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The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold: Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail by Tim Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Growing up as a teenager in the 1980’s the cold war and the Soviet threat was very real indeed. The whole system imploded at the end of that decade and the Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe from Communist bloc for decades was drawn aside. This physical and ideological border stretched from the Black Sea all the way up to the Barents Sea on the Finnish border with the USSR. This continental wide border is now the route for Eurovelo 13 (EV13) a 10,400km trail that passes through 20 different countries, countless monuments and a huge variety of landscapes of the countries that once were opposed.
It was this route that Tim Moore sets out to cycle. Not on a fancy bike though, oh no, the one he has chosen is a two geared, tiny two wheeled shopping bike. His velocipede of choice is a MIFA 900, a bike made in the GDR with broadly similar attributes to that of the Trabant. For some mad reason he was starting on the Russian Norwegian border in the midst of an Arctic winter.
Ambitious? Definitely, but what could possibly go wrong…
The route he takes is littered by the long forgotten and sinister paraphernalia of a once impenetrable border; razor wire, rusting towers and abandoned checkpoints. Cycling on the snow on a properly prepared bike is hard enough, but riding on this remnant of the GDR it is really tough going. He is kept in high spirits by the kindness of strangers, sleeps in hotels and hostels and occasionally peoples spare rooms. His tenacity to keep pedalling is matched only by his addiction to the Magic Man energy drink with its warming addition. He meets all sorts of characters on his journey, all affected by the change as the region changed from Communist control to modern Europe and free borders.
I have read all of Moore’s other books, so I was really looking forward to this. He manages to dream up some quirky and unusual travels, walking across Spain with a donkey, locating those that have had the ignominy of getting ‘nul points’ in the Eurovision and rediscovering his inner Roman in the re-enactment world. He is ever so slight nutty, and this makes for very funny moments in his travels. His self-depreciating attitude means that he rubs along with most people he meets, and give us a series of amusing anecdotes too. It was well worth reading as have been all his others. It didn’t quite reach French Revolutions though which is still one of the funniest book I have ever read.
I shouldn’t be allowed in a library with a card…
and bought
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Copses and wood seem static places, only changing as the seasons ebb and flow. The forests of Europe and the UK have inspired writers, built towns and fleets and provide food warmth and shelter for millennia. But all is not as it seems in this wooded world, as Wohlleben details in his book with the latest research and understanding of just how a tree is created, grows and dies. The science behind these ground-breaking new discoveries is revealing a secret world of communication, nurture and microclimates. The environment that they create from the roots to the tips of the crown is carefully controlled, they shelter young trees from fierce summer sun, pass nutrients through the fungal webs in the ground and protect each other from the battering in winter storms. There is details on how they manage to pump gallons of water high into the air; something that is not fully understood yet and how they react to when you hack a branch off. No wonder they can live five times longer than us.
He is deeply passionate about woods and forests, something that is evident from the very first chapter. The science that he reveals is almost unbelievable really, but it is backed up with solid evidence and examples; but there is still so much that we do not know or understand. As he has come to understand the deep complexity of these individual trees, and the forest as a whole, he has changed from being a logger to a forest ambassador and arguing that maintaining and enjoying the forests in a sustainable way is the best for us and the forests. Forests add so much to our health and our lives, and more importantly the well-being of our planet and this philosophy is as beneficial to us as it is to the management of the forests. This is a well written call to learn to love our wooded areas once again.
Those of you that know me know I read a fair amount of travel books. I am considering a huge challenge to read a travel book set in every country in the world called:
The World from My Armchair
What do people think of the name?
Fun Science: A Guide to Life, the Universe and Why Science Is So Awesome by Charlie McDonnell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Just the mention of science to any inactive teenager is enough to make them move rapidly in the other direction, but the You-Tuber Charlie McDonnell has made it his mission to bring the wonders of science and the world to them. He will take us on a journey through all types of science, from the solar system and the cosmos and right back to the Big Bang. He covers all manner of other things too, from the human body, particles physics and a brief introduction to chemistry.
If you can prise the screen out of their hands, then this book is a good introduction to all things sciencey. It is not a serious science book, but those that this book is aimed at is not expecting that and therefore it makes it ideal for those who think that science is scary and difficult. It is full of funky fonts, fun page layouts and weird and wonderful drawings that make the facts appealing and amusing anecdotes to make the reader smile. I have now passed it to the target audience, my teenage daughters, for their opinion, so will report back on this later on.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
A millennia ago One State conquered the world, now they have designs on the rest of the Universe. They are building a spaceship called Integral and the chief engineer, D-503, is writing a journal that he is intending on taking with him on its maiden journey. Even in his privileged position he has to live in a glass apartment so he is constantly visible to the Bureau of Guardians, better known as One State’s secret police. He only has a moment of privacy when his state appointed lover, O-90, is permitted to visit him on certain nights. O-90 has other lovers, including the best friend of D-503, R-13 who performs as a One State sanctioned poet at public executions.
Then one day, the safe predictable world that D-503 has known, changes in ways that he could never have conceived, and nothing can ever be the same again.
I couldn’t quite get on with this for a few reasons. The plot didn’t really move that fast, even though it is a short tome, and the characters feel as flat and two dimensional as the glass walls that they are continually viewed through. I can see where Orwell and Huxley got their inspiration from though as this is brutally chilling at times with the all-pervasive state intrusion and levels of control that are frankly terrifying. Not bad, but for me didn’t have that extra something that 1984 has. 2.5 stars
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Back in 2010 the barrister Philippe Sands was asked to give a lecture at Lviv University in Ukraine on the subjects of genocide and crimes against humanity. This gave him the opportunity to visit the city, and maybe discover more about his maternal grandfather, a man who he knew so little about. Sands knew he was Jewish, had moved to Vienna as war enveloped Europe in 1914 and then moved onto Paris after the Nazis entered Austria. When he probed further he discovered that there were scant details about him; it was a life enveloped in secrecy. Little by little, he discovered details of his grandfather’s life, how the family had moved across Europe, his mother’s journey to Paris as a small child in the company of someone other than her parents, somehow staying one-step ahead as the Nazi regime started sending people to the death camps.
His visit to Lviv University also revealed that his own field of legal expertise, international humanitarian law, had been conceived by two men who had studied law there. Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht were the men who forged the ideas of genocide and crimes against humanity. These legal concepts were first used in anger in the Nuremburg trials post World War II when the prosecution of Nazi war criminals took place. He brings the governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank into the narrative. Responsible for the deaths of over 1 million Poles and Jews in the short time he was in charge, he also had the dubious honour of being Hitler’s personal lawyer. After the war, the lives of Franks, Lemkin and Lauterpacht would come together in the International Military Tribunals in room 600 at the Palace of Justice as the world learnt of the horrors of the Third Reich .
Sands has written a poignant and personal memoir of tracing his grandfather. However, this book is so much more than that. His story of the three people that culminated in the Nuremburg trials is a fascinating account of the development of international law. It was personal for Lemkin and Lauterpacht and his grandfather Leon too as they were among the people lost numerous members of their families in this absolute tragic and pointless loss of life that swept Europe. Words like genocide and crimes against humanity should never exist, but sadly, they do. For a book that is full of much sadness, there is hope too; the legal principles that they initiated are being used to bring people to justice. These principles that they defined will never solve the problems of the world, but they do give peoples and cultures opportunity for redress. It is a influential historical account of men who were prepared to fight brutality with peaceful means. Can highly recommend this.
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