Category: Review (Page 80 of 132)

3.5 out of 5 stars

There is something about drystone wall that fit the countryside they inhabit. They are self-supporting structures that look simple to make, however, it is a craft that takes a while to master to ensure that they are strong and safe. Making them look beautiful though is another level up again. At the age of twenty-six, Whitney Brown had never seen a dry stone wall, let alone met a met a dry-stone waller. But chance meant that whilst helping at the Smithsonian Folk Festival she was introduced to a contingent of Welsh people including a female blacksmith and a man called Jack. 

She was going through an emotional time and feeling the urge to smash things with a hammer would stop by to learn a little about how it was done. As they got talking they started to learn more about each other’s home country and by the end of the festival, Brown knew that all she wanted to head to the Welsh hills to learn about this craft. Declining a position at the Smithsonian, her parents tried to dissuade her from heading across the Atlantic, but she was smitten by the look of the countryside and could not think of any other way of quenching her burning desire on how to learn how to make dry stone walls.

Dry stone walling though is a tough job, but Brown grew to love it. The physical effort of shifting tonnes of stones took its toll on her body along with the wear and tear on her hands. She grew to love the countryside that she ventured out in every day, often getting cold and frequently wet (especially in Wales). She had the companionship of Jack who was twice her age, but more importantly the fellowship of the women in the local area who took her under their wings and carried her in her lowest ebbs.

This is a warm and touching memoir of a lady who completely fell in love with a country and a craft. It is raw and emotional too, as she wears her heart on her sleeve for a lot of the book, detailing the positive and the negatives of being so far from home and in the company of strangers. She was determined to take back what she has learnt on the hillsides of Wales and make a career from back in America, and it is something she has achieved judging by the impressive structures completed on her website.. She is one impressive lady who has the eye of an artist and the muscles of a waller.

3.5 out of 5 stars

In William Thomson’s first book, The Book of Tides,  he took us a journey around the coast of Britain exploring the sea and the tides of our country. But there is a whole world out there that is covered by ocean and in this book he sets out to introduce us to the most amazing places around the globe and their tides.

Ironically he begins in the places where there are no tides. Because of their specific geographical location. These points are called amphidromic and there are a dozen around the world, mostly in the middle of the oceans, apart from one around the coast of New Zealand. From this beginning, we will find the coasts with the greatest tidal ranges in the world, the most impressive and most deadly tidal bores, and the strongest whirlpools. He explains what happens when two oceans meet and what the immense forces can do to the seas at those points. There are chapters on Tsunami’s, rip tides and ocean currents.

Once again it is full of excellent infographics that explain clearly the way the part of the ocean that he is describing. It is a beautifully produced book, with the layout that worked so well in the first volume. If there was one flaw, I felt that there was a little too much overlap with his first UK based book, that said though, one. this is a great companion volume to that one.

4 out of 5 stars

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

We have had some great politicians and Prime Ministers over the years and, how should I put this, some less than great ones too. Especially recently… Go back a few years though and you will find most political leaders of our country were also great statesmen too, working for the greater good of the country regardless of their particular hue of party. Several politicians spring to mind, but one that doesn’t often is Clement Richard Attlee. Born in 1883 in Putney to Henry Attlee and Ellen nee Watson, he was the seventh of eight children. He was educated at Northaw School, then Haileybury College; and before getting a degree in modern history from University College, Oxford. From there he trained as a barrister and worked at his father’s company and was called to the bar in 1906.

He served in The Great War, whilst his brother Tom was imprisoned for being a conscientious objector but was fortunate twice to escape heavy action that saw a lot of his regiment perish. The law was not where his passion lay though, having seen the poverty in the East End of London it inspired him to become politically active and he was first elected to the House of Commons in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse. Two years later he became a junior minister and a few years after that became a cabinet minister for the first time. Shortly after in 1931, the Labour Party were defeated in a general election, but Attlee held his seat. Four years later he was to become the leader of that party.

As tensions rose in Europe in the 1930s, he preferred pacifism and opposed rearmament, but was later to reverse his position. He became a strong critic of Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler and Mussolini and after war broke out joined the war coalition serving under Churchill as Deputy Prime Minister. In 1945 after the end of the war in Europe the, coalition fractured and a general election was called.  Churchill expected to win, but he didn’t, and Attlee had a landslide victory.  His time as Prime Minister would prove to be the most progressive of all that held that position that century.

