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The Language Of Trees Ed. by Katie Holten

26/07/2023 / Paul / 4 Comments

5 out of 5 stars

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

Trees are hugely important for our global ecosystem, just how important though, we really don’t know fully. Research is always uncovering the ways that they work and the methods that they communicate amongst each other. They are some of the oldest living organisms on the planet too, with some individual trees reaching 4,00 years old and it is thought that some groups are many times older than that.

The book is split into nine sections such as Seeds, Soil, Saplings, Flowers & Fruits and Tree Time which have over sixty essays by authors such as Jessica J. Lee, Suzanne Simard, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Robert Macfarlane. There are even the lyrics from a song that Holten has applied her wonderful tree font to. The essays are varied and interesting though, as with any collection, I did have some favourites.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have read this year. The fine gold detail on the cover is exquisite. But couple that with the pale cream pages and the rich green ink used throughout, the whole thing is a work of art. Holten’s Tree Alphabet used to highlight the writing she has drawn from numerous sources is the icing on the cake. She uses this for the titles of the essays and to introduce each section. What I did like was the ways that some of the short essays have been entirely recreated in this wonderful font, the pages move from small copses and sometimes dense woodland.

Hard Lying by Lewen Weldon

24/07/2023 / Paul / 0 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

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

Lewen Weldon was in Marseilles en-route home for his biannual leave. For the previous fourteen years, he had been mapping the deserts of Egypt. But the UK has just declared war on Germany and started what would become First World War.

He had a particular set of skills, including being a fluent Arabic speaker, that the intelligence services knew they could use and they had a very important role for him. He was to run a network of spies behind the Turkish lines dropping them by boat and interviewing locals who were sympathetic to the allies and their strategic aims.

The book was written from his diary of the time and it is almost like reading a report with embellishments. But it is those additions that bring it to life as a book. There are details about the mundane parts of the job and the terror of being bombed whilst in the harbour and torpedoed.

How the book came back into publication too has an interesting back story. I am glad it has been brought back as I thought that it was a fascinating book. Weldon gives a great insight into the job of running agents in enemy territory. It is written in a clipped mater of fact style which is very detailed about who he met with and where, but he also manages to convey just how tense it was in the area when they were carrying out these operations, in particular at night. Well worth reading.

Sarn Helen by Tom Bullough

07/07/2023 / Paul / 0 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

I had never heard of this Roman Road before coming across this book, but it runs from the south of Wales and crosses the Breckons to Y Gaer before reaching Llandudno in the north and then crossing to Anglesey, the place where the Romans crushed the druids.

He wants to walk this ancient route, and it is something that he has been wanting to do for a decade or so. It is a walk undertaken in stages, partly because of the pandemic and the time he had available during the lockdowns and various other restrictions that were in force then.

It is a triple view of Wales, he is very much in the present when walking up hills and along the 2000-year-old road, parts of which are still visible. But inevitably he explores the past of the landscapes and the people that inhabited the villages that he walks through. The third aspect of the book is the future of the country as the spectre of climate change looms ever nearer.

I thought this mix of travel, nature and environmental writing was really good. Bullough gets the balance between each element right.

It is a walk up through the country, but also back in time and with the interviews with leading environmentalists, a look to the bleak future that faces us all. Even though those passages could be grim reading at times, the rest of it is quite soothing. I liked that he wasn’t blending the different stages of the walk into one narrative. To me it didn’t feel disjointed, rather it came across as him having the tenacity to keep going regards. Each chapter has one of the amazing paintings by the artist Jackie Morris and they are as beautiful as any of her work that I have seen elsewhere.

The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole

05/07/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

4.5 out of 5 stars

When people think of rainforests the Amazon is the place that immediately comes to mind, it does for me. But did you know that this country is also a rainforest nation? We are, and we have what is called temperate rainforests, these exist in the latitude bands between the tropics and the poles.

I have known about this for a little while now, but one person who discovered this for himself was Guy Shrubsole. After moving to Devon, he came across this spectacular habitat for the first time. And then having discovered it, he realised just how little of it was left across the country. This book is his story of the discovery of these unique places. Utilising the power of modern mapping systems he realised that at its peak, temperate rainforests would have covered around 20% of the UK.

Now there are only fragments left.

