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Between The Chalk And The Sea by Gail Simmonds

10/10/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

The act of pilgrimage was stopped in 1538 when Henry VIII banned it as he crushed the Catholic church just so he could marry someone he fancied. The act of walking as part of people’s faith was gone in this country. It still happens in Europe, there are many well-known routes that are still walked, even to this day.

The discovery of a map in the Bodleian Library showed a faint red line linking together the towns and villages of a route from Southampton to Canterbury. It had been long forgotten but was thought to be the recommended route people walked to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. Given the almost complete lack of knowledge, the decision was taken to rename it the Old Way.

Having learnt about this pilgrim route, it was something that Gail Simmonds really wanted to do. It was walking over her favourite landscape, chalk downland and it was something that she felt that she wanted to undertake alone.

This is the story of her journey.

I really liked this travelogue of Simmonds’s modern pilgrimage from Southampton to Canterbury. It is split into four parts due to the various restrictions and lockdowns that took place at the time (remember those days?). This was more than a five-hundred-year-old route through, the landscape she is walking through is thousands of years old and if you know how and where to look, its secrets can be revealed. With her background in medieval history research into a locale is something that she is an expert at and in my opinion, Simmonds manages to get the right balance between the travel and history. Her writing feels that you are accompanying her on this walk rather than being given a list of things that happen on her journey. Can highly recommend this.

September 2023 Review

06/10/2023 / Paul / 4 Comments

September whizzed by as usual and I only managed to read 14 books for some reason. Not quite sure what happened as I started off really well too. So here they are along with the stats and the vast quantity of books that I bought…

Books Read

Wasteland – Oliver Franklin-Wallis – 4 Stars

The Lost Whale – Hannah Gold – 3 Stars

An Almost Impossible Thing – Fiona Davidson – 3.5 Stars

Some Of Us Just Fall – Polly Atkin – 3.5 Stars

Follow This Thread – Henry Eliot – 3.5 Stars

The Military Orchid – Jocelyn Brooke – 3.5 Stars

The Haw Lantern – Seamus Heaney – 3 Stars

Serious Concerns – Wendy Cope – 3.5 Stars

Follow The Money – Paul Johnson – 3.5 Stars

Reboot – Elaine Kasket – 3.5 Stars

Coast of Teeth – Tom Sykes – 4 Stars

Waypoints – Robert Martineau – 4 Stars

Wind – Louise M Pryke – 3.5 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Ravenous – Henry Dimbleby – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Fiction – 27

Natural History – 18

Travel – 18

Poetry – 13

Memoir – 10

History – 6

Science Fiction – 6

Fantasy – 6

Art – 4

Environmental – 4

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 11

Penguin – 6

Little Toller – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Simon & Schuster – 5

Jonathan Cape – 4

Elliott & Thompson – 3

Allen Lane – 3

William Collins – 3

Headline – 3

Review Copies Received

The Lure of Atlantis: Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent – Ed. Michael Wheatley

The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman’s Journey to Save Scotland’s Original Sheep – Jane Cooper

The Christian Watt Papers: Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife – Christian Watt, Ed. David Fraser

The Narrow Smile: A Journey back to the Northwest Frontier – Peter Mayne

Nature Tales for Winter Nights – Ed. Nancy Campbell

Politics, But Better: An A – Z Guide to Creating a More Hopeful Future – Tatton Spiller

Human Being: 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology and How to Reclaim Them – Graham Lee

Yew – Fred Hageneder

Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley

Library Books Checked Out

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith

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

The Bridleway: How Horses Shaped The British Landscape – Tiffany Francis-Baker

Prophet – Helen Macdonald

Walking The Bones Of Britain: A 3 Billion Year Journey From The Outer Hebrides To The Thames Estuary – Christopher Somerville

Be a Birder: The joy of birdwatching and how to get started – Hamza Yassin

Books Bought

A Legacy Of Spies – John Le Carré – Signed

Shitstorm – Fernando Sdrigotti

Red Smoking Mirror – Nick Hunt –

Still Life in Milford: Poems – Thomas Lynch – Signed

Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #12 – Helen Dunmore, Jo Shapcott & Matthew Sweeney – Signed

