Category: Review (Page 113 of 132)

Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain by Lucy Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am not sure just how many foxes there are where I am living, but I see them darting across the roads at night, caught by the headlights of the car. There was even one brazen fox walking up the middle of the road at midnight once. These fleeting glimpses of our largest predator left in the UK are for me quite special, but for others, this animal is considered a nasty pest and is something to be vilified.

In this interesting account of our tempestuous relationship with the fox. Consider and cunning and crafty animal by most, Lucy Jones has delved into the folklore, fiction and her own family history and met with those that love and hate these intelligent creatures. This bang up to date account of foxes goes some way to demonstrating our complex relationship with the natural world too. To get a better understanding of the different perspectives, she joins a hunt and a later with the saboteurs of a following a hunt to get a better perspective as to how people feel about this animal and explores the issues that polarised people on the heated public debate on this subject.

Jones has written this book about vulpes vulpes with a considered and measured approach. You know whose side she is on, but she is prepared to talk about with people from each perspective and hear their views as well as taking the time to look at the evidence based on the facts and not the scaremongering from the press. Worth reading for anyone interested in the most recognisable of our wild creatures.

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Walking the Americas by Levison Wood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

On an atlas, the small chain of countries that link the great continents of North and South America look tiny. It is a beautiful and varied part of our planet, but their size on the map belies just how tough a part of the world it is. Not only is it hot and humid, but you will have to contend with swamps, malaria, spiders and jaguars and the jungle and the remnants of ancient cities. Not forgetting the armed gangs of drug smugglers and military types with itchy trigger fingers, this is not the place for your tourists. Thankfully Levison Wood is not your regular tourist.

His chosen 1,800-mile route along this slender piece of land would take in eight countries. He was starting with Mexico, where he had persuaded his friend Alberto to come along for the trip. He readily agreed, remembering the time he spent in Africa with him travelling by truck; then Levison dropped the bombshell, saying that they would be walking it… Alberto still agreed to go with him every step of the way.

Levison Wood is one of the few adventurers left in the world who is capable and mad enough to undertake these sorts of long treks across parts of the world that people would not normally venture to. At times it is an unbelievably tough journey, as they deal with hacking their way through the understory, encountering migrants heading for a new life in America and the relentless task of putting one foot in front of the other. He is one tough guy to even attempt a challenge of this order, let alone complete it. Alberto and Wood have even joined the exclusive club of those that have managed to pass the impenetrable jungle at the Darien Gap. This is such a wild area that even the Pan-American highway stops in its two continent run. It is a reasonably well-written account of his trip, if you are expecting literary excellence then this is not necessarily going to be the author for you. What you do get though is an honest account of a unique hike with all the highs and lows from a genuine tough guy.

Great stuff. Now to watch the TV series.

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Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Paul Kingsnorth was a passionate environmentalist, taking the time to be involved in activities and protests against the creep of corporate and governmental interests that threatened the climate and places with ill thought out developments. His view started to change as the business world embraced green ideals, and those opposing them watered down their vociferous defence of our wild places and cosied up to sustainability instead. He saw it as a betrayal of the movement as they chose to ignore the challenges and sacrifices that need to be made to avert the consequences of climate change.

In this great collection of essays, Kingsnorth passionately argues how the green movement has failed, and as he has seen it fail, how his thinking on what we need to do has changed. His new hypothesis he calls ‘dark ecology’, a vision where we do not have to rely on complicated technology to save us, but rather one where we need to once again seek the balance that we had with the natural world. It is a challenging read, not in the sense of his prose, which fizzles with raw energy, but in the way that he is prepared to challenge everything that he has every stood for, and ask the question: Where next?

Thought provoking stuff.

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The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley
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 Legion is a part of a vast number of world-ships that are travelling in the seams between the stars right on the outer edge of the universe. A war has been raging for millennia in the decaying worlds. It is as yet unresolved and not likely to be anytime soon, so a last ditch plan is formed…

Zan wakes with no recollection of who she is, what she was, or who the people are who say that they are her family. She cannot quite believe that she is capable of the things that they are saying; she is the only one who can offer them a chance to leave the Legion, the only one who can gain entry to the ship called Mokshi. There are others though who want to use her skill for the same ends. She must descend with her small team of no-hopers into the very bowels of the Legion to wrestle control and confront the horrors that face them there.

This is the first of Hurley’s books that I have read, and it is a pretty tough book to start with. She must have an amazing imagination to create a world like this one, it is unlike anything that I have ever come across before with its organic world, where everything is recycled, even body parts. This is a life at its most swamp like. There is an immense amount of detail in here, sometimes almost too much, that it felt that the plot was occasionally superfluous to the intricate detail of the world ships, Zan was travelling through. I liked the female culture that she has invented too, it gives you a completely different take on the usual sci-fi space opera, with the characters. Good, but maybe not one for the squeamish!

