3 out of 5 stars

In this Britain, the Equals control everything, wealth, politics, land and their power over the other 99% is absolute. Regardless of who you are you owe them 10 years service as a slave. As the saying goes, do those years when you’re old, and you’ll never get through them. Do them young, and you’ll never get over them. It is the Hadley’s time to do their 10 years slavedays and they have fortunately been offered positions at the estate of the Jardines.

All except Luke that is, at the last minute they find out that he is being sent to Millmoor, a tough industrial city that very few survive. Luke settles in as best he can, but when he comes across Abi he discovers a whole new underground network of people that are doing their best to help those in the slave town and the source of some of that help is from an unexpected quarter.

The rest of the family have is relatively easy compared to Luke, but they are still subject to the whims of the family and the power play that is going on within. There are winds of change beginning to blow through the society though, the age-old spell of silence and quiet that have kept the secrets within the elite have been broken and the techniques of suppression are being eroded.

It was an enjoyable read of a fairly horrifying vision of a dystopian Britain with the feudal system of slavery still happening. It is fast paced too, I raced through each chapter and read the entire book on a ferry journey. Liked it enough to read the rest in the series.

3 out of 5 stars

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

The history of the of the decisive battles, the crucial moments that led to the defeat of the Axis powers in the Second World War is really well documented now. What is starting to emerge though is the personal family stories, the individuals who in their own way contributed or played some part in the global conflict.

Hamish Brown was born shortly before the war in Colombo, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka before moving to Japan. He was still living there with his parents when war erupted in the far east placing the family in danger. This book tells of the story of their time there and the journey that they made from Japan to Singapore via China and the Philippines when they had to flee. There is also an account of his fathers escape from Singapore to safety

The books is a combination of his recollections from that time and selected letters from his mother that were sent to his grandmother who was still living in Scotland. They were custodians of his eldest brother, Ian, who was at school near where they lived. His mother wrote to Ian regularly too, and there were brief annotations from his father on the back of them.

The letters add that insight and personal touch to a war that killed so many. They are almost always positive and upbeat, the British ‘stiff upper lip’ belies the truth of how much peril they were really in. East of West, West of East is in the same vein as Dadland and Stranger in my Heart, both of which tell the stories of their fathers who had significant involvement in World War 2. This is different as we are hearing about a family affected by the War in the Far East and their passage to a safer place, but the letters give it a real-time feel to the events.

3 out of 5 stars

Even in these days of 24/7 news, a world of knowledge at your fingertips and the ability to talk to almost anyone else on the planet, there are still things that we do and say that can trace their origins back hundreds of years. Some of the stranger ones have sadly vanished from the common vernacular, but thankfully we have people like Dee Dee Chainey who has scoured the legends, crept past the giants and kelpies and learnt about the customs and included them in this charming little book.

So if you want to know who the green man was, which tree it is rumoured to be safe to stand under in a thunderstorm and when in the farming year they would shout  ‘Hurrah! Hurrah for the neck. As you’d expect, there are hounds, white harts and fairies. You can discover which fairies like to help and which use blood to dye their caps. The supernatural gets a section to itself as well as the hatched, matched and despatched themes that still dominate life today.

It is a good overview of the weft and weave of folklore that permeates our lives even today. If it does lack a little depth, but it is a concise summation of all things folklore. That said, there is an extensive bibliography and references and more importantly a comprehensive list of places to find folklore for those that want to uncover much more about this fascinating subject. I loved the bold woodcut illustrations by Joe McLaren too, they are a certain gravitas to the book

5 out of 5 stars

In the dead of night a teenage girl lifts the baby she is caring for out of the cot and walks out of the house and up into the Cumbrian Hills. Her desire to be far far away from that place drives her and she has taken very little possessions and almost no protection against the elements.

When the householder discovers her absence he heads to speak to the local priest, as she came from the workhouse under his charge. The incensed priest calls on the services of the local poacher and his dog to help him track the girl down.

She walks up into the hills, sleeping rough, staying out of sight, getting help from those that can see a vulnerable girl in need. Living on almost nothing the child and her begin to suffer. She takes risks, some of which pay off. All to put distance between her and the baby and the man she knows will be following.