He launched this on Twitter and with the assistance of people all over the UK he has collated a map of all the places that still have this left. He travels around to some of them left, like the spectacular Wistman’s Wood and outlines what we can do to protect them.

I thought this book was excellent. Not only is Shrubsole is an excellent writer and his passion for this subject in particular, comes through on every page. Not only is he bringing this to our attention in this book, but he is actively involved in practical solutions to increase the coverage of these forests on the western seaboard of our country. Highly recommended.

Follow them on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/LostRainforests

June 2023 Review

03/07/2023 / Paul / 4 Comments

How are we halfway through 2023 already? How? I don’t feel that I have read enough, but somehow I finished my 99th book on June 30th. I am ahead of schedule in terms of the good reads challenge, but less so on other challenges! Ho hum. I read 17 books in June. Always less than I hope for, but seeing what other people post on social media, I am doing much better than I think I am. So here they are:

Books Read

David Weston: An Artist at Home and Abroad – David Weston – 3.5 stars

Small Island: A History Of Britain In 12 Maps – Philip Parker – 3 stars

Acts of Desperation – Megan Nolan – 2.5 stars

Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan – 2.5 stars

Here Comes the Miracle – Anna Beecher – 3 stars

Open Water – Nelson Caleb Azumah – 3 stars

Shy – Max Porter – 3 stars

Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden – Lulah Ellender – 4.5 stars

Hard Lying; An Intelligence Officer on the Levantine Shore, 1914-1919 – Lewen Weldon – 4 stars

The Ten Equations That Rule The World And How You Can Use Them Too – David Sumpter – 3 stars

In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries In The Great Outdoors : A Past, Present And Personal Story – Rachel Hewitt – 4 stars

How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves – Tristan Gooley – 4 stars

The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives – Katie Holten – 4.5 starsMy Darling from the Lions – Rachel Long – 3 stars

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood – 4 stars

Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World – Anthony Sattin – 4 stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir Of Poverty, Nature And Resilience – Natasha Carthew – 5 stars

Top Genres

Natural History – 14

Travel – 13

Fiction – 13

Poetry – 9

Memoir – 7

History – 6

Science Fiction – 6

Photography – 3

Fantasy – 3

Art – 2

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 8

Allen Lane – 3

Bloomsbury – 3

Jonathan Cape – 3

William Collins – 3

Little Toller – 3

Monoray – 3

Michael Joseph – 3

Chatto & Windus – 3

Simon & Schuster – 3

Review Copies Received

Wind: Nature And Culture – Louise M Pryke

Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast – Katie Carr & Toby Carr

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and Birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny

An Almost Impossible Thing: The Radical Lives of Britain’s Pioneering Women Gardeners – Fiona Davidson

Library Books Checked Out

Shy – Max Porter

The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin – Patrick Barkham

La Vie: A Year In Rural France – John Lewis-Stempel

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

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

Books Bought

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland – Gretel Ehrlich

Dorset Coast – James Crowden

A Local Habitation – Norman Nicholson

Forbidden Journey: From Peking To Kasmir – Ella Maillart, Tr. Thomas McGreevy

The Santiago Pilgrimage: Walking the Immortal Way – Jean-Christophe Rufin, Tr. Malcolm Imrie & Martina Dervis

Gargoyles and Grotesques – Alex Woodcock

Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal – Al Álvarez

Love and War in the Apennines – Eric Newby

A Fez of the Heart – Jeremy Seal

Cuba Diaries: An American Housewife in Havana – Isadora Tattlin

Impossible Journeys – Mathew Lyons

Island On The Edge: A Life on Soay – Anne Cholawo

An African in Greenland – Tété-Michel Kpomassie Tr. James Kirkup

With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer – Susannah Clapp

The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book – Neil Gaiman

Inside Dorset – Monica Hutchings

Richard Bell’s Britain – Richard Bell

Postcards From the Beach – Phil Tufnell

The Wood Age: How One Material Shaped the Whole of Human History – Rolans Ennos

The Penguin Modern Painters: Henry Moore – Geoffry Grigson

The Penguin Modern Painters: Paul Nash – Herbert Read

The Penguin Modern Painters: Edward Burra – John Rothenstein

Any that you read from that list above? Any that you now want to read? Let me know in the comments below

