Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for My Life in France by Julie Child and published by Duckworth Books. 

About the Book

When Julia Child arrived in Paris in 1948, ‘a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian’, she barely spoke a word of French and didn’t know the first thing about cooking.

As she fell in love with French culture – buying food at local markets, sampling the local bistros, and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu – her life began to change forever. We follow her extraordinary transformation from kitchen ingénue to internationally renowned (and internationally loved) expert in French cuisine.

Bursting with Child’s adventurous and humorous spirit, My Life in France captures post-war Paris with wonderful vividness and charm.

About the Author

Julia Child (1912-2004) was born in California and worked for American intelligence during World War II. Afterwards she lived in Paris, studied at the Cordon Bleu and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of the bestselling classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) that has sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide.

My Review

I have a fair collection of cookery books including some by American authors, in particular Carol Field, who has written some excellent books on Italian Baking. However, it might be because I am of the wrong generation and on this side of the Atlantic, I am ashamed to say until I was offered a copy of this book to read, that I had never come across Julia Child. Turns out she was quite a big thing in cookery books in America in her time.

This memoir by her and her nephew, Alex Prud’Homme has enlightened me somewhat now.

Beginning with her early life in Pasadena, California and the events that meant she ended up working for American Intelligence. It was a posting to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) during world war II where she met Paul. They were married soon after the war and he was posted with his job in the diplomatic service in Paris. He knew about the country as his mother had lived there, but for her, it was a bit of a shock.

She was to discover that the food was excellent though, an early stop at a restaurant in Rouen was to be a revelation, and the fact that they had wine at lunchtime shocked her. But, as this book shows, she was flexible and adaptable and set about learning the language, but it was the opportunity to learn how the French cook when she signed up for a Cordon Bleu course that the direction of her life changed completely.

She took the skill that she had learnt and began a cookery school with two other French women that they called L’Ecole des Trois Gormandes, or The School of the Three Hearty Eaters. From this an opportunity came up for her and two others, to write a cookery book for the American market. So they set about writing it. The deal with the first publisher fell through and she secured another. Testing the classic French recipes for the American market and writing the book took a while and it was going to be a monster at around 700 pages, but somehow they finally finished it. It went on to become a best seller and made her a household name.

What I liked most about this book was learning the life story of someone who I had never heard of at all before picking this up. The narrative style that this book is written in works really well, it didn’t feel like I was reading a work by two authors and the way they tell her fascinating life story is always entertaining.  Unsurprisingly, there is lots about food in here, but I was surprised not to have a smattering of her most popular recipes included. Might have to keep an eye out for her books now.

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 Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for arranging a copy of the book to read.

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for Thirteen Ways To Smell A Tree by David George Haskell and published by XXX.

About the Book

Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree takes you on a journey to connect with trees through the sense most aligned to our emotions and memories. Thirteen essays are included that explore the evocative scents of trees, from the smell of a book just printed as you first open its pages, to the calming scent of Linden blossom, to the ingredients of a particularly good gin & tonic:

In your hand: a highball glass, beaded with cool moisture.

In your nose: the aromatic embodiment of globalized trade. The spikey, herbal odour of European juniper berries. A tang of lime juice from a tree descended from wild progenitors in the foothills of the Himalayas. Bitter quinine, from the bark of the South American cinchona tree, spritzed into your nostrils by the pop of sparkling tonic water.

Take a sip, feel the aroma and taste three continents converge.

Each essay also contains a practice the reader is invited to experience. For example, taking a tree inventory of your own home, appreciating just how many things around us came from trees. And if you’ve ever hugged a tree when no one was looking, try breathing in the scents of different trees that live near you, the smell of pine after the rain, the refreshing, mind-clearing scent of a eucalyptus leaf crushed in your hand.

About the Author

David Haskell is a writer and biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, is an Editor’s Choice at the New York Times and explores the story of sound on Earth. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, he illuminates and celebrates the emergence, diversification, and loss of the sounds of our world, including human music and language.

My Review

Tree huggers have been around for a while, and as mad as it sounds, communing with nature in this way is mostly harmless, unless you have just hugged a holly… Whilst we may use some of our other senses when interacting with a tree, such as sight and touch we very rarely use some of our others. But there is something very pleasurable about walking through ancient woodland listening to the susurration of the leaves in the wind or smelling the resinous scents of a pine forest.

In this fascinating book, Haskell has taken thirteen trees that we have probably come across in some capacity or the other. Beginning with the acrid and oily horse chestnut, known to many small children for their conkers, we meander around other scents and smells such as the juniper and how it has flavoured gin, the way that the white oak is the main flavouring for whisky and how the scent of the ash tree is disappearing.

Not all the smells covered here are pleasant, the living fossil that is the ginko has a particular scent that it is thought was used to attract beasts that walked this planet a long time ago. The glossy green leaves of the bay have a scent that is one of my favourites, my parents have one in their garden and I always snap some leaves in half to smell it when I am there. Trees also give us smells after they have stopped growing, the scent of woodsmoke in the right context can be wonderful, but in a forest can be terrifying. The scent that I am most familiar with though is that of books, as I do have ‘quite a few’ around the house…

The delight I feel in the ponderosa’s aromas joins me to the communicative heart of the forest. Trees confide in one another. Insects eavesdrop and concoct. Earth and sky converse.

This is probably one of the most unusual title books that I have read recently. I really liked this and thought that Haskell has come up with a very novel way of getting us to engage more with the natural world around us. I like the way that he has selected a number of trees, and used that particular species to tell us a little about that tree and how we interact with it. He is a really good writer too, his prose is engaging and fascinating as well as being stuffed full of fascinating facts that can be dropped into conversations. If you want to read a very different slant on natural history writing then I can recommend this.

