4 out of 5 stars

It feels like it was much longer ago, but that memory of the first lockdown being imposed in March 2020 is still vivid. We had known nothing like it and probably won’t again either, I was still going to work, as I can’t do much from home. The world changed for a lot of us at that moment.

One of the things that I noticed on my daily walk down to the river was the silence — almost no cars, no planes, and very few people around. I could hear things that the din of modern life suppresses. I wasn’t the only one to notice this, the stimulation and comfort that nature could give sparked an interest in the wilder population that I hope does not diminish.

Three authors who between them have written a substantial number of natural history books were also stuck at home. They decided to keep a diary of their time spent in lockdown and this book is the combined diary of their sightings on their daily walks as well as sober observations on the numbers of people dying from the virus.

I liked this a lot, all three authors write sensitively about the impact on society that we have come to know that the virus had. But underlying that is the realisation that this could give us an opportunity to make a difference for the wild world that is around us every day. Worth reading in my opinion.

4 out of 5 stars

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

I always say that there are three things that are inevitable. Death, taxes and your computer crashing. Nowadays my computer rarely crashes and tory grandees seem to think that taxes don’t apply to them. However, none of us can avoid death, even those who have taken it upon themselves to rely on the pseudoscience of cryogenics.

Almost all of the funerals that take place in the UK are rooted in the rituals and habits of the Victorian era. And whilst this is fine for most people, it is not right for others. Robert Callender describes himself as the first punk undertaker. But rather than a leather-clad bloke with some suspicious piercings and a mohican, he is a ray of light in the stilted world of the British undertakers.

The funeral system that exists in this country is very much a one size fits all and Callander wants to show that there are many other ways of coming to terms with the loss of a loved one. He aims to de-mystify the fears around death and the way that we see it in society and help people discover their own grief for the person that they have lost. Each funeral is for that family and he will rarely say no to anything should a family request it.

Even though death walks these pages, it is not morbid in the slightest. There are a lot of dead bodies in here and there are some parts that may be uncomfortable reading for some, I won’t expand on them here though. I felt that I was being guided by someone who is very sensitive to people’s actual needs as they say goodbye. I thought that it was interesting that he wrote about those that are laying to rest family members that were not always liked and in certain instances detested. It is really sensitively written, too. He has a knack for being reassuring and quietly confident in what he is doing and most importantly why he is doing it.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

As humans, we have been changing our planet for thousands of years. We have laid waste to beautiful parts of the world and since the industrial revolution have been accelerating this damage in so many ways. The debate about this is highly charged, not helped but an aggressive campaign by those that will probably lose the most if we move away from fossil fuels.

One of those who is furious about what we are doing to this planet that we live on is Julian Bishop. In this his debut poetry collection, he is seeking to raise ‘an army of stubborn weeds’ to push back against the apathy of the political class.

Never were so many bells silent at once:

A congregation of flowers at prayer

We prayed for the dying elsewhere

Split into three sections, A Taster, Mains and Afters, Bishop covers a wide range of subjects in his poems, from Poached Salmon about how these fish are affected by rising water temperatures to Eton Mess, a barbed poem about are self-entitled leaders. There are notes in the back of the book about the news stories that inspired a particular poem.

This is not the most cheerful collection, but I kind of expected that. But then I can imagine that people picking this up would be passionate about the environment, What is very clear though is Bishops underlying fury and it is evident in all of his poems. It is a snapshot of humanity’s cruelty to almost every living this on this planet. What does come across though is that he still feels there is a glimmer of hope in amongst all the doom and gloom.

Four Favourite Poems

Una Fodera Argento

Pangolin

Highlights Of Mining For Gold In Indonesia

Rush Hour

4 out of 5 stars

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

As I have spent more time in the natural world I have found those moments when the world turns at the solstices and equinoxes a framework for my own life. For me, there was something about seeing the sunset at Knowlton on the midsummer solstice last year that felt timeless. These moments when the world pivots onto a different time, have affected and influenced many forms of religion and spirituality across the world and far back in time.

One of the old religions that has had a deep and long contact with the natural world is Wiccan. In this, the cycles use these four points in the year along with Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Samhain at the midpoints between the main points. In this book, Rebecca Beattie gives pointers and ideas for ritual moments to reconnect to the natural world and the seasons once again. As well as the ritual side, there are several practical suggestions on this to make and do.

I liked this book. It comes across as non-threatening too, these witches are more interested in the natural world mindfulness and self-care than corrupting the minds of others. It is a very personal guide to how they perform their rituals and seasonal tasks of each of the eight festivals throughout the year.

