Category: Book Musings (Page 26 of 32)

That was a month that I am not going to want to remember for a while. I had been with my company for 13 years and this month along with two others I was made redundant with my boss and the other engineer. There is another positive lead that I am following up on, but still a bit numb and shell-shocked. Somehow managed to read 18 books though and there were these below:

This is Malachy Tallacks debut novel, set in a valley in the bleak but beautiful landscape of Shetland. It is not a dynamic plot, just a natural tension between the characters and their interaction. 









It has been a long while since I climbed a tree, but in my childhood, I spent a fair amount of time climbing and occasionally falling out of trees. But in this book, Aldred takes climbing trees literally to another level. An enjoyable account of a part of the wildlife filming side that you don’t get to hear about very often.








Sleep is one of those things that we do as humans that until recently no one has really understood why we do it. But according to this well-written science book, it is a key element of our health and well being. One for any science buffs TBR.








Having lost everything bar a small amount of money, and with the diagnosis for her husband of a terminal illness, Raynor Winn and her husband decide that they might as well buy a tent and camp, and if they are camping then they may as well walk the 630 miles of the South Coast Path. It is a great life-affirming book.







Mary Monroe lost her father when she was 18; until that point, she only knew him as dad; but she heard from an aunt that he was one of the greats of World War II. She had to find out more, and this is her tribute and story of his life.










There is only so much crap people can take before they have had enough, and Solnit in this picks up on the stories of five decades of activism against the state. It is a little dated, but she is such a good author that it is still worth reading








One of the defining characteristics of humanity is our curiosity. In a world where you have almost unlimited knowledge at your fingertips then it is so easy to take everything for granted. Henderson thinks that this is something that we still need to retain, and this book sets about opening your eyes to the wonders that still exist. Beautifully produced too.







At the age of 12, Lev Parikian was an avid birdwatcher. He had a huge list of birds from the common or garden to the exotic neatly ticked off. Except he hadn’t seen some of them, in fact, he had probably only seen half of them. When he decided to revive it, he realised that he needed a target to aim for, and after consulting with a friend, plumped for 200. This is his story of that challenge. Really enjoyed this and laughed all the way through.





If someone was to ask where to see eagles, you’d almost certainly suggest Scotland. But a while ago there were eagles on the west coast of Ireland too, and their ghosts can still be seen in the names of places in the landscape. Lysaght decides to spend time seeking their eyries by walking the wind and storm-swept landscape. His prose is beautiful and this is another cracking book from little Toller

Snow? In the summer? It sounds like climate change gone mad and given the weather recently it could be quite feasible. However, this is more than that, Nicholson is seeking the pockets of snow in the highlands of Scotland that last deep into the summer and sometimes surviving until the next winter. Lovely book with some haunting beautiful photos of the snow cathedrals he finds.

The benefits of getting outside in the natural world are only just starting to be understood, and Nick Baker in this book suggests some things to do to engage your all senses. Not a bad book. 

For most people science is a big scary thing that they last did at school, but as Cooper explains in the book, anyone can be involved from observing birds in your garden on a weekend to searching the skies for new stars and galaxies. Lots of ideas on how to get involved.

As style icons go there are not as many that are as cool as the VW Campervan and this little book gives a brief overview of the evolution of them so far. Nice photos, but no depth










The newest nation on Earth is on the Antarctica Peninsula, a place that has now been made habitable by global warming, rising sea levels and the advent of ecopoets. These genetically modified humans had special adaptions to cope with the extreme cold and climate at the far south of the planet. This alternative future by Paul McAuley has a thriller and family story dropped onto it. I liked it, but the thriller elements were too predictable as ever.

Dixe Wills latest book in the ‘Tiny’ themed series is all about the small-sized attractions around our island. From the museums in telephone boxes to the tiny public squares in the very centre of London, the smallest theatres and smallest pubs then this is the book for you. 







Life on the open ocean is harsh relentless and unforgiving. To survive there takes resilience and millennia of evolution. Seabirds are masters of this environment, relishing the storms that drive the vast ships to save havens. In this book, Nicolson writes about at ten of the greatest seabirds and how they are coping with climate change and the devastation we as humanity are wreaking on the oceans. Fascinating stuff.






 This is a bang up to date contemporary story set in a sleepy Scotish village, but there is more to it than that, there is a mystery, secret and it is very eerie at times too. Excellent debut









Rambling has now reached the grand total of 36 series and on there Clare Balding has walked with all sorts of people in locations around the country. There are stories of her time at the Olympics and other sporting events. Very funny at times it is just good fun read.

