Category: Book Musings (Page 9 of 31)

One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is learning all kinds of things about our world which you never would have known without it. There’s the intriguing, the beautiful, the appalling, and the profound.

This is one of the reasons that I read non-fiction to learn about subjects and people and get a different viewpoint on something that I may not have considered up until now. A good non-fiction book will have had the appropriate fact-checking done by editors and have a balanced view of a subject. One of the genres that doesn’t always have this is memoir, these are an account of one person’s particular worldview at a stage in their life. This doesn’t mean that you should discount them, because how people perceive something gives you a different perspective.

What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way?

This is a really difficult question. I had to think long and hard about this and the books that I came up with are about the climate and the way that humanity has irreversibly shaped it over the past 500 years. There are numerous books that have been written about this subject and I must admit that I haven’t read them all. But of all the books that I have read, these below have been eye-opening:

Nomad Century by Gaia Vince
High Tide by Mark Lynas
The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav Ghosh
Silent Earth by Dave Goulson

And terrifying…

Is there one book that made you rethink everything?

I have thought long and hard about this and can categorically say there isn’t one specific book that has made me rethink everything. That said, there have been lots of books that have made me want to discover more about that particular subject, For me reading is a journey, and the different paths that books take me down open up other opportunities and avenues.

Do you think there is a book that should be required reading for everyone?

Again, I don’t think so. Being told that I must read a certain book by an author reminds me of reading books at school where you are made to read books, that for me at least were utterly irrelevant and mostly really really dull.

My philosophy is that people should read exactly what they want. These are not rules, but guidelines that I find useful:

Find people who have similar tastes to you and trawl their real or virtual shelves for ideas

Go to the library and get books out that might not be your thing and give them a go.

Read widely.

Don’t be afraid to stop reading a book if it is not the right time or you are not getting on with it. (you’re not at school now!)

Have you had any life-changing (and no religious books) that have changed you as a reader? Let me know in the comments below.

Anyone who follows this blog or me on various social media sites will know that I have a passion for non-fiction. I do read fiction, but not that much. So, when I looked at the subject of this weeks post, I knew that it was going to be a struggle to come up with a list of books that I have read that would fit.

The idea of this is to marry together a fiction book with a non-fiction book and read them in parallel or sequentially, the purpose of which is to gain a wider appreciation of the subject or place that you have chosen. It is something that I like the idea of as one of the philosophies that I have is that fiction deals with truths and non-fiction with facts and that by choosing the right books, you can gain more insight into a particular thing that you are interested in.

I couldn’t think of many times when I had read a fiction and non-fiction book that had some link to each other, but then when trawling through my lists of books there have been very few occasions when this happened. Strangely enough, the non-fiction genre was travel and when I was on holiday in Sicily back in 2019. I had taken three non-fiction books on the island and one fiction book:
In Sicily by Norman Lewis
The March of the Long Shadows by Norman Lewis
Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons: Travels in Sicily on a Vespa by Matthew Fort
Sicily: Through the Writers’ Eyes by Horatio Clare

There is something about reading a book set in the location that you are currently in.
I often read three or four books about the same subject, for example, four books about the winter a couple of years ago. And I may do that more often in the coming year. I have at least four books on Japan that are on my TBR including
Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
The Only Gaijin In The Village by Iain Maloney
Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth
I may add in a couple of Murakami books to that list and have a Japan month!

I have had a think possible subjects that you might be able to combine if you’d like to do this:
Historical fiction and history
Place and travel
Memoir
Biography
Science fiction and science

So what are your favourite book pairings? Let me know in the comments below

How I choose non-fiction is a question that I have never asked myself before. But as that is the subject of this week’s post, so I really had to dig deep and think about what I do when I add a particular book to my TBR. It isn’t really a fully logical process, nor is it completely random, it is kind of a hybrid of both.

After reading in excess of 3500 books, I know what I like and more importantly, I am very aware of what I don’t like. This doesn’t mean that I won’t give books a go though.

So how do I pick the non-fiction books that I want to read?

Firstly, I select by genre. I have two genres, travel and natural history, that I will almost always add regardless of who wrote it, bar the very odd exception. Other favoured genres include science, history and biographies.

Secondly, if it isn’t a book from those genres, then it needs to be doing something else to attract me. Is it a book by an author that I have read before? Is the subject something that I am interested in or as happens sometimes, does the cover look good enough to make me want to pick it up and investigate it further.

Thirdly, I scour the catalogues that publishers publish twice a year and drag from them a list of books that I want to read. I publish these as my anticipated books for the spring and autumn. But I don’t find every book, some I miss and there are publishers where I never seem to be able to find out what they are releasing.

