The Giddy Career of Mr Gadd by Marie Gameson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Winifred Rigby drifts through life in a world of her own. She works translating Chinese into English for clients and practices her own version of Zen at home. Her conversion came after a spiritual experience on a mountain in Taiwan and it was in the Far East that she felt happiest. Dragged back to the UK by her family for a spurious reason, she longs to return to Taiwan as she doesn’t feel at home here, her memories of her past and people are vague and she is regularly surprised by people who claim to know her from school or elsewhere. Her staunchly Catholic mother is appalled by her Buddhist religion and between her and Win’s sister they are frequently round her housekeeping an eye on her. To keep certain things secret and private she writes herself notes in Chinese for even the most mundane of tasks.

The little equilibrium that she has at home is rudely disturbed one morning as she opens her front door to a man who she hasn’t seen since school, Mr Fallowfield. He had taught her history at school and he thinks that the stories that she wrote as a teenager are the reason he is being haunted by his late father. After a lot of discussion, she agrees to undertake research about how the Chinese worship the dead and to see if she can find the links between Mr Gadd in the story she wrote and the spectres that burden him now. This means reacquainting herself with the echoes of her past life, friends now forgotten reappear and re-discovering who she once was. A chance meeting with a couple from school adds further complexity to her life but also focuses her mind as to what she wants to do.

The first couple of chapters felt almost dreamlike, as you peeked into the life of Win. It is a touching story of a very strange family written in an engaging way, but there is a greater depth to the story as Gameson addresses the issues that all parents face as children grow up and change into adults capable of independent thought and now aren’t the person that you remembered. There are a variety of threads that start tangled and are brought together in unexpected ways. So very different to a lot of fiction that is out there and well worth reading.

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Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
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 authorities in the Glitter Band are starting to worry; there one was death a couple of weeks ago that they have not be able to explain. Last week there were two more. This week there have been four. No one has been able to explain why, and the information that they have tried to elicit from the corpses themselves hasn’t given any leads. The implants that link each citizen to each other and the state in a fluid form of democracy where citizens are consulted and vote on matters small and large, have gone rogue and killed their hosts. Are these just random failings of the implants, which is unheard of, or is there someone out there causing them to fail? Panoply realises that they have a problem on their hands, one that seems to be growing exponentially and they have no idea who will be next to die.

The secrecy surrounding the deaths is high as they cannot risk society finding out that there is a killer on the loose. Inspector Dreyfus is brought urgently up to speed on the cases so far and those that are happening as the investigation tries to develop leads. To add to their woes, Devon Garlin, a member of the elite from Chasm City, is raising the political game by questioning the authority of the prefects and society with the aim of driving wedges between the habitats; somehow he seems to know about the mysterious deaths of the people too. What was a worrying situation is fast getting out of control…

Set in the Revelation Space universe this is a fast-paced sci-fi detective thriller is full of twists and turns and Dreyfus and his team try to work out who is doing the killing. The tech in the futuristic world is quite spectacular and Reynolds still manages to make it sound completely plausible. The secrets are revealed a little bit at a time as the story races to its fairly dramatic conclusion. However, it did feel like the ending unravelled a little too much rather than being neatly terminated, but that might be because there is more to come in a subsequent book; I hope so. Another stunning book from one of the masters of science fiction.

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21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The facets that make up our character are drawn from many sources; our DNA, our family, our culture, our history and as Tom Cox argues in this book, the places where you grow up that can define you as much as these other things. The way that Cox recommends that immerse yourself in the local landscape is to walk through the lanes and paths, climb the hills and the stiles, take in the views and soak up the natural world at walking pace.

The blurb on the cover says: It’s not quite a nature book, not quite a humour book, not quite a family memoir, not quite folklore, not quite social history, not quite a collection of essays, but a bit of all six. But there is a lot more in this book than that; crammed into the covers of the book. He is captivated by all sorts of things that he encounters on his strolls, from bees to beavers, scarecrows to owls and even his cats make an appearance a few times. Keeping his sanity by taking longs walks in the country around his Devon home gives him plenty of time to consider the world. All of the subjects he tackles begin with a narrow focus, before becoming wider ranging and for me, much more interesting.

He is fascinated equally by the ghosts of the past as he concerned by the future of the countryside, but what makes 21st Century such a really good book is that it defies categorisation. Part of this reason behind this is because Cox writes about what he wants to without following any set agenda, and partly this is because this reflects modern life and all its distractions where you start on one project, get distracted by something else, wander off to get an item and arrive back four hours later wondering why you were starting that in the first place. Because of this, the book feels fresh and interesting, it has its poignant moments, the chapter on scarecrows is really quite creepy and is a great example of modern folklore, His VERY LOUD DAD makes me laugh every time he appears in the narrative too. This rich and varied book is not quite many things, but one thing it is, is fantastic.

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Woods: A Celebration by Robert Penn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When you think of the National Trust what comes to mind is the fine mansions houses and grand estates or the swathes of coastline that they are now custodians for. Under their protection is a wide variety of landscapes, from moor to heathland, farmland to mountains, ancient sites and what is the focus of this book, woodlands. In fact 60,000 acres in total on the land that they are responsible for, from ancient woodlands that contain some of the oldest living things in our country to forests that were the playgrounds of royalty.

Sadly woodland cover at just over 12% in the UK is the lowest it has ever been and we have one of the lowest in Europe too with both France and Germany being around 30%, but most are trailing in the wake of Finland as that has over 70% cover. That said, we have some of the oldest lived trees in Europe and the National Trust among others is custodian to some of our finest woodlands.

In this sumptuous coffee table book, Robert Penn tells the history of the woods and forests that the National Trust cares for. The book follows season by season showing the transformation from the skeletal outlines of the trees in winter to the rich colours of autumn. Penn’s prose is short and to the point, as he weaves history, folklore, natural history and the future of our woodlands as well as talking about some of our most famous forests in the country as well as the lesser-known ones. into very readable prose. What makes this book though is that it is full of the stunning photographs of woodlands and trees and the other creatures that inhabit some of our most treasured of places.

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Owl Sense by Miriam Darlington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Owls have fascinated and terrified people for thousands of years. These raptors, most of whom hunt at night or at the witching hour of dusk have been seen as the harbingers of doom or symbols of wisdom. Nowadays science has explained just how specialised these beautiful birds are. They use their wise looking faces to focus the minutest sound into their binaural hearing, how their feathers have evolved to ensure that they are utterly silent when flying.

She could hear owls calling from her bedroom window and wanted to see if she could spot them as they went looking for food each night, and discovering her local owls sparked something inside her. Initially, Darlington was intending to head out onto the moors and woods to find the five species of owl in Britain, which are the Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Little Owl and the Short and Long-Eared Owls, but like with the otters in her previous book these elusive birds became an obsession too.

This fascination with the owls of the UK takes a step up when she finds herself booking a flight to Kikinda in Serbia to see the thousands of Long-Eared Owls that visit the town. Now Darlington is completely hooked and trips to southern Spain, France and Finland are arranged to see the Pygmy Owls and Snowy Owls.

Like a lot of natural history books at the moment, there is a personal element too, and this is no different as she tries to balance work and family life and they find out that her son Benji has a condition that affects the decisions that he can make with his life. It is full of fascinating details and facts and is a touching book about those most elusive and silent of raptors and the way that Darlington becomes besotted by them; if you liked Otter Country then this should be on your reading list.

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Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight by Joe Pappalardo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Space travel was one once the sole domain of governments; they were the only ones who could afford the multi-million pond budgets and the long timescales for design, development and testing, as well as the risks associated with launching expensive rockets full of very explosive fuel. The once great NASA now has to buy space and payloads on rockets from ESA and the Russians

Whilst it is no longer a race amongst countries for space, we now have a plethora of companies vying for government and private companies money as well as those trying to start the space tourism industry. There are some big players getting involved, Bezos with his Blue Origin company, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic. They have all been pouring vast sums into this industry as the sky is the limit for potential growth and profits.

Joe Pappalardo has had a fascination with space flight for a long time and has been fortunate (or lucky) enough to see many launches not only in America but at various sites around the world. As well as the main contenders who are developing their own rockets there are a large number of other companies that want to hitch a ride before the rocket goes, and it is these people that Pappalardo travels to see and talk too. He talks to those with the money, the rocket scientists making them work, the states that are investing in the infrastructure for their own spaceports. Even though technology is improving, it is still a dangerous game, there are stories of failed projects, huge explosions as rockets fail even before launch and sadly those that have had their lives extinguished pushing to the future.

I finished this on the day that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy Lifter blasted off from Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral and put a car into space. I loved the Don’t Panic message on the screen on the dashboard, but most impressive was the return of the boosters bask to Earth, landing in perfect synchronicity. This is a really good introduction to the current state of space technology and those seeing it as just another investment opportunity. There are going to be few winners and lots of losers in this very expensive game. One day this will all be history; but at this very moment, it is the future.

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Hadrian’s Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Hadrian’s Wall and the associated forts are the largest Roman ruins visible in the world. It is 80 miles long and reaches from the Solway Firth on the Irish Sea across hills and dales to the banks of the Tyne on the North Sea and marked the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. It wasn’t the only wall built to be the northernmost frontier, that honour goes to the Antonine Wall. This was started in 142AD and abandoned around 20 years later when legions were moved back to the more substantial Hadrian’s Wall. Long thought to be a barrier keeping out the Picts and Ancient Britons that lived north of this wall, it turns out to have a much deeper and complicated history.

Adrian Goldsworthy brings us up right up to on the latest hypothesis’ and theories of Hadrian’s Wall, considering how it functioned, how it was built and whether it served a military function or it was just a demonstration of power to the marauding tribes. By drawing on the recent archaeological discoveries, in particular, the details gleaned from the tablets discovered at Vindolanda, he pieces together a vivid picture of how life would be there for a soldier on the furthest outpost from Rome. It is a beautifully produced book, full of maps, photos and images of what we know of life in the UK 2000 years ago; definitely a book for any lover of Roman history.

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