Poetry on the Buses – Ed. Valerie Belsey & Candy Neubert – – Signed

The Hero and the Girl Next Door – Sophie Hannah – Signed

Selling Manhattan – Carol Ann Duffy – Female – Signed

Foothold – Pam Zinnemann-Hope – Signed

Raw – Patience Agbabi – Signed

Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #9 – John Burnside, Robert Crawford & Kathleen Jamie

Drysalter – Michael Symmons Roberts

Selected Poems – Matthew Sweeney

A Smell Of Fish – Matthew Sweeney

The Rings Of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage

Chasing the Dram: Finding the Spirit of Whisky – Rachel McCormack –

Secret Places of West Dorset – Louise Hodgson

The Island Farmers – R. M Lockley

The Fossil Woman: A Life of Mary Anning – Tom Sharpe – Signed

Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan – Jamie Zeppa

Discover Dorset: Fossils – Richard Edmonds

Travels in a Strange State – Josie Dew

As the Women Lay Dreaming – Donald S. Murray

The Gran Tour: Travels with my Elders – Ben Aitken

Megaliths and Their Mysteries: A Guide to the Standing Stones of Europe – Alastair Service & Jean Bradbery

A Second Chance at Eden – Peter F. Hamilton

Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain – Sathnam Sanghera – Male

Clea – Lawrence Durrell – Male

Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils – David Farrier

The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones – Alfred Watkins

The Farmer’s Wife: My Life in Days – Helen Rebanks

The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables – Adam Alexander

Walking With Nomads – Alice Morrison

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Dorset Folk Tales – Tim Laycock – Male

Somerset Folk Tales – Sharon Jacksties

On the Slow Train Again: Twelve Great British Railway Journeys – Michael Williams

Round Ireland with a Fridge – Tony Hawks – Signed

Hothouse – Brian W. Aldiss

The Private Life of the Hare – John Lewis-Stempel

Tout Sweet: Hanging Up my High Heels for a New Life in France – Karen Wheeler

Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human-Powered Odyssey – Stevie Smith

Rowing After the White Whale: A Crossing of the Indian Ocean by Hand – James Adair

Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful – Jolyon Maugham – Signed

The Megalithic European: The 21st Century Traveller in Prehistoric Europe – Julian Cope

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

Wind by Louise M. Pryke

04/10/2023 / Paul / 0 Comments

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Of all the weathers that we experience, wind is the only one that we can hear and feel but not directly. I do think I can see the wind when I see trees being buffeted, or crows dancing in the wind. It is caused by the movement of air from one part of the planet to another, flowing from high-pressure points to low-pressure points in the search for equilibrium. Even though the air never stops moving, there are days when it can be utterly still and as blissful as they are surreal.

This flow of air around the planet affects everything. It creates waves, erodes mountains, moves vast quantities of dust from Africa to the Amazon and has created and formed economies and human culture. Along with earthquakes and volcanoes, winds in particular forms can be the most destructive things that we have on this planet. As a hurricane or typhoon, they can flatten buildings, toss cars in the air like confetti and as tornadoes, obliterate everything that they touch.

Humans have understood this phenomenon for millennia now. Wind has pressed it’s way into folklore and culture and has been used in warfare and has driven people mad.

I really liked this, the cultural history of wind is a wide-ranging subject that Pryke has managed to condense into this fascinating book. The prose feels authoritative without reading like an academic book. It is really nicely produced with high-quality pictures making it a fine addition to the Earth Series of books.

October 2023 TBR

02/10/2023 / Paul / 4 Comments

I can’t believe that it is already October. It dawned on me on the 29th of September that I hadn’t even thought about my TBR for this month, even though I had created an outline plan for the final third of the year, so rapidly pulled this together last night. So here they are:

Still Reading

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

Challenge Books

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

be/longing: Understories Of Nature, Family And Home – Amanda Thomson

Rocks and Rain, Reason and Romance – David Howe

Heavy Time: A Psychogeographer’s Pilgrimage – Sonia Overall

Review Books

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy – Jeff Biggers

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

The Purple Land: An Adventure in Uruguay Or The Banda Oriental – W. H. Hudson

Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in the Woods – Lyndsie Bourgon

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

Nature’s Wonders – Jane V. Adams

Life At Full Tilt Ed. Ethel Crowley

Other Books

A Life in Car Design- Oliver Winterbottom

All My Wild Mothers: A Memoir Of Motherhood, Loss And An Apothecary Garden- Victoria Bennet

Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors – James Canton

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith

The Bridleway: How Horses Shaped The British Landscape – Tiffany Francis-Baker

Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search For Normal People (And Why They Don’t Exist) – Sarah Chaney

Poetry

Wintering Out- Seamus Heaney

Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse- Carol Ann Duffy

The Girl Who Forgets How To Walk – Kate Davis

Any that you have read or like the sound of, let me know in the comments below

Walking The Wharfe by Johno Ellison

15/09/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

4 out of 5 stars

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

When a lot of people think about travel, the thought of pristine beaches in subtropical climes springs to mind or the hardy travel writer who is battling through some unexplored part of the globe. But travel writing can be just as relevant and interesting much closer to home.

In this book, Johno Ellison is very close to his home, in fact, he grew up alongside the River Wharf that is the subject of the book. It is a journey he had undertaken before many years ago, but for this, he wanted to retrace the route taken by Victorian author Edmund Bogg to see what had changed in the 120 years.

It is a fairly short river and he decides to wild cam for some of the route as well as popping in to see family and friends en route. He samples many beers in the pubs he passes including some that he frequented in his youth. As he was a local resident when growing up, there are lots of personal anecdotes that add depth to the walk and he explores the local folklore of the places that he walks through.

I really liked this. Learning about a tiny part of the UK that I knew almost nothing about was fascinating. He is an engaging writer too, filling the pages with the history of the river, an account of his walk. I did like that he made it clear in the text when he returned to fill in the gaps in the narrative; not all travel writers do that and sometimes it is glaringly obvious that they returned later. If you want a well-written book about a tiny part of Yorkshire then this is a good place to start.

Bookshelf Tour

08/09/2023 / Paul / 13 Comments

This is something that I have been meaning to do for absolutely ages. A tour of almost all my bookshelves that are around the house.

I have a fairly extensive collection and as I buy other books, I have ended up with the occasional duplicate. Sometimes this is accidental, but not always.

I apologise in advance for their untidiness and mayhem.

Bookshelf 1

This is where almost all of my Terry Pratchett books are, there are others upstairs. He is joined by Neil Gaiman and then some travel and a few random genres. It is mostly tidy, but I need to read and clear some of here to make room for some extra Pratchett hardbacks. The Tsunduko on top are slightly out of hand…

Bookshelf 2

This started as a bookshelf to keep all the review copies that I have been sent and the plan was to have them in publication order so I could lay my hands on them quickly. I ended up stuffing books on there as I bought them and now it is a bit of a mess… At the moment there are all sorts of genres on here and it is double stacked so you can’t see the books behind.

Bookshelf 3

This is a newish bookshelf (from the fantastic people at shelfstore) and it is a mix of review books and others that I have found whilst book hunting. In front of it is a Tsunduko that is the same height as the desk with a right old mix of books too.

Bookshelf 4

This is one of four bookshelves that I had made by a guy close to where I worked in Addlestone. It is solid pine with fixed shelves and is really strong. Which is a good job as it is home to the substantial collection of cookery books that I (we) have. There are some American books that I bought from Brian and Cooking The Books years ago as well as books that we have inherited after family members have passed on.

Bookshelf 5

This is the latest bookshelf that was bought for me after Sarah complained about the number of books around the house. Promptly filled it and still have piles of books around the house…There is a mix of genres on here too, but the plan is to make it a travel / Dorset bookshelf as I sort and clear books out.

Bookshelf 6

Another shelfstore bookshelf that is tucked into the corner of the dining room. There is just travel books on here including most (but not all) of my Eland books.

Bookshelf 7

This is another of the commissioned bookshelf and this one lives in the conservatory. Again, a total mix of genres with one shelf of gardening books. A large number of these are to be read and passed on, but on the middle shelf on the second row are my Iain M Banks books and my Arthur Ransome books from childhood. This shelf has sun on it a lot of the day so some have faded.

Bookshelf 8

These are three billy bookshelves that contain almost all of my natural history and landscape books. There is a sofa now in front of one of them, so I can’t photograph that one. There are a few shelves that aren’t nature books, including one for poetry that is very nearly full, and three of just random stuff that I need to read and clear… There are even ornaments on this one!