Fourthly, one of the places where I find new books is strangely enough in bookshops. Amazing isn’t it? A well-curated independent bookshop often has gems that I wasn’t aware of, and they get added to the TBR too.

Lastly, charity shops are one of my weaknesses. I am looking for out-of-print books, those rare books that have slipped through the net, signed editions and the joy of finding an absolute bargain. whilst I do buy second-hand books online, I have a list in my head of books that I am looking for and I get a lot of satisfaction on finding a copy.

So how do you choose the non-fiction that you want to read?

Let me know in the comments below.

October flew by. Not help by being really busy at work and in life in general. But I did get 16 books read, went to London for the first time in ages and went to the Launch even for Life a Full Tilt in the actual John Murray building. So here is what I read and bought this month:

Books Read

Wintering Out – Seamus Heaney – 3 Stars

Rocks and Rain, Reason and Romance – David Howe – 3 Stars

Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse – Carol Ann Duffy – 3.5 Stars

Natures Wonders – Jane V. Adams – 3.5 Stars

The Girl Who Forgets How To Walk – Kate Davis – 3.5 Stars

Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search For Normal People (And Why They Don’t Exist) – Sarah Chaney – 3.5 Stars

The Bridleway: How Horses Shaped The British Landscape – Tiffany Francis-Baker – 3.5 Stars

Swan: Portrait of a Majestic Bird, from Mythical Meanings to the Modern Day – Dan Keel – 3.5 Stars

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland – Lisa Schneidau – 3.5 Stars

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and Birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny – 4 Stars

In The Pines – Paul Scraton – 4 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt – 4.5 Stars

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith – 4.5 Stars

Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors – James Canton – 4.5 Stars

Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley – 4.5 Stars

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Fiction 27

Natural History 21

Travel 21

Poetry 16

Memoir 11

History 7

Science Fiction 6

Fantasy 6

Art 4

Environmental 4

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber 12

Penguin 6

Little Toller 6

Bloomsbury 6

Simon & Schuster 5

Headline 4

Jonathan Cape 4

William Collins 4

Picador 3

Eland 3

Review Copies Received

Dead Drunk: Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks – Ed. Pam Lock

The House on the Borderland William – Hope Hodgson

Following Miss Bell: Travels Around Turkey in the Footsteps of Gertrude Bell – Pat Yale

Now is the Time to Know Everything – Simon Moreton

All Around The Year – Michael Morpurgo

Black Ghosts – Noo Saro-Wiwi

Library Books Checked Out

Prophet – Helen Macdonald

The Holly King – Mark Stay

Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands – Annie Worsley

Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past – Mary-Ann Ochota

Books Bought

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society – Chris Stewart (Signed)

The Hills of Adonis: A Journey in Lebanon – Colin Thubron (Signed)

Fever Trees of Borneo – Mark Eveleigh

On The Red Hill – Mike Parker

Life Lessons From the Amazon: A Guide to Life From One Epic Jungle Adventure – Pip Stewart

Returning Light: 30 Years of Life on Skellig – Michael Robert L. Harris

Green Was the Earth on the Seventh Day – Thor Heyerdahl

The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba – Dervla Murphy

The Shining Levels – John Wyatt

An Empire of The East – Norman Lewis

A Winter Book – Tove Jansson

Very British Problems: The Most Awkward One Yet – Rob Temple

As It Was And World Without End – Helen Thomas

Weird Walk: Wanderings and Wonderings through the British Ritual Year – Weird Walk

The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed – Norman Lewis

Crossed Of The Map – Shafik Meghji (Signed)

French Lessons in Africa: Travels With My Briefcase in French Africa – Peter Biddlecombe

Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys: A Midsummer Ramble in the Dolomites – Amelia B. Edwards

My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure – Alastair Humphreys

The Landscape Of Thomas Hardy – Donald Maxwell

Are there that take your fancy, or that you have read and loved? Let me know in the comments below

For those that follow this blog, and I know it isn’t many of you, you’ll know that I am a big fan of non-fiction. So this November I am kind of joining in with Non-Fiction November. This is run by A Book Olive who can be found here and here and in various other places over the interweb.

The aim of the challenge is for those taking part to read one, yes, one no-fiction book during the month of November. Should you want to so more she has generated four prompts that you can interpret in any way you chose to pick a suitable book. The prompts this year are:

Fraud

Web

Capital

Display

I have no idea what I would choose for those! Must explore my TBR to see what I could find

For the first week I am here to talk about my year in non-fiction. I have so far read 161 books in 2023 and 105 of those have been non-fiction.

