Snow by Marcus Sedgwick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

Snow. That weird substance that isn’t quite ice, and isn’t quite rain. Its appearance in winter brings screams of delight from the young and young at heart. Other people are equally happy to see the back of it. It is an icy blanket that smothers and softens the spiky winter skyline, bringing an ethereal and transformative silence to the landscape. It is this substance that has captivated Sedgwick since his childhood. He has bought this obsession into adult life too preferring the colder parts of the world over sun kissed beaches, so much so that he is the owner of a chalet high in the Alps.

You like snow? Yes, we said. He blinked a couple of times, then frowned, deadly serious. I hope you do, he said

In six chapters, mirroring the perfect shape of the snowflake, Sedgwick looks at the way that snow has inspired art and literature through the ages, before clearing the paths to discover the science that creates these little marvels of symmetry. There are few legends that have snow as an element, but those that do are powerful and deep in their meaning. It is a unique substance, that can bring death and destruction, and life too as he describes the wonders of a material that whilst cold, can also keep you warm. Softly falling snow has the ability to silence everything and walking out in it will touch every sense that you possess.

Today is one of those days when it appears that it has been snowing since time began

Snow is a short, intense, beautifully written and perfectly formed book, each word carefully chosen for maximum effect. It is a lovely mix of fact, myth and personal stories as Sedgwick tells of his deep passion for the white stuff. He makes us rethink our memories of winter days long gone, of snowball fights, of the wrong kind of snow and school days missed. But, it is also a warning; the effects of climate change means that some people may never see snow in any quantity again. It is a wonderful read and a real gem of a book.

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The Humans by Matt Haig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Andrew Martin is not the man he used to be. To be honest, he isn’t the human he used to be either. The original Andrew Martin was a maths genius, and he had just solved the Riemann hypothesis on prime numbers, but he wasn’t a particularly nice man either, as the alien who is impersonating him is rapidly finding out. He has been sent to destroy all evidence that this hypothesis has been solved, and he will do anything to ensure that anyone else who has spoken to Martin about the solution, is not in a position to do anything about it either.

The thing is, his so called low key operation gets off to the worst possible start. On top of that he isn’t quite sure just what to make of the human race, just what drives these humans, and maybe, just maybe start to fall in love with the lady who is now his wife. Now he has a choice that he doesn’t really want to make; complete his mission; or become human.

It is has some parallels with stories like A Man Called Ove, the kind that gives some people a warm fuzzy glow, and Haig has got this nailed. But for me it wasn’t hugely amusing, though it did make me smile in some parts. The best part for me was the list of advice to us to make your life much better at the very back of the book. Overall, 2.5 stars. Not bad and I will probably read the others that I have on my shelves at home.

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Hell of a Journey: On Foot Through the Scottish Highlands in Winter by Mike Cawthorne
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

As challenges go this was pretty extreme. Across the Scottish Highlands. On Foot. In Winter. And bagging the 135 peaks over 1000 metres.

The guy is insane.

Strangley enough, no one had attempted this before; but this is what Mike Cawthorne decided to do. So he started preparations for the mammoth trek across the last of the United Kingdom’s wildernesses. Not only did he have to get fit, but he left caches of food at set points across the route that would enable him to keep moving. He handed in his notice at his job and made his way to the very north of Scotland. His route would take him from the bleak Sutherland Bay, through the Eastern Cairngorms, past Loch Lomond, and onwards to Glencoe. It is one of our most spectacular landscapes, but with that beauty comes genune danger. These places in the winter can be as cold as the Arctic, and suffer days of relentless winds; little did Cawthorne know just what weather he would encounter on his epic walk.

He is a lyrical writer, managing to keep our attention as he battles through all that the Scottish winter could through at him. But mountains are in his blood, and as foolhardy as a journey of this magnitude is, for him it is a calculated risk, with a strong sense of his exact limits. Even though there was no point where I wished I was alongside him in some of the conditions he encountered, his evocative writing means that you feel the wind, taste the rain, shiver in the cold and absorb the view in the sharp sparkling sun as he did. But it is a call to arms too, as the places he crossed are under threat from greedy land owners expecting this wild and untamed land to pay its way. What we have the opportunity to see now may one day soon be gone. It is a well written book on out most spectacular mountains.

He is still insane though…

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The Meaning Of Birds by Simon Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Birds are all around us, they are the wild creatures that we encounter every day. They have fascinated us for millennia with their mastery of the air and ability to produce the most beautiful songs. In this book, Barnes wants us to pause and consider just how much we rely on them and them on us. Covering all manner of topics, from the way that their feathers enable them to fly, how they define the seasons, their ability to navigate huge distances across the planet and how they have fed and clothed us from time immemorial.

Science owes a lot to birds as well. Darwin’s observations of birds in the Galapagos gave us the theory of evolution; engineers have studied the way that albatrosses can fly over 600 miles in a day with scarcely a flap to improve the performance of wings. Climate scientists study migration patterns and times to see glimpse the subtle changes that climate change is having. It is packed full of fascinating details and anecdotes on birds, like how the feathers can be light, waterproof and enable flight, and a subtly different feather can be the most efficient insulator we know. Modern technology helped us discover the hidden sounds in the songs and the precise speed of the Peregrines stoop.

Barnes has given us a well written, heartfelt book about the wonders of birds. It is a broadbrush look at the world of birds and the subjects are varied as the birds you can discover through your binocluars. This book will make you smile too, as nestled in amongst the science and facts is a tongue-in-cheek humour like the irony of tucking into a chicken sandwich when watching birds.. Throughout the book are lots of fine line drawings taken from Eighteenth century bird books, and I think that this lifts it from being another book about our feathered friends to make it a real pleasure to read. It is a book that can be dipped into without losing anything, and most importantly conveys his deep passion for his subject. Great stuff.

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A Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the things that you notice when coming in to land at an airport in the UK is our patchwork pattern of fields and hedges that makes this green and pleasant land. It is a unique part of our heritage, and in some cases hedge lines can be traced back hundreds and occasionally thousands of years. Not only do they add some much to our countryside, but they are literally a lifeline to our birds and mammals as well as being home to all sorts of other plants and fungi.

In this book the well known naturalist Wright takes us on a voyage of discovery with the humble hedge. He weaves together natural with cultural history along with a comprehensive list of the flora, fauna and fungi found in a most hedges. The scope is widened with the inclusion of other ways of separating crops from hungry livestock, including dry-stone wall, Cornish hedges (also walls) and the ornate fences. It is a book full of fascinating historical references and entertaining facts with plenty of high quality photos. It makes for a fascinating reference book, and when it is out in paperback will definitely be added to my library.

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Have just got Simon Garfield’s new book through the post: