3.5 out of 5 stars

I have been in lots and lots of second-hand bookshops, as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know… There is something about them that I love. There is the thrill of never really knowing what you are going to find, it might be a book that you remember from childhood or something that you have been looking for, for a long time. They have a certain reverence to them too, a hushed murmur as people move slowly around the bookshop.

I must admit that I have never been to Sotheran’s, but next time I go to London it is going to be on my list of bookshops that I visit. I probably won’t be able to afford anything, but from reading this book by Oliver Darkshire, it sounds like a wonderful place to visit for an hour or so.

I really enjoyed this insight into the strange world of the rare bookseller. It is not a conventional career choice by any means and the people that work in these bookshops are unique, to say the least. Darkshire’s prose is reasonable and there are moments that made me really laugh. What I really enjoyed is his insight into the human characters that come here seeking those rare books that have eluded them until this point. An essential read for any book collector.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Anita Sethi was on a train journey when she was racially abused for merely asking a fellow passenger to turn his music down. The man was arrested and was charged and then later prosecuted for his tirade. She was left to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life. She became afraid of being enclosed and longed for open space and big horizons. She know that she belonged in this country and didn’t want this experience to stop her from travelling.

What happened to her on that train journey was just horrific, and whilst justice was served, and the man punished for the cruel things that he said, she is left picking up the pieces. She does have help though from a variety of people that are there to ensure that she gets through it. What she also relies on is the crutch that is the natural world.

She decides to embark on the walk along the Pennine way to seek healing and but also to reclaim her place in this land. She is a little unprepared for something as strenuous as this and suffers from a number of minor ailments. She is joined on some stages by others for company and there are times when she has to rely on the generosity of strangers to help her to get where she wants to get to.

It is not a bad book overall. There are some really powerful parts to her writing, especially the response to the abuse she has suffered all the way through her life, culminating in the attack on the train. She is not the first to suffer in this way and this is her way of saying to those on the receiving end of it that there is a way through. Other reviewers have said that it can be a bit repetitive, and I can see where they are coming from. I didn’t find that irritated me, rather I felt that it was more of a book to support others who have been at the receiving end of similar racist abuse.

The walk along the Pennine Way along with the emotional buoyancy that it gave her, felt like a secondary element of the book really, which is a shame as I would have loved to have read more of the travels. It was reading this book that I realise that I have met Anita once at one of the shortlist events for the Wainwright Prizes, she had just come from the funeral of Sophie Christopher and we were introduced.

3 out of 5 stars

When the sun goes down, you’d think that there would not be much to see for the wildlife spotter, no need for a pair of binoculars, just a torch to see where you’re going. But it is not like that at all, you need to take a little time for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Strangely enough, it is a similar time from sunset to dusk.

All the nighttime creatures appear from the shadows, and now your eyes are used to the dark you’ll be able to see them. And your binoculars will still work fine, they will take all the light around and concentrate it into your eyes. As the brain cannot get all the information it needs from your eyes, it will heighten your other senses, so you may begin to hear and feel things that you might not have been aware of before.

But how to navigate in this environment?

In this book, Chris Salisbury has pulled together lots of advice and suggestion for activities for children of all ages (even big children) on subjects such as the night sky, how to find animals in the night and the skills and tools that you need to navigate without light. I didn’t think that this was a bad book overall, I am not really the target audience which it was aimed at. I skim-read the activities that he included for encouraging both children and adults to embrace the dark, that said if you are looking to lead these sorts of activities then this would be an excellent resource.

4 out of 5 stars

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

It has reached the point in the UK where the state is the all-seeing and all-knowing entity that watches all its citizens. Every single thing you say or do or post is recorded and the state has unlimited access to your innermost thoughts. Almost all the population has accepted this, partly as society is the safest it could be in history.

The state wants to respond to any potential threat to the security of itself and the population, and whilst interrogating a dissident, Diana Hunter, she dies in custody. This is the first time that this has happened and they need a top investigator to find out what exactly happened; the trusted state inspector Mielikki Neith is assigned to the investigation.

Immersing herself in the neural recording of the investigation, she slowly starts to realise that things are not as they seem. Rather than just finding the lady who passed away, she finds a number of different characters from an alchemist to an artist. Circling below these characters is an entity that calls itself Gnomon; Neith doesn’t know what it is but it is very much not of this time.