These are the subjects so far:

Natural History – 21
Travel – 21
Memoir – 11
History – 7
Art – 4
Environmental – 4
Politics – 4
Photography – 3
Archaeology – 2
Dorset – 2
Miscellaneous – 2
Britain – 2
Maths – 2
Science – 2
Mental Health – 2
Gardening – 2
Weather – 2
Technology – 2
Social History – 2
Economics – 2
Food – 1
Biography – 1
Architecture – 1
Books – 1

Of those, there have been some cracking books:

Restoring The Wild: Sixty Years of Rewilding Our Skies, Woods and Waterways – Roy Dennis
Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide – Bill McGuire
England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion’s Psychic Landscape – Stephen Ellcock& Mat Osman
Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them – Dan Saladino
The Bookseller’s Tale – Martin Latham
The Lost Orchards: Redicovering The Forgotten Cider Apples Of Dorset – Liz Copas & Nick Poole
Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval – Gaia Vince
Two Lights: Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life – James Roberts
One Place De L’Eglise: A Year Or Two In A French Village – Trevor Dolby
Notes from the Cévennes: Half a Lifetime in Provincial France – Adam Thorpe
The Serpent Coiled in Naples – Marius Kociejowski
The Lost Rainforests Of Britain – Guy Shrubsole
Taking Flight: A Celebration Of The Miraculous Phenomenon Of Flight – Lev Parikian
Real Dorset – Jon Woolcott
Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past – Gail Simmons
Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden – Lulah Ellender
The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives – Katie Holten
Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir Of Poverty, Nature And Resilience – Natasha Carthew
The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin – Patrick Barkham
La Vie: A Year In Rural France – John Lewis-Stempel
Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish – Brian Jackman
Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby
High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt
Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith
Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors – James Canton
The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan
Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley

As you can probably tell, the two genres that I like, travel and natural history feature strongly in my favourites list too.

So let me know in the comments below if you are participating in Non-fiction November.

Are there any of the books in the list above that you really like the look of?

Does anybody know where October went? It just flew by and I nearly forgot to pull together my TBR for November. But with a bit of spreadsheet shuffling I now have one! Here it is:

September whizzed by as usual and I only managed to read 14 books for some reason. Not quite sure what happened as I started off really well too. So here they are along with the stats and the vast quantity of books that I bought…

Books Read

Wasteland – Oliver Franklin-Wallis – 4 Stars

The Lost Whale – Hannah Gold – 3 Stars

An Almost Impossible Thing – Fiona Davidson – 3.5 Stars

Some Of Us Just Fall – Polly Atkin – 3.5 Stars

Follow This Thread – Henry Eliot – 3.5 Stars

The Military Orchid – Jocelyn Brooke – 3.5 Stars

The Haw Lantern – Seamus Heaney – 3 Stars

Serious Concerns – Wendy Cope – 3.5 Stars

Follow The Money – Paul Johnson – 3.5 Stars

Reboot – Elaine Kasket – 3.5 Stars

Coast of Teeth – Tom Sykes – 4 Stars

Waypoints – Robert Martineau – 4 Stars

Wind – Louise M Pryke – 3.5 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Ravenous – Henry Dimbleby – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Fiction – 27

Natural History – 18

Travel – 18

Poetry – 13

Memoir – 10

History – 6

Science Fiction – 6

Fantasy – 6

Art – 4

Environmental – 4

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 11

Penguin – 6

Little Toller – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Simon & Schuster – 5

Jonathan Cape – 4

Elliott & Thompson – 3

Allen Lane – 3

William Collins – 3

Headline – 3

Review Copies Received

The Lure of Atlantis: Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent – Ed. Michael Wheatley

The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman’s Journey to Save Scotland’s Original Sheep – Jane Cooper

The Christian Watt Papers: Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife – Christian Watt, Ed. David Fraser

The Narrow Smile: A Journey back to the Northwest Frontier – Peter Mayne

Nature Tales for Winter Nights – Ed. Nancy Campbell

Politics, But Better: An A – Z Guide to Creating a More Hopeful Future – Tatton Spiller

Human Being: 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology and How to Reclaim Them – Graham Lee

Yew – Fred Hageneder

Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley

Library Books Checked Out

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt

The Bridleway: How Horses Shaped The British Landscape – Tiffany Francis-Baker

Prophet – Helen Macdonald

Walking The Bones Of Britain: A 3 Billion Year Journey From The Outer Hebrides To The Thames Estuary – Christopher Somerville

