Glass Half Full: The Ups and Downs of Vineyard Life in France by Caro Feely
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

When we reach into the cupboard for a glass and into the fridge for the bottle that has been chilling, most of us never consider the amount of effort and worry that has gone to get that perfect glass of wine. Any number of factors through the year can affect the quality and quantity of grapes that get harvested, you need the right amount of sun, rain at the right time and to keep a careful eye on the vines as they flourish and grow. But a late autumn thunderstorm can bring the horror that is hail and you can see all your hard work shredded in moments.

Chateau Feely is the vineyard that Caro Feely runs with her husband Seán. Buying the estate was a decision of the heart rather than the mind, but they have become established as an organic and biodynamic vineyard with recognition and awards for their wines as well as running a successful business with wine tours, holiday accommodation and vineyard experiences. Whilst their wine is created in balance with the environment, the strains of family life and the business and along with the added emotional roller coaster that Caro is going through begin to show. They conclude that they need their first member of staff.

Glass Half Full is the third in the series of books by Caro about the pleasure and pain of running your own vineyard. It is full of stories and anecdotes in the larger context of overall life it is as readable as the first two books. It has happy moments and sad moments, as you would expect with any book about family life. She is open about her fears and aspirations for the business in this book, and we get to read how the mental and physical effort required takes its toil; it takes long days of work to grow the business. There are positives too, living in a small community just outside Bordeaux and the delights of French cuisine are an important part of the story. She hints at another book in the pipeline, so that is something to look forward to.

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Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory by Keggie Carew
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tom Carew was quite an amazing guy; at the age of 24 he parachuted into Nazi-occupied France as part of a secret operation with the codename Jedburgh. As secret agents went, he was bold and talented and unbelievable brave and caused lots of disruption; he even managed to escape from the Germans after having been captured. Having completed a successful mission he next destination was Burma, a place that would forge his reputation, making him somewhat of a legend as ‘Lawrence of Burma’ or the ‘Mad Irishman’. His exploits culminated in the award of a Distinguished Service Order (DSO), the youngest officer to ever obtain this.

To Keggie though he was just her dad. She was proud of his record during the war, even though she didn’t always understand what he had done, nor the significance of his actions. He had a liberal view of school, taking her out to take part in activities and providing the school with dubious reasons why. Her parents then split, and with the arrival of a step-mother on the scene, it meant that the strong bond she once had with her father, had gone. This gap lasted far too long, but in 2003 her step mother passed away and they pretty much picked up where they left off. She accompanied him to a Jedburgh reunion to meet up with lots of other veterans, their attitude to life and refusal to defer to authority was quite refreshing and it prompted Keggie to start to begin to sift through the files in his loft to learn more about his wartime antics. What suddenly made this uncovering of her father’s history more urgent was that Tom had suffered a series of small strokes and was starting to show signs of the long decline into dementia. And as Tom’s memories ebbed away, Keggie began to recover them through the documents.

It is a complex story that Keggie tells about her father and family. She weaves together the plight of her father as he forgets who his children are with the drama and excitement of the behind lines war activities. He was quite an amazing man and his military achievements gained him a DSO, but after the war, he found it hard to settle into regular life as a civilian. Even in his care home, he managed to cause a certain amount of chaos. Keggie’s writing is immersive and at times dense, the section about his military work in Burma was almost as hard to get through as hacking your way through a jungle there, but she writes with a warmth and generosity about her father, a man who was a genuine character and hero.

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Walking the Nile by Levison Wood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are a handful of rivers that are globally known, the Amazon which spans the continent of South America and the Nile which reaches deep into Africa. It is a river that has continually challenged explorers who have dared to take it on, not all of whom have mastered it, it is 4250 miles long after all. Levison Wood decided to walk its length. Not only is it an epic challenge in its own right but he would have to pass through jungles, savannahs, crocodile infested swamps, and one of the world’s hottest deserts, some of the most hostile environments in Africa as he walked north to the Mediterranean. Not only that but the seven countries that he would walk through are some of the most troubled and dangerous places on the planet.

Thankfully Wood as an ex-army officer is a tough character and he was going to need all the skills that he learnt there to keep the physical and mental strength up. As he walks we get a commentary on the state of modern Africa as seen from the people making a living there, rather than the sanitised reports that you will read here. He doesn’t walk alone as he has guides and is joined by friends at various points of the journey.

The rest of me was scattered, back across Africa, back along the river from which I had come

Wood is an amiable bloke who can make friends quickly and has a knack of diffusing tensions when they do arise. It is an unbelievably tough journey that took no prisoners full of euphoric moments and tragedy. He took a huge personal risk in undertaking this walk, the threats were real and present every single day, but all the way though the book he shows grit, determination and resilience with all the challenges that Africa throws at him. A genuine tough guy and a great adventure book. 4.5 stars

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The Art of Losing Control: A Guide to Ecstatic Experience by Jules Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Humans have always had the desire to seek experiences out beyond their comfort zone. Some of these can be a real benefit to people; a shared experience in a crowd, commune with a greater spirit and those most intimate of moments can generate a real buzz. They can though be dangerous as individuals can become addicted and lose touch with their closest friends. The search for ecstasy had been mostly disregarded by western intellectuals as they looked to enlightenment for answers. Philosopher Jules Evans thinks that ecstasy needs to play a larger part in human emotional development and he decides to try as many ways possible in the search for that perfect moment.

