Category: Review (Page 105 of 133)

Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oliver Ryan has it all, nice house, devoted wife and a glittering career as an author. With Alice his wife as the illustrator, he has created a series of children’s books that have captivated the world. He has had film deals, awards, and accolades galore as well as a comfortable life. After Alice is found on her dining room floor beaten into a coma, that way of life is about to come to an abrupt end because Oliver has a secret that no one knows, a secret that he will go to almost any length to protect.

As Alice remains in intensive care, people look for the motives behind Oliver’s actions. Shocked friends and family begin to untangle his past life, the extramarital affairs, the deceptions behind his school days and his writing profession. They realise that the Oliver they thought they knew is utterly different to the one that they find before themselves now.

This is quite a short, sharp ‘why done it’ that is as unsettling as it is shocking at the beginning. I liked the way Nugent used the different people’s perspectives as Oliver’s past was unravelled before our eyes. There were no surprising twists, just the moment where a chance holiday brought the plot full circle, and you had that Ah! moment. Neatly done.

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Autumn: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons by Melissa Harrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As the world turns once again on the equinox, nights draw in, the sunshine from summer has been converted into nature’s bounty, mist rolls over fields and a new smell permeates the sharper mornings. Gone are the acid greens of spring and deeper shades of summer, now we have leaves turning rich reds, bold yellows and mellow browns. The swallows who arrived early summer, zoom across the fields one final time before leaving for Africa. Autumn has arrived.

Just seconds ago I was in a concrete jungle, but now I stand surrounded by damp earth, wood and October’s sepia tones – Will Harper-Penrose

So begins the final book in this series of seasons that I have read. Melissa Harrison has again gathered together a fine collection of classic prose and poetry as well as the current stalwarts of our rich seam of nature writing in the UK. Most importantly is bringing to our attention the newest authors and writers who seek their inspiration from their own patch of the natural world. To be honest, they are all good, but there are a few that are outstanding, in particular, Jane Adams, Will Harper-Penrose and Megan Shersby. I am hoping that the chance that all these authors have had to appear in print will pay off in abundance in years to come. If you want a book to read that has those evocative smells and the whiff of bonfire then this is absolutely perfect. Great little book, another beautiful cover and a cracking series.

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Around the Coast in Eighty Waves by Jonathan Bennett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When you think of surfing, the beaches of Hawaii and Bondi Beach in Australia spring to mind, and that Beach Boys song will drift into your mind and stick. The UK has a surf culture too, that unbelievable has been around for over 50 years now and it has around half a million regular surfers and a large number who try it for the first time every year. Modern surfing was brought to Cornwall by four Australian lifeguards who amazed people with the way they could swoop across the waves. Its spiritual home has remained in the West Country, the place that receives a large proportion of the waves and swells from the North Atlantic. Jonathan Bennett set himself a challenge of catching a wave on eighty separate beaches all around the UK that were suitable for surfing.

But first, he needed a camper van.

Having found one in Hastings, he sets off on his fourteen-month journey around the UK. In what turns out to be the coldest winter for a while, he wishes he had bought one with a heater… Starting in Scotland, he kind of heads clockwise around the country, stopping at promising looking beaches hoping to catch that perfect wave. Living on porridge and endless cups of tea he manages to avoid going anywhere near a regular campsite, sleeping where he can hear the waves crash onto the beach. He will surf alone on one of the most remote beaches in the UK, share the water with seals, great and not so great bodyboarders and the odd unmentionable object.

This is an enjoyable account of Bennetts attempt to surf his way around the UK. The writing is straightforward with good descriptions of the people and places he meets on his surf journey. There is the odd amusing moment and the book is full of surf jargon, thankfully there is a glossary in the back of the book. Sadly what the book is missing is photos, whilst I have been to some of the beaches mentioned, I would have loved to have seen photos of the beaches surfed in the Highlands and Islands. If you have read any of Tom Anderson’s books then you will like this one. 3.5 stars

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Island Years, Island Farm by Frank Fraser Darling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fraser Darling was born in Chesterfield in northern England, the illegitimate son of Harriet Darling and Frank Moss. At the ages of 15 he ended up working on a farm and that led him to study agriculture. That led to a PhD at Edinburgh University and in time he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. At the end of the 1930’s when he was married with a young child he began his work on the Summer Isles studying gulls and grey seals as well as reclaiming land that could be used agricultural production on Tanera Mòr.