I managed to up my game last month and with the help of a weeks holiday got twenty books read. 20!! There is a little bit for everyone here, including most of the Wellcome Prize shortlist. So behind on reviews at the moment so some of these are not reviewed yet, but here we go:

Our present economic system is broken, it cannot predict the future and the way it is set up, it is consuming vast amounts of resources with no plan for sustainablilty. Rathworth is proposing that we adopt a system that considers the limits the earth can manage, the outer ring, with the minimum acceptable living standard for the global population. Well worth reading, though I am not sure just how much will happen just yet with the vested interests in control.






The cuckoo is one of our most distinctive migrants that most people have never seen, but who would instantly recognise the call of. Nick Davies is obsessed by them (to put it mildly) and this book tells the stories of his observation and experiments on the cuckoos of the fens. Fascinating stuff, and even though he is a Professor, it doesn’t read like an academic paper







The universe that Fenn has created with the Sidhe, a forgotten race that still controls humans covertly reaches its finale in this the fifth book. A fast-paced sci-fi thriller that twists and turns right until the end









This is a loose tie-in to the TV series, that explains the actual story behind the fictionalised account that became the Corfu Trilogy. Lots of details and photos of the Durrell family in their homes in Bournemouth and Corfu









Maxwell had written several books before Ring of Bright Water became a massive bestseller. But his life story as a minor aristocrat, traveller, closet homosexual and consumer of vast amounts of whisky wasn’t really known until his friend Douglas Botting told it in this book. It is brilliant too and this reprint by Eland in their distinct style is still worth reading.







Normally books about hostage taking are fast action thrillers that demand page turning rapidly as the plot races ahead. This isn’t like that; the slow pace after the hostage-takers realise their there target isn’t there allows the building of characters and some unexpected events.








A tragic balloon accident brings two men together, one who becomes obsessed with the other and begins to stalk him. This external pressure starts to unravel his marriage and sanity Until it reaches a dramatic climax. Wasn’t so keen on this book though as there were several parts that didn’t make sense.








Leon has just had a baby brother. who unlike him, is white. After his mum suffers a breakdown, they are both put into care and shortly after his brother is adopted, never to be seen again. The lady looking after him ends up in hospital, he is passed to her sister. Whilst he is fond of her, he still wants to bring his family back together again, and maybe the guys at the allotment might be able to help him with that. Poignant stuff about the care system in the 1980’s.  





Patagonia sits astride two countries, Chile and Argentina and is a place that people go to to make or lose a fortune. In this classic travel book, Chatwin follows the stories around the bottom part of the American continent. Not as much of the place as I had hoped, but still worth reading.








This was a Wellcome Prize shortlisted book. Drug addiction routinely devastates families across the UK and it even happens at the very highest level of society. This is the story of Hans and Eva Rausing and their descent into addiction, Eva’s death and the public attention in the story seen from the eyes of Sigrid, Han’s sister. She is brutally honest about her own life and the failures in helping Hans and Eva, but also now understands the limits of what she could actually do at the time. 

This was a Wellcome Prize shortlisted book. This is a story full of love, life, death, tragedy with uplifting moments set in Nigeria of a womans desire to have a child to fufill her husbands families wishes. It is full of the politics of the country as a turbulent backdrop. Yejide is in between cultures as the old Nigerian ways clash with the new world and Western medicine and there is plenty of deceit and lies as the plot twist and turns and the truths are laid bare. 





This is the last book that the late Helen Dunmore wrote and it is a return to the origins as it is poetry. Like with all poetry there are some that I like and other that I didn’t quite get. Mostly enjoyable though









This was a Wellcome Prize shortlisted book about the advent of modern surgery and clinical practices. If you were admitted to a hospital back in the Victorian era, then you stood as much chance of dying of your care as you did from the original problem. It does not hold back on the blood and gore, so not one to read whilst you’re eating, but it is very good and from what the author said to me, may be made into a film.





Over 60 years ago, the chances of people surviving common illnesses were fairly low, but with the advent of effective vaccines then public health improved dramatically. This book is the story of the creation of those vaccines that have saved billions of lives around the world. It does get quite technical at times so might not be for everyone.







