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May 2024 TBR

How is it May already? How? Please let me know below. There are a lot of review books being rolled over from last month as I didn’t get to those. As usual, it is an eclectic mix and an attempt to read some of the books I have decided that I no longer want to keep, so they are being read and passed on!. So here it is:

 

Still Reading

Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year Ed. Jane McMorland Hunter

A Cloud a Day Gavin Pretor-Pinney

A Year Of Garden Bees & Bugs: 52 stories of intriguing insects Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Set My Hand Under The Plough E.M Barraud

 

Other Books

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

The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin

Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Venomous Lumpsucker Ned Beauman

The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas Daniel James

Salt Slow Julia Armfield

 

Review Books

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

Blue Mind: How Water Makes You Happier, More Connected and Better at What You Do Wallace J. Nichols

Black Ghosts Noo Saro-Wiwi

Minor Monuments Ian Maleney

Seaglass Kathryn Tann

The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson

Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End Ed. Joan Passey

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

Human Origins: A Short History Sarah Wild

Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them Derek Gow

In All Weathers Matt Gaw

The Long Unwinding Road: A Journey Through the Heart of Wales Marc P. Jones

Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat Christopher Hart

Brazilian Adventure Peter Fleming

 

Library Books

The Spymasters: How The CIA’s Directors Shape History And The Future Chris Whipple

Secret Britain: A Journey Through The Second World War’s Hidden Bases And Battlegrounds Sinclair McKay

The Gathering Place Mary Colwell

Footmarks: A Journey Into Our Restless Past Jim Leary

The Rosewater Redemption Tade Thompson

Iconicon: A Journey Around The Landmark Buildings Of Contemporary Britain John Grindrod

Mischief Acts Zoe Gilbert

 

Poetry

An Ocean of Static J.R. Carpenter

Crawling Horror Ed. By Daisy Butcher & Janette Leaf

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

I don’t mind insects, they have an essential purpose in the world, whether it is pollinating, feeding vast numbers of other species or even clearing all the crap that everything leaves behind. I generally don’t find bugs creepy, but some people do, and this is the inspiration behind all these authors’ stories.

This is the list of stories included:

The Sphinx • Edgar Allan Poe • (1846)
The Blue Beetle: A Confession • A. G. Gray, Jun. • (1857)
The Mummy’s Soul • Anonymous
After Three Thousand Years • Jane G. Austin • (1868)
A Dream of Wild Bees• Olive Schreiner • (1888)
The Moth • H. G. Wells • (1895)
The Captivity of the Professor • A. Lincoln Green • (1901)
The Dream of Akinosuke • Lafcadio Hearn • (2007)
Butterflies • Lafcadio Hearn • (1904)
Caterpillars • E. F. Benson • (1912)
An Egyptian Hornet • Algernon Blackwood • (1915)
The Wicked Flea • J. U. Giesy • (1925)
The Miracle of the Lily • Clare Winger Harris • (1928)
Warning Wings • Arlton Eadie • (1929)
Beyond the Star Curtain • Garth Bentley • (1931)
Leiningen Versus the Ants • Carl Stephenson • (1938)

None of these stories terrified me, I am glad to say, but there was the odd one that made me shudder, in particular Caterpillars. I thought some were better than others, with my favourite being Beyond the Star Curtain, with The Captivity of the Professor coming a close second.

It is a great little collection that these editors have uncovered from the vaults of the British Library. I liked the intro for each of the authors and a potted history of each story, and even better, it was just before the story, so no flipping backwards and forwards. The stores are as diverse as the insects portrayed. Not all of the stories portray the insects as enemies of us, but those stories are in there if you fancy being creeped out a bit.

Sunken Lands by Gareth Rees

 

4.5 out of 5 stars

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

What we are doing to the planet has been well documented elsewhere by numerous scientists and authors. They and others are battling against vast corporations and sympathetic governments who have a vested interest in keeping us using fossil fuels. Sadly, the disinformation campaign is working, in that the urgency to do something about the problem is diluted. As the erratic weather starts to impact more and more people’s lives, then tougher questions are starting to be asked of our politicians.

One of the effects of climate change is rising sea levels. A lot of it will come from melting glaciers, but water when it is warmer will expand adding to the issue. These changes will affect millions of people around the planet. Rees wants to visit some of the places where populations are most at risk from the rising waters and also to discover the locations of past flood myths and see for himself the now sunken landscapes.

It is a journey that will take him to New Orleans to witness for himself the wreckage that Hurricane Katrina left behind. He visits Italy to scuba dive over a live caldera (!!!) and to view the Roman remains. But he doesn’t also visit real places, this is a symbolic journey, so Atlantis is visited through the mythological landscapes too.

To remind us that this is not a problem that is going to affect sun-drenched islands in the Pacific, he heads to Dungeness close to where he lives to see the stumps of fossilised trees that were submerged 3500 years ago. It is called Noah’s Wood as people once thought that it was inundated in the biblical flood.

It is a stark reminder that we are an island nation and that we will be affected by these changes too.

I haven’t read many of Rees’ books, though I do have all of them. One of them, Unofficial Britain, was my book of the year in 2020. This is an equally engaging travelogue. He has researched his subjects well and he has a keen eye for detail, something no doubt from his psychogeography experiences, where the tiny details do matter.

But this is a book about the future; a future that is rising sea levels, extreme weather events and land lost to erosion and storm surges. It is a future that worries Rees and to be perfectly frank, worries me to. Well worth reading and I can highly recommend it.

Mystic Orchards by Jonathan Koven

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for Mystic Orchards by Jonathan Koven and published by Kelsay Books.

About the Book

Mystic Orchards is a collection of spellbinding poems and hybrid pieces. Exploring cultural heritage and identity, the shared pain and joy of family, art, reality, memory, and true love; these pages confront a dream. Visiting the orchards is a journey from the darkness of fear toward hope, from total stillness back into the tumult of life.

About the Author

Author Photo

Jonathan Koven grew up on Long Island, NY. He holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from American University, works as a technical writer, and reads chapbooks for Moonstone Arts. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Delana, and their cats Peanut Butter and Keebler. He has both fiction and poetry published by Assure Press, Animal Heart Press, Thirty West Publishing, and more. Read Jonathan’s poetry debut Palm Lines (2020), available from Toho Publishing. His fiction debut Below Torrential Hill (2021) is also available, a winner of the Electric Eclectic Novella Prize.

My Review

Poetry is a very personal thing for me. For a long time it felt like a school exercise, but over the past few years I have been trying to read more widely and have discovered lots of different poets since picking them poetry collections up again a few years ago.

But where to start? Well, you could go for one of the recognised classic collections, or you could explore the more modern collections, such as Mystic Orchards by Jonathan Koven. This is a very personal collection with a mix of poetry styles and short prose pieces that tease out his cultural heritage and the joy and pain of families, love, art and his idenity.

The lyrical prose felt like I was reading a series of dreams and it felt very personal, almost intimate. Even though I didn’t understand the context of some of the poems in this collection, they often resonated because of his choice of words and his openness in the subjects covered.

Some of the lines are particularly beautiful, these were some that stood out:

of wish maker gone
to the water a wanderer turned water strider

To draw maps of light
As it reaches this rock

Outside
Bonded
inside,
fragments left
for a new self.

I liked the variety of forms in the collection, short poems, longer stanza’s and short prose work really well with his chosen subjects. Family is a bit subject, but I also liked that themes from natural world permeated lots of the poems, wolves, fireflies, elms and rivers all get a mention as you read the collection. Overall I though that this was a thoroughly enjoyable collection.

Three Favourite Poems

Future Is Older Than The Past
Ineffable
Reason On The Horizon

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon, from Kenyon Author Services for a copy of the book to read.