Slowly he fell in love with these bleak but beautiful islands. They are places of two seasons; a short but intense summer before a rapid switch to the winter sometime in October. They lived in a tent some on some of the islands, hunkering down as the storms swept in off the Atlantic even in the summer months. His careful observations of the wildlife and the work he carried out making a living on the islands enabled him to write a book on crofting and these two books, Island Years and Island Farm. It is a simple but tough life living as a crofter on the islands, some of the gales that he describes sound horrendous, even getting to the islands was not easy with strong swells and very few places to land. It was something that Fraser Darling relished though, he even made the commitment to buy land and settle and spent time restoring a quay and property to make life a little more comfortable.

His prose is not flowery, just solid and rational, but he still manages to fill your senses with the smell of the sea and sound of the waves. It was a uncompromising life there and whilst it wasn’t hand to mouth existence it was much made tougher when he broke his leg. This simpler time just prior to World War II, is brought vividly to life, a nature classic that made for enjoyable reading.

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A Charm of Goldfinches and Other Wild Gatherings: Quirky Collective Nouns of the Animal Kingdom by Matt Sewell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Humans have always had a natural desire to collect and group things together. It works well for domesticated animals, where people are used to talking about a herd of cows, or a flock of sheep. But how do you collate wild animals and birds? Should they all be flocks and herds? Thankfully human imagination has gone to work on this and come up with a whole host of rich and interesting names for all species of animals.

Matt Sewell has collected together all the collective nouns for all manner of animals who inhabit land, sea and air. As well as the titled, A Charm of Goldfinches and the well-known Murder of Crows he introduces to us the less common quarrel of sparrows, a quiver of cobras, a harem of seals and deceit of lapwings. Alongside each collective noun is a delightful watercolour of the animals and a little explanation of the origins of the noun.

I really liked this enchanting little book with its colourful bold artwork and Sewell’s charming prose but if there was one minor flaw was it too brief.

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From Source to Sea by Tom Chesshyre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Tom Chesshyre happened upon a map of the River Thames in a Bric-a-brac market on his way to the library. It was a reproduction of a map by William Tombleson showing the twists and turns from the source near Cirencester to the mouth on the Kent and Essex coasts. He could not resist buying it, and having done so, an idea formed of walking along the river from the source to the North Sea. The Thames is one of the few rivers including the Nile and the Amazon, with a global presence. Whilst the other rivers are thousands of miles long, the humble Thames is only 215 miles long, making Tom’s walk a gentle stroll compared to the adventurers Ed Stafford and Levison Wood who have walked the other two rivers.

Our most well know river has drawn all types of people through the ages, from artists and authors to those that have used the river to make their living from. It doesn’t have the exotic and dangerous elements that the Nile and the Amazon can boast, it does reflect the rich and diverse history of our country stretching back several thousand years. Passing historical churches, vast country estates and idyllic meadows before walking into the famous skyline that is London. Along the way, Chesshyre meets the great and the good and other people walking the same route as him and the characters that make the river such a dynamic place to live and work. Oh, and there are pubs too, lots of pubs

Travel books should inspire you to move from the comfort of your sofa and go and seek the places yourself. In this delightful book, Chesshyre does that. He engages with the spirit of the river and the places that he walks through, whilst pondering the implications of the recent referendum result. This is a walk that I would like to undertake myself one day as it seems to be a wonderful way to see an iconic part of our country.

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London Map of Days by Mychael Barratt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Back in 2015 the Canadian-born, but now London-based artist Mychael Barratt presented an eight plate etching of the eponymous city at the Royal Academy. This artwork, which appears in the back of the book, became the foundation for the London: Map of Days. The beautifully designed book is packed with a cornucopia of facts, anecdotes and stories that have happened, taken place or have some link with each of the 366 days (including the 29th February) in and around London. These little snippets of information are accompanied by bold sketches of the characters involved with the fact for that day.