There are three things that are certain in life; taxes, your computer crashing and death. The final one of these is almost taboo now days but in this book Mannix tell the stories of those who have reached the end. Most are old, some are painfully young, but each family has come to accept the passing of their loved one with her and her teams help. A very moving book.








Spring is the most dynamic of seasons. The starkness of winter is thrown off with the new shoots, the longer days warm the earth and the annual migration of millions of birds from winter sites to breeding grounds begins. Rose follows the changing season from the very south of Europe across 35 degrees of latitude to the northern coast. Not a bad book overall.







People have spent ages messing about in boats, and after his friend, James made a two-seater canoe, it was time for Matt Gaw to join that gang. It is an entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable read about the journeys that make on rivers near and far just because they can.








John Lister-Kaye has run the Aigas Field Centre for a long while now, but this is the story of his journey to that place so dear to his hear. He tells of the medical struggles that his mother had with her heart, of the frankly horrific school system of the day, and finding happiness at one in Lyme Regis Dorset, where the natural world came alive to him. There is, of course, Gavin Maxwell and the attempt to create a zoo on the Isle of Skye as well as all the animals that passed through his hands as a child. 

So that was it! any her that you have read, or now want to read? Let me know in the comments below

I’d read the shortlist, with my fellow bloggers chosen a winner, To Be A Machine, and I was fortunate to be invited to the prize announcement at the Wellcome Collection in London. As it costs a fair amount to get from Dorset to London, I’d thought that I’d make a day of it. Popped in to see Blake and Clare at Head of Zeus and then next tube stop was Matt at Duckworth. Had a very quick bite to eat and then headed north to see Simon at Big Green Books as I promised him I would pop in one day. Purchased his book, signed of course, and then headed south to Euston.

I was meeting up with two of my fellow bloggers from the Shadow Panel, Rebecca from Bookish Beck and Clare from A Little Blog of Books. Quick look around the shop and a natter over a coffee and it was time to head upstairs to the library and for the formal event to begin. Drinks were acquired and canapes consumed and we listened to jazz and shouted at each other over the noise. Edmund de Waal came on after around half an hour and started the preamble and introductions. Each of the judges introduced the books, presented the authors with a bouquet quoted from it. Photo’s (slightly blurry sorry) below:

and the winner was:

Which Max Porter accepted on behalf of Mark as his wife was in the process of giving birth to their second child. It was a highly amusing speech too. It was the one we picked too so we were quite chuffed, to say the least!

After the announcement had been made more drinks were brought around and the authors moved into the crowd to talk. Spoke to several of the authors and was even complimented by one on my review, which I probably blushed quite a lot at!

It was quite an experience and one that I feel privileged to have been invited too, we even got a free goody bag on the way out too. Overall a cracking day in London and I am hoping to be invited to another prize giving soon!

Apologies for being a bit late with this and being very quiet on the blog recently, almost immediately into April we went on holiday, so now have a pile of reviews to catch up with, but here is what I read in March. I managed 17 books in the end. Not as many as I had hoped for, other stuff kept getting in the way! 

There is a total mix of books this month, hopefully, something for everyone so here we go: 


I have been a huge fan of David Crystal for years, he has a knack of teasing out those etymology gems from our rich and varied language. What he has also done is to teach himself and other the best way of speaking to others, be it a small group in an office to a packed lecture theatre. This was one of the books and authors that was involved with Jewish Book Week and they were kind enough to send me a copy to review





Eland have been my publisher of the month in the profiles that I have been doing and you can read all about them here. Warrior Herdmen is one of the books that they have kindly sent me to review. This is the stories that Elizabeth marshall collected from her time spent with the Dodoth people who inhabited the northern fringe of Uganda. More anthropology than travel but fascinating none the less. 

 

Another one of the books and authors that was involved with Jewish Book Week and they were kind enough to send me a copy of this to review too. At the young age of fourteen, Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia.While she let very little pass her lips in the form of nourishment, she still devoured books, and it was literature that was to hold the key to her recovery. Laura and her list of childhood favourite books has played a crucial role in her accepting that food is not something to avoid and can be enjoyed.






The final Jewish Book Week book that I was sent was The Ascent of Gravity by Marcus Chown. Gravity affects everything on this planet, but it was first understood only 400 years ago by Newton. Other have since broadened and deepened our understanding of this tiny, but significant force and Choswn takes us through the history and the most recent discoveries.






