4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Spending time in the presence of an old tree always makes me wonder just what they have ‘seen’. Not literally of course, but their timelessness means that they are around much longer than us. Whilst I want to see them survive so other generations can enjoy them, there are people out there who see them purely as a resource that will give them an income.

That is essential in our modern society, but when these trees and forests have significance for lots of people in their locale, finding out that someone has cut down trees from protected areas is quite shocking. Just look at the reaction to the sycamore being felled recently.

There is a thriving black market in wood. Trees from protected forests are regularly cut down and sold on to those that aren’t going to be asking too many questions as to where the timber came from. In this book, Lyndsie Bourgon parts the understorey and brambles to show us just how endemic it is.

She concentrates mostly on the forests in North America and highlights specific cases where they have managed to get prosecutions of the individuals involved. But it is a global problem, and the later part of the book explores some of the industrial logging that takes place, often at the hands of criminal gangs who are reliant on those that turn a blind eye, having been bribed.

It isn’t just theft, the wider problem of this illegal logging is that the carbon that these ancient trees were storing has been released into the atmosphere again. Even the process of removing the finely patterned burls from big trees can damage them. You may not think that it is much of a crime to steal some wood from a tree, but this crime is part of a wider problem that we humans have had with the world’s resources and that when they are gone, that is it, no more.

It does make me wonder just how certified FSC wood actually is. If they can trace illegal wood into Ikea and other stores then it probably means that the entire system is flawed and cannot be completely trusted. If you want to read a true crime book that does not have dead bodies littering the prose then I can recommend this.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

You are almost certainly reading this online, either on your computer or most likely now on a mobile device. Vast swathes of what we do have moved online or have a high technological aspect or element to it. The data that you provide to the companies and organisations that we interact with makes you a valuable part of their business.

Because technology is so pervasive, people have started to question is this actually good for us and our loved ones. I love technology, but I tend to think that the answer to this question now is no. The companies use various techniques to get us hooked and keep us interacting with their particular app. This is borderline psychological warfare on us the customer and at the moment, most people are losing…

Each chapter takes us through each stage of our lives from infancy, and early childhood to the tumult that is modern teenage years and onto our digital interactions as adults and the digital legacy that we will leave behind. In each chapter, Kasket gives a good overview of how technology has changed and the possibilities it offers and more importantly the warning signs that you need to be aware of.

This is a very thought-provoking book, She is not writing to make you feel really bad about all of your habits with regard to technology, but rather, just some of them…

The part that I was most startled by is the amount of technology that parents are expected to smother (not literally) their latest offspring in. We only had a baby monitor and didn’t use that for all of ours. It is also a warning about where we could be going, especially with regard to your digital legacy and the ghost in the machine that you will leave behind.

I did feel that it was missing a how-to-change section at the back. But she made it very clear in the conclusion that she wasn’t and didn’t want to do that. Rather she advocates her Technology Serenity Meditation:

May I have the serenity to accept what I cannot change about tech, the courage to change my use of it where I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

However, on reflection, I thought that the warnings in the book would be different for every reader of this and then they will have the knowledge to begin to make positive changes in their digital life. She does provide guidelines to help in this process. If you feel that you need to have a digital detox, then this is a good book to start that process with.

Didn’t January Drag? As ever. And making it to February means that I can look back over the month of reading and acquisitions and think that a book-buying ban is never going to happen… Even though I did by a few, more importantly, I passed a load on and 43 books left the house to find new homes.

So firstly here is what I read in January:

Books Read

Hemingway’s Chair – Michael Palin – 2 Stars

And The Mountains Echoed – Khaled Hosseini – 2 Stars

Endurance: 100 Tales Of Survival, Endurance And Exploration – Ed. Levison Wood – 3 Stars

A Local Habitation – Norman Nicholson – 3 Stars

Ravilious & Co: The Pattern Of Friendship – Andy Friend – 3.5 Stars

The Turning Tide: A Biography Of The Irish Sea – Jon Gower – 3.5 Stars

On Writing and Failure – Stephen Marche – 3.5 Stars

Cornerstones: Wild Forces That Can Change Our World – Benedict Macdonald – 3.5 Stars

Elixir: In The Valley At The End Of Time – Kapka Kassobova – 4 Stars

Vuelta Skelter: Riding The Remarkable 1941 Tour Of Spain – Tim Moore – 4 Stars

Abroad in Japan: Ten Years In The Land Of The Rising Sun – Chris Broad – 4 Stars

Blue Dahlia, Black Gold: A Journey Into Angola – Daniel Metcalfe – 4 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wildness – Alastair Humphreys – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Travel – 6

Fiction – 2

Writing – 1

History – 1

Natural History – 1

Biography – 1

Poetry – 1

Top Publishers

Bloomsbury – 2

Arrow – 1

Harper North – 1

Head Of Zeus – 1

Eye Books – 1

Thames & Hudson – 1

Sort Of Books – 1

Jonathan Cape – 1

Bantam – 1

Vintage – 1

Faber & Faber – 1

Methuen – 1

Review Copies Received

Utter, Earth: Advice on Living in a More-than-Human World – Isaac Yuen

Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love – Ed. Joanne Ella Parsons