July 2023 TBR

30/06/2023 / Paul / 4 Comments

How are we halfway through the year already? This month is all about reading books for the #20BooksOfSummer Challenge. I have almost finished my fifth and have eight lined up for this month along with a few from the nature reading challenge that I am doing. So without further ado, here is the list of books that I will be picking around 16 to 18 books from:

Still Reading

Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan

Review Books

Isles at the Edge of the Sea – Jonny Muir

The Wonderful Mr Willughby: The First True Ornithologist – Tim Birkhead

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World – Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright

Swan: Portrait of a Majestic Bird, from Mythical Meanings to the Modern Day – Dan Keel

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife: 3rd edition – Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature – Miles Richardson

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time – Ian Marchant

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos – Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change – Catrina Davies

The View from the Hill: Four Seasons in a Walker’s Britain – Christopher Somerville

Across A Waking Land: A 1,000-Mile Walk Through A British Spring – Roger Morgan-Grenville

Minor Monuments – Ian Maleney

Cry of the Wild: Tales Of Sea, Woods and Hill – Charles Foster

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

Elowen – William Henry Searle

The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths – Brad Fox

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and Birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny

Other Books

Waypoints: A Journey On Foot – Robert Martineau

Venice: The Lion, The City And The Water – Cees Nooteboom

A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World – Fred Pearce

Circles And Tangents: Art In The Shadow Of Cranborne Chase – Vivienne Mary Light

Borderland: A Journey Through The History Of Ukraine – Anna Reid

The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin – Patrick Barkham

Challenge Books

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland – Lisa Schneidau

Nightingale – Marina Kemp

A Perfect Explanation – Eleanor Anstruther

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley

The Bedlam Stacks – Natasha Pulley

Himself – Jess Kidd

Don’t Look Now – Daphne du Maurier

The Mermaid of Black Conch – Monique Roffey

Blood Storm – Colin Forbes

One August Night – Victoria Hislop

A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World – Fred Pearce

Bloom: From Food to Fuel, the Epic Story of How Algae Can Save Our World – Ruth Kassinger

In Search Of One Last Song: Britain’s Disappearing Birds And The People Trying To Save Them – Patrick Galbraith

Photo / Art

Circles And Tangents: Art In The Shadow Of Cranborne Chase – Vivienne Mary Light

Poetry

Out For Air – Olly Todd

Any that takes your fancy in this list? Let me know in the comments below

One Place de l’Eglise by Trevor Dolby

28/06/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

4.5 out of 5 stars

Travelling and going on holiday to another country is a great way to experience what that place is like. You bring home the memories and a dodgy bottle of something that sits at the back of the drink cupboard. To really experience a place though, you have to move there. Trevor Dolby was one of those who had taken the plunge.

They had been looking for a while spending weekends looking at various properties, but finding nothing suitable until they found this property in the village of Causses-et-Veyran almost by chance. There is the inevitable story of moving in and him and a friend trying to move furniture that four people could barely lift.

The book is full of his little stories of living there, learning how to navigate their way around the French bureaucracy, finding the best baker and knowing who is the best builder to use. They discover the delights of the vide-greniers, and learn just how much rain a storm can unleash on the village in the summer. He swims in the local rivers with a capybara, indulges in the local wines, has lots of lunches and starts to become a full member of the village when he is part of the protests against the Post Office.

I really enjoyed this. It felt to me like he was evoking A Year In Provence by Peter Mayle, the book that got me into travel writing when I first read it many many years ago. (I really must reread it one day). It had a similar vibe in the way that he writes about the place he has settled and the people who live there too. There are pastiches of that book and caricatures of the people around him as well as the inevitable stories of renovating a really old building in another country. There are also parts of his past life as a publisher and a poignant tribute to his son.

Anticipated Books for Autumn 2023

23/06/2023 / Paul / 6 Comments

I have been through 23 catalogues so far and it is that time of the year when I release the list of books coming out in the Autumn that I really like the sound of. It is not a full list, there are many more books being published than I have included here. It is not complete, so this may be updated if I come across any more after this has been published.