Undercover Muslim is about the troubled country of Yemen. Theo Padnos takes us into the coffee shops and backstreets where disillusioned young muslim men of the west seek some sort of spiritual aspiration in this society. One for my #WorldFromMyArmchair challenge too.








Surfing is a tough sport, so attempting it when you’ve had a hip replaced is beyond most people’s comprehension. Iain Gately is one surfer who has never ridden a tube, and it is one thing that he wants to do before he can’t surf any more. I really enjoyed this and it was nice to have a book written by a local Dorset author too.









Sometimes it is who you know, rather than what you know, that opens doors and opportunities and Clare had a friend had a contact in the Finnish Embassy. A message came via this link asking: We are celebrating a hundred years since independence this year: how would you like to travel on a government icebreaker? Horatio Clare jumped at the chance to spend 10 days on a modern Icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. I love the evocative way that he writes about the sharpness of the ice, the clarity of the light and the noise as the frozen sea succumbs to the power of the ship Another good read from Clare and can highly recommend.



There are an awful lot of wild swimming books out there now, and I have read a lot of them. The classic Waterlog is still the one to beat though, but I still like to pick the others up and see where their aquatic adventures take them. It has a personal side as do a lot of natural history books these days, but then we are as much of this planet as the wildlife is. Thers is a deep melancholy and eloquence to Peter’s writing as even though he was better when he wrote the book, the spectre of depression is still a shadow in the background





In the urban sprawl, it is sometimes hard to see the natural world, but most people don’t realise that after an hour or so in the car from their front door they’d be able to see some of best examples of wildlife, woodlands and our finest natural landscapes. There is something in here for everyone, moorlands, coastal and wetlands, woodlands and even derelict industrial areas. Keep one in the glovebox of the car.

Lewis -Stempel is described as one of the best nature-writers of his generation, and he is very good, though I would argue that there are others that can carry that bough too. This is another sublime book from Lewis-Stempel to add to his raft of award-winning books. I really liked the diary format and the way that it is interspersed with folklore, poems, history, recipes and personal thoughts. Read it and you will want to own your own wood too.






Nestling in the foothills of the Himalayas in Yunnan Province lies the capital city of the almost forgotten Nakhi Kingdom, Likiang. This city was the home of the Nakhi. It was here that Peter Goullart went to live and work as a Chinese Industrial Cooperatives representative just before the beginning of World War 2. He paints a fascinating portrait of the people there uncovering the details that make the stories that he tells so compelling to read. Superb book






In Ground Work, Tim Dee has collated the thoughts and observations of thirty-one of the finest landscape and natural history writers around. This poetic and literary collection is the response to the threat that is being posed by the ‘soft-skinned, warm-blooded, short-lived, pedestrian species’ that has turned our present day into a new epoch; the Anthropocene. This new era is already causing chaotic changes to our weather systems, there is the steady creep upwards in average temperature across the globe as well as significant and it some cases catastrophic changes to our environments.



The Gathering Tide is Karen Lloyd’s journey around and across the dynamic sea and landscape of Morecombe Bay. Her evocative writing weaves together the physical journey on and around the sands, across the dunes and out to the islands and one kingdom, that poke their heads above the 10m tides. There are glimpses back into her past, fond memories of growing up in the area and meeting up with people whose livelihood depends on this coastline.

Where would you be without the internet? It is now one of life’s essentials along with power and water, and if you have teenagers then you know for them it is their lifeblood. The book covers the men who started the websites that now rule our lives and have permeated our existence in so many ways and we now rely on them. It is an interesting read, but he really doesn’t go anyway to address what needs to be done to curtail their power.

The first instance of the name Hamtunscir appeared in the 8th century, but there has been a human presence in the county of Hampshire since around 12,000 BC. People were communicating in a different way back then, but in this Langlands has scoured books and manuscripts to bring the very best of Hampshire writers and writing. There are the people that you’d expect, Jane Austen and Gilbert White as well as a raft of others including Wodehouse, Doyle and even Hardy who had ventured out of Dorset.  Nice collection of literature.



A Black Fox Running is a re-published edition with a stunning cover with a beautiful introduction by Melissa Harrison on how it inspired her to become a writer. It tells the story of Wulfgar, the dark-furred fox who roams far and wide over the wilds of Dartmoor and his battles with Scoble, an ex-veteran from the war with a drinking problem. It is not a children’s book, there are no compromises on death in this book, rather the writing is firmly grounded in the granite bedrock of Dartmoor bringing the natural world alive to the reader.

