Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Lydia is the apple of her parent’s eyes. She has her mother’s vivid blue eyes and her father’s jet black hair. For James, he hopes that she will become the person he never could be at school; popular, liked and the life and soul of any party. For Marilyn, she wants Lydia to be the doctor that she never became, rather than a mother and homemaker. As if these pressures are not enough, she has to contend with the spectre of race in her community. With a Chinese father and an American mother she had inherited the oriental looks along with her brother and sister. Nath, Hannah and Lydia suffer from the external pressures of race and the exclusions that 1970’s American society judged them on.

No one thought anything was wrong, until one day Lydia goes missing.

This is a really sad story really with a strong moral dimension about the perils of projecting your wishes and unrequited desires onto another individual. Ng has written eloquently about the way a family can implode and how each individual reacts to the after the loss of a child. I liked the effortless writing and certain aspects of the plot, but it just felt a little too woolly for me.

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Floating: A Journey Through Roger Deakin’s Waterlog by Joe Minihane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

For those that haven’t read Waterlog, then you should. In my opinion it has reached the point where it could be considered a classic tome now. Joe Minihane was one of those who has discovered the delights that the prose of Roger Deakin could offer. In the process of reading and re-reading this book, a germ of an idea grew. Twenty years after it was first published, Joe decided to recreate Deakin’s journey by swimming where he had before and to see how the wild swimming landscape had changed in the two decades.

A lot of the locations could be reached fairly easily, close to a tube station or at the end of a ride on a bicycle. To get to some of the others in the more remote parts of the UK would take a bit more effort though, especially as Joe can’t drive! It was time to find companions who want to join him in the cold waters of the UK and perhaps rekindle some old friendships that had faded in the busyness of modern life. However, this project was going to have a much more profound effect of Minihane’s life. He was to use the rituals of swimming to fight against the black dog depression and anxiety that he suffers from, slowly opening up to friends and seeking the professional help that he needs.

But this is more than that, not only does he describe the joys and shocks of immersing himself in the cold waters in this island, often with a sharp intake of breath, but like Deakin’s original, it is a frog’s eye view of the present state of our watery natural world. He lets his worries float away downstream and develops stronger bonds with old friends. Waterlog is a tremendous book, and this book by Minihane is a fitting tribute to Deakin and his legacy. A poignant reminder of the healing power of nature.

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Britain’s Best Historic Sites: From Prehistory to the Industrial Revolution by Tom Quinn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Britain has rich deep veins of history reaching back thousands of years. There are so many different periods of interest that where to start is sometime baffling. In Britain’s Best Historic Sites, Quinn has listed the 80 most significant or important sites and buildings that show the way that we have used and changed the landscape over the past 10,000 years. There is a little bit of everything in here; Iron Age hill forts, Roman castles and villas, cathedrals, stone circles, manor houses and even relatively modern industrial architecture.

The book has a potted history of some of the most significant sites around the UK and is accompanied by some beautiful photographs of them. Sadly with all books of this type, it suffers because of what had to be left out. The text is informative, though very brief, but it does proved good details on location and so you can discover these places for yourself.

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Falling Awake by Alice Oswald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don’t read much poetry, but I had heard very good things about Falling Awake by Alice Oswald and as I had really enjoyed Dart by her I’d though that I’d give it a go. This collection is split into two parts, the first is individual poems, and the second half is titled Tithonus. Like Dart, this is deeply embedded in the natural world, and has the same haunting beauty.

This is one of those wordy days

There are a few poems and lines that stood out:
A Short Story of Falling: “It is the secret of a summer shower / to steal the light and hide it in a flower”
Fox: “My life / is laid beneath my children / like gold leaf”
Shadow: It is faint / it has been falling for a long time
Sunday Ballard: As they dressed the dust / flew white and silent through the house”

I really liked the collection in the first half of the book, but couldn’t get on with the poem that took up the second. Will still read more of her work though.

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Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain by Lucy Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am not sure just how many foxes there are where I am living, but I see them darting across the roads at night, caught by the headlights of the car. There was even one brazen fox walking up the middle of the road at midnight once. These fleeting glimpses of our largest predator left in the UK are for me quite special, but for others, this animal is considered a nasty pest and is something to be vilified.

In this interesting account of our tempestuous relationship with the fox. Consider and cunning and crafty animal by most, Lucy Jones has delved into the folklore, fiction and her own family history and met with those that love and hate these intelligent creatures. This bang up to date account of foxes goes some way to demonstrating our complex relationship with the natural world too. To get a better understanding of the different perspectives, she joins a hunt and a later with the saboteurs of a following a hunt to get a better perspective as to how people feel about this animal and explores the issues that polarised people on the heated public debate on this subject.

Jones has written this book about vulpes vulpes with a considered and measured approach. You know whose side she is on, but she is prepared to talk about with people from each perspective and hear their views as well as taking the time to look at the evidence based on the facts and not the scaremongering from the press. Worth reading for anyone interested in the most recognisable of our wild creatures.

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

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

On an atlas, the small chain of countries that link the great continents of North and South America look tiny. It is a beautiful and varied part of our planet, but their size on the map belies just how tough a part of the world it is. Not only is it hot and humid, but you will have to contend with swamps, malaria, spiders and jaguars and the jungle and the remnants of ancient cities. Not forgetting the armed gangs of drug smugglers and military types with itchy trigger fingers, this is not the place for your tourists. Thankfully Levison Wood is not your regular tourist.

His chosen 1,800-mile route along this slender piece of land would take in eight countries. He was starting with Mexico, where he had persuaded his friend Alberto to come along for the trip. He readily agreed, remembering the time he spent in Africa with him travelling by truck; then Levison dropped the bombshell, saying that they would be walking it… Alberto still agreed to go with him every step of the way.

Levison Wood is one of the few adventurers left in the world who is capable and mad enough to undertake these sorts of long treks across parts of the world that people would not normally venture to. At times it is an unbelievably tough journey, as they deal with hacking their way through the understory, encountering migrants heading for a new life in America and the relentless task of putting one foot in front of the other. He is one tough guy to even attempt a challenge of this order, let alone complete it. Alberto and Wood have even joined the exclusive club of those that have managed to pass the impenetrable jungle at the Darien Gap. This is such a wild area that even the Pan-American highway stops in its two continent run. It is a reasonably well-written account of his trip, if you are expecting literary excellence then this is not necessarily going to be the author for you. What you do get though is an honest account of a unique hike with all the highs and lows from a genuine tough guy.

Great stuff. Now to watch the TV series.

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Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist by Paul Kingsnorth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Paul Kingsnorth was a passionate environmentalist, taking the time to be involved in activities and protests against the creep of corporate and governmental interests that threatened the climate and places with ill thought out developments. His view started to change as the business world embraced green ideals, and those opposing them watered down their vociferous defence of our wild places and cosied up to sustainability instead. He saw it as a betrayal of the movement as they chose to ignore the challenges and sacrifices that need to be made to avert the consequences of climate change.

In this great collection of essays, Kingsnorth passionately argues how the green movement has failed, and as he has seen it fail, how his thinking on what we need to do has changed. His new hypothesis he calls ‘dark ecology’, a vision where we do not have to rely on complicated technology to save us, but rather one where we need to once again seek the balance that we had with the natural world. It is a challenging read, not in the sense of his prose, which fizzles with raw energy, but in the way that he is prepared to challenge everything that he has every stood for, and ask the question: Where next?

Thought provoking stuff.

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