Category: Review (Page 6 of 130)

 

4.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

What we are doing to the planet has been well documented elsewhere by numerous scientists and authors. They and others are battling against vast corporations and sympathetic governments who have a vested interest in keeping us using fossil fuels. Sadly, the disinformation campaign is working, in that the urgency to do something about the problem is diluted. As the erratic weather starts to impact more and more people’s lives, then tougher questions are starting to be asked of our politicians.

One of the effects of climate change is rising sea levels. A lot of it will come from melting glaciers, but water when it is warmer will expand adding to the issue. These changes will affect millions of people around the planet. Rees wants to visit some of the places where populations are most at risk from the rising waters and also to discover the locations of past flood myths and see for himself the now sunken landscapes.

It is a journey that will take him to New Orleans to witness for himself the wreckage that Hurricane Katrina left behind. He visits Italy to scuba dive over a live caldera (!!!) and to view the Roman remains. But he doesn’t also visit real places, this is a symbolic journey, so Atlantis is visited through the mythological landscapes too.

To remind us that this is not a problem that is going to affect sun-drenched islands in the Pacific, he heads to Dungeness close to where he lives to see the stumps of fossilised trees that were submerged 3500 years ago. It is called Noah’s Wood as people once thought that it was inundated in the biblical flood.

It is a stark reminder that we are an island nation and that we will be affected by these changes too.

I haven’t read many of Rees’ books, though I do have all of them. One of them, Unofficial Britain, was my book of the year in 2020. This is an equally engaging travelogue. He has researched his subjects well and he has a keen eye for detail, something no doubt from his psychogeography experiences, where the tiny details do matter.

But this is a book about the future; a future that is rising sea levels, extreme weather events and land lost to erosion and storm surges. It is a future that worries Rees and to be perfectly frank, worries me to. Well worth reading and I can highly recommend it.

4 out of 5 stars

The author provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Fiona Stocker had already moved halfway around the world from the UK to Australia. However, the life they had made there in the city of Brisbane, was becoming a little jaded and they felt that owed their daughter a chance at a slower pace of life.

They had heard good things about Tasmania and a trip out there reinforced those messages. It didn’t take long to find a property that they liked the look of and as a bonus, it came with five acres of land. They made the decision there and then, and set in motion the move to Tasmania.

Soon after they moved in, her husband acquired some alpacas, an animal that he had always fancied keeping, but as he was developing his new cabinet-making company, it fell to Fiona to look after them along with a toddler and a fast-growing bump, would soon be their second child. It did take a while, but slowly they began to settle into their new home and community.

I thought that this was a very enjoyable book, she writes with a bone-dry wit about the life they are having there. It did seem strange to be reading about a family life set in this part of the world having read so many travel books of people beginning a new life in Europe, it is a very different finding that the garden has wallabies, venomous snakes and huntsmen spiders. Not sure I am keen on the latter two…

If there was one flaw, I think each chapter has been adapted from her blog, they reflect the piece written at that time and it didn’t feel like there was a cohesive narrative at certain points in the book. That said, these snapshots of family life and the way that they settled into their new life is an engaging read.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

The police when investigating a crime follow the process of finding the evidence, interviewing witnesses and finding the perpetrators. But sometimes it isn’t that simple, there are crimes that happen that not even the police can explain.

Well, not all the police, there are records of crimes that have been kept by a police officer in the West Midlands that defy any rational explanation. Drunks that had been going missing from Digbeth and no one had a clue where they had gone. There was then a robbery at an off licence and the trail of clues led the police an unexpected resolution.

A suicide in a hostel seems a regular enquiry with a relatively straightforward conclusion. That is until there is another suicide at the same place. It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence, rather there is something malevolent in the place, but he really doesn’t know what it is…

An investigation into why children were behaving badly and stealing small things leads him to a derelict railwayman’s cottage and it is here where he confronts the thing that is causing the crime wave. The body of a prostitute is discovered behind a bin. They discover her street name is Tanya, but nobody knows who she really is. Following the one lead up, will take him right to the ragged edge of his sanity.

My favourite story is Wake Up In Moloch, a story questioning whether machines are capable of being evil. A death is caused by a sculpture and they follow up the leads. Nothing cam be found though until a second death demands a full bomb squad response and then he has some leads that will take him to a factory where he hopes to get an answer.