Bew has studied his subject in almost intimate detail and not just the written about the time that he spent as Prime Minister. The thorough research goes into the background that drove this fairly unassuming man to the political stance and outlook that he took consistently all his life. There are snippets and anecdotes that fill in the gaps from the official stories as well as lots of details from the life that he lived outside politics. It also goes some way to disproving the claim from those that opposed him that he had no intellectual or political footing, instead it shows a man of strong principles and rigor. For anyone with an interest in political history, this is a balanced and objective view of a man who should be considered the most radical PM of the 20th century.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Round One

In his training for the fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden, McBee joined the Church Boxing Gym. It is in downtown Manhattan and in underground down several flights of stairs. There are several rings in the room and it is covered with posters of fighters long forgotten.  It is a place that oozes testosterone, echoes to the sound of people working out and sparring and the aroma of stale sweat permeates the place.

Round Two

Mangual and the other guys training him admired his energy and enthusiasm and were fully behind him for this match. Thomas Page McBee was learning how to punch, how to get hit, when to defend and when to strike. Every time he entered the ring he learnt a little more about what makes a man, what makes them resort to a physical way of dealing with issues and why some sorts of masculinity were toxic. But McBee had not been completely open with those training him; when they said he had balls facing the other guys in the ring, it turns out that he didn’t.

Round Three

Because McBee was trans.  After a lifetime of being, but not feeling female and having had surgery and testosterone and hormones that he started at the age of 30, he finally got a new birth certificate at the age of 31 declaring the sex he always knew he was. But there is more depth to this book than just his personal journey across the gender divide. He uses it to ask wider questions as to why men are as they are, how women’s perception of him changed and how culture and stereotypes should not always define who we are or who we aim to be.

4 out of 5 stars

Normally the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the Dark Stuff is Guinness. What Murray thinks of though, is peat. This decomposed vegetable matter is formed on acidic and very wet ground, but when dried can then become fuel and is the strong scent in the delightful Islay whiskies. He had grown up with them in Scotland all around him and even fell in a few. But these moorlands that make up swathes of our uplands in our country and Ireland also exist in Europe and all around the world.

These moorlands have affected and influenced people for hundreds of years. Not only have they provided the fuel to heat and cook with, but they have been a focal point for ritual and darker matters in the past as well as inspiration for stories, art, poetry and folk tales. Murray takes us on a path through his own personal history of moors when growing up on the Isle of Lewis as well as peering into the murk to discover the cultural history and investigates the science and the crucial role they play in our climate. The challenge of keeping these fragile environments going and meeting the balance of economic needs of the local populations  is a difficult one given just how much carbon they are capable of storing

The book does weave around, just like the path that you would take through a bog, but it doesn’t lessen the impact of what Murray does here in telling us of his love for these places. There are fine illustrations from Douglas Robertson and a smattering of his own poems throughout the book which nicely adjusts the pace. Overall a fascinating book of a part of the landscape that is often overlooked.

3 out of 5 stars

Just being alive is a fight, but it is often a fight that you are unaware of until you feel a few degrees under and have a temperature.  That is the thing that keeps you alive working, your immune system. It is a complex marvel of nature and is something that scientist have really started getting to grips with, with painstaking research and a few lucky and intuitive breakthroughs. This new understanding of our immune system is now unlocking the keys to dramatically different approaches to our health and well being.

Daniel Davis is an expert in this field, and it shows in this book which is an in-depth look at the way that our bodies work in keeping us safe. He covers the history of our understanding of how they think it all works and brings us right up to date with the very latest discoveries. These are not only details on the very latest drug trials, but how lifestyle and mindfulness can play their part in our health and resilience against diseases. There is a long way to go, and there will no doubt be many more revelations as scientists delve deeper. It does have a strong narrative and Davis does mix the complex science with real-life stories. Even though most of it was clear, I did feel it got a bit too technical at times for me but the majority was straightforward 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.