 

 

 

 

Apple Island Wife by Fiona Stocker

4 out of 5 stars

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

Fiona Stocker had already moved halfway around the world from the UK to Australia. However, the life they had made there in the city of Brisbane, was becoming a little jaded and they felt that owed their daughter a chance at a slower pace of life.

They had heard good things about Tasmania and a trip out there reinforced those messages. It didn’t take long to find a property that they liked the look of and as a bonus, it came with five acres of land. They made the decision there and then, and set in motion the move to Tasmania.

Soon after they moved in, her husband acquired some alpacas, an animal that he had always fancied keeping, but as he was developing his new cabinet-making company, it fell to Fiona to look after them along with a toddler and a fast-growing bump, would soon be their second child. It did take a while, but slowly they began to settle into their new home and community.

I thought that this was a very enjoyable book, she writes with a bone-dry wit about the life they are having there. It did seem strange to be reading about a family life set in this part of the world having read so many travel books of people beginning a new life in Europe, it is a very different finding that the garden has wallabies, venomous snakes and huntsmen spiders. Not sure I am keen on the latter two…

If there was one flaw, I think each chapter has been adapted from her blog, they reflect the piece written at that time and it didn’t feel like there was a cohesive narrative at certain points in the book. That said, these snapshots of family life and the way that they settled into their new life is an engaging read.

Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane

4 out of 5 stars

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

The police when investigating a crime follow the process of finding the evidence, interviewing witnesses and finding the perpetrators. But sometimes it isn’t that simple, there are crimes that happen that not even the police can explain.

Well, not all the police, there are records of crimes that have been kept by a police officer in the West Midlands that defy any rational explanation. Drunks that had been going missing from Digbeth and no one had a clue where they had gone. There was then a robbery at an off licence and the trail of clues led the police an unexpected resolution.

A suicide in a hostel seems a regular enquiry with a relatively straightforward conclusion. That is until there is another suicide at the same place. It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence, rather there is something malevolent in the place, but he really doesn’t know what it is…

An investigation into why children were behaving badly and stealing small things leads him to a derelict railwayman’s cottage and it is here where he confronts the thing that is causing the crime wave. The body of a prostitute is discovered behind a bin. They discover her street name is Tanya, but nobody knows who she really is. Following the one lead up, will take him right to the ragged edge of his sanity.

My favourite story is Wake Up In Moloch, a story questioning whether machines are capable of being evil. A death is caused by a sculpture and they follow up the leads. Nothing cam be found though until a second death demands a full bomb squad response and then he has some leads that will take him to a factory where he hopes to get an answer.

I must admit I rarely read horror, I am too much of a scaredy cat. But reading this didn’t really feel like horror. Even though it isn’t hugely scary, there are some unpleasant bits and some quite unnerving moments. I would say that every story gave me a sense of unease with its folk horror elements and post-industrial landscapes. There is quite a lot of psychogeography in here which is great and it felt like a mashup between Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts and London Incognita by Gary Budden. It had a Rivers Of London vibe too, a policeman who can see things that others can’t, but this is but much much darker. If you like your fiction with a darker grimmer edge, then this would be right up your street. You might not want to look behind though…

March 2024 Review

March always seems to drag a bit, but it is a longer month so more reading time. I had three book events too this month, The London Book Fair and then in the evening to Stanfords to hear Mike Parker talk about his new book, All The Wide Border. Then I was in Shaftesbury for the Reading The Land Literary Festival, where I heard Charles Foster and Sophie Pavell speak about their books. Really enjoyed all of those. Anyway here is what I read and bought and was kindly sent by publishers this month

Books Read

Where The Seals Sing – Susan Richardson – 2.5 Stars

The Britannias: An Island Quest – Alice Albinia – 3.5 Stars

Very British Problems: Still Awkward, Still Raining – Rob Temple – 3.5 Stars

Very British Problems: The Most Awkward One Yet – Rob Temple – 3.5 Stars

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor – 3.5 Stars

One Thousand Shades Of Green: A Year In Search Of Britain’s Wild Plants – Mike Dilger – 3.5 Stars

