Category: Review (Page 91 of 132)

Walking Home: My Family and Other Rambles by Clare Balding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having been brought up with horses and ended up working with them Clare Balding spent a lot of her time on the back of one or heading to the next racecourse to watch more. But in 1999 she took a call from a radio producer asking if she ever walked anywhere. ‘Well, I walk the dog…’ was her reply. From that call, the Radio 4 series Ramblings came about.

It is still going strong all these years later and has clocked up a huge 36 series so far. She has managed to walk 1500 miles along footpaths that are well-known paths like the Pennine Way to ones that are local and special to the people that accompany her on the perambulations. There have been blisters, soakings, minor injuries and one moment when walking with a ranger who walked at twice her pace though she was going to die!

Whilst her walks have taken her all over the country, in all weathers, the thing that makes this series work so well is the people that she meets on the walks. There have been choirs, novelists, poets, couples, small groups who are using the medical elements of walking to cope with all sorts of issues from bereavement to those recovering from mental health issues. She has collected litter with David Sedaris and walked backwards and barefoot, but never naked. Clare is accompanied by Lucy and her furry microphone

Woven into the tales of other places, are stories of family life and her partnership with Alice and her time spent presenting the Olympics and other sporting events. Clare and her brother’s intention to finally tackle the Wayfarer’s Walk that is close to the place she grew up. This is not a taxing read, rather an entertaining and in parts a very very funny stroll through some beautiful countryside and a passing glimpse into people’s lives and how and why they walk.

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The Seabird’s Cry: The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Life on the open ocean is harsh relentless and unforgiving. To survive there takes resilience and millennia of evolution. Seabirds are masters of this environment, relishing the storms that drive the vast ships to save havens, navigating ten of thousands of miles, and when they do touch land inspiring those that see the fight as a species to survive to the next generation.

Nicolson has been fascinated by these utterly wild birds since visiting and then inheriting The Shiants, the Hebridean islands just of the coast of Lewis and seeing the kittiwakes and gannets and other seabirds that use the speck of land for nesting, he came to love all these birds that inhabited the islands and places that he loved. Beginning with the fulmar, a bird which he would watch for hours swirling around off the cliffs of the Shiants, he considers the lives and fortunes of ten of the seabirds, including the guillemot, gulls, shearwaters, the colourful puffins and the master of the southern ocean, the albatross. Weaving together the history of these birds along with cultural aspects, folklore, poetry and the latest that science has revealed about their habits and habitat.

Using the latest miniature technology to track the epic journeys they make, and some of these are vast, far out into the Atlantic using the trade winds to travel vast distances with little or no effort. Whilst this book is a celebration of their dogged existence and mastery against the elements; it is also a warning. As climate change bites harder these birds are beginning to suffer as the food they need to raise their young becomes scarce or it takes much longer to reach. They are also suffering because of the amount of plastic that is clogging up our oceans too, with a rise in young being found with bellies full of waste that they just cannot get rid off. Each chapter is illustrated by the beautiful drawings of Kate Boxer the simple imagery capturing the essence of the bird. There is lots of detail packed in this timely book, but Nicolson is such a quality writer that it doesn’t feel like a chore reading it. For me, I think that Sea Room just has the edge on this one, but like that book, his deep love for the birds that inhabit the wild windswept places is evident in the book; how much longer we will have them is not yet know.

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Tiny Britain by Dixe Wills
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 a small country we have an awful lot of places to visit, but how do you sort the good from the bad, the quirky and interesting from the dull and tedious. This book is a good place to start. Following on from his other books concentrating on the ‘Tiny’ parts of Britain this one is all about the attractions that fit the criteria of places to go when you only have half an hour.

There are all sorts of different attractions in here to tempt you to move away from the mainstream, caves, piers, cinemas including one in a caravan, museums in telephone boxes, the cliff side hut of an opium-smoking vicar and the smallest county. There are railways, short ferry crossings and a bus service that if you miss you will have a very long wait for the next one. Some of the best views in the UK can be seen from a small slate bridge in the Lake District and he visits another bridge where a bear of very little brain gave us a game that amuses children and adults alike. Should all this travelling about be too much and you need a break, there are recommendations for some of the smallest pubs in Britain too.