Poacher and priest march on relentlessly. Seeking, tracking, following trails and finding where they slept. They are wary of each other though, constantly battling through their dialogue. The priest claims the moral high ground, the poacher goading, before getting a glimpse of what obsesses the priest.

Two Benjamin Myers books in a week is a baptism by literary fire. Thought the Gallows Pole was brilliant, but this is another level of intensity again. The sparse prose emerges deep from within the landscape they are traversing and it seeks into your psyche capillary style. The characters are not two dimensional, rather they are stark and raw like a grainy black and white picture. I thought that the juxtaposition between who you would perceive as good and who actually was, was really cleverly done. It deals with some very dark disturbing themes, as one pair chase the other across the hills and the ending does not pull any punches at all.

Shocking. Brilliant. If you liked the Wasp Factory, this is another book like that.

5 out of 5 stars

It is a land where those in charge have no interest in you until you threaten their income and power, David Hartley is drawing together the local people to assist him in his master plan, coin clipping. He looks after those in need and is not afraid to crush opponents and as his power grows, he declares himself King. This fraud on an epic scale has been noted in London and excise men under the command of William Deighton are dispatched to ensure that justice is served and equilibrium is restored. Not everyone is happy in King David’s court though, there are some who think that he is too greedy and has not given what they feel they are due. It is through these cracks in Hartley’s organisation that Deighton begins to make his move. The power play between the self-proclaimed king and the Crown is set.

He listened to the sound of the water and the way it sang over the smoothed rocks of flint and grit. The way it danced down through the woods like a child.

This is the first of Benjamin Myers books that I have read and I first came across him and this book when Robert Macfarlane tweeted the very arresting cover. I had been meaning to read it for ages but my library had not got a copy on the shelf as it was always on loan. Myers has based this tale of rebellion in the West Riding area of Yorkshire on the true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners. He has written a thrilling historical tale with criminals, government men determined to enforce the law and the innocent people caught in the battle to control their way of life as the industrial revolution begins to bite This is a book that is deeply rooted in the landscape of the 1770’s and what lifts this above other historical novels is the way he has captured the smells, sights, mud and hardship of just trying to make a living at that time. The prose is a delight to read, poetic, lyrical and visceral, it grips you and drags you into this tale. A brilliant book.

3 out of 5 stars

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

Whether you are looking at your screen, a paper or an advert in the underground almost all we see around us has words in some form or other. Even the TV news has a ticker tape of other headlines now running underneath the presenter. This technology of the written word has shaped cultures through the ages as much as cultures have shaped language and the written world.

Beginning with Alexander and his pillow book, Puchner takes us from the first marks pressed into clay, the invention of vellum, paper and inks that were first made into codex’s or books as we now call them. Most importantly though was the stories, messages and words that were written on them. These words and works of literature from the epic classics to the political tracts and the religious texts, they have shaped the way people think, cause revolutions and inspired people to fight for the causes they believe in.

A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on. ― Terry Pratchett

That power of language is still with us today, as can be seen from modern day politics… This is an interesting book and Puchner has done pretty well to distil the vast magnitude of world literature and the effects that it has had around the world and bring it in between the covers of this book. It has a really helpful timeline at the beginning with locations where each chapter of our literary journey was started and the text is enhanced with images of some of the books he mentions in the text. It is an enjoyable read, the only flaw being that it cannot go into too much depth to make the book manageable, however, there is a large reference section though for those that want to discover more about our shared literary legacy.

4 out of 5 stars

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

After the oil boom of the 1970’s Arabs lefts the security of their homelands and started to become more visible in the Western capitals. Seeing them around London made Raban think it would be good to travel to their home countries and see what life was like there. It was a journey that would take him from Bahrain to Qatar, Yemen to Jordon and finally to Egypt and he wanted to go there before the vast wealth from oil changed these places irreparably. He was a little late as wealth had flowed into the communities over there, sons had headed to Europe and America to learn medicine and engineering, The temperamental Range Rover had replaced the grumpy camel and the tents that had been the homes for the Bedouin for hundreds of years were stopping being used as they moved into homemade from brick and mortar.