Bloomsbury

The Other Pandemic – James Ball

Code of Conduct – Chris Bryant

The Globemakers – Peter Bellerby

Slow Seasons – Rosie Steer

Unfinished Woman – Robyn Davidson

The Gardener of Lashkar – Larisa Brown

God Is An Octopus – Ben Goldsmith

Bodley Head

Techno-Feudalism What Killed Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis

Bradt

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny

Canongate

Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye

Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the Countryside – Finding Home in an English Country Garden – Marchella Farrell

The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World – James Crawford

Namesake: Reflections on A Warrior Woman – N.S. Nuseibeh

Let the Light Pour In – Lemn Sissay

A History of Women in 101 Objects: A walk through female history – Annabelle Hirsch Tr. Eleanor Updegraff

The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews – Ed Adam Biles

Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China – Noo Saro-Wiwa

Cheerio

Shopping Lists: A Consuming Fascination – Ingrid Swenson

Faber & Faber

Cahokia Jazz – Francis Spufford

The Farmer’s Wife – Helen Rebanks

Property – Rowan Moore

The Wisdom of Sheep (And Other Animals): Observations From a Cotswold Farm – Rosamund Young

Granta

Nature’s Calendar: The British Year in 72 Seasons – Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren

A Book of Noises” Notes on the Auraculous – Caspar Henderson

Headline

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt

Lost Music of the Holocaust – Francesco Lotoro

Hodder & Stoughton

Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses – David Scheel

Dust: The Story of the Modern World in a Trillion Particles – Jay Owens

Mountains Of Fire: The Secret Lives of Volcanoes – Clive Oppenheimer

Hurst Publishers

Stuff” Humanity’s Epic Journey from Naked Ape to Nonstop Shopper – Chip Colwell

All That Glistens: Chinese Party-State Influence in Britain – Martin Thorley

Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire – Darek Turner

John Murray

Interesting Stories about Curious Words – Susie Dent

Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions – Akshat Rathi

The Race To The Future: Peking to Paris and Beyond – Kassia St Clair

The Women Who Made Modern Economics – Rachel Reeves

Starborn – Roberto Trotta

Jonathan Cape

Orbital – Samantha Harvey

Little Toller

Elowen – William Henry Serle

Oneworld

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds – Jennifer Ackerman

What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View – William MacAskill

The Battle for Thought: Freethinking in the Twenty-First Century – Simon McCarthy-Jones

Pan Macmillan

Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History – Ben Mezrich

Profile Books

Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World – Maxim Samson

The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs – David Runciman

The Book at War: Libraries and Readers in an Age of Conflict – Andrew Pettegree

The Secret Life of John le Carré – Adam Sisman

The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary – Hana Videen

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper – Roland Allen

Pushkin

The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths Brad Fox

National Dish: Around The World In Search Of Food, History And The Meaning Of Home – Anya von Bremzen

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

Reaktion Books

Way Makers: An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking – Kerri Andrews

Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World before Time – Boria Sax

Alone – Daniel Schreiber Tr. Ben Fergusson

The Food Adventurers: How Around-the-World Travel Changed the Way We Eat – Daniel E. Bender

The Point of the Needle: Why Sewing Matters – Barbara Burman

Stones: A Material and Cultural History – Cally Oldershaw

Living with the Dead: How We Care for the Deceased Vibeke – Maria Viestad and Andreas Viestad

Dreamwork: Why All Work Is Imaginary – Steven Connor

Square Peg

The Owl: A Biography – Stephen Moss

Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times – Olivia Swarthout

Summersdale

Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast – Katie Carr & Toby Carr

Two Roads

Rambling Man: Travels of a Lifetime – Billy Connolly

William Collins

Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas – Karen Pinchin

The Bone Chests – Cat Jarman

Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands – Annie Worsley

The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London – Niall Kishtainy

So are there any there that you have heard of before? Are you now making your TBR much longer? Let me know in the comments below

A Bloggers Reading Journey – The Reading Paramedic

21/06/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

My blogger this week is not strictly a blogger but is Jules Swain, better known as the Reading Paramedic. She has a huge following on various socials and she is a huge love of books. She can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here. I think she is now on TikTok too. Here are her answers:

What is your earliest reading memory?

I honestly can’t remember. I know I read a lot when I was younger; I still have my original Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton’s, but I can’t recall reading them!

What was your favourite childhood book?

I have fond memories of James & The Giant Peach – still love it!

What book do you remember reading at school?