This is another classic quirky and informative travel book by Dixe Wills. It is full of photos of the places that he is recommending to visit with clear instructions on how to find them. There is something in here for everyone, and if you have read and liked any of his other books on Tiny places then this book would be right up your very small street.

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ReWild: The Art of Returning to Nature by Nick Baker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the Western world, the majority of people have become remote from the natural world. Rather than walk the paths and see the vistas from the hills, inhale the smell after summer rain. Or listen to the wind rustling the leaves and hear the sound of water running over rocks, most opt to stay inside, bathed in the blue-white light from their screens rather than absorbing the vitamin D from the sun.

The concept of rewilding in terms of adding the top level predators back into wild has been expertly covered in George Monbiot’s book, Feral. Baker does touch on that at the beginning of the book, but this primary focus in here is getting you out into the forests and on the moors and giving tips to maximise your enjoyment of the places you visit by using all your senses.

The capability of enhancing your senses lies within all of us, something that Baker realised when he had a close encounter with a bear in Alaska and in that moment all his senses came alive. He has various suggestions that will aid you in improving the way that you perceive the world around you. Some of them are sensible, learning to really see what is there, starting to use your ears to hear the myriad of sounds that surround you, even in what most consider to be silence. Not seeing is equally important; spending time in the twilight as it gets dark and letting your eyes adjust, gives a very different perception of the landscape around you; it also heightens your other senses. There are chapters on the senses that we tend to omit when we do venture outdoors, touch and taste.

He recommends walking barefoot along a woodland path and taking time to feel the texture of the things around. Taste is one sense that you rarely use outdoors; something that Terry Pratchett. Summed up in his quote when he said: All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once, but this applied to real life as people generally aren’t willing to take the risk trying things when out in the wild. He does recommend it, tasting different leaves in a sensible and controlled way, but I really wouldn’t recommend slugs as he tried on one trip!!

It is not a bad book overall, he has some useful ideas about how to make ourselves more open to the natural world by using all of our senses as we walk through a glade or up a Tor. The writing is uncomplicated, making it fairly straightforward to read, but it doesn’t sparkle. The addition of the accident that his family suffered from was almost a superfluous addition to the text, it felt like it was shoehorned in. The points he was making were covered elsewhere. Not a bad read, and adds to the collective that getting out in the natural world is good for your soul.

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Austral by Paul McAuley
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 newest nation on Earth is on the Antarctica Peninsula, a place that has now been made habitable by global warming, rising sea levels and the advent of ecopoets. These genetically modified humans had special adaptions to cope with the extreme cold and climate at the far south of the planet. Seen as sub-human, they were despised and feared by the rest of the population.

Austral Ferrado is a second generation ecopoet, or husky, as they are often called, and she has been in and out of prison as a convict and a is now corrections officer. Always skirting at the edge of the law she has been involved with the criminal mastermind there, Keever, he has a favour to ask and it is going to be one she cannot refuse. He wants her to speak to Deputy Alberto Toom, who is her uncle, as he arrives and the disturbance that will cause will be a distraction helping Keever make his escape. Except Austral has a something that she is keeping from Keever, a secret that could threaten her life if he knew.

Instead, she abandons the plan when she realises what is going to really happen, and almost by accident, kidnaps Kamilah, Toom’s teenage daughter. Now on the run with her cousin, Kamilah is her ticket off Antarctica. She is going to be reliant on all her skills to stay ahead of the authorities and Keevers gang in the forests and across icy plateaus of the peninsula, but even though all their tech is off to stop them being tracked, there is still someone who knows where they are.

