Category: Review (Page 102 of 132)

Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires by Dominic Ziegler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Black Dragon River has a long history, reaching as far back as Genghis Khan and the Mongolian empire around 1000 years ago. This was the beginning of its tumultuous history of conflict and war that has lasted pretty much until the present day. Also called the Amur, it is a river that I had never heard of until I picked this book up. Turns out it is the world’s ninth longest and forms part of the border between Russia and China and has been a focal point for each country’s expansion plans over the years. It has seen more than it fair share of death and destruction from both sides

Ziegler begins his journey along the river as Khan would have done, on a horse, from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga to what is thought to be the source of the river. His journey along the river is not always easy so he is forced to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through a valley of water meadows. He does return to the river and the people and places along it, but it almost seems to be a aside. I was hoping this was going to be a fascinating travel book about a relatively unknown part of the world, but sadly there was much more history than travel, and this is a place that has had a lot of brutal events happen. Not bad, but not great.

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Ancient Wonderings: Journeys Into Prehistoric Britain by James Canton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

The UK has a long history of human occupation. Taking a walk in the town or countryside will reveal traces of the past in the lumps and bumps of the fields and the streets of a city that show an earlier layout. You can tread the same paths as people have walked for millennia, across the ridgeways of the chalk downs and through sunken holloways. The ancient world does give up its secrets easily, it normally involves careful study of a site, whilst considering it within the context of the wider landscape. Sifting the evidence often involves moving large amounts of soil to get an insight to how things were.

Even then, some things will always remain a mystery as Canton discovers when he visits a stone in the very north of Scotland. This stone has writing on that no one has been able to decipher and it is thought that no one ever will. This minor setback aside, it was still a place that oozed character and antiquity and fuelled his obsession with the traces of the past. He is driven to find the answers to various questions that he has wondered about, to go to the places that our ancestors inhabited and to hold the things that they have made. His wanderings will take him out on a small boat to float over Doggerland, a place that lives just below the waves of the North Sea, learns how to knap flint, undertakes an ambitious walk along the Peddars Way and searches for an elusive section of Roman road near where he lives. There is an inevitable trip to Stonehenge and the revelation that ancient Britons also mummified the deceased. Canton is lucky enough to get to hold a couple of nuggets of Irish and Cornish gold that was shipped back and forwards across the Irish Sea and to see the astonishing quality of the fabulous sun discs made by craftsmen thousands of years ago.

The ancient world has always fascinated me and where I live in Dorset I am fortunate to have a proliferation of barrows, hill forts and henges nearby to get my fix of prehistoric history; just like James Canton has to. What comes across in this book is his infectious enthusiasm for the past and a desire to go and experience these activities and places for himself. The prose is full of wry observations as he takes us on his discoveries to meet those engaging with our ancestors and the techniques they used to make objects that were significant or precious in some way. I liked the underlying and subtle humour and the images chosen at the beginning of each chapter fitted well. It was just a pleasure to read and hopefully, it will inspire those that read it to discover the prehistoric landscape in their local area.

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Wonderland: A Year of Britain’s Wildlife, Day by Day by Brett Westwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are used to hearing horror stories of the dramatic decline in our wildlife and the daily persecution that they suffer, but if you know where and more importantly when to look, we still have an amazing abundance of flora and fauna to see. Drawing on two lifetimes experience, naturalists Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss take us on a daily journey into the natural world. No stone has been left unturned as we find the creatures of moor and mountain, stream and river, field and dale and more importantly those that you might see when you look out of your kitchen window. They write about all sorts of creatures too, from the smallest flies that you can only find on particular plants, the majestic eagles you can see on the West Coast of Scotland and the fleeting visitors as they pause briefly here on their epic journeys.

As I have come to expect from Stephen Moss the writing is excellent; it is detailed whilst still being interesting. Haven’t read anything by Brett Westwood before, but have been listening to his Natural Histories on Radio 4 a lot recently and have come to like the enthusiasm for his subjects be they slugs or owls. They are an ideal partnership and this is one of the things that makes this book so special and a veritable goldmine of the natural world. Will definitely be buying this in paperback when it comes out.

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The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Birds of prey have always fascinated me, they are the pinnacle of evolution as predators and have honed their techniques to maximise their efficiency. A glimpse of one is always special, whether it is a pair of buzzards wheeling on the thermals, a kestrel hovering over a motorway verge or the stoop of the feathered exocet that is the peregrine. I have only ever seen one owl in the wild though; just after dusk this shadow dropped off a tree from the woods near my back garden and glided close over my head. It was an unnerving experience.