Again, I honestly can’t remember. I studied English literature, aswell as English language, at GCSE and cannot for the life of me remember anything that we read. I’m not very good at this am I?!

What was the book that changed you?

This book comes very late in my life really. I read Mel Collins’ book, The Handbook for Highly Sensitive People, only last year. I genuinely didn’t know high sensitivity was a thing, and that it was a personality trait I had lived with all of my life. I am highly empathetic, to the point I worry a lot about others, which is likely why I find my role so very rewarding. Being this way comes at a cost though, in that I forget to look after myself. Recognising this trait in myself just helped me to discover that it’s ok to be the way I am.

Who was the author who helped you discover a whole new genre?

Emily Henry! I was very lucky to be sent a proof of Book Lovers pre-publication, and I’d never really read much romance before. I certainly believed romance wasn’t my thing. How wrong was I?! I loved the book, and this year I was also sent a proof of Happy Place which I loved even more! So I’ve learned to never say never, and as a result I am exploring more romance!

What was the last book that you bought?

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (a pre-order, its not out yet).

What was the last book you read?

Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion.

What was the last book you reread?

I don’t reread often because I’ve got too many books on my TBR! But the last one I reread was The Goldfinch just before the film was released. I’d read the book a few years previously and loved it and wanted to remind myself of the full story before I went to watch the film. And I loved it all over again, and I thought the film was excellent (though never as good as the book, right?!).

What was the last book you couldn’t finish?

This is not a cop out but I honestly don’t remember. I know pretty quickly when a book isn’t for me, so I don’t then pay them much attention (is that harsh?!). I did have to put Really Good Actually by Monica Heisey down for a bit and come back to it. Not because I didn’t like it, but because a lot of what goes on in the book was resonating with my own life at the time and it was making me cry-sob! I loved it when I returned to it.

The book I am currently reading.

Pod by Laline Paull (my fifth of the six books on the Women’s Prize shortlist).

Where do you read?

Anywhere and everywhere! I always have a book with me so I can read wherever I am. I listen to audiobooks too so that I can read whilst driving and walking.

What books/genres do you turn to, to get out of a reading slump?

Just something nice, maybe lighthearted. And if things have got really bad, I’ll return to my favourite – The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean Paul Didier-Laurent. It’s my most reread book and reminds that the world and the people in it can be beautiful. And it makes me cry every time!

What was your last five-star read?

Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey. I read it whilst I was on holiday in Corfu but I can tell you it isn’t really a beach read (although I’m not one of those people who needs to read a book fitting to my surroundings)! At it’s heart, it is a book about hope, but it has references to the Holocaust and at times it is devastating. A hard one to recommend but the writing is exceptional.

How many books do you currently own?

I have no idea and don’t want to know either!

What book did you last buy based on the cover?

A special edition of Yellowface, not necessarily the cover but the spredges!

What book do you always recommend?

The Reader on the 6.27, followed closely by The Remains of the Day.

Babes In the Wood by Mark Stay

14/06/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

Woodville has more or less returned to normal after the Crow Folk were banished from the village, war has arrived too, with planes being seen overhead on a daily basis. It is brought very much to home when one crashes into the local garage.

Fay arrives there just in time to realise that there is a car stuck with people inside. She rescues the young lad and three children from the burning garage. They are Jewish emigrants from Germany who got out just as the Nazis clamped down and are on their way to the local manor house where they have been offered accommodation by Lord and Lady Aston.

But this is not a typical village and as she comforts them she has a vision of the eldest that chills her to the bone. Magic can be felt in the air once again by Faye. She catches up with Miss Charlotte and Mrs Teach to tell them what happened. They realise that the children are being sought by a German master of magic, who is after something else too, something that could change the outcome of the war…

I think that I am going to like this series. The characters are entertaining and in this second book, they are starting to develop a little more. It is set a month after the first book and Stay has written it well. It has the same tension that the first one has and it is a great page-turner.

In some strange way, a lot of it feels plausible, even though it is very much a book about magic and witches. But there was the odd thing that seemed out of place. I would have liked a little more of the back story of Faye being taught by the other two witches. I do like the little nods to other fantasy series buried in the text, it is a nice touch. I thought that the first book had the edge over this one, but that is really splitting hairs. Looking forward to the next one now, and I have just seen that the fourth book has been announced too.