3.5 out of 5 stars

Modern life seems to be more and more associated around screens, we spend hours looking at them avoiding exercise and making ourselves unhealthy. But the simple act of going for a walk away from your screen can have lots of benefits, especially if your walk takes in the natural world. Kate Humble is a big fan of walking, so much so that she ranks the importance of having that morning walk alongside her first cup of tea.

Her busy life of filming means that she is not always able to walk from her home in the Welsh Hills with her beloved dogs, but when she is away she takes every opportunity to get outside and see the are she is staying in.

Written in a diary form and set over the course of a year, she tells us of life’s ups and downs, the places that she travels to all over the world and most importantly the walks that she undertakes both long and short. These are often taken alone with her dog, Teg, or with groups of friends and their children and hounds. When she is away from home she doesn’t miss the opportunity to take a walk, as she has concluded that this is the best way to understand a new city or region as you pace its streets.

A cancelled assignment means that she has an opportunity to walk a long distance footpath close to home and spends nine days walking the Wye Valley Walk. She also meets people who have used walking as a form of coping with the trials and tribulations of life, from cancer survivors to a soldier recovering from PTSD and a guy who conducts therapy sessions whilst walking around Central Park.

Being a diary it deals with the mundane, she goes through the routines of home life, putting the washing in, squeezing in more things in than time allows, to the significant events that happen over the course of the book. But primarily this is a book about walking and Humble is a big advocate for that act of putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the natural world.

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

Home means many different things to each and every one of us. For some it is the place where you were born, have lived, and are likely to end your life in. For others who have for numerous reason had to move from one area to another, there are layers of complexity to that definition.

 Angela Gabrielle Fabunan was originally from the Philippines, she moved to New York to study and it was that clash of cultures and the conflict between knowing what was once home and what is now home is what drives the poems in her debut collection, The Sea That Beckoned.

Her poems talk about that awkwardness that comes from being new, how every action is done as unobtrusively as possible. Learning a new language and unlearning an old one. Some of the poems talk about learning to deal with rejection and not fitting in before, others talk of previous life and family gatherings.

I liked the way that the poems used different formats and layouts with the text to alter the rhythm and cadence as you read your way through the book. The language is rich and full of meaning, however, there were some of the poems I was less keen on, but I think it is a book that I will come back to another time.

Three Favourite poems:

The Other Shore

Threshold

Snow

4 out of 5 stars

Whilst not particularly religious, Dixe Wills still takes time to pop into most of the churches that he passes as he travels around the countryside on his bike. These places are not huge edifices that can seat hundreds, rather they are modest buildings that have served the needs of their local communities for years, and in quite a lot of cases hundreds and hundreds of years.

For this book, Wills has had to reduce his shortlist down to 60 buildings and in line with his other books, he has chosen the smallest of them. Even the largest of those his has picked can seat 30 or so at a squeeze, but most only have room for a dozen or so. The range of building he has selected too is impressive, there are places that disappeared and the buildings were discovered much later with original architecture intact. He visits an amazing chapel made from Nissan Huts by Italian Prisoners of War WW2 up in Orkney. There are buildings that highlight the Romanesque, the Gothic and even takes us to the oldest wooden church in the country. It never ceases to amaze me just how old some of these places are. Frequently Norman and a significant number of churches with Anglo Saxon origins and even one with Roman foundations.

It is not a spiritual journey rather a pilgrimage to the tiny, quirky and always impressive spiritual focal points of villages and towns. I like Will writing style as he always manages to find lots of interesting things to say about any of the subjects that he is writing about, and this is no different, each church has a potted history of its significant features and his own personal take of his visit. Most importantly you can go and visit these yourself, clear details are given on how to get there and each mini-biography is accompanied by lovely photos of the church in question and some of the internal fittings and settings. Not just a book for the architecture buff, but one for those that have a passing interest in the places they are rooted in. A good companion volume to The King of Dust by Alex Woodcock.

3 out of 5 stars

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

We are fortunate in the UK to have a close association with the coast and the sea. A day spent by the seaside can do wonders for our wellbeing. It doesn’t matter whether you have gone for a walk along the shore, sat on a beach eating fish and chips or been brave enough to take a dip in our cold seas, it has a way of restoring something deep inside us.