I must admit I rarely read horror, I am too much of a scaredy cat. But reading this didn’t really feel like horror. Even though it isn’t hugely scary, there are some unpleasant bits and some quite unnerving moments. I would say that every story gave me a sense of unease with its folk horror elements and post-industrial landscapes. There is quite a lot of psychogeography in here which is great and it felt like a mashup between Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts and London Incognita by Gary Budden. It had a Rivers Of London vibe too, a policeman who can see things that others can’t, but this is but much much darker. If you like your fiction with a darker grimmer edge, then this would be right up your street. You might not want to look behind though…

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

This is a fascinating account of a working-class Scottish woman. Like others of that time, she had a really tough life. She was born in 1833 and had began work at the age of nine in domestic service. She became a fishwife, and after a tragedy at sea, she lost a number of male members of her family. It was to rob her of her sanity and she ended up in the Cornhill Asylum. She was encouraged to write her memoirs in pencil and that bundle of papers became this book.

She was a strong woman and didn’t have any tolerance for the airs and graces of the aristocracy, often calling them out on certain matters. She was frequently told that she was speaking above her station, but thankfully that didn’t stop her at all. She held similar opinions of those with a lot of religious power too, most of these people were more concerned with how the were perceived in the eyes of others and had no intention of actually putting their Christian teaching into practice.

She details how the feudal system still worked at that time. The lairds would take a portion of every catch, just because they could. The whole of society was heavily in favour of the aristocracy but as that faded in importance, their lives were then ruled by capitalists, who only cared about profits and little else. Because of the heavy skewing of the system, she and may others spent a lot of time in debt and poverty.

The loss of her family members was too much to cope with and she ended up in asylum. It was here where she learnt who her true friends were and those who now shunned her because of where she had ended up. It made her already tough life, just that little bit harder. She was allowed out after a while, but was readmitted again having been declared insane. And yet it seemed to suit her, the pressures of outside life had gone, but she worried about the children and grandchildren that she had left behind.

I would say this is essential reading for anyone interested in the social history of this country and in particular Scotland. What is quite terrifying is that even though was have come on over a century or more, some of the same restrictions that hold the working class and poor in that position, are still in place today. The great and the good (ha) still have more power and wealth at the expense of wider society. I thought that the editing of the notes was really good. Fraser steers us in understanding about the time that these were written and the wider historical context, whilst letting her voice come through clearly.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

I have always had a thing about Yew trees. They are such a long-lived tree and the places that they are located often show that they have had some significance to people over the past two millennia or maybe even longer. They are a strange tree too, evergreen, but not conifers, almost every part of them is poisonous to mammals, and yet they can save lives.

This book all about them is a mix of science, folklore and cultural history of this unique species of tree. Each chapter covers one element of the tree and the subjects vary from Ancient Yew to Political Yew, Metaphysical Yew to Social Yew. It is crammed full of facts about these trees and pretty much all of them are fascinating.

I thought that this was engrossing and really well-written. Hageneder has researched the subject thoroughly and more importantly, has got the right balance between imparting knowledge and the narrative story of the Yew. If you have even the slightest interest in this species then I can highly recommend it.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Writing sounds like an ideal job. Indoors, no heavy lifting, you can set your own hours, and you can tie it in with a bit of surfing the web for research… But it turns out that it isn’t that easy, and yet people still do it.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.- Neil Gaiman

If you do manage to turn that blank space into your best work yet, you then have to satisfy the whims of an editor who is highly likely to reject it. Who’d be a writer?

It is a cruel way of baring your soul to the wider world, but yet people still do it. Reading through the short essays in the book I was struck by how a number of authors suffered from mental health problems, perhaps the words need to be forged in the inner pain. And in all that suffering, we, the readers, have some insight into the mind of another person. A different perspective of someone you have never met.

This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard. – Neil Gaiman

I did like this, but I thought that this was brutal at times, Marche does not hold back in his thoughts on the struggles of writers, but in that bleak outlook is a dark humour that really appeals to my sense of humour. I had wanted to be a writer many years ago and even signed up for a course, but now I don’t think that I could, the fear of rejection is too much, just writing reviews on a blog is enough for me. I did think that there wasn’t a wide enough spectrum of authors in here.

I kind of want to pass this to an author that I know, but don’t know how it will affect them; though I suspect they would agree wholeheartedly with it.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Farming the land to produce food is hard work, Even nowadays with all the modern technology to help them, farmers still face an uphill struggle to break even and pay the debts on the expensive kit. It wasn’t any easier in the 1970s either, as the reprint of this diary of a farming year shows.

All Around The Year is the day-by-day account of the life on Parsonage Farm and it was written by the master wordsmith, Michael Morpurgo. This farm in Devon was a mixed farm, unlike most farms these days which have tried to improve economies of scale by concentrating on one particular aspect. The work here is long and hard and relentless. Every day sees the same tasks being recorded – milking, feeding, repairs and regular expensive visits from the vet.

The various seasons see tasks like ploughing, tilling and harvesting as well as the constant animal husbandry needed. There is a routine every day, but as the seasons flow into one another, those tasks change; winter tasks ebb away to be replaced by another demanding thing. The farm’s income was a constant worry, everything cost money, and they were dependent on getting a good milk yield every day. The investment in the milking parlour had to be paid for somehow. They have income from the animals that they breed and sell on, and they are often surprised by just how much some of the beasts they sell actually make.

Yet in the record of constant toil and graft are the simple pleasures of working outside in a beautiful part of the country. Morpurgo records the first faltering steps of a calf after it has just been born, the sunshine on the face after the squall has passed through and the tired satisfaction of having completed an honest day’s work.

The weather is a constant in the entries too, even now the hints that the climate was beginning to change are there, but not as severe as we are getting these days. The right weather was needed to get things done in good time, rain on the wrong day could spoil the hay, delay seed planting affect milk yields and stop necessary repairs from happening.

I really liked this, Morpurgo’s writing is sparse and yet he manages to convey all of the detail. I felt that the diary entries have an almost metronomic effect, but he does that without romanticising just how hard it is to work there. I liked that every month began with a poem from Ted Hughes – a moment to take stock of what is likely to happen that month. I particularly liked the pictures from James Ravilious. They portray life as it was then, warts and all. I highly recommend this.

4 out of 5 stars

This is another enjoyable escape to the village of Woodville, where we rejoin the villagers in the lead-up to Christmas. They have had quite the year so far, and are looking forward to the festivities whilst the war still rages overhead. However, the normal life of the village is going to be utterly ruined by the return of the Holly King. This demigod is not happy having been supressed for a long time and is going to use everything in his power to retake his woodland domain back.

Are the folks of Woodville not going to see this Christmas?

The plot was far more intense than the previous three books and I thought that the stakes were much higher for Faye and the other witches. It did strike me that there is not a huge amount of character development since the last book too, as they seem to be barely over the last drama as the next crisis arrives.

As with any series, the jeopardy in the story means that I know that the characters will emerge at the end of the story, but these books, as with any series are about the journey through the story. There was one bit that didn’t quite make sense to me, but as with the first three books, I really enjoyed my time in this world that Stay has created.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Even though the author is not a gypsy, there is an interesting conversation that he recounts in the introduction that he has with another gypsy when he says about writing this book. The man argues that a gypsy history should be written by a gypsy, and Harte agrees. But he asks who is going to write it, and the man agrees that it is unlikely that anyone at the moment has those skills needed, so it might as well be me, says, Harte.

This book, Travellers Through Time is a sympathetic history of these travelling people from Tudor times up until about a decade ago. They have never really fitted in this country in all that time, being seen as vagrants and delinquents. But behind that façade is a people who have their own morals and way of life. Just because it doesn’t fit with ours, doesn’t make it wrong.

If you know where to look you can find their stopping places all over the country, place names that have a link way back to where they stopped on their travels. Back in Tudor times, they walked, none of the beautiful caravans, they came much later

Their story in our county ebbs and flows between tolerance and persecution, but knowing what these people are actually like takes time and energy. Jeremey Harte has had that time to spend with them, to understand what makes them tick and I think that this book acts as a bridge between our way of life and theirs. He is seen as having a unique perspective given his integration with the community, understanding of their way of life and also detached enough to give it a proper perspective.

I thought this was a fascinating history. Each chapter takes us through a time range and there is a good selection of photos and art of well-known gypsies through the ages. He covers their language, way of life and significant milestones in their history in the country. I hadn’t realised that Gypsies were very active in the place where I grew up, Knaphill and in particular Chobham which is the next village along. If you want to learn about these people then this is a very good place to start and I also would suggest reading The Stopping Places by Damien Le Bas too.

