Category: Review (Page 78 of 132)

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

To say we have dominated the globe would be an understatement. We have conquered the highest mountains, reached deep into the oceans, become one of the few mammals that can fly and even been in the unique position of having had a select number of people leave the planet when they ventured into space. We tend to think of ourselves as exceptional, but are we? When you look at it from a bigger perspective, we are a single twig on a four-billion-year-old family tree that has countless species and lots of dead ends. All of these from a single origin with a code that is the very heart of our existence; DNA.

Rutherford considers all the things that make us distinctive such as speech and communication, tool creation, art, fire, social skills and how sex has gone beyond just being for procreation. But if you look hard enough at the other species that we share this world with you can find traces of these habits where they exist. There are examples of tool usage in other primates, birds and even dolphins. He explains how raptor in Australia have learnt to move fire from one part of the landscape to another and where weapons have been used by all sorts of animals. He discusses how the various types of sex that it was only thought that the human race participated in also exist in other creatures and it makes for grim reading at times.

Our genes are a map and a history of our past. Looking into its mysteries can show all sort of things, like where genes that affect language are and what they do, just how much of us is Neanderthal and how many bits of our DNA we have acquired from elsewhere. We have come to dominate the rest of the world though, even though our roots are common. Even though he is rooting through the history of our cells, this books is just what a pop science should be; accessible, understandable and intriguing enough to make you want to go and discover more about certain aspects of the text. Another book that is well worth reading from Adam Rutherford.

4 out of 5 stars

As an independent publisher, Robson Books always punched way above their weight they seemed to be able to attract the most desirable authors and secure the best deals in the business. A lot of that was because of the driving force behind it, Jeremy Robson. But it almost never happened, he began in the law but after realising that he couldn’t bear it, ended up ill for three weeks before getting a lucky break to begin working for a publisher.

This lucky break into publishing was the beginning of a captivating fifty years in the world of books. He was fortunate to be supported by a friend, to start his own independent publishing house. When the property market faltered his father in law stepped in to keep the business going. It was there that he brought stars from screen and radio to the written page, people like Maureen Lipman and Alan Coren, Michael Winner and the Goons as well as international superstars like Mohammed Ali. H Robson Books even had positions one and two with books by Michael Caine and Mike Harding in the bestseller list in the runup to Christmas, the only change was when they swapped places.

This is a highly entertaining book about life as an independent publisher, full of life, laughter, people and most importantly books. As you’d expect, it is very readable too, full of the scrapes and near misses as well as the moments of success and the joy that the written word has brought to countless people who bought the books that they published. As well as the work, Robson brings in his own personal life too, with anecdotes that will make you smile when reading them. What it was like growing up in a wider Jewish community, his own family from grandparents to grandchildren and how it has bout great richness to his life. Well worth reading for an insider view of the publishing world.

2 out of 5 stars

Ned feels that he is at a dead end. The bedsit he lives in is a bit of a dump and he has pretty had enough of his job and he has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Grace. She had been fortunate enough to be bought a property by her parents, he cannot see any way that he will get on the property ladder anytime soon. A chance meeting in the street with the trainer from his gym reignites his interest in getting fitter and the Darius suggests that he takes a small quantity of steroids to give him the boost that he needs. Sceptical at first, he reads up about it and decides to take the plunge and buys his first lot over the web.

It takes a couple of weeks, but soon he can see that it is beginning to have an effect on his performance. He can lift more and go longer at the at the gym and the results are beginning to show. He is performing better at his job and bumping into a friend of Grace’s is the beginning of a new relationship. Then he has an idea for a business that could make him a fortune. Using his web skills he registers the website Gear4U and starts to build a campaign to promote the site selling his own bodybuilding products. What could possibly go wrong…

Astroturf is very much a book for blokes, it is full of laddish references and tropes. It is supposedly a funny book, but It barely made me smile when reading it. Ned as a character has a fairly low moral bar in the way he is prepared to take a very dubious line on the law when selling drugs. It wasn’t badly written, and is fairly short and really just a bit meh really.