This charming little book from Isobel Carlson is a celebration of the coasts, coves bays and open oceans that cover our world. In here she has snippets about the creatures that inhabit the sea, spectacular coastlines that we should try and see and things to do when you do make it to the sea. The lovely photos make this a nicely presented gift book all about the sea and coast. However, I did feel that it was missing a bibliography for those that are finding more out about a subject and it would have been good to see more than three pages on environmental and plastic concerns. I thought it could have had more on the perilous state our oceans are in.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Some people are happy with routine in their lives and have found a balance between working and relaxing that suits them. Kathryn Barnes and her husband, Conrad weren’t those people though. Something didn’t feel right they had travelled in the past for fairly big chunks of time, and the call to see more of the world was beckoning again. A germ of an idea grew larger and before they knew it they had quit their jobs and booked a flight to the West Coast of America to walk 1000 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail or PCT as it is normally known

There was one tiny issue though, they hadn’t got any experience of hiking. Or camping. Inexperienced would be an understatement, they are city birds and have barely walked anywhere unless they could help it. This wouldn’t be the whole route though, they were just going to walk the section from northern California, through Oregon and Washington and just over the Canadian border. Not only would they have to carry everything on their backs, but the route they were walking was known for mountain lions and bears.

Even though they were departing in June they knew as soon as they got to the higher altitudes there would be snow, it was going to be a steep learning curve in more ways that one. Starting off with small daily mileages as their stamina and experience grew they were able to build the distance they could travel over the course of the trek. The views were spectacular, and so were the midges… They encountered all sorts of characters on their walk, from the warm and generous people that helped them out when they needed it with spare kit and lifts to the very occasional sinister individual. One person though who pops up most days is Dan as they seem to roughly keep pace with him.

I did like this book, as it had a certain charm to it. Barnes is quite honest in her writing and is prepared to tell it how it is, from the highs of standing at the top of the passes, drinking in the views and letting the peace of the woods soak into their psyche to the very low points when they squabbled over the most trivial of things. Even though they didn’t walk the entire trail, it has made her reconsider all her priorities.  Some of what they learnt as a couple she shares at the end of the book, especially the essential tip to appreciate it as you pass through. There are practical details and links for those wanting to undertake a similar experience. It has made them think about their relationship with the wider world, and seriously think about leaving London. I did feel that the book was missing photos of their walk, they obviously took lots as it is mentioned fairly often in the text. There are some on her website though: https://alifetowander.com/category/pacific-crest-trail/

4.5 out of 5 Stars

The line between focus and obsession is very thin. Henry Worsley was one of those who crossed backwards and forwards over the line. He was a devoted husband and father and when serving in the special forces, was decorated for bravery. One Worsley‘sobsessions though was Ernest Shackleton. This explorer tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and even attempted to cross the frozen continent on foot. Sadly he never succeeded in these adventures, but his leadership skills meant that he kept his men from dying.

It was those leadership skills that Worsley used when commanding his own men. There was another link too, Frank Worsley, one of Shackleton’s men, was a relation. He began to collect some of the items from the expeditions across the ice. He began to feel the call of the ice and started to plan his own expedition there. In 2008 he arrived there with two other descendants from Shackleton’s team. Nothing is easy in Antarctica and they fought against the landscape and the place to reach their goal. However, it did not get it out of his system. Antarctica became a place that he felt at home and seven years later, he was back there; this time to walk alone on a 1000 mile journey across the whole continent. He was going to have to pull all his supplies on a sled as he was not dependent on supply drops. It was a high-risk journey that was fraught with danger.

This is a short and intense book that is very moving. I had never read any of Grann’s books before but I thought that his writing is excellent. The descriptions of Worsley’s trips to Antarctica are sparse and yet full of presence. Not only is the story in this book quite something, but the photos taken from Worsley’s and the Shackleton collection are stunning.  Can highly recommend this for anyone who has a fascination with the southern ice and about an amazing guy who was so driven to the ultimate limit.