Category: Review (Page 112 of 132)

The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Emma and Adam have been married for a number of years and have two daughters. Emma is a GP, and Adam has chosen to stay at home be the house husband. He has a little work at the university and is currently working on a history of the bombed-out Coventry Cathedral. Though Emma is suffering with the stresses of the modern NHS, it is a happy family life. Then one day Adam receives a call from the school. Miriam has collapsed and stopped breathing. He rushes to the school, arriving shortly after the paramedics, and heads into the hospital with her.

As they come to terms with a daughter who has a serious illness, their whole family life is turned upside down. After a barrage of tests, the doctors are not completely sure what is up, so she is allowed home. As they come to terms with the changes they start to fret over the smallest things, worry over their other daughter and question things that happen to Adam’s mother that was never explained.

It is a sharp look at modern life, the way that we interact with each other. Moss has managed to write about the pressures that we place on ourselves, as well as those exerted by society with startling accuracy. It is a celebration of the mundane as well as those moments that draw a family together. However, it is a warning of how thin we stretch ourselves whilst failing to keep the work home life balance and a warning of how transient life can be.

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Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Simon Limbeau is in search of that perfect wave. He knows it is out there, and perhaps this will be the day that he finds it, the forecast seems to indicate that it will be good. Rising just before 6 am, he ventures into the freezing morning to climb in the van with his friends to hit the beach. It is a journey Simon has undertaken hundreds of times. Waves were found, ridden and conquered and they pile back in the van trying to warm up. Chris turns the key in the van and begins the return journey; all their lives were just about to change for ever.

Simon was not wearing a seatbelt and as Chris dropped off to sleep, the van drifted to the left until it hit the pole. All three lads were rushed to hospital following the accident and parents were contacted. Marianne, Simon’s mum, gets to the hospital. Looking shell shocked, she is ushered into a meeting with the doctor. Simon’s condition is serious, very serious indeed.

So begins the sensitive telling of a story that is a parent’s worst dilemma. It is a short book, often captivating, always emotional, but occasionally dips a little to heavily into technical jargon. However, De Kerangal’s sparse prose is what carries this story, making what is an intensely charged read, a thing of beauty still. It is a sad, touching story, sensitively told.

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Miss-adventures: A Tale of Ignoring Life Advice While Backpacking Around South America by Amy Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Having had an idea to quit her job and go backpacking around South America, Amy started to tell friends and family of her intentions. What she wasn’t quite expecting was the vast amount of advice that was proffered to her on what to see, where to go, what to do, and most frequently what not to do. Advice that was perhaps a little unnecessary and probably irrelevant too. So after her boss had told her that there was no money in travel writing and that she would come to regret it, she replied: ‘I’m going to do it anyway’.

So begins Amy’s full on adventure around a number of countries in South America, beginning right in the deep end, the Bolivian jungle. Here she manages to scare herself several times a day, swim in crocodile infested waters, and encounters spiders that she didn’t know could grow that large. Having just survived the jungle, climbing a mountain seemed like a good idea, didn’t it? She was joined by friends on various parts of the trip, as well as meeting loads of new people most of whom were friendly and occasionally those that weren’t.

All the way through the book Amy considers that advice that she had been given. She realised that some of the advice that had been provided was sound, and some, shall we say was less than helpful… Weighing up that provided by friends, against some from experts Amy slowly concludes who provides accurate guidance and when it should be listened to. Amy is a competent writer and the book is scattered with genuine laugh out loud moments, so much so I was getting odd looks when reading this at lunchtime and sniggering. If you like books written by Tony Hawkes, then this is right up your street.

I do hope though that her mother hasn’t read this book!

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The Otters’ Tale by Simon Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Otters are one of our apex predators in the UK, but after the Second World War, they almost went extinct due to environmental and other pressures. That they have slowly clawed their way back as the rivers and streams that they live in became less polluted. The fact that they now they can be found in every county in the land is a conservation success and should be applauded. They are almost mythical though, they are seldom glimpsed, even when going looking for them, you may only hear a splash. You will find evidence that they are sound though, their spraints are fairly visible and you’ll probably come across the scattered remains of supper every now and again.