Evans decides the best way of exploring how people react to ecstasy is to experience all of these things for himself. Starting with Holy Trinity Brompton, he undertakes an Alpha course in the search for religious joy, moves onto the thrall of the mosh pit and musical enlightenment, discovers the allure of the silver screen, takes time to consider his position in the universe, seeks harmony with nature, before tentatively venturing into the tantric love temple in Dorset of all places. The future does not escape either, whether it is seeking a transhumanist philosophy and become immortals or to lose themselves in the binary worlds or cyberspace where no one knows you’re a cat.

As the search for the ecstatic experience grows, Evans has provided the closest that we have got to a guide to losing control. He argues that it can be beneficial to us as individuals as well as society as a whole but that there are caveats. He comes from a philosophical background making parts of the book occasionally quite esoteric, but there are some funny moments in the book and generally it is well written and understandable. By undertaking these series of strange and occasionally enlightening experiences gives him a greater authority to provoke a discussion in this book and gives us plenty of food for thought.

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Orison for a Curlew by Horatio Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the world’s rarest birds is the Slender-billed curlew. It breeds in Siberia in the brief summer and then heads south across the vast landscape to over winter in the much warmer Mediterranean region. It used to be a common enough bird, being seen often in Italy and Greece as well as the Balkans on the wetlands and estuaries. Then within a few years it stopped being a regular sight and almost vanished completely, just the odd speculative glimpse, but nothing confirmed. Horatio Clare wants to see if this fine bird has become extinct, or if there are the still some around. He travels from its wintering sites across Europe meeting conservationists who are trying their best to save habitats and creatures across a landscape undergoing dramatic changes.

Too much certainty is a miserable thing, while the unknowable has a pristine beauty and a wonder with no end.

Clare is engaging with all those he meets as he crosses Europe looking for these elusive birds and talking to those that remember them returning in the winters. It is quite a moving book as he searches for the elusive curlew and considers the reasons behind the decline. There are echoes of his book, A Single Swallow, and it is written in the same lyrical style, making this a joy to read. If it has one tiny flaw it is that it is very short, it felt like it took no time at all to read. 4.5 stars

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Long Way Back by Charley Boorman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

I first came across Charley Boorman when he appeared on our screens with Euan MacGregor in their epic travel adventure Long Way Round where they rode motorbikes from London to New York via Russia. Since then I have watched and read about all his travels and adventures all around the planet all through Africa and racing from Paris to Dakar. All of these have involved motorbikes to a greater or lesser degree. He was employed by Triumph to be an ambassador for them and involved in promoting their bikes. He was whisked off to Portugal to ride and be involved in the launch of the new Tiger Explorer when he was involved in an accident between a Mercedes and a wall. The impact broke his right ankle and smashed his fibia and tibia in his left leg. The damage was so severe that no one knew if he would lose his leg, let alone know if he would be able to walk or ride his beloved motorbikes once again.

From this dramatic and frankly traumatic start, Charley tells us the story of his long road to recovery. He does not hold much back telling you about his injuries, the number of operations and dealing with all the medical professionals for each of his injuries. He uses his time while recovering to look back on his childhood memories; his earliest moments spent on two wheels, to those significant moments that his father arranged which helped kickstart his career on the screen. After the accident, he had to cancel numerous events and he relives the time he has spent on motorbikes heading around the world on various escapades with the wonder if will ever be able to do it again.

I have been a fan of Boorman for a number of years now, he comes across as a genuinely good guy with as much as a sense of adventure as fun. He writes in a chatty style and is always honest about how he is feeling from the lowest moments and fears to the high points. He is eager to get better, and even while in a cast manages to get himself into scrapes still. Definitely a book for his fans, but there is enough in here to keep most people interested. There was a tantalising hint of a new adventure too; I hope that they do it.

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On the Marshes by Carol Donaldson
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 marshland of the north Kent coast has long been recognised as one of the most important natural wetlands in Northern Europe and it is thought to host around 300,00 migrant birds as they travel from Africa to the Arctic, the marshes are also a natural flood protection for London. There are many positives to modern living, warm and dry homes, running water, electricity and fast internet. However, some choose a simpler life, and Carol Donaldson was one of those. Working for the RSPB on the Thames Estuary she lived in a caravan beneath a willow. It could be tough at times, cold winters froze the pipes, storms would frequently knock out the electricity, but within a few feet of the door, she was immersed in the local landscape. This uncomplicated life was about to come to an abrupt end; her relationship with her partner Connor was unravelling and the powers that be decide that she cannot live in her caravan anymore. She is about to be evicted.

The wild beauty of the marshes has drawn many who wish to live on the fringes of society or escape from the claustrophobia of London. It is a classic edgeland landscape that has the remains of industry, World War Two relics and homes in amongst the creeks and marshlands. It is across this landscape that Donaldson begins to travel, partly to escape her painful memories, partly to find others who have made this their home but also to reacquaint herself with the seascape. It is a place that still faces battles though; having stopped the airport being built, the people who have come here for the tranquility of being near water will face increased pressure from corporate and government interests.

Weaving together a personal story of an author seeking comfort from the natural world is a popular genre these days which has its roots in H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. Donaldson’s writing is gentle and fluent, taking as much care over the describing the bleak landscape as she travels on foot and by boat, as she does when opening up about her past and the new direction that she wants to head. Her encounters with friends and strangers who live all over the region from Gravesend to Whitstable about the way they make their livelihoods make for equally stimulating reading. It was also interesting to learn about a landscape in the UK that I knew almost nothing about, in particular about the long history that has happened there. It has a stunning cover too, another great book from Little Toller.

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