Library Books Checked Out

A Line In The World: A Year On The North Sea Coast – Dorthe Nors

Homesick: Why I Live in a Shed – Catrina Davies

God Is An Octopus: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature – Ben Goldsmith

Books Bought

Pages From My Passport – Amelia Dalton

Tyneham – The Lost Village of Dorset – Andrew Norman & Mary Hurst

The Museum of Cathy – Anna Stothard

Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? – Chris van Tulleken

Aromabingo – David Gaffney

Cranborne Chase – Desmond Hawkins

Scenes from Prehistoric Life: From the Ice Age to the coming of the Romans – Francis Pryor

Professor Stewart’s Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries – Ian Stewart

Scotland the How?: The Hows and Whys of Scottish History – John and Noreen Hamilton

From a Persian Tea House: Travels in Old Iran – Michael Carroll

Pottery – Penny Copeland-Griffiths

Riding the Magic Carpet: A Surfer’s Odyssey in Search of the Perfect Wave – Tom Anderson

The Anthology of Scottish Folk Tales – Various

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India – William Dalrymple

Throwim Way Leg: An Adventure – Tim Flannery

The Cruise of the Snark – Jack London

A Stroke of the Pen – Terry Pratchett

The New Poacher’s Handbook – Ian Niall

So any from that huge list that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

The travel adverts that fill our media after the excesses of Christmas are there to seduce us into travelling to these beautiful places, with the promise of making your life rich with experiences. There are those who would rather strike out on their own, venturing to places around the world that do not have a mass tourist industry, with the hope of finding something for the inner spirit.

Humphreys is one of those latter people. One of his first big adventures was to cycle all around the world (both books on his journey are great by the way) and he has walked around Spain in the footsteps of Laurie Lee whilst badly playing a violin. He is also a great advocate for micro adventures, short travels and adventures that take a day or a few hours and are there to enrich your life, without draining your wallet. This book is a follow-on from that.

The basic principle is that he wanted to stay local and discover all there is to find within a short distance from his home. He bought a map centred on his home from the OS that covered 20 km by 20 km and looked at the squares it was divided up into and decided to visit each one square kilometre on a day when he was free.

Like anyone who has lived in the same area for a reasonable period of time, you tend to think that you know your locale well. Well, as Humphreys found out, I bet that you don’t. This journey of very little distance would take him back in time, to relics from the war, he discovers something called a denehole and decides to see what is inside. He passes through housing estates, and graveyards and admires the ancient yews that add a certain gravitas to the place.

He comes across tiny cottages tucked away in woods he didn’t know existed, tries a spot of mudlarking and delights in the return of the swifts. Not every discovery is pleasant, there are burnt-out cars, fly-tipping and He is continually appalled by the litter scattered all over the place and ends up collecting bagfuls to dispose of properly. There is the odd surreal discovery too, a stuffed toy in the fork of a tree, is it there for a parent to rediscover, or as a symbol of some form? He also discovers in his 20Km by 20Km area that he can’t go everywhere, he finds lots of keep-out signs some of which he chooses to ignore..

Not only did I find this a really enjoyable read, but I think it highlights something that we probably all need to do more of, by acting locally and thinking globally and not consuming vast amounts of resources just because we can. As Humphreys shows in all of the chapters in this book there are countless things that can be discovered pretty much on your doorstep. And I would hazard a guess that like he found, there are things that you had no idea existed near you.

Humphreys writes with a self-depreciating humour and a sense of wonder in almost everything that he sees or looks at. But coupled with this is the fury that he has with the way that the planet in general and his local area, in particular, is being treated. It might not be something that some readers want to hear, but it does need to be said. If you want a very different sort of travel book and one that you can use as a springboard to find out what is in your local area then this is a really good place to start.

4 out of 5 stars

As the Battle of Britain rages over the village of Woodville. Several planes have crashed and one of the villagers has been keeping parts of them in one of his barns. He is terrified when he realises that there is a poltergeist who is flinging the debris about in it. The three witches use a spell to realise the spirit. It is as they are leaving, Faye turns to see another ghost in the barn still, an airman who is scared on his face.

The three witches are visited by the leader of the Council of High Witches. It is a warlock, called Bellamy, The previous incumbent has been removed following the events covered in the previous book. He is there to ask the three witches to join him in casting a spell to stop the probable Nazi invasion.

They are going to be joined by witches from all over the country to create this cone of power and to gain maximum power for the spell tells them they will need to be skyclad. The witches are more than happy to help, but if he thinks they are getting their kit off, he has another thing coming…

These are a nice easy read and this is another enjoyable book in the series. The plot is not overly complex, and there are little subplots going on that have carried on from the previous books. I think that I worked out some of the essential plot pointss earlier in the book. It didn’t spoil it for me though. Being a series, I kind of know that everything is going to be okay, but there is a certain amount of jeopardy in the journey to the conclusion which I think makes for entertaining reading. Looking forward to the next one which I have just got out of the library.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Being an island nation we have had to get used to invaders that have regularly turned up over the past 2000 years. Most of them haven’t been particularly friendly, the Vikings spring to mind. This threat of ‘invasion’, especially those in ‘small boats’ fuelled by certain papers and politicians, coupled with the fact that most coastal towns and villages are run down or tired then these factors may be why most people in these places voted for Brexit.

