Guide to Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises – Mark Carwardine – 4 stars
The Nature of Summer – Jim Crumley – 4 stars
Fox – Jim Crumley – 3.5 stars
New Leaf – Seán Lysaght – 4 stars
Scraps Of Wool – Bill Colegrave – 4 stars
The Best British Travel Writing Of The 21st Century – Ed. Jessica Vincent – 4 stars
Book Of The Month
My book of the month was The Draw Of The Sea – Wyl Menmuir. The is a wonderful eulogy to all this based around the coast. He has a way with words that makes this a wonderful read
Top Genres
Natural History – 16
Travel – 14
History – 9
Poetry – 9
Science – 7
Top Publishers
William Collins – 6
Faber & Faber – 5
Picador – 4
Unbound – 4
Eland – 4
Review Copies Received
On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World – Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright
The Night Wire: and Other Tales of Weird Media – Aaron Worth
Rhythms of Nature: Wildlife and Wild Places Between the Moors – Ian Carter
RSPB ID Spotlight – Ducks, Geese and Swans – Marianne Taylor, Stephen Message
RSPB ID Spotlight – Garden Bugs – Marianne Taylor, Stephen Message
The Po: An Elegy For Italy’s Longest River – Tobias Jones
Our Haunted Shores: Tales from the Coasts of the British Isles – Ed.Emily Alder& Joan Passey & Jimmy Packham
Inside Qatar: Hidden Stories From Inside One Of The Richest Nations On Earth – John Mcmanus
The Draw Of The Sea – Wyl Menmuir
Library Books Checked Out
The Ten Equations That Rule The World And How You Can Use Them Too – David Sumpter
Under The Blue – Oana Aristide
Wahala – Nikki May
Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain – Hannah Rose Woods
Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden – Lulah Ellender
Sea State – Tabitha Lasley
Books Bought
Field Notes: Walking The Territory – Maxim Peter Griffin
A Time From The World – Rowena Farre
wanderings – Dan Williams
When There Were Birds: The Forgotten History of Our Connections – Roy Adkins, Lesley Adkins
Alexa, what is there to know about love? – Brian Bilston
The Old Man and the Sand Eel – Will Millard
Pilgrim’s Road: A Journey to Santiago de Compostela – Bettina Selby
Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel – Lawrence Durrell
The Best of Granta Travel – Ed. Bill Buford
Longshoreman – Benjamin Pond
The Condé Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places – Klara Glowczewska
Abandoned Churches: Unclaimed Places of Worship – Francis Meslet
Selected poems 1963-2003 – Charles Simic
Four Quartets – T.S. Eliot
Utz – Bruce Chatwin
My Journey to Lhasa – Alexandra David-Néel
Under A Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan – Peregrine Hodson
Rome Sweet Rome – Archibald Lyall
Edward Vine’s Dorset – Barry Miles
Betjeman’s Britain – John Betjeman
Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects – Fiona Erskine
Kings of a Dead World – Jamie Mollart
The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration – Jo Woolf
Chasing the Monsoon: a Modern Pilgrimage Through India – Alexander Frater
From Sea To Shining Sea – Gavin Young
Worlds Apart – Gavin Young
What Am I Doing Here – Bruce Chatwin
Travels with Herodotus – Ryszard Kapuściński
Thesiger – Michael Asher
Up The Country – Emily Eden
Dalvi: Six Years in the Arctic – Laura Galloway
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking – Kerri Andrews
Notes from the Cévennes: Half a Lifetime in Provincial France – Adam Thorpe
Extraordinary Clouds: Skies of the Unexpected from the Beautiful to the Bizarre – Richard Hamblyn
The Old Country – Jack Hargreaves
A London Reverie – J. C. Squire
The Trespasser’s Companion – Nick Hayes
I’ll be interested to see what you make of Wahala – I loved it. And hooray for My Journey to Lhasa – presumably in the Virago Women Travellers edition – I have that too, from that time the one-less-local Oxfam Books had a whole pile of them in. Good reading this month and you’ve come back to more heat of course! I’ve got a week off this week so hoping to get some good reading in myself.
Wahala came highly recommended by Gracie @ Little Toller. It is that edition and I have a spreadsheet with a list of the rest of them to get now