Wood: Andy Goldsworthy by Andy Goldsworthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wood is a remarkable substance, we can use it to heat us, to carry us through water and air and time spent in coppices can breathe life into our souls. But the artist Andy Goldsworthy sees wood in different ways and this wonderful book is his interpretation of the way a tree lives and transforms. Using the natural materials he finds close to an oak tree in each season he creates breath-taking art that is ethereal and fleeting. These transient pieces are captured perfectly by his camera before they return to nature.

A small confession, Goldsworthy is one of my favourite artists who creates such beautiful natural artworks. His use of different materials in each of the pieces bring different energies and dynamics to the photo, as you know some will not even see another sunrise. There is precious little text in here, the main purpose of the book is the photos. But if you like the natural world, Goldsworthy’s creations from rocks, branches, leaves, ice and snow will touch your very heart. Excellent, just excellent.

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Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo by Tim Parks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a joke that goes:

HEAVEN is where: The police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics are German, the lovers are French, and it’s all organised by the Swiss
HELL is where: The police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and it’s all organised by the Italians!!

In Italy the trains are right in line with those stereotypes too. It is a country of fine foods, beautiful countryside, strong coffee and exasperating bureaucracy

Park is very familiar with this as he commutes frequently from Verona to Milan. The journey is a delightful as it is stressful, letting the train take the strain after struggling through the minefield of purchasing a ticket. It is full of detail too, you feel you are sharing the same view as he writes about the vineyards and orchards and the bleak industrial landscapes outside the towns and you stand alongside him admiring the soaring heights of the central stations. He is a careful observer of his fellow passengers too, noting as people rush to grab their morning coffee before snatching a seat and talking loudly to strangers unlike The UK where everyone cocoons themselves in their own little world.

His travels take him down through Italy and onto the island of Sicily. This has suffered decades of almost no investment in its railways, and the locals cannot believe that he wants to use them. He has some fairly strong opinions on the current state of the rail system, including the money spent of the fast links between towns and cities at the expense of sorting out the other problems including the most complicated ticket system going. But somehow it still functions.

As an outsider who has lived there for a number of years he is ideally placed to make these observations of his adopted country and it was a real pleasure to read too. He manages to convey just the right amount of detail coupled with a razor sharp wit, without it becoming too much.

Just like an espresso really.

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Off the Map: Lost Spaces, Invisible Cities, Forgotten Islands, Feral Places and What They Tell Us About the World by Alastair Bonnett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Apart from some obscure bits of the Amazon rainforest and Indonesian jungles we think that there can be no undiscovered parts of the world; can there? Surely, we must have discovered everything on Google Earth by now. Off The Map sets about putting that record straight. In this book, Bonnett helps us discover secret places, unexpected islands, slivers of a metropolis and hidden villages. Russia seems to have more than its fair share of secret and abandoned cities. There is Zheleznogorsk, a military town that never existed on any map and still retains some of its secrecy today. Probably the most infamous is Pripyat, abandoned days after the nuclear explosion at Chenobyl, it is slowly being reclaimed by nature; the amount of radiation means that the area will not be safe for humans to reoccupy for at least 900 years. Give or take…

Bonnett tells us about disputed borders that mean that the people still living there are unattached to any nation, a man in New York who bought the tiny strips of land alongside tower blocks for a few dollars each. There is Sealand, a fortress built in World War Two and now a self-declared principality in the North Sea. Other islands exist in out oceans too, some that are on maps that have never been there, others made from rubbish that has collected together and occasionally floating rocks; or pumice as it is better known, the residue from underwater volcanoes. There is also a huge vessel called the World, collectively owned by the residents, it ploughs the seas keeping all the riff-raff away. He mentions the abandoned villages of England from the second world war, including one just down the road from me; Arne.

It is a fascinating book, full of weird and wonderful trivia about places that you really wouldn’t want to visit on your holidays. It is also an exploration of what makes a landscape and the things we draw from it. Worth reading for anyone who is fascinated by those places that just don’t fit the map. 3.5 stars

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Tracking Marco Polo by Tim Severin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Marco Polo and his journey across the Silk Road to the Far East had always fascinated Tim Severin. When he was presented with an opportunity to follow in the explorers footsteps travelling from Venice across the Middle East to Afghanistan, he jumped at the chance. There was only one minor flaw in the plan, Tim and his companions would be travelling by motorbike and sidecar, but none of them had ever ridden a motorbike.

So begins the tale of their journey as they battle across deserts, through mountain passes overcoming floods, sandstorms and crashes. They even passed through the ominous sounding he Valley of the Assassins. Not only was riding the motorbike a struggle, the languages were a bit tricky for all three too. Severin even managed to squeeze in a camel ride seeking the famed apples of paradise in the Deh Bakri Pass.

This book is an enjoyable look at a world very different to ours today. But they were foolhardy. I cannot believe that none of them could ride a motorbike at the beginning. They had a little training, but still didn’t really gain a huge amount of competence throughout the journey. They did draw a lot from their trip, being on motorbikes they came to understand the people and culture of the countries that they visited much more than they would have done in a car or truck. Not a bad read; 2.5 stars

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