This book is a tour of some of the coastal towns around the UK. It is not extensive and both the author and the illustrator visited the places together after the pandemic lockdowns to get a feel for the places and to do some people watching. They begin their journey in the English Riveria. The town of Torquay is haunted by the spectre of Faulty towers and isn’t quite what it used to be though, and feels like it is full of Little Britain bigotry. It has lost some of its charm
Weston Super-Mare is a place that I have only ever been to once. I can’t remember how old I was, but all I remember was the mud glistening in the sun and the tide went out. It was the place that Banksy chose for his theme park, Dismaland with his particular take on the English seaside.

Quite who was taking the piss out of whom has not been determined… In the time of Covid restrictions though, normal seaside activities are not happening, the donkeys that would have been plodding up and down the beach aren’t there.
Sandbanks is quite a place. It is dripping with money and should you have any desire to live there you will need a large fortune, but anyone can turn up and enjoy the beach and the views over the Purbecks and Old Harry Rocks. Just along the coast, Boscombe is a complete contrast. It has had money poured into it, but it still feels slightly seedy and rundown, but it does now have a gastropub. The pier here is a beautiful minimalist design and is a favourite of mine. Sykes mentions something here that I have never really noticed before, that almost all the benches have memorials on them, unlike other countries. As they head towards Christchurch, they find anti-vax slogans alongside the benches, the irony is not lost on the author, that these people lived long enough to be remembered because of the vaccination programmes of the 20th century. From Sandbanks one end, at the opposite end of the bay are the most expensive beach huts in the UK.

And so to Essex, a county that is often unfairly defined by its derogatory stereotypes. Clacton is drab and artificially lit by amusement arcades. They find a pub, that is allegedly the worst in the country, but they feel that have been in worse before. The mediocre food isn’t really enhanced by the karaoke serenade they are treated too either… They move further along the coast to Jaywick, here it feels like a shanty town with the jerry-rigged houses and the slide downward is very visible here. Sykes ponders if it is a precursor to the economic Brexit slide, though there is a glimmer of hope he sees in the Happy Club and its bartering system.

Sykes heads to his home patch of Portsmouth for the next journey. He recommends that it is always worth looking down, not just to avoid stepping in anything nasty, but so you can spot the engravings, inscriptions and other man-made items embedded in the ground. He marvels at the attempts to make Gosport a seaside town, whilst the industrial past and present loom over in a slightly threatening way. Even though Portsmouth has a long history, sometimes he has to look really far to see it. On a more positive note, the city has gone from being a cultural desert and a place to catch the clap to a place that is forging its own new identity.
The beach at Milton has its own strand line of plastic debris and other detritus and is not as salubrious as Sandbanks… The sluice gate is packed with rubbish and other junk, in a nasty tribute to the glamour of capitalism that is Gunwharf Keys. But one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and his beachcomber friend, Dan, collects this junk, with the hope of finding something interesting.

Hayling Island is not quite an island, he could drive onto it, but chooses to take the ferry. Sykes has mixed memories of the place and visiting again, brings them flooding back. It was where his grandparents lived, but his uncles and aunts have less fond memories of their upbringing. They lived in poverty, surviving on benefits and budget clothing and where a treat was a trip to the funfair.

Another branch of Sykes’s family comes from Yorkshire. His grandfather joined the navy, hence why they ended up living in Portsmouth, but he feels a trip back there is due. He begins in Robin Hood bay, in a mostly left-wing county, it has been a Tory stronghold for almost a century now. It feels very different to the seaside town of the south and is discombobulating for him. Whilst in the area he feels that they should visit Whitby. He likes its unique culture and it has become a place of homage to Dracula, even though he is barely there in the book. It has expanded from that now, but don’t tell the goths, and this is the place where he eats the best fish and chips of the trip.

The first pub that they enter in Scarborough has a very disturbing political bent and so they head to the possibly wrongly named Grand Hotel. It may have been at one point, but isn’t now… They take a wander up the headland, past the bowling green. A waitress describes the place as dead, but as they have found with all the places they have visited, there is life if you know where to look.

A tour of the seaside towns of the UK wouldn’t really be a full tour if you didn’t go to Blackpool. It once was the pinnacle of the British seaside resorts, and whilst it still has it, some of the glamour has faded. They walk the sights and see the lights, have a go at bingo and partake in a mini pub crawl. It isn’t as run down as other towns they have visited, it still draws a fair number of visitors, but there is a seedy side that they come across. It seems to be holding its history well and seems to be in a good position to move forward.

I really liked this book. The mix of forensic observation of people by Sykes and the sketches by the very talented Louis Netter makes for a very unusual book indeed. But it works, or at least it did for me. I think that the reason for that is that they travelled to all of the locations in the book together and they have a certain dynamic that works really well. These dual views of what was happening around them are expertly portrayed in the art and the words. If you want to read a very different travelogue of Britain then this is a brilliant place to start.