Category: Review (Page 100 of 132)

The Mysterium: Unexplained and extraordinary stories for a post-Nessie generation by David Bramwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

People are drawn to the strange and the unknown, those stories that even after a second time of hearing make little sense. Some of these are deeply rooted in our oldest legends, but there are a number of mysteries and contemporary folklore that still managed to defy explanation in our modern, always connected, internet age.

In the Mysterium, we will encounter mysteries that have been around for years like the number stations, tragic deaths that no expert has been able to explain such as when a girl was found in the water tank of a hotel after CCTV showed some very peculiar behaviour when she was in the lift. There are entities that have slipped from the virtual domain to become the elements of our nightmares and words that appear embedded in the road. We will learn from those that hear a hum in the place that they live, and of dunes that sing, You may have heard of the darknet, a place where various nefarious activities take place but have you have ever heard of the Deep Web? Me neither.

Some of the stories that David Bramwell and Jo Keeling have collected are seriously creepy and they have managed a fascinating sum up of the current raft of mysteries and what can now be considered modern folklore. It is nicely written as they take care to explain the background to the story. I particularly like the way that they have given pointers to other things that you go and read or watch if a specific tale interests you. A great little collection of the truly bizarre.

View all my reviews

Belonging: The Story of the Jews 1492–1900 by Simon Schama
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This second volume of Simon Schama’s history of the Jewish people begins in the ghettos of Venice where the Jews of the Iberian peninsula had ended up after being expelled. Those that had not escaped were forced to convert and even then were still persecuted. This search for safety and somewhere to live where they could carry on with their lives in peace had been a pressing concern; and as this book explains in some detail, the theme of moving, settling, suffering and moving again, would keep repeating for the next few hundred years.

The story that Schama tells is as epic in scope as it is global. We travel with him all around Europe, into the cold of Russia, across the Atlantic to the New World of America and venture into the privileged upper-class world of the English aristocracy. He tells of those that lost children as they were conscripted into the army, those that found peace before the winds of change in Europe blew through once again, those that suffered for their faith and those that fought back. Even though this is a sweeping history of a people, he concentrates on individuals and specific events to explain the wider history the Jews.

This is a huge book, at around 800 odd pages long and Schama goes into huge amounts of detail as he tells his stories of the Jewish people. Some of it is fascinating, but there were times when I felt like I was wading through it as he expanded on the minutia as the events unfolded. It is one that I feel some sort of accomplishment having read it now.

View all my reviews

The Curious Bird Lover’s Handbook by Niall Edworthy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Most people have fleeting glimpses of wildlife every day, occasionally mammals, but most frequently birds. You will see them out of your office windows, or hear them singing and if you have a bird table they will frequent your garden too. But even though we encounter them fairly often, most people know very little about them, their habits and just how we have ended up with such a diverse range of different types.

In this book Niall Edworthy aims to enlighten us to the facts, figures of the 10,000 different species of birds and how they have evolved, how they survive and other fascinating aspects of their lives. We will find out what bird lives the longest, the number of heartbeats per minutes, why some eat grit and if they are intelligent or not.

It is full of facts, poems sketches and irreverent details on our feathered friends, but I think this is more of a book for the general reader rather than the dedicated birder. There were some factual errors, such as peregrine speed claimed to be 180km/h then elsewhere as 180mph when they have been clocked much faster. Ok overall really.

View all my reviews

Question Time: A Journey Round Britain’s Quizzes by Mark Mason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Mark Mason is better known for his travel books, but he is also a huge fan of quizzes. He did not take a lot of persuading to combine both interests and travel back and forwards across the UK to find the best quizzes in the country. It was also a quest to see if he could find that most perfect thing, the essential elements of the perfect quiz question.

Which comic strip took its title from the names of a French theologian and an English political philosopher?

People have been known to actually earn a living from quizzing, either by participating in the plethora of TV shows or by travelling from pub to pub answering the questions on the quiz machines. He meets quizzers old and new, those that frequent the TV circuits and those are happy sitting in a pub calling out the questions. He joins journalists fighting for prestige and credibility by winning the annual parliamentary quiz, travels to the Beaulieu in the New Forest to see the Quizfest UK and attends a corporate quiz in heart of England.