Why Women Grow – Alice Vincent – 3.5 Stars

Cold Fish Soup – Adam Farrer – 3.5 Stars

Modern Fog – Chris Emery – 3.5 Stars

Now is the Time to Know Everything – Simon Moreton – 4 Stars

Hermit: A Memoir Of Finding Freedom In A Wild Place – Jade Angeles Fitton – 4 Stars

The Rosewater Insurrection – Tade Thompson – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

 

Spring Rain – Marc Hamer – 4.5 Stars

Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds – Gareth E. Rees – 4.5 Stars

Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel – 4.5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Travel – 12

Fiction – 8

Natural History – 5

Memoir – 4

Poetry – 3

Humour – 2

Science – 1

Gardening – 1

History – 1

Biography – 1

 

Top Publishers

Bloomsbury – 3

Eland – 2

Canongate – 2

Sphere – 2

Salt – 2

Saraband – 2

Influx Press – 1

Harvill Secker – 1

Lydstep Lettuce – 1

Harper North – 1

 

Review Copies Received

Peat and Whisky: The Unbreakable Bond – Mike Billett

Enchanted Islands: A Mediterranean Odyssey – A Memoir of Travels through Love, Grief and Mythology – Laura Coffey

Set My Hand Under The Plough – E.M Barraud

A Year Of Garden Bees & Bugs: 52 stories of intriguing insects – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Cairn – Kathleen Jamie

In All Weathers – Matt Gaw

A Sunny Place For Shady People – Ryan Murdock

 

Library Books Checked Out

Footmarks: A Journey Into Our Restless Past – Jim Leary

Island to Island : From Somerset to Seychelles – Sally Mills

Steeple Chasing: Around Britain By Church – Peter Ross

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite – Jake Bernstein

 

Books Bought

Rambling Man: Travels of a Lifetime – Billy Connolly

Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond – Alice Roberts (Signed)

Grey Skies, Green Waves: A Surfer’s Journey Around the UK and Ireland – Tom Anderson

Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain – Matthew Green

A Writer’s World: Travels 1950–2000 – Jan Morris

Bread And Ashes: A Walk Through the Mountains of Georgia – Tony Anderson

Finding Hildasay: How One Man Walked the UK’s Coastline and Found Hope and Happiness – Christian Lewis

Stalin’s Nose: Across the Face of Europe – Rory Maclean (Signed)

The Wild Rover: A Blistering Journey Along Britain’s Footpaths – Mike Parker (Signed)

All The Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between – Mike Parker (Signed)

Map Addict – Mike Parker (Signed)

Forget Me Not: Finding the Forgotten Species of Climate-Change Britain – Sophie Pavelle (Signed)

Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey – Adam Weymouth (Signed)

Curlew Moon – Mary Cowell – Female (Signed)

The Enchanted Places – Christopher Milne (Signed)

The Condor’s Feather: Travelling Wild In South America – Michael Webster

Another Breath Of Border Air – Lavinia Derwent

Elephants: Birth, Death, & Family in the Lives of the Giants – Hannah Mumby

The Great Railway Bazaar – Paul Theroux

New Reading the Landscape: Fieldwork in Landscape History – Richard Muir

Small Worlds – Caleb Azumah Nelson

Smoke in the Lanes: Happiness and Hardship on the Road with the Gypsies in the 1950s – Dominic Reeve

A Pilgrim in Spain – Christopher Howse

Along The Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story – William Blacker

Dorset Dialect – Gill Newton

Tequila Oil: Getting Lost In Mexico – Hugh Thomson

Rena Gardiner: Artist and Printmaker – Julian Francis & Martin Andrews (Signed)

 

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

 

 

April 2024 TBR

Another month passes and that means that I have been thinking about the next batch of books to read. These are an eclectic mix and an attempt to get some of the review books that I have been kindly sent by publishers, read and reviewed. So here it is:

Still Reading

Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year Ed. Jane McMorland Hunter

