Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

Nestling in the foothills of the Himalayas in Yunnan Province lies the capital city of the almost forgotten Nakhi Kingdom, Likiang. This city was the home of the Nakhi, one of 56 ethnic groups now officially recognized by the People’s Republic of China. These people were thought to have originated in northwestern China and migrated south to this region. Along with the Tibetans they traded with India and Lhasa over the Tea and Horse Caravan routes. This part of China was almost unknown until the American botanist Joseph Rock and the Russian traveller and writer Peter Goullart bought the region to the attention of the world.

Goullart was Russian by birth and grew up in Moscow and Paris. He fled from Russia after the revolution and as the Far East was a fascinating place ended up in China where he learnt the language as a tour guide. After Japan invaded in 1939 he managed to secure an appointment as a Chinese Industrial Cooperatives representative and got posted to the city of Likiang (often spelt Lijiang). He was to spend the next eight years there immersed in the customs and daily lives of the people.

This book tells of his period spent there, his calm judgements and thoughtful dealing with the locals meant that he was easily accepted into the complex society and was to make many friends there. Being close to India and Tibet, it was a crossroads of cultures and trade routes so the locals had managed to absorb a smorgasbord of beliefs from Confucianism and Buddhism to Shamanism along with Animism and Taoism. Even life was fairly tough then, it didn’t stop the people enjoying themselves and Goullart recounts many a time spent in the bars and socialising with the locals drinking the yintsieu wine. The setting up of co-operatives meant that he had to travel in the region, this meant that he had several precarious journeys alongside the rivers and canyons as he moved across the mountains.

It is an utterly fascinating account of a virtually unknown part of China long absorbed into the Communist bloc. In 1949 he had to rush to leave the place as the party began to appear in the local area with the local bullies finding positions of power in the new regime. He is an eloquent writer, uncovering the details that make the stories that he tells so compelling to read. He has a genuine warmth towards the people that he was initially responsible for, helping with medicines and is generous with his time and money to those that he came into contact with. There are amazing pictures of the people he knew in the town, and overall a superb book.

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Wild and Free by Dominic Couzens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

In the urban sprawl, it is sometimes hard to see the natural world, but most people don’t realise that after an hour or so in the car from their front door they’d be able to see some of best examples of wildlife, woodlands and our finest natural landscapes. Thankfully in this book, Dominic Couzens has collated a list of the places that you may be close to that will give you the best opportunity to see the wildlife in your region.

There is something in here for everyone, moorlands, coastal and wetlands, woodlands and even derelict industrial areas. There is a short history of each place and personal suggestions on what to see from Couzens. Each of the 100 places that he recommends to visit, contains details of how to get there and where to park as well as lots of details on what delights that you could see depending upon the season that you visit. The book is packed full of photos of the sites, as well as the beautiful artworks by Elizabeth Baldin. Not just for wildlife lovers, but perhaps everyone to keep one in the glovebox of the car. 3.5 stars

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The Wood: The Life and Times of Cockshutt Wood by John Lewis-Stempel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Until recently woodlands were essential to our survival, we used them for food, fuel and livelihoods. Even though very few make their living from them now, they are places that hold a special place in the hearts of people in the UK, as the government found out when they tried to sell off the Forestry Commission, a decision that was quickly reversed given the outcry. Just taking a walk through a wood helps nature seep back into your soul and are a sanctuary from the madness of modern life.

Sadly I don’t own my own woodland, but John Lewis-Stempel does, and his three and a half acres of mixed species in Herefordshire is a typical small wood. He has managed Cockshutt Wood now for four years, watching the way it changes through the seasons, tracing the paths that animals have made through the understory and taking time to stay still, observe as the lives of the birds and animals play out around him. He lets his cattle and pigs root around in the woods too, a method of farming that harks back centuries. Lots of these woodlands are under threat, but not this one; this is a cherished patch, a place of refuge, a place that he visits every day, just because. Woodlands show the daily march of time through the seasons and yet when you are within one, time seems to stand still.