Happy Leap Year to those that celebrate it… I tend to think of it as an extra day reading. February seemed to both fly and drag at times, but in terms of what I read, it was really good.  I  took the prompt from Kaggsy’s and Lizzy’s Literary Life about reading books from independent publishers. And I did, all the books listed below are from Indies and I have popped the publisher at the end. Do take a look at their website for a bundle of good reading. So here are the books:

Books Read

Crawling Horror: Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird – Ed. Daisy Butcher & Janette Leaf – 3 Stars (British Library)

Aromabingo – David Gaffney – 3 Stars (Salt)

As the Women Lay Dreaming – Donald S. Murray – 3 Stars (Saraband)

The Museum of Cathy – Anna Stothard – 3.5 Stars (Salt)

Where Furnaces Burn – Joel Lane – 4 Stars (Influx)

Footprints In The Woods: The Secret Life Of Forest And Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye – 3.5 Stars (Canongate)

All Around The Year – Michael Morpurgo – 4 Stars (Little Toller)

The Hero and the Girl Next Door – Sophie Hannah – 3 Stars (Carcanet)

The Narrow Smile: A Journey Back to the Northwest Frontier – Peter Mayne – 3.5 Stars (Eland)

Apple Island Wife: Slow Living In Tasmania – Fiona Stocker – 4 Stars (Unbound)

The Christian Watt Papers: Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife – Christian Watt, Ed. David Fraser – 4 Stars (Eland)

 

Book(s) Of The Month

There were several four star books this month and this by Iain just had the edge:

The Only Gaijin In The Village – Iain Maloney – 4 Stars (Birlinn)

 

Top Genres

I have only read seven genres so far this year with travel writing way ahead so far

Travel – 10

Fiction – 7

Natural History – 3

Poetry – 2

Biography – 1

Writing – 1

History – 1

 

Top Publishers

Salt – 2

Eland – 2

Bloomsbury – 2

Canongate – 1

Carcanet – 1

British Library Publishing – 1

Vintage – 1

Unbound – 1

Faber & Faber – 1

Little Toller – 1

 

Review Copies Received

Modern Fog – Chris Emery

Seaglass: Essays, Moments and Reflections – Kathryn Tann

Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them – Derek Gow

Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat – Christopher Hart

The Long Unwinding Road: A Journey Through the Heart of Wales – Marc P. Jones

Mystic Orchards – Jonathan Koven

Sunken Lands – Gareth E. Rees

 

Library Books Checked Out

Stone Will Answer: A Journey Guided by Craft, Myth and Geology – Beatrice Searle

All The Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between – Mike Parker

The Orchid Outlaw: On A Mission To Save Britain’s Rarest Flowers – Ben Jacob

Late Light: Finding Home In The West Country – Michael Malay

The Story of Silbury Hill – Jim Leary & David Field

Footmarks: A Journey Into Our Restless Past – Jim Leary

 

Books Bought

Dress & Textiles – Rachel Worth (Signed)

Techno-Feudalism What Killed Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis

Someone At A Distance – Dorothy Whipple

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor

52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time – Annabel Streets

Venice Sketchbook – Tudy Sammartini

A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast – Dorthe Nors

West with the Night – Beryl Markham

Trouble Brewing in the Loire – Tommy Barnes

Cairngorms: A Secret History – Patrick Baker

Discovering Hedgerows – David Streeter & Rosamond Richardson

The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook: Extended Edition – Ian Brodie (Signed)

First Overland: London-Singapore by Land Rover – Tim Slessor

North – Seamus Heaney

Discovering Prehistoric England: A Gazetteer of Prehistoric Sites – James Dyer

An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliyâ Çelebi – Evliyâ Çelebi & Ed. Robert Dankoff

Wild Geese: A Collection of Nan Shepherd’s Writing – Nan Shepherd

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life – Ryszard Kapuściński Tr. Klara Glowczewska

Dorset: The Isle of Purbeck – Rena Gardiner

High Street – J.M. Richards & Eric Ravilious

Tyneham: Dorset’s Ghost Village – Rodney Legg (Signed)

The Years – Annie Ernaux Tr. Alison L. Strayer

Mother Tongues – Helena Drysdale

An Englishman In Patagonia – John Pilkington (Signed)

In Search of Genghis Khan: An Exhilarating Journey on Horseback across the Steppes of Mongolia – Tim Severin

Venice: A Literary Guide for Travellers – Marie-Jose Gransard

Boneshaker – Cherie Priest

So are there any from that huge list above, that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.