If you want to find your inner pagan or find a different spiritual way to connect to nature then this is a good book to start with. This is written in a straightforward and accessible way for those wanting an introduction to the Wiccan and pagan year and the associated festivals. It has some similarities to The Wheel by Jennifer Lane, and I would recommend reading that as well as this book.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Set over the course of a day, Charlie is reliving the life that he and his identical twin brother had from their working-class background and their participation in the radical Peckham Experiment. They lost their parents in the Second World War in a bombing raid.

They emerged blinking from the war with a desire to take the communist upbringing they had had into the new era. Their ideals were shattered when the tower block they were instrumental in building collapsed in 1968 causing a number of fatalities. The estate was then demolished in the mid-1980s and JJ’s life unravelled, he was a broken man.

And now he is dead.

It is now the day before the funeral and Charlie is trying to write the eulogy for, JJ. As he works his way through a bottle of brandy and shuffles around the house he unearths fragmentary memories of their past as he gets steadily more drunk on the spirit.

There were lots of things that I liked about this book. To begin with, this is a really well-done internal monologue by the main character. Even though it reaches back to 1930, it feels like a very contemporary book too as it is set at the time of the 2017 general election and the forced societal destruction being engineered by the Tories. It taught me some things about what had happened in the 1960s to a tower block, called Ronan Point when it partially collapsed in 1968, and that The Peckham Experiment was a real thing that took place between 1926 and 1950 when people actually cared how parts of society could look after themselves. Well worth reading.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Millstone Grit is a coarse sandstone that can be found in Wales and across the North between Yorkshire and Lancashire. This block of rock is better known as the Peak District and the Pennines. The stone has been used for many things, including drystone walls, roofing and of course millstones.

The landscape that makes up this part of the country has come to define the people that live there. The region is surrounded by towns that once contained the textile industries that were an industrial force in their time.

When Glyn Hughes wrote this book in the 1970s, the region was beginning to change, globalisation was on the rise and big corporations were seeking the lowest labour costs that they could exploit and the mills were being closed. The life that the people knew would change forever and he captures that uncertainty about the future that they all have.

I thought this was a fascinating book about a part of the country that I know very little about. It is a glimpse of an era (still in my lifetime too) of a way of life that is now lost forever. He is a really good writer too. Like the rock that the region sits on, this prose glitters in all sorts of ways. I have found this with other poets, theirtheir skill in that type of writing makes non-fiction so good to read. I can strongly recommend this if you want to learn about this area of the north.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Christmas is not just jingle bells and overladen tables, its close association with the Winter Solstice and the dark nights at this time of year means for some people that they are as happy with ghost stories as others are with Elf…

The thinning of this world and the other and the ghosts and other spectres that inhabit the liminal zones are included in this new collection of eighteen stories from the British Library They have gone further into L space in search of stories that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Of all of the authors that are in here, I had only heard of D. H. Lawrence so the rest were new to me. Judging by the small biography at the beginning of each story, some of these authors are new to the editor too as there was almost nothing known about them.

I must say that I didn’t find the stories overly terrifying, which I am a little relieved about, as I am not a huge fan of horror. Rather the themes are more eerie and unnerving stories with a seasonal or Christmas theme. As with every short story collection, it is a mixed bag with variation in the quality of stories, but there were a couple that I particularly liked, The Mirror in Room 22 by James Hadley Chase and The Wild Wood by Mildred Clingerman.

If you have their other collections, this is an excellent addition to the library and as with all the others, the covers are just great.

5 out of 5 stars

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

Travelling anywhere with a small child is an adventure in its own right, whether you are just heading to the beach for a day out or contemplating a small holiday. The thought of going on a 300-mile walk around Lebanon with four small children, and two donkeys is enough to send a chill down my spine.

However, some people are made of much sterner stuff than I am and two of them are Ralph and Molly Izzard. In 1957 they embarked on this venture around the country. Their walk would take them through villages and towns and along some pretty precarious paths and up into the pastures in the hills where men herded goats.

Their four blond children were a passport to a lot of warm hospitality. People were pleased to see them and wanted to hear why this British family had chosen to walk their little bit of the country. Izzard doesn’t paint a rose-tinted view of the country, rather you get to see things as they are in their slightly scruffy sun-bleached reality. The balance between the travel, the people and the meld of cultures is spot on.

I thought that this was a wonderful travel book. Molly, who wrote the majority of the prose is a sensitive traveller, open to new people and places whilst attending to the needs of her young family. Places and people are beautifully described, and the way that she has written it means that you feel like you are alongside the children and donkeys and walk the dusty roads on their  trek. Very highly recommended.