This alternative spin on a dystopian future set on the continent of Antarctica is a great concept by McAuley, he has taken what will become mankind’s greatest challenge in the coming years and places a thriller story on it. The geoengineering that humanity had tried has not worked as they thought; some think because they shouldn’t have bothered and others in the story think that they didn’t go far enough. On this bleak future is the story of Austral, a woman driven by wanting to get what she feels she is owed. The plot is essentially a thriller and it is varied, fast paced and action packed at times and at others slow as she gets to know her cousin and fills in the backstory. He has managed to get a society that blends high tech elements with the low tech way that most people will be living. I am not a huge fan of thrillers, twists and turns aside, it is fairly straightforward to predict where they are going, but that shouldn’t put you off reading this alternative future.

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The Little Book Of Camper Van by Michael Heatley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As style icons go there are not as many that are as cool as the VW Camper van. First made in 1950 and called the Type 2, as the Beetle was the Type 1, it was based on a sketch by Ben Pon a Dutch importer of Volkswagens. From these humble beginnings as a work vehicle with just over half a tonne of load capacity, but versions were made that became ambulances, flatbeds and even hearses. The split screen with the two side doors was the first and production ran until 1967 with all sorts of variants. It became known as the T1 and the next model was the T2, and was quickly names the bay window. This morphed into the T3 the more boxy looking van. The T4 was the first of the front-engined and front wheel drive model that has now become the T6 in it’s most recent iteration.

This is quite a short book with an overview of every model and the camper versions that were made by official partners and third-party companies. It is full of colour photos of typical models and talks a little about the Surf and hippy culture that adopted these versatile vans. I own a T4 and was given this as a gift, but it is kind of an odd book in some ways. There is not enough depth on the subject in here for a dedicated fan, neither are there enough photos for someone who is not so worried about the history so much. It does come with a DVD and that isn’t bad either.

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Citizen Science: How Ordinary People are Changing the Face of Discovery by Caren 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.

The last experience that most people had with science would have been at school, where for a fair proportion of those studying it really couldn’t get along with it. One maxim that I had heard to differentiate between the three core subjects was: if it moves it is biology, if it smells it is chemistry and if it doesn’t work it is physics. So the thought of getting involved in science in any shape or form has some people reeling. Yet you can; you don’t need a PhD or even a degree all you need is a fascination and curiosity for the world around you and anyone anywhere in the world can contribute.

In this book, Caren Copper tells the stories of the ways that normal people are getting involved in science projects. In this way, they are challenging the academic norms on how and more importantly who can collect scientific data. There are stories of people who have been collecting weather data for decades all around the United States, and how these thousands of daily records are showing worrying trends for more unstable weather. We learn of people who use spare computer power to run through protein folding sequences to assist scientists when they are creating the latest drugs. Nature lovers who wanted to ensure that turtles could lay their eggs in safety begun collecting the plastics and in particular the nurdles, that were being washed up in startling volumes on the beaches, a pressing environmental concern at the moment given the longevity of plastics.

People have always contributed to medical research, often unaware too, but there is now active participation in drug trials with people wanting to help others who will be suffering the same illnesses further down the line. Collective action by communities by people who are being made ill by companies who still pollute the atmosphere and waters is covered in one chapter, showing that how keeping records and having it backed up by scientific and government authority can make a difference. Details of migratory birds and butterflies that are observed by enthusiastic individuals add to the bigger picture that science understands about the twice-annual flow of life around the planet.

Probably the sphere of science that an amateur can have the most impact in is astronomy. All over the globe thousands of people every night head outside hoping for clear skies to observe the majesty of the night sky. Their observation are just as important as the astronomers who have control over the largest telescopes in the world. Even those who are averse to heading out can get involved too; there are websites that people can log onto to assist in verifying types of galaxies, something that us mere humans can do much better than computers at the moment. In fact, amateurs are so important in this field that they often appear on the peer-reviewed papers alongside the ‘real’ scientists.