However, the old way of life is still there if you want to go and look for it. Raban is gregarious nature means that he easily forges friendships with the people that he meets as he travels through each of the countries. Mixing with the expat community who are trying to recreate a little bit of England over there he finds interesting, but what he is there for is to walk the streets, absorbing the smells of the souks,  chew the qat sip strong coffee with men and get lost in the maze of street away from the tourist area. He speaks to fishermen on quaysides that have been almost untouched by the economic change, apart from making fish traps from wire and changing the sails on their dhows to engines. Walking through the night he hears the call of the muezzins before the first rays of dawn erupt across the sky.

This is the first Raban book that I have read, it won’t be the last either as I have been kindly sent a small pile from Eland of their republications and have bought a couple of others. He reminds me of Patrick Leigh Fermor in some ways with the way that he can engage with people from all walks of life from diplomats to the man squatting in the market with a few things to sell.  His prose is very eloquent, making it a readable travel book, but most importantly he is prepared to ask searching questions of those that he interacts with to get a better insight to the places he visits. Thoroughly enjoyable and looking forward to his next, Old Glory.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Atkins is the latest one to be drawn to those impenetrable places, deserts. He joins an illustrious list of explorers and people who are seeking something amongst the arid sands. The geographer definition of a desert is somewhere that has less than 250mm of rain per year, but for those that know what to look for, they can be places of riches and places where life is right at the edge, but they are not lifeless if you know where to look. Atkins is not fully sure what he is seeking though, his partner of four years had accepted a job overseas and he was not going with her. Seeking some clarity of mind he heads out to the Empty Quarter on the Arabian peninsular a place made famous by the travel writer Wilfred Thesiger. In his book Arabian Sands, he went searching for those that still carried out the age-old Bedouin life and where others saw unforgiving wilderness, Thesiger found timeless peace. Standing in the mountainous pink dunes, he is humbled by the vastness of the place and by the people who know these places so intimately that they are never lost.

The Great Victorian Desert in Australia has been Aboriginal lands for millennia. The UK government with collusion from the Aussie PM used it for numerous nuclear tests. These were on ancient Aboriginal land and the fallout caused many health problems and displaced people who had no idea of what was really going on. Even though it echoed to the most powerful blasts that we humans can make it is still a place that has spiritual significance to the people that still choose to live there. The next two deserts are in Asia; the Gobi and what is left of the Aral Sea. These utterly different places have been used as a method of defence to protect China for people trying to enter the country and the other a site of a massive environmental disaster. Stepping once again in the footsteps of travellers before him, in this case in it is the Cable sisters, where he discovers a place that is tense and edgy. Standing in the desert that once was the Aral sea is quite a surreal experience and he learns how the waters that once contained sturgeon now hold no life and how the demands for irrigation drained this once great freshwater sea.

Next place to visit is the continent of America where Atkins visits two deserts are on the list. First up is the Sonoran Desert. It is a harsh and baked environment that borders Mexico and is a focus for those wanting to cross and realise their own American Dream. Very little of it is fenced to keep people out as the desert is pretty effective at doing that, and Atkins joins those that are trying to keep people out as well as those who are there to offer some humanity to those that have made the attempt to cross. The polarised views of each camp make this a tense place, very different to his next desert, which is the Black Rock Desert and the festival that is the Burning Man where he has offered to help out. The contrast between this place with its liberal perspective on sex, nudity and drugs and the previous location is stark. These places are both very different to his final location though, St Anthony’s Monastery in the Eastern Desert of Egypt a place that revels in its isolation from the pressures of the modern world and brings Atkins full circle to the spiritual and intangible elements of the desert.

Even though deserts are some of the lest populated places in the world, this is still a series of stories about the people that inhabit them, however, scarce they might be. I particularly liked the chapter on the Australian Great Victoria Desert, a place that was taken from its rightful inhabitants and is slowly being returned having been contaminated. It makes for painful reading. It is as much about Atkins though, he is using the vastness of the desert to clarify his mind and as a support for the pain that he went through at the end of a relationship. Whilst this is a travel book, there is history, poetry and philosophy in amongst the drifting sands. His prose is lucid with hints of melancholy and this book contains some of the best maps I have seen in a travel book yet. Well worth reading for a modern take on deserts.