Even after buying a watermill on a chalkstream in Hampshire Simon Cooper didn’t expect to see one either. As he moved around the lake and streams that came with his property he began to find the evidence that they were some nearby, but it was finding a family of otters in the mill race, just feet from his desk, that he realised that he was the intruder on their territory. So begins this transitory relationship with this mother and four cubs, as Cooper spent more time watching and following their trial and tribulations of growing up and learning how to swim and feed and playing as you’d expect otters to behave.

Cooper’s daily observations have given us this well-written tale of the elusive creature that is the otter. He has used some artistic licence to write the story of Kuschta and her cubs, how she moved into the lakes, the liaison with the father and how she goes about raising and training them to hunt and survive. The story side is woven in with a raft of solid facts and detail on these fascinating creatures following them through the seasons as they live and thrive around the mill. A really good book on that most evanescent of creatures and a worthy addition to anyone’s natural history library.

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Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies by Peter Marren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is something about butterflies that captivates some people. They fulfil no ecological purpose, as they are not pollinators, they are not a source of food for a most animals as they are frequently full of poisons and unpalatable substances, they just seem to exist because nature can make it so. Regardless of their purpose, these brightly coloured little insects have enthralled people for years. From the time he first caught one at the age of five, Peter Marren was one of those captivated by these beguiling insects. So began a hobby that has lasted a lifetime, first hunting them for his collection, then rearing them when he realised that what he was doing was not sustainable.

However, this is not another guidebook about butterflies, rather a guidebook about butterfly lovers. Marren’s deep passion about his subject is evident as he brings us the stories and potted biographies and histories of those that have had a similar passion to him. We learn about the Rothschild family members who were equally besotted, what John Fowles and Vladimir Nabokov liked to collect and how butterflies have inspired countless artists and writers. He guides us through the extinctions of some and the reintroduction of the Large Blue and takes us through the life cycle right from the egg to the next generation.

His writing is authoritative without being tiresome and it flits along at a fair old pace. It is also a warning; we have been persecuting all sorts of wildlife in this country, and the relentless push to greater efficiency and cost savings has put butterflies and many of their habitats in peril. I liked the mix of solid science and research with a series of personal stories and it is a really good general book in the study of his favourite insect.

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Havergey by John Burnside
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Havergey used to appear on maps but has long since disappeared from them. Even though most don’t know it exists, it is home to the wanderers and dreamers from a shattered world seeking a new life in an ancient land still formed by its exposure to the elements. They rarely have visitors though, so when a guy appears the small community is naturally curious. He is slightly bewildered, claiming to have come from the past. They ask him to stay in a building near the shore as a form of Quarantine, and he is assigned Ben, the Watcher, to look after him and help him settle.

John is not going to be allowed out but will be fed and sheltered. In the same building is the community archive, a collection of documents and letters and other texts. As he sits and reads them during the day, John starts to get a feel for the way that the community has evolved to its present state. He is joined every meal time by Ben, who tells of the Collapse and the state of the world now from the one that he left and who asks his guest what he makes of their island and if he would be able to make his home here.

Reading this is a strange and almost surreal experience. It is full of subtle nuances as Burnside explores the concepts of utopia on an island that is a refuge in a dystopian world. He also uses it as way of making us the reader think just what we are doing to this world that we live on, not only in the obvious harm, but to consider the misguided good that some think is appropriate. There is not a huge amount of character development as the themes are the prominent way of getting us to think about the current state of the world. I did like it, in particular, the sparse but eloquent prose, but at times it was a bit too fleeting. The main points it is trying to convey dovetail in quite well with the Confessions of a Reluctant Environmentalist that I read recently. It is a book that I will read again and mull over with a glass of something. 3.5 Stars

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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Lydia is the apple of her parent’s eyes. She has her mother’s vivid blue eyes and her father’s jet black hair. For James, he hopes that she will become the person he never could be at school; popular, liked and the life and soul of any party. For Marilyn, she wants Lydia to be the doctor that she never became, rather than a mother and homemaker. As if these pressures are not enough, she has to contend with the spectre of race in her community. With a Chinese father and an American mother she had inherited the oriental looks along with her brother and sister. Nath, Hannah and Lydia suffer from the external pressures of race and the exclusions that 1970’s American society judged them on.