Science is not as scary as you think and thankfully Copper has written a fascinating book that shows how you, yes you, can be involved in science. There are a list of resources in the back of the book and websites where you can go to find out more and sign up. It is American centric, but there are some links below where you can find out more:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/citize…

https://blog.rsb.org.uk/everyones-a-s…

https://www.britishscienceassociation…

https://www.zooniverse.org

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Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some are getting too much, most aren’t getting enough. No, I don’t mean that; what I am talking about is sleep. There are people out there who seem to be able to exist on almost no sleep, people who are in the office at stupid o’clock in the morning and who are still up way after midnight. While scientists knew that we needed food and water and could explain why, no one could adequately explain why we slept, what purpose it served.

It is only recently though that scientists have been able to understand through decades of cutting-edge research just how key sleep is to our health and well-being. In essence, sleep is an essential element to our well being and health and in this book, Professor Matthew Walker sets out just how important it is and how most common diseases in the modern western world have roots deep within our lack of sleep. In this he will explain just what the different sleep types are and how they help us think over deeper and long-term issues, the effects of stimulants on our sleep and why do most teenagers drive like they are missing part of their brain? Because they are… It takes deep sleep and developmental time to accomplish the neural maturation that plugs this brain ‘gap’ in the frontal lobe. There is a fascinating demonstration on how lack of sleep can affect how we perform; he shows that sleep deprivation can have an equivalent effect to alcohol when driving.

Walker recommends that we need around eight hours each night; I normally only have about six hours sleep a night, heading to bed around midnight and being startled into life as the alarm screams at 6.15. Reading this has made me think about the best way to increase that given the potential health benefits of sleep. Did like the fact that a sleep graph is called a hypnogram. Generally, it is very well written too, he takes time to explain in a clear manner the points that he is making but occasionally it drifts towards more academic prose. If you have trouble sleeping or are just fascinated by the way the body works then you should read this.

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Mysterious Britain: Ancient Secrets of the United Kingdom and Ireland by Janet Bord
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The phrase, the past is a foreign country is completely true when you venture way back into English history. There are strange standing stones and circles that are still visible in the landscape, ancient earthworks, churches with pagan marks and wells that still have ritual significance even today. Even though modern archaeological techniques and science can go some way to explaining the sites, there is still so much we do not know or can even comprehend.

When this was published way back in 1974 they knew even less then, but there was plenty of speculation as to the origins of the stones, burials and henges. Some of the suggestions in here as to the original purpose of the place would not even be entertained now, for example there is way too much nonsense on UFO’s and Ley Lines. Hence it is now quite outdated, but I have had it sitting on a shelf for a decade and a half and though I had better read it. Extracting it from there reminded me a little of Time Team! What I did like though were the photos of the places, they harked back to a time before visitor centres and information boards and were often quite atmospheric.

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Among the Summer Snows by Christopher Nicholson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Snow? In the summer? It sounds like climate change gone mad and given the weather recently it could be quite feasible. However, this is not the snow that Christopher Nicholson seeks. Most of the snow doesn’t last past the summer, clearing before the winter returns, but he is obsessed with the finding those patches of snow in the Scottish Highlands that are left over when the rest have gone and because of the size managed to survive all year.

Nicholson heads alone into the hills braving the elements, it is late summer after all, in search of these ghostly remains of winter. Not every year has them though, a warming climate is ensuring that, but the ones he finds vary in size from a few feet across to huge ones that you can get in underneath. Some of these patches of snow have been there for years, the layers building up to create some truly deep drifts. There are even some that you can crawl under bathing you in this eerie blue-white light as is passes through the ice; they have even been called snow cathedrals.

I have been high in the French Alps in July and see pockets of snow and where we were in Tignes there was a glacier where they were still skiing on. To read about snow pockets was something that I had never expected that we still had in Scotland. There is more to this book than that though, there are musings on the weather, other walkers and a touching tribute to his late wife too. All through the book are hauntingly beautiful photos of the snow caves that he finds on his walks and the fragments of snow set against the dramatic landscape of the Scottish mountains.

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