This is another sublime book from Lewis-Stempel to add to his raft of award-winning books. I really liked the diary format and the way that it is interspersed with folklore, poems, history, recipes and personal thoughts. The longer entries reflect when he has had time to pause and absorb the sights and smells of his wood, and brief entries when he was charging off elsewhere, even the shortest of visits would be sufficient to recharge his soul. 4.5 stars

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Dip: Wild Swims from the Borderlands by Andrew Fusek Peters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The superb Waterlog by the late Roger Deakin has inspired many people to rediscover the delights of wild swimming; Joe Minihane writes about following in the wet footprints of Deakin in Floating as he travels around the country to the same locations. Swimming With Seals is set in Orkney and tells of Victoria Whitworth wild swimming experiences there. And there is the superb Turning by Jessica J. Lee, where she battles self-doubt and depression and challenges herself to swim in 52 of the lakes around Berlin.

Andrew Fusek Peters takes a different perspective in Dip. This is his account of swimming in the pools, rivers, and lakes over the course of a year near where he lives in the Shropshire county and elsewhere. He is prepared to swim any time of the year, braving the bone-chilling waters in January, dipping into the refreshing pools in the heat of August, being invigorating by waterfalls and braving the delights of a bog pool.

As with a lot of natural history books now, there is a personal side to this book as he describes the other dip that he suffered from, a deep depression that affected him so much so that he had a spell in hospital at his very lowest ebb and reached a point where it was life-threatening. This dark undercurrent to his life was as much to do with personal circumstances as it was his character, he is haunted by his father’s suicide and still deeply saddened by his brother’s early death from AIDS.

There is a deep melancholy and eloquence to his writing as even though he was better when he wrote the book, the spectre of depression is still a shadow in the background and its swirls still muddy the waters of his life. It also demonstrates the healing benefits of being outdoors and closer to the natural world as he immerses himself in the waters. The book is greatly enhanced by the photographs in the book taken by his daughter took and short excerpts of poetry that are liberally scattered throughout. It is another book in the natural history memoir sub-genre that is worth reading.

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Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North by Horatio Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Sometimes it is who you know, rather than what you know, that opens doors and opportunities and Clare had a friend had a contact in the Finnish Embassy. A message came via this link asking:

We are celebrating a hundred years since independence this year: how would you like to travel on a government icebreaker?

As the sea is a natural draw for Clare; his Down to the Sea in Ships travelling with the modern container ships was a quality piece of travel writing about a system that most people are blissfully unaware of, he jumped at the opportunity and booked his flight.

Most people know Finland from the Nokia 3310 phones that almost everyone used to own, the completely mad rally drivers and the not so talkative F1 star, Kimi Räikkönen. The Finnish are a fiercely independent nation celebrating 100 years of independence from Russia who have a liberated modern life. Part of their character is sisu, it is this combination of grit and determination that helped them to fight off the Soviet invasion in World War II. Their spirit has driven them politically too, they were one of the earliest countries to allow women to vote, have a first class health system and are experimenting with the universal basic income for their population.

As much as Clare is here to gain a little insight into the national character of the Finn’s he is really here for the ice. During the long dark winters there, the Bay of Bothnia is frozen and the Otso, the ship he has been invited to join, assist cargo vessels getting through the sea ice to and from the port. The 99-meter long Otso is one of the most sophisticated icebreakers around. The specialist paint and stainless steel hull combined with air bubbling system, means it almost never gets stuck, it has almost 360-degree vision from the bridge and the highly trained crew can manoeuvre this powerful 9000-tonne ship to within feet of another to break them out of the ice. There are even two saunas on board for the officers and crew.

This world of ice in the Arctic Ocean may not be around forever, given how the world is warming in the far north. As with all his other books, it is full of nuanced observation and is a delight to read. He writes of smelling the sharpness of the ice, the clarity of the light as it reflects and sparkles in the weak sun and you can imagine the noise as the frozen sea succumbs to the power of the ship. If this had one fault, it was too short, but then Clare only had ten days travelling and he relishes every moment with the crew in this white world.

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The Secret Surfer by Iain Gately
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 image that people have of surfers is twenty-something fit individuals with long, sun-bleached hair. Their campers will have an array of boards in the back and if they are not already out in the surf, then they will be staring out to sea, looking for that perfect wave. But there are others who have had the surfing bug for a long time now and have reached middle age and they are still surfing.