No one thought anything was wrong, until one day Lydia goes missing.

This is a really sad story really with a strong moral dimension about the perils of projecting your wishes and unrequited desires onto another individual. Ng has written eloquently about the way a family can implode and how each individual reacts to the after the loss of a child. I liked the effortless writing and certain aspects of the plot, but it just felt a little too woolly for me.

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Floating: A Journey Through Roger Deakin’s Waterlog by Joe Minihane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

For those that haven’t read Waterlog, then you should. In my opinion it has reached the point where it could be considered a classic tome now. Joe Minihane was one of those who has discovered the delights that the prose of Roger Deakin could offer. In the process of reading and re-reading this book, a germ of an idea grew. Twenty years after it was first published, Joe decided to recreate Deakin’s journey by swimming where he had before and to see how the wild swimming landscape had changed in the two decades.

A lot of the locations could be reached fairly easily, close to a tube station or at the end of a ride on a bicycle. To get to some of the others in the more remote parts of the UK would take a bit more effort though, especially as Joe can’t drive! It was time to find companions who want to join him in the cold waters of the UK and perhaps rekindle some old friendships that had faded in the busyness of modern life. However, this project was going to have a much more profound effect of Minihane’s life. He was to use the rituals of swimming to fight against the black dog depression and anxiety that he suffers from, slowly opening up to friends and seeking the professional help that he needs.

But this is more than that, not only does he describe the joys and shocks of immersing himself in the cold waters in this island, often with a sharp intake of breath, but like Deakin’s original, it is a frog’s eye view of the present state of our watery natural world. He lets his worries float away downstream and develops stronger bonds with old friends. Waterlog is a tremendous book, and this book by Minihane is a fitting tribute to Deakin and his legacy. A poignant reminder of the healing power of nature.

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Britain’s Best Historic Sites: From Prehistory to the Industrial Revolution by Tom Quinn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Britain has rich deep veins of history reaching back thousands of years. There are so many different periods of interest that where to start is sometime baffling. In Britain’s Best Historic Sites, Quinn has listed the 80 most significant or important sites and buildings that show the way that we have used and changed the landscape over the past 10,000 years. There is a little bit of everything in here; Iron Age hill forts, Roman castles and villas, cathedrals, stone circles, manor houses and even relatively modern industrial architecture.

The book has a potted history of some of the most significant sites around the UK and is accompanied by some beautiful photographs of them. Sadly with all books of this type, it suffers because of what had to be left out. The text is informative, though very brief, but it does proved good details on location and so you can discover these places for yourself.

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Falling Awake by Alice Oswald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t read much poetry, but I had heard very good things about Falling Awake by Alice Oswald and as I had really enjoyed Dart by her I’d though that I’d give it a go. This collection is split into two parts, the first is individual poems, and the second half is titled Tithonus. Like Dart, this is deeply embedded in the natural world, and has the same haunting beauty.

This is one of those wordy days

There are a few poems and lines that stood out:
A Short Story of Falling: “It is the secret of a summer shower / to steal the light and hide it in a flower”
Fox: “My life / is laid beneath my children / like gold leaf”
Shadow: It is faint / it has been falling for a long time
Sunday Ballard: As they dressed the dust / flew white and silent through the house”

I really liked the collection in the first half of the book, but couldn’t get on with the poem that took up the second. Will still read more of her work though.

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