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On Trails: From Anthills to the Alps, How Trails Make Sense of a Chaotic World by Robert Moor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Moor is a long distance walker, he took five months completing the Appalachian Trail, but rather than just the exhilaration in completing this 2190 mile journey he realised that he now had questions about just why we create trails. In exploring this phenomena he is shown some of the oldest fossil trails, he learns how and why animals do the same thing, from ants that use pheromones to guide others from the nest to sources of food. He has a go a shepherding to see how sheep make trails, and manages to mislay a complete flock in his first attempt. He joins Native Americans to see the trails in their culture and perches in a tree with Larry Benoit to gain an insight into the mind of a hunter following deer trails in a forest.

He finds out how a new trail is created when he joins a renowned trail builder in Tennessee making pathways with a quad-bike. He is asked to join the International Appalachian Trail, what will be the world’s longest footpath, spanning from Alabama to Morocco, and spends some time walking some of what could be the Moroccan section. In the final part of the book, he catches up with the Nimblewill Nomad, M.J. Eberhart. He is somewhat of a legend, as he has walked the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail; around 34,000 miles in total. He could be described as eccentric too, having had all his toenails removed and passed on most of his possessions bar a truck and a couple of boxes of sentimental stuff. Moor joins him for a few days and walks with him from Winnie along the roads of Texas.

Walking creates trails. Trails, in turn, shape landscapes

Moor has tremendous potential as an author but I am not entirely sure if this is a travel book, a walking book, a book on the natural world or book on the deeper philosophy on the process of placing one foot in front of another. That said, it is an eloquent set of essays and stories about the pleasures of walking along the great trails of the world. Liked the piece about technology too, it makes a change to have someone say that it can have its place, rather than being one of those who considers the mix of technology and nature to be abhorrent. It is quite American-centric, though he does venture overseas at times, but its wide-ranging scope means that it is not quite as focused as it could be hence I have only given it three stars. However, I really liked this, as he has been bold enough to take a step off the well-trodden path for the wider view. For those with and interest in walking, this should be on your to-read list.

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The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The music industry is a strange beast. Not only is it fickle and flighty, but it has changed dramatically from even twenty years ago. Gone are the A&R men finding that individual with the perfect voice that they can sign and promote with the hope of getting the hits. Now we have a machine that can almost produce hits to order, almost being the key word… There are producers out there who have the ability to write songs that have what they describe as ‘hooks’, those little parts of a track that are so catchy, so addictive, that they stick in your head. These men, and it still is almost exclusively men, are still rare, but that ability to turn a song from one that would have only sold thousands to one that sells millions makes them worth a fortune.

Earworm: a catchy song or tune that runs continually through someone’s mind.

Seabrook has written an interesting book, smearing away some of the gloss and glamour from the music industry, to reveal details of its inner workings. He describes just how these talented individuals pull together a song, finding those hook’s that make people want to listen more and the bridge moment when they divert from the original melody and rhythm and slot something else in. I have known that they manufactured music in the same way that they create groups, for ages, but I didn’t realise quite how strong the Swedish influence was in the global music industry. There were some interesting chapters on how Napster wreaked havoc with the business model of the music industry, how streaming has changed how they operate, how they use topliners and that the only way that a star can now make any money is to be continually touring because of the grip that the music industry has on them. It was an interesting book overall on a global industry that has as many secrets as glitterballs.

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Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this collection of fourteen essays Dillard brings her almost forensic observation of natural world as well as a keen perception of the smallest detail to a wide variety of subjects. Starting with her thoughts on a solar eclipse that she travels to see in Yakima, we accompany her on her a journey to the Appalachian Mountains and all the way to the Galapagos Islands. With her we see the world through the eyes of a weasel and take a walk from her home. We also meet the man who inspired the title of the book, who is Teaching a stone to speak; most will think this a futile gesture, but as Dillard explains, it is his way of communing with the natural world at the pace he desires.

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega.

There is a strong spiritual dimension to her sparse but eloquent prose. It is beyond me how she manages to pack so much meaning into so few words. Her childlike fascination with the world around is evident in the book and she manages to deftly entwine this with themes of exploration and discovery and how we can use it to watch and observe the things that happen around us. I particularly liked the essay on lenses, how it is something that you have to master before you can use it to see the far away and the near. Until now I have never read any of her books before, now will be working my way through her non-fiction back catalogue.

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Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

David and Adele are the perfect couple. He is the level-headed psychiatrist; she is the beautiful and glamorous wife who loves him deeply. But behind this perfect fragile marriage there are secrets; dark disturbing secrets. David’s new secretary, Louise, is drawn into their surreal, controlling world, though neither are aware that she knows both of them. Little by little she discovers their secrets and it slowly dawns on her that there is something in this relationship that is very, very wrong. Louise doesn’t know what it is, nor just how far that the person will go to keep that secret safe.

I loved the pace of the story, it was enough to keep me turning the pages fairly rapidly. The build up through the book with the narrative coming from first Louise and then Adele with flashbacks to an earlier time and events was done really well. As for the ending; I won’t tell you… It is a very different ending to what I thought was going to happen, I was expecting something much more dramatic.

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