Bookshelf 9

This is one of two bookshelves in our bedroom, the other has a lot of Sarah’s books and files on it so I haven’t photographed that. There are some of the bigger nature books on here, Flora Britannica and the like, as well as a random selection of genres, such as travel, fiction, science fiction and so on.

So there you have it. There are a couple of shelves of books that I haven’t photographed plus some odd piles here and there, but those are all my books.

There are several reasons for doing this:

1. To aid me in cataloguing all the books that I have (duplicates will be passed on so keep an eye on my Instagram page).

2. To give me the nudge that I need to sort and clear some of the books that I am never going to read

3. To give me a list of books that I want to read but that I don’t have any interest in keeping in my library.

4. And finally to be able to show you in around six to nine months, how much better they all look!

The Swimmer by Patrick Barkham

06/09/2023 / Paul / 6 Comments

5 out of 5 stars

I can’t remember quite how I first came across Roger Deakin, but according to my records, I first read Waterlog in 2008, a few years after it was published. I was astonished by how good a book it was. The guy could write. I did a little research to see what else he had written and it was then I discovered that he had died two years before.

However, there was another book that he had written and that would be out soon. There was news of another being brought together from his notes by his literary executor, Robert Macfarlane.

But who was this man who managed to conjure these wonderful books from the same letters and words we have? There was very little about him from what I could find.

Thankfully, that has been resolved with the new book that Patrick Barkham has pulled together from his archive and with the help of numerous other people. It is mostly in his own words too with lots of contributions from those that knew him at the different stages of his life.

It is a fascinating account of a man who could be warm and generous as well as reckless and demanding and difficult at the same time. As brilliant as he was, there were lots of flaws in his character. The other contributors to this life story are honest in their portrayal of Deakin. I thought it was quite refreshing to read some of these, as often biographies can sometimes be far too rose-tinted for my liking.

I you have read, Waterlog, Wildwood and Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, then I can highly recommend this, along with Life at Walnut Tree Farm.

August 2023 Review

04/09/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

Even though I had a chunk of August off, it seemed to whizz by. Alas, I didn’t get as much read as I hoped either, but I did get my #20BooksOfSummer Reading challenge finished for the first time. It was an interesting reading month too, with a whole variety of fiction and some very interesting non-fiction too. So here is what I read and acquired in August:

Books Read

An Artist’s View of Jurassic Dorset – Richard Watkin – 3.5 Stars

The Invention Of Essex: The Making Of An English County – Tim Burrows – 4 Stars

Mayhem – Sarah Pinborough – 3.5 Stars

Hot Milk – Deborah Levy – 2.5 Stars

Year of the Golden Ape – Colin Forbes – 2.5 Stars

The Acid Test – Élmer Mendoza Tr. Mark Fried – 2.5 Stars

From a Low and Quiet Sea – Donal Ryan – 3 Stars

Nightingale – Marina Kemp – 3 Stars

Crow Court – Andy Charman – 3.5 Stars

A Perfect Explanation – Eleanor Anstruther – 3.5 Stars

A Flat Place: A Memoir – Noreen Masud – 4 Stars

One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts And The Story Of Life On Earth – Mark Cocker – 4 Stars

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – T.S. Eliot – 3 Stars

All In: How We Build A Country That Works – Lisa Nandy – 3.5 Stars

Walking The Wharfe: An Ode to a Yorkshire River – Johno Ellison – 4 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish – Brian Jackman – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Fiction – 26

Natural History – 17

Travel – 16

Poetry – 11

Memoir – 9

History – 6

Science Fiction – 6

Fantasy – 6

Art – 4

Photography – 3

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 9

Penguin – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Little Toller – 4

Simon & Schuster – 4

Jonathan Cape – 4

William Collins – 3

Granta – 3

Allen Lane – 3

Michael Joseph – 3

Review Copies Received

Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind – Simon McCarthy-Jones

Interstellar Tours: A Guide to the Universe from Your Starship Window – Brian Clegg

Reboot: Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World – Elaine Kasket

Library Books Checked Out

Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature And Not Getting Better – Polly Atkin

Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby

Where The Seals Sing – Susan Richardson

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

Follow The Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? – Paul Johnson

Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith

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

Books Bought

Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World – Tim Harford

Lost Acre – Andrew Caldecott

Asusterlitz – W.G. Seabald Tr. Anthea Bell

How To Be A Domestic Goddess – Nigella Lawson (Signed)

The Unadulterated Cat – Terry Pratchett, Ill. Gray Jolliffe

Super Crunchers: How Anything Can Be Predicted – Ian Ayres

Cold Fish Soup – Adam Farrer

The Horizontal Oak: A Life in Nature – Polly Pullar

Running a Hotel on the Roof of the World: Five Years in Tibet – Alec Le Sueur (Signed)

To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace – Kapka Kassabova

Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life On The Road – Sara Wheeler

East to the Amazon: In Search of Great Paititi and the Trade Routes of the Ancients – John Blashford-Snell & Richard Snailham

42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams – Douglas Adams Ed. Kevin Jon Davies (Signed)

Three Stripes South: The 1000km thru-hike that inspired a women’s adventure movement – Bex Band

Caesar’s Vast Ghost – Lawrence Durrell

Are there any there that you’ve read? Or like the look of? Let me know in the comments below.

September 2023 TBR

01/09/2023 / Paul / 2 Comments

We’re into the final third of the year and the mornings already have that autumn twang. Not that we had that much of a summer after the promise of June…

Any way you’re here for the books, and I am here to tell you what I am aiming to read in this equinox month.

Still Reading

Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, And Why It Matters – Oliver Franklin-Wallis

Challenge Books

The Lost Whale – Hannah Gold

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

The Military Orchid – Jocelyn Brooke

Other Books

A Life in Car Design – Oliver Winterbottom

Letters to Camondo – Edmund de Waal

Follow This Thread: A Maze Book to Get Lost In – Henry Eliot

All My Wild Mothers: A Memoir Of Motherhood, Loss And An Apothecary Garden – Victoria Bennet

Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature And Not Getting Better – Polly Atkin

Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape – Henry Dimbleby

Waypoints: A Journey On Foot – Robert Martineau

Review Books

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy – Jeff Biggers

Wind: Nature And Culture – Louise M Pryke

Coast of Teeth: Travels to English Seaside Towns in an Age of Anxiety – Tom Sykes

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

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

Reboot: Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World – Elaine Kasket

Poetry

The Haw Lantern – Seamus Heaney

Serious Concerns – Wendy Cope

It is a bit shorter than normal as previous TBRs have been recently. This is partly a hope that I can actually read all on the list and secondly that I have less than 60 book to go on my Good Reads challenge.

Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew

30/08/2023 / Paul / 0 Comments

5 out of 5 stars

Natasha Carthew is Cornish born and bred. Her family have a long history in the county too and were responsible for building most of the village that she was born and grew up in. She no longer lives there for a number of reasons the most significant is that she is not in a financial position to be able to afford a property there. There are villages now where no locals live, they are all owned by rich people with second homes or people who let them to the influx of summer visitors.

She had everything going against her growing up, poor female and also gay, she was one of the disposed people in the poorest county in the UK. They lived off her mum’s income, as her dad considered anything that he earnt to just be for him. He wasn’t around much either, having ducked responsibilities he was a womaniser and always had a girlfriend or two, one of whom moved into the flat above them with him at one point!

Her mum was resourceful and resilient though, always ensuring that Carthew and her sister were fed and looked after. They managed to move into the village to a slightly larger home, which helped a little. School was a struggle, mostly because she couldn’t see the point, but the chance finding of a leaflet with a course that really appealed to give her a path out of the vicious poverty circle she found herself in.

She went to the very edge of the abyss several times and the thing that kept her here then is the same thing that keeps her sane now and that is her writing

This is not an easy book to read by any means, it is an emotionally charged book full of raw prose and revelations of her upbringing. The is as much a personal memoir as it is a critique of the way that the Cornish have been abandoned by the UK government. High property prices because of the influx of second homeowners combined with low seasonal wages mean that most people born in Cornwall cannot afford to live there now. Whilst Carthew has come to terms with not being able to live in the place she chooses, many in the county are being forced out. It would be nice to think that those in power would read a book like this, but I somehow doubt they will. If you have read Lowborn by Kerry Hudson then this should be on your reading list too.