The United Kingdom has a habit of acquiring things from all around the world and keeping them; just take a look in any museum… But one of the things that we are very good at keeping is words and phrases, incorporating them into English and calling them our own. So far not many have objected, but how they ended up in the English language and where they came from is a story in its own right. Paul Anthony Jones is well placed to tell us too. He has chosen eighty well-known ones and is about to embark on an etymology world tour.

Starting in London with the Kent Street ejectment, Europe beckons where we will learn the origins of the phrases and words, zabernism, ampster, Abderian laughter and where the colour magenta is from. Nipping across the straits of Gibraltar, tangerines and Algerines enter the lexicon. It is bedlam in the Middle East and doolally in India, before reaching Xanadu in the Far East. There is a brief sojourn through the islands of the Pacific and then onto the Americas for yet more bunkum. Heading back over the pond is an opportunity to collect the final few words in this 70,000-mile tour de lexicon around the planet.

Paul Anthony Jones has written another cracker of a book for the lovers of words and language. There are scores of fascinating details on the words he has traced and much more from each location as we head around the globe with him. If you weren’t a word nerd before, reading this should make you one. It would have been nice to have a map showing the route round the world too.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Even as I look out of my office window I can see five trees in the immediate vicinity. Two are apple trees in my front garden and there are three small trees across the road on the public space. Along with our feather friends, they are still a part of the natural world that you can still see every day, even in a city; hence why we still feel a deep connection to them and the responses to them being removed in Sheffield from the streets. It is these connections that are deep within our subconscious that Stafford is celebrating. Through seventeen species of trees, including apple, poplar, ash, elm and of course oak, we will learn a little about the folklore, history and use of these trees through the ages.

There is a lot to like about this book, Stafford writes well and has filled it with lots of fascinating facts and snippets about her chosen trees. On top of that, there is lots of art and photos scattered throughout the book. Whilst it was an interesting read, for me though I felt that it lacked depth, but it is a good overview of a number of varieties of trees.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Spying is supposedly the second oldest profession, and the smoke and mirror world has inspired countless authors and films of this world where no one can trust anyone else. In this brave new digital world, gone are a lot of the old techniques and tradecraft, instead, the spooks are sifting our mind-boggling quantities of data looking for the ghosts in the machines. Except they aren’t always there. However, having a human perspective on the world around you is still an advantage. An expert operative who can determine the wheat from the digital chaff is still invaluable and in this book, Grey, takes us on some of the nail-biting missions and how having the right person in the right place at the most appropriate moment is still the way to win against enemies real and virtual.

Grey also considers where espionage is heading too. The ability of modern agencies to hoover up vast amounts  of data from every phone call, web page and email means that they are drowning in data, so much so that they do miss things. Gone are the days when these was state verses state with fairly clear, if blurred lines and long term goals that could be met. Now it is state verses small cells of a disparate organisation that do things very differently and modern spies may have missions that only last a few months. But still the key is still using human judgement that draws from intelligence from people on the ground, proper analysed signals intelligence along with other elements and combining them to form the best picture of what is happening. Overall an interesting book about a sector that still likes to hide in the shadows.

4 out of 5 stars

It was supposed to be a positive move, but Helen’s new job in Oxford feels like a bit of a dead end. Uninterested in the office politics and finding the work tedious she is looking for something to inspire her once again. Having helped a friend look after a few hives, having a colony of bees of her own really appeals, however they are an expensive hobby, especially when starting from scratch. However, the generosity of her friends, who club together to buy a colony of bees for her, gives that spark of enthusiasm for the project. A hive is purchased, delivered and built ready for the for the influx of these winged wonders. And then late spring cam round, and it was time to go and collect her present.

However, will they like their new home? There are a few nervous moments as she checks each week to see if they are surviving and it turns out that they want to stay there, but take a while to fully expand into their new residence. Spending time watching the bees as they go about their business adds a different perspective to Helen’s life. It also prompts her to start finding more out about the history of bee-keeping. On one research trip to London, she meets with a friend of a friend and tentatively there is a blossoming of friendship.

Not only is this an exploration of the hive and the bee, but this is a tender and personal memoir of Helen’s life and a touching story of her falling in love; something that she wasn’t expecting when the thought of having a beehive of her own occurred to her. I thought that it was really sensitively written too as well as being well researched and positive story. Can highly recommend it.