Be a Birder: The joy of birdwatching and how to get started – Hamza Yassin

Books Bought

A Legacy Of Spies – John Le Carré – Signed

Shitstorm – Fernando Sdrigotti

Red Smoking Mirror – Nick Hunt –

Still Life in Milford: Poems – Thomas Lynch – Signed

Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #12 – Helen Dunmore, Jo Shapcott & Matthew Sweeney – Signed

Poetry on the Buses – Ed. Valerie Belsey & Candy Neubert –  – Signed

The Hero and the Girl Next Door – Sophie Hannah – Signed

Selling Manhattan – Carol Ann Duffy – Female – Signed

Foothold – Pam Zinnemann-Hope – Signed

Raw – Patience Agbabi – Signed

Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #9 – John Burnside, Robert Crawford & Kathleen Jamie

Drysalter – Michael Symmons Roberts

Selected Poems – Matthew Sweeney

A Smell Of Fish – Matthew Sweeney

The Rings Of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage

Chasing the Dram: Finding the Spirit of Whisky – Rachel McCormack –

Secret Places of West Dorset – Louise Hodgson

The Island Farmers – R. M Lockley

The Fossil Woman: A Life of Mary Anning – Tom Sharpe – Signed

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan – Jamie Zeppa

Discover Dorset: Fossils – Richard Edmonds

Travels in a Strange State – Josie Dew

As the Women Lay Dreaming – Donald S. Murray

The Gran Tour: Travels with my Elders – Ben Aitken

Megaliths and Their Mysteries: A Guide to the Standing Stones of Europe – Alastair Service & Jean Bradbery

A Second Chance at Eden – Peter F. Hamilton

Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain – Sathnam Sanghera – Male

Clea – Lawrence Durrell – Male

Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils – David Farrier

The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones – Alfred Watkins

The Farmer’s Wife: My Life in Days – Helen Rebanks

The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables – Adam Alexander

Walking With Nomads – Alice Morrison

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Dorset Folk Tales – Tim Laycock – Male

Somerset Folk Tales – Sharon Jacksties

On the Slow Train Again: Twelve Great British Railway Journeys – Michael Williams

Round Ireland with a Fridge – Tony Hawks – Signed

Hothouse – Brian W. Aldiss

The Private Life of the Hare – John Lewis-Stempel

Tout Sweet: Hanging Up my High Heels for a New Life in France – Karen Wheeler

Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human-Powered Odyssey – Stevie Smith

Rowing After the White Whale: A Crossing of the Indian Ocean by Hand – James Adair

Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful – Jolyon Maugham  – Signed

The Megalithic European: The 21st Century Traveller in Prehistoric Europe – Julian Cope

Any that you have read from that list – or want to now? Let me know in the comments below

I can’t believe that it is already October. It dawned on me on the 29th of September that I hadn’t even thought about my TBR for this month, even though I had created an outline plan for the final third of the year, so rapidly pulled this together last night. So here they are:

Still Reading

This is something that I have been meaning to do for absolutely ages. A tour of almost all my bookshelves that are around the house.

I have a fairly extensive collection and as I buy other books, I have ended up with the occasional duplicate. Sometimes this is accidental, but not always.

I apologise in advance for their untidiness and mayhem.

Bookshelf 1

This is where almost all of my Terry Pratchett books are, there are others upstairs.  He is joined by Neil Gaiman and then some travel and a few random genres. It is mostly tidy, but I need to read and clear some of here to make room for some extra Pratchett hardbacks. The Tsunduko on top are slightly out of hand…

Bookshelf 2

This started as a bookshelf to keep all the review copies that I have been sent and the plan was to have them in publication order so I could lay my hands on them quickly. I ended up stuffing books on there as I bought them and now it is a bit of a mess… At the moment there are all sorts of genres on here and it is double stacked so you can’t see the books behind.

Bookshelf 3

This is a newish bookshelf (from the fantastic people at shelfstore) and it is a mix of review books and others that I have found whilst book hunting. In front of it is a Tsunduko that is the same height as the desk with a right old mix of books too.

Bookshelf 4

This is one of four bookshelves that I had made by a guy close to where I worked in Addlestone. It is solid pine with fixed shelves and is really strong. Which is a good job as it is home to the substantial collection of cookery books that I (we) have. There are some American books that I bought from Brian and Cooking The Books years ago as well as books that we have inherited after family members have passed on.

Bookshelf 5

This is the latest bookshelf that was bought for me after Sarah complained about the number of books around the house. Promptly filled it and still have piles of books around the house…There is a mix of genres on here too, but the plan is to make it a travel / Dorset bookshelf as I sort and clear books out.

Bookshelf 6

Another shelfstore bookshelf that is tucked into the corner of the dining room. There is just travel books on here including most (but not all) of my Eland books.