4 out of 5 stars

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

A large proportion of my childhood was spent growing up next to the sea at a tiny place in Sussex called Normans Bay. This shingled beach gave way to sand as the tide went out and I spent many hours there, in, by and on the sea. In a country that is no more than seventy miles from the sea, I am not alone in having that strong affinity to its salty wildness. Charlotte Runcie is one of those who is lured to its calming and yet ever-changing waters. When she loses her beloved grandmother she relies on time spent by the coast as she grieves for her.

That longing becomes more intense as she falls pregnant with her first child and as she considers how the child within is growing in its watery haven. This leads onto exploring other streams, from folklore to wildlife, shipwrecks and saviours, mermaids to the people that rely on the sea for their livelihood. Each discovery leads onto further revelations and fascinations in subjects as diverse as shanties sung by trawlermen and sea glass, a material that once was crystal clear and now holds the memories of a thousand waves.

Runcie has delved back into the classics to bring us watery female icons for each of the seven sections and mixes up sea centred stories, personal anecdotes, and mythology alongside her diary as an expectant mother. The most intense piece of writing in the book was the recollection of her giving birth. I was very impressed, as for a debut quite it is very lyrical with moments of exquisite prose. Looking forward to reading more from her.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Arabia. Just the name sounds exotic, and it is a place of ancient history with human traces going back some 7000 years. The northern part of this land is considered the birthplace of civilisation and it is where three of the world’s religions. More recently though it has been the place of wars, either from external enemies or internal conflict. This makes it one of the most dangerous regions on the planet to travel in. When Levison Wood mooted the idea of travelling in the region to his friends he was met with either stunned silence of lots of swearing whilst questioning his sanity. They didn’t manage to persuade him to drop the idea though so he began to plan. Syria seemed a good place to start…

He wanted to follow in the steps of some of the great explorers of the Peninsula like Lawrence of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger and he was aiming to visit safe countries like Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates as well as venturing into the riskier ones like Yemen and Iraq. He has to take a minor detour on the route to Africa travelling across the Arabian Sea in a tiny dhow to Somalia. Through the tiny country of Djibouti and then onto Saudi Arabia where he was accompanied by a government representative through the country. Even with his chaperone, he still managed to get a good flavour of the country.

Next up was Jordan, where he spent the time hitchhiking from town to town across the country and seeing ancient ruins and dining with shepherds. The next country beckoned; Palestine. A chance meeting with a man called Saleh opened the opportunity for him to walk from Jericho to Bethlehem where he was to be reunited with his family for Christmas. After the celebration, he was back on the road and heading to the West Bank. The tension in Israel and Palestine is palpable and could be cut by a knife and walking through would give him the briefest insight into the situation there. That left one country to go back to go complete his journey around the region, and that was back to Syria…

This is an enjoyable book about his journey around the Arabian peninsula where he almost goes back to basics with travelling, relying on people that he meets to get him from one place to another. In his travels, he finds the common threads that link the cultures across the region as well as the significant differences in each of the peoples that make them unique. As with all of his other books it is worth reading for a perspective on our world that most people won’t get to experience.

3.5 out of 5 stars

As Fogle sat down at the table for a dinner at the Festival of Speed at Goodwood, he noticed that the space next to him was empty. The name said Victoria Gardener, someone he had never heard of. About 30 minutes later the person who was occupying that seat ran in and sat down. Turns out he had heard of her, but she was better known as Victoria Pendleton, the multiple gold medal-winning cyclist. They got chatting and hatched a plan together to head up the highest mountain on Earth. To do this Fogle needed to do two things, the first was to find someone who could help them do it. That was fairly straightforward as he roped in mountaineer Kenton Cool. The second was to persuade his wife, Marina that it was a really good idea…

It took a little persuasion, but she gave him the green light to prepare for the expedition. They would need to train in the Alps and other high mountain ranges before even making an attempt on the mountain and the team headed to La Paz in Bolivia. The plan was to conquer four mountains, with the final one being the 6500m Illimani which is a significant portion of what they would experience on Everest. This would give them the time that they needed to assess their own and the other team members performance at altitude. This was essential as the moment they went above the death zone on Everest all that preparation would be the fine line between succeeding and death.