Nocturnal creatures have always had an element of enchantment about them with their ability to move in almost total darkness. Those that fly, like bats and owls, can seem almost magical. Their special qualities have captivated mankind for millennia, and there are traces of owls in cultures going back as far as the Stone Age. Their rounded faces with the penetrating gaze have made us consider them as wise creatures but their night activities meant that some thought they were bearers of omens and messages from the other side. The legends that they have inspired are only equalled by their actual abilities; some species can rotate their head almost all the way round, some can hover, others can fly completely silently,

I see him. Just a leaf blown through the pillars of the autumn oaks

John Lewis-Stempel is one of our current crop of writers that have taken the mantle of nature writing from luminaries of the genre such as J.A. Baker and Roger Deakin and made it their own. Lewis-Stempel has drawn on the prose and poetry from a variety of sources to shine a light on the elusive owl as well as drawing on personal experience of the owls that inhabit his land in Herefordshire. I could read John Lewis-Stempel’s prose all day and this is almost perfect with just one tiny flaw; it is too short! This is a lovely addition to my natural history library. 4.5 stars

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Land of Plenty: A Journey Through the Fields and Foods of Modern Britain by Charlie Pye-Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

When people think of farming though they tend to have a rose-tinted image of farmers and those that till the soil, seeing the fields of corn waving in the breeze and the farmer leaning over the gate looking at a field of cows. Most of us would need to go back several generations to find family members who worked as farm labourers, so our disconnect from the land that feeds us is more or less complete. And yet we have shaped the very landscape around us for the past five thousand years and one of the primary reasons behind this was to provide food for people to eat. These days though we have a split population; the majority have no clue where their foods originate from as they obtain all of it in packets from the supermarket and there is a minority who are fully aware of the source of their Sunday roast and may even know what its name was…

Charlie Pye-Smith took a year travelling around the country in a motorhome to take the pulse of British farming. He meets with producers large and small, those who have farmed that patch for generations, new people who are driven by an ideal to produce better food and talks with the owners of some of the largest farms in the UK. The way that some of these people produce our cupboard staples, milk, bread, meats and drinks are all examined under his careful gaze. There is a critique of the system, that is allegedly driven by the consumer, but is actually controlled by the supermarket giants and how farmers are having to diversify just to keep their heads above water financially.

We are supposedly nine meals from a breakdown in society, so we all have a critical interest in the way that our food is produced. Pye-Smith’s book does pass a sympathetic but critical eye over the process and actually meet the people who herd the sheep, make cider, grow hundreds of tonnes of potatoes and milk the cows. There are discussions about the Common Agricultural Policy that has provided subsidies and in some cases financial lifelines to farmers. He does touch briefly on the sustainability of the industry, but there was very little on the environmental havoc the industrial style of farming has wreaked in the pursuit of the lowest price and greatest profit. This is still a book that deserves a wider audience because of the subject matter, partly as people are far more interested in what they put in their mouths nowadays. It should also be used to open the debate about the food industry especially with the growing uncertainty in a post-Brexit Britain and all that entails.

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As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds & Books by Alex Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

It was Alex Preston’s Aunt that foster his love of the natural world and birds in particular. But in his teenage years, skateboarding and listening to Niverna was considered much cooler by his peers than being stuck in a draughty hide. This passion was suppressed but it never went away. Instead, Preston was drawn into an avian world between the covers of books where the poetry and writings from luminaries such as Dillard and Fiennes, Hardy and Hughes. It took another decade and a half for him to feel comfortable in the things that he wanted to do and this reignited his desire to watch birds again.

Taking us through twenty-one birds as exotic as the blue streak that is the kingfisher and the inspiration for the title of the book, the tiny wren, and the speed of the swifts, Preston extols the virtues of each, weaving in poetry and prose taken from the books that made an impact as he grew up. There are personal stories too, his father with cancer, being alone deep into Russia and his wedding in December. All of these memories are written with a stark honesty.

Each of the twenty-one chapters is fronted by a breath-taking image created by the graphic artist Neil Gower. These full sizes colour plates show the bird is a typical scene, a peregrine in a stoop, the murmurations of the starlings, Skylarks float over golden fields and the silence of the barn owl. Scattered throughout are black and white sketches of the birds and other objects, even the endpapers are a thing of beauty; the kingfishers that make up the pattern are caught by Gower in that moment as they dive to fish. Whilst I have read some of the books that he mentions in the text I now have a longer list of items that I want to read. Preston has got to the very essence of what makes the natural world and birds in particular necessary to make ourselves whole. The book is so well produced, with its spectacular cover, high quality pages and tactile binding. It is a joy to hold and a delight to read.

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Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In an unknown city in Asia, Saeed and Nadia slowly become aware of each other. Their meeting over a coffee is where their story begins, and slowly they start to see each other more. But in a city that is full of tension and with the low-level conflict threatening to erupt into full-scale war, their moments of intimacy are what keeps them sane. Inevitable their greatest fears are realised and civil war commences. Family members are lost in the crossfire, and they know that they need to escape to try and make something of their love and lives. Passing through a door, they end up in a European country. The battle is no more, but as aliens in a strange land, the violence may have ended but hate has not. Making the most of their lives they scratch out an existence before the opportunity for another life through another door beckons.