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 Anne Cater from Randon Things Tours for the copy of the book to read.

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for All Island No Sea by Chris Campbell and published by Alien Buddha Press.

About the Book

‘In this buoyant collection about wading through life, people trudge in and out of houses, decorating them along the way. Growing older brings all kinds of paint splatters – some bright, some painful. These poems chart the identity crisis of a human island that has lost its ocean, leaving only a squawk and some wet socks. Perhaps, once all the wet socks are gathered, water can return. Campbell’s images unfold like a stepladder for us to climb.’

About the Author

Chris Campbell is a former journalist living in Bristol. He now works in PR and is a Rotary GB&I Young Writer National Final judge.

‘All Island No Sea’ is Chris’ third poetry book following ‘White Eye of the Needle’ (2021) and ‘Bread Rolls and Dresden’ (2013). His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Dreich, Indigo Dreams’ The Dawntreader, The Waxed Lemon, Streetcake, Yuzu Press, Green Ink Poetry and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Chris won The Portico Library’s ‘Poetry Prize’ (2021) and has been featured on BBC Radio Bristol.

My Review

Life is a series of routines for most people, with the occasional memorable event thrown in for good measure. The big things can be memorable for good and bad reasons, but for some people, they can find joy in the everyday moments. Chris Campbell is one of those.

The subject of the poems in this collection are wide-ranging, from sitting listening in a flat listening to a saxophone play, a cleaner in a pub and the things we actually own and the aftermath of a rainstorm in August seen through a broken window and a conversation with a barber. Some of the poems have a subtle and occasionally dark humour, not to make me laugh out loud, they made me smile as I read them.

You’d have been ninety-nine today.
I wonder of your rhubarb still grows

if your books now gather dust on
Someone else’s shelf?

I really liked this collection. Some of the poems brought back memories of my childhood, in particular, September. I remember having a pocket full of conkers ready to take home and pierce holes in. I like that the form and tempo of each poem were different so each page felt fresh and inviting. A great little collection that deserves a revisit at another point.

Three Favourite Poems
Dear Alan, Alan, Alan
September
I Want The Past In A Cereal Bowl

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 for the copy of the book to read.

Socials:
Visit www.chriscampbellpoetry.co.uk.
Twitter: @Citizen_Chris

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for The Grove by Ben Dark and published by Mitchell Beazley. 

About the Book

There is a renewed interest in the nature on our doorsteps, as can be seen in the work of amateur botanists identifying wildflowers and chalking the names on the pavements.

But beyond the garden wall lies a wealth of cultivated plants, each with a unique tale to tell. In The Grove, writer and head gardener Ben Dark reveals the remarkable secrets of twenty commonly found species – including the rose, wisteria, buddleja, box and the tulip – encountered in the front gardens of one London street over the course of year.

As Ben writes, in those small front gardens ‘are stories of ambition, envy, hope and failure’ and The Grove is about so much more than a single street, or indeed the plants found in its 19 ½ front gardens. It’s a beguiling blend of horticultural history and personal narrative and a lyrical exploration of why gardens and gardening matter.

About the Author

Ben Dark is a head gardener, award-winning broadcaster and landscape historian working at the top of British horticulture. He ’s been described as ‘the millennial Monty’ by Gardeners’ World Magazine and ‘the future of horticulture’ by Horticulture Week.

He graduated with a degree in History from Bristol University and went on to study Horticulture at Capel Manor College, before completing his education with a traineeship at the Garden Museum and an MA in Garden and Landscape History at the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research. As a gardener he has worked for embassies, cemeteries, heritage bodies and oligarchs. He has organized a private flower show for the Royal Family and helped to build gold-medal winning gardens on the main avenue at the Chelsea Flower Show. As the creator and host of the award-winning Garden Log Podcast he frequently speaks to gardening groups and industry events. Ben has written about plants for the Telegraph and has been featured in the Independent, Gardens

Illustrated and the Financial Times.

My Review

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need – Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you are a regular visitor to this blog then you probably know that I like books. Whilst the house is not quite a library, it isn’t too far short, Sarah has a thing about gardens so we have a lot of plants around the place. I don’t know exactly how many plants she has in the front garden but the size of the bed is about 10m x 5m. Based on the words of Cicero, I think we’re sorted.

Even though he is a head gardener, Ben Dark does not have his own garden. He lives in a flat with his wife and son and when walking in the neighbourhood came across this street called The Grove with these rich and varied front gardens. It reminded him of the day, years ago, just after he had started horticultural college. He realised that he actually recognised a plant in someone’s garden Not only did he recognise it, but he knew its Latin name and could remember what he had recently learnt about it. From that moment on he was hooked on plants.

Each of the gardens was very different but they all had a particular thing in there that piqued his interest and for each chapter, he has chosen one plant to write about. Beginning with Wisteria, each chapter is on an utterly different plant, from Box to magnolia, Tulips to London Planes and roses to a plant that we have a lot of in our garden, Verbena. It gives him an opportunity to explore the origins of each plant and why we have them in London. It is endlessly fascinating, as we root around in the undergrowth with him, learning about each of them and what they bring to our gardens.

I had never heard of Ben Dark before coming across this book. But I can see why he is highly rated based on what I have just read. I did like the way that he uses a different plant for each chapter to explore the gardens of The Grove. The mix of culture, horticulture and history along with his own personal stories and anecdotes is just about right. He knows his green subjects too, drawing on all his experience as a gardener and he does that without me feeling that I was being lectured to as some of the gardeners can do.

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 Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the copy of the book to read.