The driving force behind Fogle in all the training and over the seven-week expedition to the roof of the world were the promises that he had made with Marina as he cradled his stillborn son, Willem. To be positive, to inspire, to embrace each day, to always smile, to live brightly and something that his grandmother had taught him, to always look up. And knowing that his family were waiting at home for him to return, gave him the inner strength that he needed.

Overall it is not a bad travel book, but it is as much about his personal journey and the relationship he has with Marina and their two children. Their stability means he has the chance to take on some amazing adventures, this being one of them. Having part of the book written by Marina is a nice touch too, she writes eloquently about the stresses and strains of having a husband most of the way up a mountain. We get so used to hearing about that author’s adventure, that we forget the normal life they have left behind. Still, an immense effort to stand on the roof of the world and a fitting tribute to his stillborn son.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Ishbel Holmes has had a rough upbringing. Her father left when she was young, and then her mother abandoned her because she didn’t seem to fit with her life. She was abused in the care system and survived through her tenacity. At the age of 21, she had a stark choice; die, or choose to live.

She chose the latter.

She made the decision to cycle the world even though she didn’t really have the resources or equipment to do it. Since then she has pedalled through 20 countries, cycled mountain passes and across salt plains all on a painfully small budget or sometimes no money at all. A spell cycling on the velodrome with the Iranian Team had some success but didn’t make her happy either. In Turkey though her solo ride around the world came to an end when a stray decided to follow her when she was cycling along. She assumed it was just following for a brief period of time. But it didn’t leave, even after she sprinted away, so in the end, she stopped and it caught her up. She set up camp, cooked food for herself and ate what she could. She saw the dog eating her leftovers and it lay down to sleep as she went to bed. Looking out the following morning, she couldn’t see it initially, but it was still there; perhaps she wasn’t going to be doing this alone after all.

So begins her adventures with this dog that she called, Lucy. She built a box to go on the front of the bike for her. The intention was to take her to an animal shelter where she could be properly cared for, and with the help of people all around the world on social media managed to get her there. However, there was something that didn’t quite add up with the shelter, so he headed back in the following day and took Lucy away. Now there were two of them for her to look after, once again people all around the world stepped in to help her and her new companion.

It is not the best-written book that I have read, but that is not the point of it. It is a heartwarming tale of a broken and abused woman whose four-legged companion opens her heart to a new world of possibilities. Lucy’s devotion to Ishbel heals her and shows her the positive side of humanity and this is what makes it a great book to read.

4 out of 5 stars

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

I have only read one of Jean Sprackland’s books before, her wonderful Strands, about her year of discoveries on a beach in the north west of England. That was non-fiction, but I have never read her poetry until this one.

The first thing to note is that the cover is very striking. At first glance, it looks like an insect, but on careful examination, you can see tiny brass cogs and gears. From that beginning, I knew that this was not going to be a conventional poetry book. This collection resonates with what she calls ‘Green noise’, some of the poems are seeking our place in the natural world, others are glimpses of a time now gone.

Has found instead a television

Flat out in the mud, and rimmed with moss.

He stands and watches a while

As clouds and crows flicker over the screen

It is quite something this book. This is the first of her poetry collections that I have read and this reinforces my original thought that Sprackland has an impressive command of the language which I had learnt from Strands. It draws from the undercurrents that are deep in the landscape and reflects our modern life. It is prose that deserves to be read out loud too.

Three Favourite Poems:

Remembering

Elderflower

Human Things

The striking image on the front cover is from this artist: https://www.mecre.ch/gallery/.