Who is the only person ever to receive an Oscar Nomination for acting in a Star Wars film?

I do love a good quiz, ideally, one that has a balance of straightforward questions and some that really make you think, but I don’t want to sit down to one of those where you struggle to comprehend what the question actually is, let alone what it is asking. Mason is obviously a big quiz addict, something that is very obvious when you read this. Being a talented writer he has woven together the art of quizzing with a social and contemporary history of the parts of the country he visits. It was quite a lot of fun, my head is now even more crammed with random facts than normal and it was a pleasure to read. And if you want to know what the answers to the two questions posed are then you’ll need to read the book!

View all my reviews

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum by Katherine Boo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

India is the second most populous country in the world, with around 1.2 billion people living there. Around 20% of the population live in poverty, scraping an existence well below the minimum living wage recommended by the UN. It is a country of growth too, with over 5% increase in GDP per year, which has lifted around 20% of people out of poverty. This growth is very obvious around certain cities; the skyline of Mumbai has changed dramatically over the past few years. Modern hotels and skyscrapers have pierced the skyline as the areas around the airport have increased in prosperity. The jarring juxtaposition though is the slum area that butts up against these oases of luxury, of which Annawadi is one.

To understand this place, and to try to get a handle of the vast chasm between the very poorest and richest that live alongside each other, the Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo spent three years in the slum to get the best understanding of how the people there lived. She saw how Abdul would take life-risking chances to collect the scraps of plastic in the hope that they may make a little money. She also tells the story Kalu, a fifteen-year-old who is trying to make a living stealing scrap metal and Asha who has concluded that if she cannot beat the system then she is better of joining it. She is there when a petty argument erupts into a death and a court case, when terrorists attack one of the luxury hotels, killing a number of the rich guests and of how the city suffers in the modern global economy.

Katherine Boo has written a brutally honest account of the hazards and trials of life in a Mumbai slum; she doesn’t hold back on the reporting about the squalor that the people live there suffer with whilst they look onto the rich and privileged as they live out their lives in comfort. Her prose is measured and written with a level of balance as she describes what she sees, but she is not scared to write about the reality for these people at the bottom of the caste system in India. An eye-opening book of a side of India that we know but rarely hear about and worth reading. 3.5 stars.

View all my reviews

The Last of the Light: About Twilight by Peter Davidson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Twilight is that moment when the sun is below the horizon, but the light from our star is still illuminating the lower atmosphere. That moment between light and dark, the gloaming, has been split into three twilights by scientists, civil, nautical, and astronomical before either dawn or dusk. This moment as the world turns inexorably on has fascinated people for millennia and has provided inspiration for writers and artists to explore something that is not quite daytime and not yet night.

Watching through the windows the wastes of evening / The flare of foundries at the fall of the year

In this meticulously researched book, Davidson takes us through the twilight zone into the world of poetry and fine art that is the response to those beautiful sunsets. But is more than those moments, as he expands on the meaning behind the poems, critiques fine art portraits and contemplates foggy autumn days in photographs of a London past. With him, we will discover the extra depth to famous paintings, writers both well known and forgotten and some of the finest prose ever written on the melancholic events of dusk. It is printed on a fine glossy paper to ensure that the reproductions of the art are top notch. It is a book for all those that love the art of all forms and their responses to twilight and one to dip into again and again.

View all my reviews

Oak and Ash and Thorn: The Ancient Woodlands and New Forests of Britain by Peter Fiennes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If we were asked to imagine what the UK would look like way back in the Bronze age, people tend to think that there would be a canopy of trees stretching from coast to mountain with gaps where people had felled trees to grow crops. It wasn’t like that though, but there was a significant amount of forests and copses that provided food, shelter, fuel and livelihoods. The love of woodlands is deeply ingrained within our psyche and have contributed to countless legends, myths and fairy tales that have permeated our culture too. In 2010 the government at the time thought it would be a good idea to sell off the Forestry Commission; they didn’t quite expect the reaction that they got from the public who were vehemently against the sale of the woodlands and the plan was shelved.

In this quite delightful and whimsical book, Fiennes taps into that deep love that people have for their forests and local woodlands, mixing his own experiences as he visits ancient woodlands, including one quite dark and creepy moment in a woodland at dusk. He explores the reasons why that even though we have the lowest amount of forest cover of any European country, we have the greatest number of ancient trees, and how London is technically a forest. His ‘Short History of Britain’s Woods in 3508 Words’ is a quite spectacular piece of writing.