Iain Gately is one of those, but having just had a replacement hip operation, he is not sure if he will ever surf again as he hobbles around on his crutches. If he can, then he wants to ride a tube, a wave where you the surfer, is wrapped in a glistening, deafening barrel of water, before it fires you out of the end or swallows you entirely. He has never ridden one before, but the yearning to do so is deep.

As he slowly recovers after the operation, he starts to get back into shape, trying to get his muscle memory back, practising the techniques that a surfer needs to know and digging out an old skateboard to work on his balance and posture. It has been a while since he surfed, and as his health improves he makes the decision to replace his board and wetsuit and venture once again into the waves. His journey back to the waves will take him from Ireland to Andalucía, Galicia to Ireland and Portugal to Morocco, as well as the waves on the Dorset coast that he can hear from his own front door. Will his hip survive and will he find that surfing nirvana?

He is committed to surfing as anyone else who has this particular addiction, and it is an addiction when you read how some are driven to find that perfect wave. The prose is full of contemplative moments as he considers his health as well as the excitement when he catching a wave for the first time in a very long time. Gately’s descriptions of the places that he travels to are quite evocative, I could smell the salt hanging in the air from the white horses, thankfully he doesn’t fill the book with the language of surfing, but there is a glossary should any of the meanings evade you. I found this a really enjoyable read and a worthy addition to the scarce numbers of books on surfing.

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The Many by Wyl Menmuir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Looking to buy a second home in Cornwall, Timothy finds a house in a fishing village. The first time the rest of the village realise that there is someone present in the house is when smoke drifts from the chimney. The previous owner, Perran, died mysteriously 10 years earlier and the house has sat empty ever since, but his dominant character still haunts the village.

Quite why Timothy has bought the house in this village is not clear; it is far from a welcoming place and the sea is heavily polluted as he finds out one day after emerging after a swim. More sinister though is the barrier of huge container ships that stop the fishermen from venturing too far out., and the grey-suited officials that buy the meagre catch from the fishermen of the village.

The fragile equilibrium that has existed since the death of Perran is under threat though as Timothy has lots of questions. He wants to take a trip out in the boats to see what they catch, to head to the ships that crowd the horizon to see why they are there and to find out what happened to Perran. These are questions that no one in the village wants asked, and they really don’t want a stranger asking them.

Menmuir has taken a county normally associated with holidays, sunshine and cream teas and dropped a disconcerting and unsettling novel on it. This dystopian future of a coastal setting is quite disturbing, there is the environmental catastrophe, the Orwellian overtones and a secret that the villagers will not speak of. The tension between Timothy and the villagers is palpable, how can an outsider come and demand answers to questions that they have no wish to talk about. Menmuir’s writing is quite special, the prose taught and sparse, but for me, it left many questions unanswered as the narrative swirled between reality and the flashbacks. I did like it, but I felt that the I wasn’t always sure what is going on. One to read again as I am sure there are hidden depths within.

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Warrior Herdsmen by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

In a post-colonial Africa and before the modern age had overtaken events, the Dodoth were the people who had inhabited the northern fringe of Uganda. The anthropologist Elizabeth Thomas was fortunate to be able to visit these people and live among them for three expeditions. Whilst there she dovetailed in with the people and learnt to understand their traditions, customs and way of life.

Thomas immersed herself in their way of life, experiencing everything in their community, she describes their way of life from sowing seeds to collecting the harvests, seeing cattle bled from the veins in the neck to provide food for the tribe, the shamanic rituals of reading the intestines to gauge the future and witness the men would ready themselves for battle against the raids from the Turkana telling the gripping accounts of a the raids and battles between the two main tribes of the area.

It is a snapshot of a way of life that was never to be the same again. Not only is the modern world just appearing in these people’s lives as spears give way to guns but this was shortly before the brutal regime of Idi Amin took over and their entire culture was diluted somewhat. This books leans heavily towards anthropology rather than purely travel writing, but it is no less fascinating despite that. Thomas takes time to understand the people, their way of life and the subtle nuances in their personal relationships as well as sharing their successes and tribulations. The writing is clear without being dry and academical helping you grow an emotional bond with the Dodoth people as they go about their daily lives. An interesting book that was well worth the time to read it.

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