4 out of 5 stars

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

There comes a point in every anthropologist’s career when they have to stop looking at the academic papers or staring out the window and actually head out into the wide world. For Nigel Barley, a colleague posed the question, Why not go on fieldwork? He wasn’t sure if it was one of the perks of the job or a necessary evil like national service. Speaking to others in the department he would hear tales filtered through rose-tinted spectacles where the full horror of events in the field are tempered by time and probably alcohol…

But where to go? Africa was mentioned, and the island of Fernando Po seemed appealing, but the political situation there was deteriorating to say the least and getting shot at wasn’t on his list of things to do, so someone else suggested North Cameroon. A tribe there called the Dowayo, ticked lots of the boxes, strange coming of age rituals, pagan rituals, skull festivals and mummies. He began the task of doing more research and securing research funding. Barley needed to be stabbed by various medical professionals and two years after he started, he was on a plane to Africa.

On arrival in Cameroon, he had underestimated just how difficult it would be to get from the airport to the village. Forms were needed, lots of forms as well as being ‘aided’ by the officials who were more interested in reading the paper while the recent arrival slowly lost a large proportion of his wallet. Finally allowed entry to the country, he set about getting the provisions, an assistant and other items that he needed and headed off to the village. What he hoped would be a subtle entrance though, wasn’t when the whole village turned out to greet him.

There were lots of things that struck him immediately. Having been used to a more leisurely time of starting work in the UK, finding that the village was up and moving around 5.30 in the morning was a bit of a shock. And there was the language; he could not speak a word to begin with and as it was a tonal language he was going to struggle to do so too. But every so slowly he manages to master some of the words and amazed them by writing them down. The village slowly accepted him, almost to the point where he became an honorary resident. He started to understand more about the people and their way of doing things. Their rituals were quite unusual and one particular ceremony that made me wince quite a lot just reading it.

It is a really enjoyable book about a people that took Barley to heart as much as he did with them. He writes with a sharp wit and genuine warmth. One of the things that he speculates about is how the very act of observing the people you are there to study have an impact on the way they behave and hoehowe anthropologist can never be a passive observer. There are funny moments throughout the book, in particular, the accounts with the officials that he is dealing with and the exasperation at the speed of events in the constant battles against bureaucracy. Can highly recommend this.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Having failed to see the circumcision ceremony which marks the men of the Dowayo tribe transition from child to adulthood when he was there previously, Barley hears that it is due shortly to take place. Hot-footing it out to Cameroon again, he heads back to the village to see if he can witness this first hand. Re-installed in his square hut, that has been carefully ‘guarded’ by Zuuldibo, he picks up life there once again. It was almost like he had never been away, the friendly familiar faces popped by hoping for him to be a generous as he was the first time he visited…

However, details on the wince-inducing process of circumcision, like where it was going to take place and when, are very elusive so whilst waiting for the nod that it was on, he finds other things to do to fill the time. One on the list to do was a visit to the neighbouring Ninga tribe. It was said that the men did not have any nipples, but he felt that he needed to see this for himself and to endeavour to elicit some of the reasons behind this practice. However, his assistant, Matthieu continued to advise against travelling to this other village, but he persisted and finally got to meet the chief. He understood Barley’s desire to learn the customs of the village, but payment would be required; perhaps a large sum of francs for a goat?

This mini-adventure along with taking a primate to the cinema, the possibilities of solar power, a novel repair to his teeth, seeing the response of the village when the UN showed a short film about the perils of malaria and the influx of insects that gave the book its title. It has the same sharp wit of the previous book where we were first introduced to the Dowayo, but with a few more funny anecdotes and is a Thoroughly enjoyable sequel to his first book Like with all societies, what seems barbarous and cruel to us, is a way of life to another people. In the same way, a lot of our routines and habits are equally strange and mysterious to them and the humour that lies in the cracks and fissures of misunderstanding.