There is something for everyone in this book as Barratt covers miscellany from subjects as diverse as the death of Chi Chi the giant panda, Hersschel’s discovery of the moons of Uranus, Queen Victoria’s marriage and the day that the last Punch magazine was printed. They are all interesting and cover all aspects of this city’s history. There is a delightful fold-out print of the entire map at the back of the book of Barratt’s original artwork too with the Thames weaving its way through the middle. An ideal book for those that like facts or London, or both!

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Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-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.

The mind is a complex entity, we have only scratched the surface in comprehending how it works and what it is capable of. The neural networks that make up the brain are capable of absorbing vast sums of information and making sense of them fast. The intelligence that we have, and can see in other mammals and birds, in particular, other primates, cetaceans, and corvids. There is another set of animals that seem to have also benefited from a large brain and complex neural networks and that is the cephalopods. You’ll probably know them better as cuttlefish, squid and the octopus. These are quite amazing creatures, not only are they aware of all that is going on around them, they can open jars to get the treat inside, have been known to squirt lights with jets of water as they don’t like the brightness and have been found crawling across the floors of laboratories in an escape bid. The skin operates like a high-res video screen as it is able to mimic its surroundings and ripple with colours depending on mood. They have been proven to recognise individual members of staff, even when in the same uniform, so much so that a person they took a dislike too would get drenched when they walked past.

Peter Godfrey-Smith first came across them when someone introduced him to a place they had called Octopolis. This was a place that had many octopi that had brought and discarded scallop shells and begun to make it a safe haven from the predators around. There were a large number of the creatures there that seemed to tolerate each other most of the time, but every now and again there would be running battles between some of the males and Godfrey-Smith was fortunate to capture these on video. Godfrey-Smith though is a philosopher of science, not a biologist, but it got him thinking; just how had this creature had evolved down a separate branch of our shared tree and had ended up at a level of sentience which was quite advanced. The octopi that he regularly sees as he scuba dives off the coast of Sydney are willing to come up and interact with him and the other divers,

It is an interesting book comparing our understanding of human consciousness with a creature that is so alien that we cannot fully get a grip on what it is thinking. There is a lot on the biological makeup of cephalopods and how their brain and nervous system works, as well as a couple of chapters on the evolution of consciousness and how the need to be aware of your surroundings has driven the development of the brain. I would have liked to read more about the observations that they had conducted on Octopolis as the chapters that were there were fascinating. Definitely worth reading for those that have an interest in marine ecology and peering into the dark recesses of the mind.

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In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s by Joseph Jebelli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When you think of diseases that kill people cancer and heart disease would most top peoples list, but with the population in the western world getting older, other illnesses are having an effect on mortality rates and people’s quality of life. One of the most significant is Alzheimer’s and dementia, a cruel disease that leaves the shell of the person whilst stealing their personality, dignity and their memories. The first time that Joseph Jebelli came across this illness was when he was twelve years old and his grandfather started doing strange things and becoming ‘indefinably peculiar’; Gone was the warm person he had known. This family tragedy became a pivotal point in his life and drove him to pursue a career in science researching the very disease that claimed his grandfather.

I felt totally alone, with the world receding away from me in every direction, and you could have used my anger to weld steel – Sir Terry Pratchett

Jebelli is now an established expert in the field of Alzheimer’s research and in this interesting and informative book he sets about describing the background with Alois Alzheimer’s discovery of the illness in 1906 all the way up to the current understanding of the science behind this distressing disease. Travelling all over the world he talks to the people at the cutting edge in laboratories about the latest avenues of research as they race to find a cure. He takes time to talk to sufferers and their families gaining a heartfelt understanding of the anguish they go through every day. It is a clear and well-written exploration of the different efforts that encompass research into Alzheimer’s. There is a small amount on Sir Terry Pratchett, who was sadly one of those to get early onset Alzheimer’s, or his embuggerance as he called it. He donated a fairly hefty sum of money to enable research, but more importantly, he spoke about his illness and spent time raising awareness of it. Jebelli writes about a difficult and personal subject in a way that brings clarity to the dark world that is Alzheimer’s, I can highly recommend this book. 4.5 stars

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