Category: Review (Page 92 of 133)

Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is easy to spot a bookworm at a party, they are looking for the first opportunity to slide off to a quiet room or a comfortable seat and fish their book out of their bag where they can immerse themselves in the latest fictional creations. It is not recommended to disturb them as this could be detrimental to your health, just to leave drinks in the close vicinity. And maybe some snacks.

I took the news and the list to my parents. ‘I’m going to need all of these,’ I said gently

Lucy Mangan is a complete bookworm and has been for as long as she remembers. For her, the worlds that books opened up were places of adventure and full of magic or a place of safe haven where real life seldom ventured. If she had to go out it was invariably to the library or the bookshop to acquire more reading material. They were a source of information too, a way of learning how different people reacted to different situations. The more that she read, the more that she wanted to read further; the discovery of a first book in a series would be a moment of joy as another seam of stories would be mined. As well as books for birthdays, her dad generously provided books on an almost weekly basis, introducing new authors to her. It seems like she hasn’t got rid of many of these either as she has 10,000 books, yes TEN THOUSAND books at home!

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one. ― George R.R. Martin

I wasn’t a complete bookworm as a child like Lucy was, I read a fair amount as a child, but unlike her, did venture outside to play on bikes and climb trees. However, reading books like this means that I can trawl my memories of the books that formed a part of my formative reading experience. I had some overlap with Lucy’s reading, Blyton and CS Lewis to name but two of the authors that we have both have read. I remember being forced to read some dire books at school, but memories of others came like Swallows & Amazons, Stig of the Dump, the Willard Price Adventure books, Adrian Mole and even the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone books that began with the Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

All of my reminisces about childhood books aside, if you’re a book lover of any form then you will almost certainly get something from this book and that alone makes it worth reading. Do though be warned there are spoilers for some of the books she talks about and hopefully, you will look fondly back on the books of your childhood too. 3.5 stars.

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My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is 1981 and Leon has just acquired a baby brother, Jake. They are living with their mother, Carol, who is struggling as the father of Jake has shown no interest at all in his son. Just how much she is struggling is made very apparent when Leon turns up at a friend of hers asking for money for sweets. Tina goes back home with him to find Carol a nervous wreck and in need of help. As she gets the medical attention that she desperately needs Leon and Jake are placed into care.

Their new ‘mum’ is Maureen, a red-haired older woman with a heart of gold, but as good as a job as she does with them both, Leon knows that it is not the same as having your mum there. Life is about to change again; Leon is half-cast and Jake is white so social services decide that Jake will be suitable for adoption. Jake is adopted fairly quickly and Leon loses his final family member and feels very alone.

Just when he is at his lowest ebb and doesn’t think it can get any worse, Maureen is taken seriously ill and admitted to hospital. Leon moves to her sister Sylvia’s house and has another bedroom and routine to get used to. He is now a little older and gets given a bike that means that he can travel and explore the local area. It is on these jaunts out that he discovers the local allotments and the men that frequent this place, Me Devlin and Tufty and the wonders that exist in their sheds. As exciting as these places are, what he really wants is to find Jake and bring them both back to his mum so they can be a family once again.

This heartwarming story deals in a beautiful way with a whole raft of issues from race to identity, belonging and the care systems in the 1980’s. It is full of happy and sad moments, as Leon comes up against a care system that didn’t want to keep families together at that time. Whilst de Waal has written this story of Leon with passion and care, it is not a sugar-coated tale either. The 1980’s references of events and objects are tempered by the visible racial tension in the prose between the police and the local residents. Would highly recommend this to anyone wanting a story from the perspective of most people’s lives back in those days.

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Girl With Dove: A Life Built By Books by Sally Bayley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

When Sally Bayley was around the age of four, her baby brother, who had been put in the garden in his pram near the roses, suddenly vanishes. This single incident was pivotal in changing Sally’s life; her mother went to bed ‘for a very long time’. This was just one of a series of events that Sally had; to say she had an unconventional upbringing would be an understatement. The house close to the sea where she lived with her mother and other siblings was dilapidated and filthy, they shared it with Aunt Di, a hippy with plenty of charisma and influence, her grandmother and what seemed to be a never-ending stream of people. No men were allowed to live in the house, though on rare occasions, one might be permitted to visit, including her father once, though that was marred with peculiarities.

To cope with this Sally lost herself in a world of books. On discovering Agatha Christie she turns detective to try and discover what had happened to her brother. Reading Jane Eyre is the beginning of a journey into the rich landscape of Victorian literature. These characters that she discovers in the covers of the books offer comfort and friendship, something that is lacking in her chaotic home life. She takes a look at herself in the mirror one day and all of a sudden she realises that the pale apparition staring back is her. This sliver of a girl takes herself to the doctor; something that never happened as visiting the doctor was forbidden in her family. Realising that things are really not right, she seeks further help and hands herself into care.

The first two parts of the book have a vague narrative as she weaves between fictional characters and the reality of her life as a child in that messed up house. It is not particularly easy to follow, it was almost like reading the story through a fogged up mirror at times. I fully understand why she has written it this way, it reflects just what she was experiencing when living in that household. The final part of the book is the most visceral though, as Sally realises that this is not normal and the act of involving outside parties to help provokes the ire of the matriarchs of the household. It did make me wonder just how these children were under the radar of the authorities for so long. There are elements that Bayley does not revisit in the final part and that left me wondering what had happened. These blurry memories are her recollection of a childhood that many others would have preferred to have forgotten.

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Swansong by Kerry Andrew
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Polly Vaughan has ended up in Scotland with her mother after a disturbing incident in London. Whilst she is there she is intending to try to wrestle with her coursework to try to get her grades back into shape. Almost immediately though she begins to question what this place is, after seeing a man sitting on a stump plucking and dismembering a bird. But she has other things on her mind and sets about seeking sex, drink and drugs, something that the barman in the pub is happy to assist with.

Living miles from anywhere is unnerving for her having been using to the business of London but she finds he feet and life zips by once again in a boozy and smoke filled haze. However, she begins to see visions and hear strange sounds in the woods and waters of the Loch and can even sense that there is something else out there even when she is stone cold sober. She has a moment when she meets a grandmother of one of her crowd who takes one look at her and says she has been here before, something she brushes off.

Polly comes across the man she saw dismembering the birds once again; she has heard that he has a sinister secret, a fact that terrifies her, but something compels her to find out more about him. As they grow closer together, her visons grow stronger and more tangible until something appears one night that stirs memories that were long suppressed.

It is difficult to categorise this novel; its very heart is a mystery but its setting in the wilds of Scotland add almost timeless elements. It has depth and history in the narrative and the language makes it feel modern and contemporary. In this mix are the supernatural visions and other things that keep happening to Polly which make it very very eerie. The characters in here are not going to be ones that you grow to love, they are sometimes spiky and all have their own deeply flawed elements, however, this adds to the story that is rooted deeply in the folklore of the landscape. Great debut and one to watch out for in the future.

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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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