Bookshelf 7

This is another of the commissioned bookshelf and this one lives in the conservatory. Again, a total mix of genres with one shelf of gardening books. A large number of these are to be read and passed on, but on the middle shelf on the second row are my Iain M Banks books and my Arthur Ransome books from childhood. This shelf has sun on it a lot of the day so some have faded.

Bookshelf 8

These are three billy bookshelves that contain almost all of my natural history and landscape books. There is a sofa now in front of one of them, so I can’t photograph that one. There are a few shelves that aren’t nature books, including one for poetry that is very nearly full, and three of just random stuff that I need to read and clear… There are even ornaments on this one!

Bookshelf 9

This is one of two bookshelves in our bedroom, the other has a lot of Sarah’s books and files on it so I haven’t photographed that. There are some of the bigger nature books on here, Flora Britannica and the like, as well as a random selection of genres, such as travel, fiction, science fiction and so on.

So there you have it. There are a couple of shelves of books that I haven’t photographed plus some odd piles here and there, but those are all my books.

There are several reasons for doing this:

1. To aid me in cataloguing all the books that I have (duplicates will be passed on so keep an eye on my Instagram page).

2. To give me the nudge that I need to sort and clear some of the books that I am never going to read

3. To give me a list of books that I want to read but that I don’t have any interest in keeping in my library.

4. And finally to be able to show you in around six to nine months, how much better they all look!

Even though I had a chunk of August off, it seemed to whizz by. Alas, I didn’t get as much read as I hoped either, but I did get my #20BooksOfSummer Reading challenge finished for the first time. It was an interesting reading month too, with a whole variety of fiction and some very interesting non-fiction too. So here is what I read and acquired in August:

Books Read

An Artist’s View of Jurassic Dorset – Richard Watkin – 3.5 Stars

The Invention Of Essex: The Making Of An English County – Tim Burrows – 4 Stars

Mayhem – Sarah Pinborough – 3.5 Stars

Hot Milk – Deborah Levy – 2.5 Stars

Year of the Golden Ape – Colin Forbes – 2.5 Stars

The Acid Test – Élmer Mendoza Tr. Mark Fried – 2.5 Stars

From a Low and Quiet Sea – Donal Ryan – 3 Stars

Nightingale – Marina Kemp – 3 Stars

Crow Court – Andy Charman – 3.5 Stars

A Perfect Explanation – Eleanor Anstruther – 3.5 Stars

A Flat Place: A Memoir – Noreen Masud – 4 Stars

One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts And The Story Of Life On Earth – Mark Cocker – 4 Stars

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – T.S. Eliot – 3 Stars

All In: How We Build A Country That Works – Lisa Nandy – 3.5 Stars

Walking The Wharfe: An Ode to a Yorkshire River – Johno Ellison – 4 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish – Brian Jackman – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Fiction – 26

Natural History – 17

Travel – 16

Poetry – 11

Memoir – 9

History – 6

Science Fiction – 6

Fantasy – 6

Art – 4

Photography – 3

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 9

Penguin – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Little Toller – 4

Simon & Schuster – 4

Jonathan Cape – 4

William Collins – 3

Granta – 3

Allen Lane – 3

Michael Joseph – 3

Review Copies Received

Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind – Simon McCarthy-Jones

Interstellar Tours: A Guide to the Universe from Your Starship Window – Brian Clegg

Reboot: Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World – Elaine Kasket

Library Books Checked Out

Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature And Not Getting Better – Polly Atkin

Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby

Where The Seals Sing – Susan Richardson

Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye

Follow The Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? – Paul Johnson

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt

Books Bought

Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World – Tim Harford

Lost Acre – Andrew Caldecott

Asusterlitz – W.G. Seabald Tr. Anthea Bell

How To Be A Domestic Goddess – Nigella Lawson (Signed)

The Unadulterated Cat – Terry Pratchett, Ill. Gray Jolliffe

Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted – Ian Ayres

Cold Fish Soup – Adam Farrer

The Horizontal Oak: A Life in Nature – Polly Pullar

Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World: Five Years in Tibet – Alec Le Sueur (Signed)

To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace – Kapka Kassabova

Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life On The Road – Sara Wheeler

East to the Amazon: In Search of Great Paititi and the Trade Routes of the Ancients – John Blashford-Snell & Richard Snailham

42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams – Douglas Adams Ed. Kevin Jon Davies (Signed)

Three Stripes South: The 1000km thru-hike that inspired a women’s adventure movement – Bex Band

Caesar’s Vast Ghost – Lawrence Durrell

Are there any there that you’ve read? Or like the look of? Let me know in the comments below.