Nothing is as it seems and as she tries to untangle the complex web inside the neural recordings, she at last gets a glimpse of the real Diana Hunter. It comes to her that they hold snippets of the answer that she must decode. But doing that will reveal to her the perilous state that the System is in and if she can do anything about it.

I liked a lot of things about this book. I liked the way that society has been constructed and the all-seeing ‘System’ guides steers and watches, always watches the populace of the UK. I thought that the technologies enabling Neith to see inside Hunter’s mind were as fascinating as they were terrifying. The pervasive state is a disturbing mixed bag of a utopian/dystopian future, there is still those who wish to circumvent it.

I did think that it had a few flaws though. It is mind-bendingly complex and deeply layered and it took me a while to work out who was who. It did feel a bit overwritten too and could have been shorter in my opinion with a much tighter plot. I won’t expand on the plot too much as that would spoil it for anyone else wanting to venture into this weird world, but I did like it, once I had formed my mind around the convolutions. It might be a bit overwhelming for some people, but be patient with it and it will reward you as a reader.

4 out of 5 stars

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

My name is Sicelo Cabangani Mbatha. My wilderness name is Bhubeselimnyama – Black Lion.

Probably the most dangerous animal that we have in the area is the adder, provided you can find one when they are out from the spring onwards. We don’t have to be wary of properly dangerous animals like lions or crocodiles. Where Sicelo Mbatha lives though these animals are just a fact of life, something that was brough home to his when his cousin was taken by a crocodile when crossing a river.

It was as if I could sense the unbounded wonder of nature and life and earth. I wept because I did know how else to respond

It didn’t make him want to go to the city, he wanted to stay in the Zulu homeland where he grew up, the draw of the natural world was too great to resist. He grew up as a child of nature, living a life that had been carried on that way for generations and learning it from the elders as they sat around the fire in the evening.

He began his working life, as many his age do, as a cow herder and it was being outside that reinforced his desire to become a game ranger. He passed his qualifications but did not have the money to be able to carry on his studies, so ended up working as a volunteer at the Mduba compound. It was here that he was to learn a lot of the skills, lion tracking, and monitoring rhino, that he would take through his career.

He would then become a trainee guide and best of all this was a paid position so he could properly support his young family. He thrived in this new position and learnt so much about the practical skills required in running a wilderness school. But it didn’t give him everything that he need, so when a position came up at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife he applied and got it. It would be there where he would learn the next set of skills and become closer to the wilderness of Africa.

I really liked this account from Sicelo Mbatha of his life so far. It hasn’t been the easiest path that he has chosen to walk, but his heart is in the right place and he is happy with the choices that he has made. What comes across in the book is his passion for nature and all aspects of the natural world. At a deep level, he understands just how important it is to have a diverse world that is rich in specie, and that we as humans are just a part of that. Well worth reading to hear a new authentic voice in nature writing.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

In the news recently was the announcement that the British government has given approval for the first coal mine to be opened in the country for decades. Provided you ignore the fact that burning coal is one of the worst ways of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the powers that be said that this was going to be a carbon-neutral site. I was under the misbelief that the Tories didn’t like coal miners and this lot wouldn’t get irony if it ran them over in an MPV.

Coal mining is dirty and dangerous work and the men who used to do it in this country were a special breed. The places around the county that had pits used to be proud of what they did and the contribution that they made to the country and economy. It brings back memories for David Banning too, of his childhood and the family members that used to head below the surface to earn a living.

Reliving these memories with him feels like he is mining his past. He has uncovered various documents and photos to add historical context to his family story. His relative Sam Snaith was very elusive about his work in the pit, and Banning has pieced together a narrative from other contemporary accounts and tiny details that he did reveal.

But this isn’t a look back at the past through soot-flecked spectacles, Banning has something to say about the new coal mine at the stage of writing that was being approved. Even though it was claimed to be a British company creating British jobs, tracing the money showed that it was, as expected, located offshore. Things are never as they seem.

I liked this mix of memoir and personal family history set in the context of the mines of West Cumbria. It has a nice balance to each element of the book. Setting the future in the context of the past works really well too and whilst Banning doesn’t come across as angry when talking about the new mine, you can tell that he sees the project as futile and we are shredding what little is left of our reputation on the global stage.