Jules Pretty walked along the shoreline of East Anglia in southeastern England over the course of a year, exploring four hundred miles on foot and another hundred miles by boat. It is a coast and a culture that is about to be lost not yet, perhaps, but soon to rising tides and industrial sprawl. It is a part of the world that has my roots in, as my paternal grandmother’s family come from Paglesham, though I have never visited it yet. I loved the photos in this book and the writing was considered without being too academic.

 February – the shortest month in the year, and somehow I managed to read 17 books… Not quite sure how. Was a good month too, my first two five star reads too along with some sci-fi, history, science and natural history. So here they are: 

This is the second in the Empire Games series and Stross has raised the stakes in this one. Multiple plot lines, the two America’s on the cusp of another nuclear war and the discovery of an alien series. Lost left unfinished ready for the next book.









I have only read one of Tom Cox’s books in the past, Bring Me the Head of Diego Garcia, but I had been hearing so much about this book, how it was funded in seven hours on Unbound, and how his proposal for a book could not fit in the neat boxes that marketing could understand. Not quite a natural history book, not quite a family memoir, not quite a polemic; what it is though is brilliant.

This is the latest book from Neil Ansell. It focuses on him returning to the same part of Scotland and also the way that his perception of the natural world is changing as his hearing slowly fails. Poignant and beautifully written.

Hadrian Wall is the 2000 year old frontier of the Roman Empire that you can still see across the landscape of northern England. More than that it tells the history of Roman ambitions and the stories of the people who lived there.









I finished this on the day that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy Lifter blasted off from Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral and put a car into space. I loved the Don’t Panic message on the screen on the dashboard, but most impressive was the return of the boosters bask to Earth, landing in perfect synchronicity. This is a really good introduction to the current state of space technology and those seeing it as just another investment opportunity. There are going to be few winners and lots of losers in this very expensive game. One day this will all be history; but at this very moment, it is the future.

A book about a favourite author written by another favourite author. Crammed full of facts, it is enough to lift the heart of a depressed robot. A touching tribute to an author with an amazing imagination.









There is something about owls that has captivated us for millennia. The way that can float silently across a field or hunt in the dark has endowed then with mystical properties. Woven together with the touching story about her adult son’s illness this is a touching natural history book.

I have always loved woodlands and in this sumptuous coffee table book, Robert Penn shows how much life there is in one. Glorious pictures in here that you will want to return to again and again.









A book about books. What could be better? This was sent to me by the author along with her book on libraries and it is full of facts about how books are made, the smallest, the longest and the oldest. 









This is the companion volume to Claire’s book on books and it is just as wonderful as the other one. A cornucopia of snippets, facts and figures about libraries that bibliophiles will treasure. 












Poetry has a way of reaching into your very soul that fiction doesn’t always seem to manage and this is a collection by the anonymous author, lady Grey, has the capacity to do just that. 

The second sci-fi book that I read this month is a mass-murder mystery set in the universe that Reynolds has created. People are starting to die with increasing frequency as their implants kill them and no one knows why. Great stuff with some excellent tech and twists and turns.

 A touching story of a very strange family written in an engaging way, but there is a greater depth to the story as Gameson addresses the issues that all parents face as children grow up and change into adults capable of independent thought and now aren’t the person that you remembered. There are a variety of threads that start tangled and are brought together in unexpected ways. So very different to a lot of fiction that is out there and well worth reading.

There are still secrets that the universe is yet to relinquish and one the most mysterious is what lies in the 6-inch gap between your ears. If you want a well written popular science book on the possibilities and limits of intelligence, then you can’t go wrong reading this.








If you are wanting wide panoramas of the beautiful landscapes of the lakes then this is probably not the book for you. The majority of this book is about John caring for a young roe deer that was to become a great, semi-wild companion. Wyatt may not have had many possessions when he was a woodsman, but he had a life that had riches that no one else could buy.

A haunting bleak story about a Cornish fishing village with a lot of unrequited ghosts. Short and intense storytelling

A fascinating book, full of detail on a country that stepped into the abyss and almost took the whole of Europe with it. There are echoes in here that have a resonance today and we would be wise to remember.

I am please to announce that I am a supporter of Jewish Book Week:

It runs from the 3rd to the 11th March and there are lots more details of the events on the website here:

http://www.jewishbookweek.com/