It is a strangely beautiful book, whilst also being heart-wrenching. Hamid has written a microcosm of the world’s troubles seen through the eyes of a couple who seek companionship as much as they do love and has come up with a metaphor for the current and growing refugee crisis. These people are often here because they have no choice, don’t particularly want to be here and would rather be in their home country living peacefully as they once did. It hovers on the edge of science and dystopian fiction with the ability of Saeed and Nadia pass through doors to other places and the way that the states they inhabit are full of drones and pervasive surveillance. I am a big fan of those type of novels, but this part jarred with the intensity of the rest of the prose on how innocent people are forced to makes these changes to their lives just to exist. It is thought-provoking though and I have a feeling that it will be a book that will rumble around in my subconscious for a while. 3.5 stars.

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Watling Street: Travels Through Britain and Its Ever-Present Past by J.M.R. Higgs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

It is easy to be complacent about the amount of history we have on this little island of ours. The layers are draped over our landscapes and towns and if you know where to look, the past is startlingly visible. Some of our roads go back to before Roman times, and these have become historical sites in their own right. These include Ermine Street and Icknield Way, the Ridgeway and of course one of Britain’s oldest roads, Watling Street. This trackway can be still travelled along in its modern incarnations as motorways and A roads and reaches in a huge logarithmic arc from Dover to Anglesey.

As the path became a trackway the name of the land it passed through changed names. Invaders came and turned it into a road whilst making it straighter and at some point in the distant past, it gained a name; Watling Street. It has seen a lot of history in its time, it is the place that spelt the end to Boudicca, it has heard the chatter of machines decoding secrets and seen the landscape surrounding it change as people have sculpted it to their needs. It has seen myths and legends created and destroyed, and had the lowest in the land to the Royal bloodline travel along its route.

Nowadays it is the same as every other road, with its grey asphalt, pale lines and unnecessary amounts of road furniture, but it still carries people to places that they need to go to. As Higgs travels along it, he peels back the layers that have made us who we are, goes to the significant milestones of history along the route and contemplates how this one road can be a metaphor for who we are and who we may become in this post-Brexit age. It is a difficult book to pigeonhole too, partly history book, partly polemical, a smattering of personal memoir and a draught of nostalgia is probably the best way of describing this. He writes with enthusiasm about the places and people that he encounters on his journey with the odd funny anecdote and sharp wit. However, there is more to this book than that, it is an insightful guide to the current state of the nation and our present psyche. Higgs doesn’t have all the answers, but it is a whimsical look at our country.

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Molotov’s Magic Lantern: A Journey In Russian History by Rachel Polonsky
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Moscow is a city with layers and layers of secrets and history. Along with other cities in Russia, there has been a level of impenetrability and this mystic has made them a source of fascination for all outsiders. Rachel Polonsky, a British journalist, was fortunate to live in Moscow for a number of years, and where she lived had previously been home to some the elite of the Soviet era. One of those was Vyacheslav Molotov, a man responsible for condemning hundreds to exile to Gulags and almost certain death. Polonsky discovers that his apartment in the block contains a substantial library full of books, some of which were written by those that he despatched to Siberia and an old magic lantern. This discovery that Molotov was a bibliophile was quite startling inspired Polonsky to voyage find the stories hidden in Siberia, to venture into the Arctic Circle, travel across the steppes and into the forests surrounding Moscow.

This is a book that is full of detail of the people and the events that made the Russia revolution and the grip that the totalitarian state had on the people of Russia. Whilst she ventures far into the past of the country and writes about the complex relationships that had developed from the iron grip that Stalin had on the country, there is not as much on her travels around Russia that I would have liked, though it does give a flavour of contemporary Russia. Her prose is incredibly dense, but this is as much from the subject matter, as it is her style. Definitely a book for those that have a fascination with Russia and its history rather than being a travel book for a wider readership. 2.5 stars.

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He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

The evening after a total eclipse, Laura happens upon a couple in the middle of what seems to be an intimate moment. However, things are not as they seem, as when she sees the terror on the woman’s face and as she realises what she has seen, she makes a hurried call to the police. The man runs off into the crowd and is soon lost to Kit. The police arrive and take over, soon after they apprehend the man. As key witnesses, they attend the trial and in a moment of anger, Laura tells a lie under oath to see him convicted.

The victim of the attack, Beth, started following them and befriended Laura, but there reached a point where her attention was becoming obsessive and after the fire, Kit and Laura live under assumed names. Kit is off to see an eclipse on the Faroe Isles and Laura is going to be at home as she is carrying twins; this is the time that they need to be most vigilant as Beth will try to find them once again. Things are not as they seem though as in the shadow of the eclipse you never see all the detail.

I am not a big reader of thrillers, preferring to find my excitement in real life adventure. However, I thought that this was a good page turner where the twists keep on coming thick and fast in this book right up to the final few pages. In fact, it all seemed disturbing plausible bar one scene. Wasn’t keen on the way it jumped back and forth between the different years but didn’t mind the way the story was told from Kit and Laura’s perspectives. Pretty good thriller overall.

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