A Cloud a Day Gavin Pretor-Pinney

A Year Of Garden Bees & Bugs: 52 stories of intriguing insects Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Steeple Chasing: Around Britain By Church Peter Ross

 

Other Books

Information: The New Language of Science Hans Christian Von Baeyer

Ireland’s Green Larder: The Definitive History of Irish Food and Drink Margaret Hickey

Small Worlds Caleb Azumah Nelson

Hothouse Brian W. Aldiss

 

Review Books

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

Blue Mind: How Water Makes You Happier, More Connected and Better at What You Do Wallace J. Nichols

Black Ghosts Noo Saro-Wiwi

Minor Monuments Ian Maleney

The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson

Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End Ed. Joan Passey

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

Human Origins: A Short History Sarah Wild

Set My Hand Under The Plough E.M Barraud

Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them Derek Gow

In All Weathers Matt Gaw

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

The Long Unwinding Road: A Journey Through the Heart of Wales Marc P. Jones

Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat Christopher Hart

 

Library Books

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

Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past Mary-Ann Ochota

The Gathering Place Mary Colwell

Footmarks: A Journey Into Our Restless Past Jim Leary

Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilisation Leon McCarron

 

Poetry

Mystic Orchards Jonathan Koven

The Christian Watt Papers by Christian Watt

4 out of 5 stars

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

This is a fascinating account of a working-class Scottish woman. Like others of that time, she had a really tough life. She was born in 1833 and had began work at the age of nine in domestic service. She became a fishwife, and after a tragedy at sea, she lost a number of male members of her family. It was to rob her of her sanity and she ended up in the Cornhill Asylum. She was encouraged to write her memoirs in pencil and that bundle of papers became this book.

She was a strong woman and didn’t have any tolerance for the airs and graces of the aristocracy, often calling them out on certain matters. She was frequently told that she was speaking above her station, but thankfully that didn’t stop her at all. She held similar opinions of those with a lot of religious power too, most of these people were more concerned with how the were perceived in the eyes of others and had no intention of actually putting their Christian teaching into practice.

She details how the feudal system still worked at that time. The lairds would take a portion of every catch, just because they could. The whole of society was heavily in favour of the aristocracy but as that faded in importance, their lives were then ruled by capitalists, who only cared about profits and little else. Because of the heavy skewing of the system, she and may others spent a lot of time in debt and poverty.

The loss of her family members was too much to cope with and she ended up in asylum. It was here where she learnt who her true friends were and those who now shunned her because of where she had ended up. It made her already tough life, just that little bit harder. She was allowed out after a while, but was readmitted again having been declared insane. And yet it seemed to suit her, the pressures of outside life had gone, but she worried about the children and grandchildren that she had left behind.

I would say this is essential reading for anyone interested in the social history of this country and in particular Scotland. What is quite terrifying is that even though was have come on over a century or more, some of the same restrictions that hold the working class and poor in that position, are still in place today. The great and the good (ha) still have more power and wealth at the expense of wider society. I thought that the editing of the notes was really good. Fraser steers us in understanding about the time that these were written and the wider historical context, whilst letting her voice come through clearly.

Yew by Fred Hageneder

4 out of 5 stars

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

I have always had a thing about Yew trees. They are such a long-lived tree and the places that they are located often show that they have had some significance to people over the past two millennia or maybe even longer. They are a strange tree too, evergreen, but not conifers, almost every part of them is poisonous to mammals, and yet they can save lives.

This book all about them is a mix of science, folklore and cultural history of this unique species of tree. Each chapter covers one element of the tree and the subjects vary from Ancient Yew to Political Yew, Metaphysical Yew to Social Yew. It is crammed full of facts about these trees and pretty much all of them are fascinating.

I thought that this was engrossing and really well-written. Hageneder has researched the subject thoroughly and more importantly, has got the right balance between imparting knowledge and the narrative story of the Yew. If you have even the slightest interest in this species then I can highly recommend it.

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