His passion for our forests and copses is evident when you read this, but this is a practical book too. He has a great list of 30 achievable things on an action plan list we can do immediately with regards to planting trees and improving our woodlands. They are all simple things and they would make a significant difference to the quality of our natural environment. Definitely a book to read for those who have any interest in woodlands. We cannot rest on our laurels as ancient forests are always under threat from all manner of sources and the more that people are aware of their local woods and use them the better their chances of survival. Would also recommend reading this in conjunction with the excellent A Tale of Trees: The Battle to Save Britain’s Ancient Woodland by Derek Niemann.

View all my reviews

A Wood of One’s Own by Ruth Pavey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

After many years of the headlong rush of people and traffic that is London, Ruth Pavey felt that she needed to re-connect with the countryside in one way or another and having a small piece of England that she could call her own and maybe plant a small woodland would be just perfect. The best-laid plans of mice and men don’t always work out though and after a lot of searching and viewing fields that were not really going to be suitable a plot came up at auction. With around £10,000 to spend and an assurance that it wouldn’t go for more than that Ruth was stunned when it sold for £19,500. The wreck of a house and accompanying land sold for over £100k and that left a small piece of wooded scrubland. The opening bid was £2000 and after a few nervous moments, it was hers for the price of £2750.

She finally had her own woodland.

Having only visited briefly before, it was time to fully explore just what she had bought. It was a strange shape, squeezed in between an orchard, fields and ash woods and sloped facing the sun. As it had been uncared for there was a large amount of thicket and it felt dark, private and slightly intimidating. As she spoke to the people that owned it before and other locals, slowly the wood revealed its secrets to her. The first summer spent there gave her a better feel for the place and she begins to formulate plans of what would work best. A rollalong was acquired purely by chance and suddenly Ruth had a place to make a hot drink and shelter from the showers and maybe, just maybe, she could stay the night in her wood.

It took a number of years for Ruth to bring the wood into some sort of order, but it still had its wild and unruly elements to it and for her and her friends it was a place of solace, somewhere for reflection and to immerse themselves into the natural world. This is more than a book about her wood, as she explores the wider landscape around the Somerset levels and discovers the history of her patch and the people that used to own it. Ruth does not set out to turn it into a productive wood so if you are hoping for a book about woodland management or coppicing then you may want to look elsewhere. Ruth wants to make this a personal place and plants the woodland with fruit and other trees to remember people who have been significant in her life. It is a touching memoir written with gentle and thoughtful prose. I now am envious as I have always wanted a woodland I could call my own.

View all my reviews

The Great Soul of Siberia: In Search of the Elusive Siberian Tiger by Sooyong Park
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The true king of the jungle is the tiger; lions live out on the savannah. These magnificent creatures have carved a niche for themselves in the humid regions, but the largest and most elusive tiger shuns the warmth of the tropics, preferring icy cold wastelands. This is the Siberian Tiger. It is thought that there are only 350 or so remaining in the wild and so little is known about them and their habits that they are one of the most mysterious big cats.

As the spectre of climate change raises its ugly head, their pristine landscape becomes harder to eek a living from; coupled with the threat from poachers after them for medicines they are becoming rarer each day. For the past two decades, Sooyong Park has made it his life to track follow and study these shy creatures. He has built hides that offer a little shelter from the sub-zero temperatures that the region is famous for to be able to film and observe them. The local people see them as a spiritual element to their homeland and after watching them for this length of time he begins to understand why. This dedication to finding out about their lives results in a very close miss when they saw the camera protruding from the hide.

His dedication to following these magnificent felines is second to none, he is prepared to undertake quite challenging tasks by building elaborate hides to ensure that they are unaware of his presence. The information that he has collected on the tiger he has called Bloody Mary and her various litters of cubs has given us a greater understanding of the lives of these animals. His poignant prose shows just how passionate he is about these tigers and the lengths he is prepared to go, to observe them in the wild. Definitely a book to read on one the world’s most scarce big cats. 3.5 stars

View all my reviews

Got these through the post this week:

And these three from the library today: