The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta by Kushanava Choudhury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By the young age of twelve Kushanava Choudhury had moved back and forwards across the planet four times. A graduate of the prestigious Princeton University and with opportunities galore in his adopted country, the call of his home country and city that his parents had left was too great. So he returned home to the city built between a river and a swamp; Calcutta.

It was a city whose golden age had long passed, once the capital when the British ruled, that had moved to Delhi. Relatives called and tried to persuade him that this was not such a good idea as other cities in India could claim to be up and coming and offer chances and business in the new global economy. He took a position at the Statesman, the leading English newspaper in the city and relished the chance of living once again in his home city of fifteen million people.

In this city of a swirling mass of humanity, and a place that assaults every sense that you have. It is a personal journey too, partly down his own memories of the city and the family that had been moved over from East Bengal after partition and Choudhury wants to rediscover the places that made him who he is now. In this thriving city, he is seeking those stories that rarely make the papers and certainly not the headlines to add greater breadth to the everyday lives of this city. It is an enjoyable book to read with a fascinating insight into a city that is still thriving coupled together with his personal story as Choudhury rediscovers all that he loves about the chaos of his home city. A minor detail on this too is that the gold blocking on the cover makes this a sumptuous cover to look at.

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The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wigtown is a beautiful rural town nestling in the south west of Scotland, and it has been designated as Scotland’s official BookTown. It is home to a range of bookshops and book-related businesses as well as its own book festival. The Bookshop in Wigtown is Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop, with around 100,000 items of stock and miles of shelves, an open fire and nooks and crannies to lose yourself in.

The proprietor of this bibliophile heaven is Shaun Bythell and on the 5th February 2014, he decided to start keeping a diary of the things that happened in the shop. Over the next year, he tells us just how it is running a bookshop in the modern world, from battling against the 1100lb gorilla that is Amazon to travelling around Scotland looking at collections of books, hoping, but not expecting to come across that rare book that he knows will sell.

Whilst he likes to have paying customers through the doors, it is his financial lifeblood, after all, there are certain types that he is critical of. Those that cross the threshold declaring a love of all things bookish are frequently the ones who leave empty-handed. He argues with customers who think that a second-hand bookshop should only stock titles that are £1 each and catching those that surreptitiously amended the prices of the books.

And then there are the staff…

This is a brilliant portrait about running a business in a small town, that the things that happen all have some impact on everyone in the town. He does not hold back in saying just how tough some things can be and how the core of second-hand bookshops, rare collectable and signed editions have had the heart and soul ripped out of the market with the internet in general and Amazon in particular. I really liked the way that he noted the number of orders that came through via the internet and the way this frequently varied from that actual number of books they could then find! Rightly, he has never embraced the flawed philosophy that the customer is always right and also seems to relish the verbal battle with those that want something for almost nothing. If, as a book lover, you have ever contemplated or dreamt of opening and owning your own bookshop then this is the book to read; you might just change your mind…

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The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The trend for zombie books has largely passed me by, but having picked up The Girl with all the Gifts and was drawn into the fast-paced story before I realised what it was about. Turns out it was very good indeed, so when this appeared on my library shelves I grabbed it.

It is not a sequel as such, rather a story set in the same world that he created in The Girl with all the Gifts. Up in Scotland are a small team of soldiers and scientists who have left the last stronghold of humanity, Beacon, and who have been tasked with finding a cure for the virus that has turned the population into ‘hungries’. With them is possibly the only person who would be capable of finding the cure from the caches of Cordyceps cultures, should there be one, Stephen. He was a survivor of an outbreak and his strange behaviour is tolerated as he is quite brilliant.

Packed in the cross between an articulated truck and a tank called ‘Rosie’ are two commanders, one with a military brief to get the mission to the places they need to go and retrieve the samples that they need and the other is in charge of the science team. In this confined space comes the news of an unauthorised pregnancy, challenges to the authority of those holding the mission together. Unknown to most of the team the seeds of sabotage are being sown and they lose contact with Beacon. In amongst this turmoil is also the glimmer of hope as a discovery is made that may be the bridge between hungry and human.

This is another really good book that uses a solid scientific foundation for Carey to build the story on. It is fairly fast paced, with plenty of intrigue and tension as the events on ‘Rosie’ build. If you have read and liked the Girl with all the Gifts, then this is going to be right up your street. I am hoping that there is another book set in this world soon.

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Midwinter by Fiona Melrose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A decade ago in Zambia, Cecelia died at home at the hands of a mob. It was a death that still affects Landyn and Vale Midwinter, father and son. Now back in Suffolk, they are both still raw and haunted by her death and frequently descend into rows and fights. It is after one of these major falling outs that Vale ends up getting plastered with a friend of his called Tom. They decide to steal a boat and because they are so drunk, just about survive an accident.

As they recover from their injuries, the father and son start to look back at the events that brought them to this night. It is a painful process for both as they are full of anguish a decade after the event. Alternating between their perspectives we learn about the landscape of Zambia and how tough a life it was out there to Suffolk where they are now. As each man contemplates the sharp elements of his grief, we learn how they grasp for crumbs of comfort for the lady that they lost all that time ago.

It took a little while for me to get into this book. The flipping between the father and son and the harsh African and gritty English landscapes is slightly unnerving and the story seeps into you. I couldn’t quite see where it was going, then something clicked in the story and Melrose’s power as a storyteller made this quite a poignant book showing how people deal, or more correctly don’t cope with, the long-term effects of grief. I liked the prose too, it has the same wistful melancholy to At Hawthorn time by Melissa Harrison. Will definitely be reading Johannesburg by her.

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Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made by Gaia Vince
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Our planet is constantly changing. The energy that it receives from the sun drives the weather systems across the globe and feeds the plants that keep the oxygen cycle going. The internal processes of plate tectonics and erosion mean that the landscapes are constantly changing too. But now there is an extra factor too, our love of fossil fuels is changing the atmosphere in ways that we cannot fully understand, though the trends are there if you care enough to look. The data on all these changes is immense, so Gaia Vince, editor at Nature, decided the best way to understand the immensity of the changes happening would be to go and see it herself.

Her travels takes her to the rooftop of the world to see artificial glaciers being created, mountains being painted white to increase the albedo and looks at the positive and negative effects of dams. She tracks across deserts, climbs mountains, tiptoes through sewage and walks on one man’s solution to the rising sea levels; floating islands and speaks to the head of a country that is going to disappear under the waves in the next few years.

It is an interesting book on the way that we have changed the planet so far and the long-term implications for dramatic change. As the world changes in dramatic ways, she sees human ingenuity in solving the problems that are being raised as the climate changes. By going to these places herself and seeing the problems first hand, she gets a better overall view of the state of the globe and thankfully does not hold back with her opinions as to what is happening. Even though it is four years since it was published, it is still a prescient book, but it would be nice to have a revised edition soon. The only downside for me was the epilogue; it was a very speculative and even hopeful vision of our world in 2100, a planet that had changed in so many ways; I can’t imagine that it would be as comfortable as that.

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