4.5 out of 5 stars

Wren Lithgow has not really had a conventional upbringing. Her mother, Cleo, is a concert pianist who travels to different cities around Europe and she accompanies her as she moves. This time they are heading to the city-state of O, a place that according to her mother she was conceived in almost twenty years ago. Wren’s only information about this man is a scrap of a photo with his face on.

Finding him whilst they are staying there is her top priority and soon after arriving at their new abode, Wren has decided to leave her mother and venture into the city alone. She takes a few possessions, including the wind-up toy she calls Ariadne, a gift that arrived in her life a while ago and raised more questions than it answered.

She has no idea where to go though and stops at a café for a cake and a coke. Wren is soon on the move again trying to find her way around a city that she knows almost nothing about. A man who might be who her father walks past and she follows before realising that it almost certainly isn’t him. The next thing she knows is that she is lost. She is stopped by a woman in the street who tries to tell her that the curfew is starting soon, and points her in the direction of a hotel.

The following morning she tries to work out where she is in the city and heads out to buy a map. Nowhere has one for sale and she cannot work out why. She ends up in the library. It is mostly full of older people, but near her is a young guy sitting at a desk with his head on it sleeping. She feels the need to talk to him before he hurries off. A few days later he is there again and she manages to talk to him a little more and as it is nearly curfew, they head back to his apartment.

It is not long before she is moving into his apartment and hoping that Alexis will be able to help find her father; but will this mysterious city want to relinquish its secrets?

The city felt a little like Beszel from The City & the City by China Miéville, it feels like a place that you may have visited at some point when travelling. Menmuir has then cleverly layered that familiarity with the unease of being in a place as an outsider, where different conventions are normal and where everyone is watching.

I loved this haunting beautiful story of a girl trying to find her past in this dystopian city of O. Menmuir’s writing has found that perfect balance of tenderness about Wren, whilst conveying the brutal heavy-handedness of an authoritarian state.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Most people have heard of MI5 and MI6 and even when they were officially denied for years, people knew why existed. GCHQ is the third part of our intelligence services and even though they have been around for 100 years, very few knew about them or what they did. When they did emerge from the shadows after the terrorist attacks in America and England they were still very circumspect about revealing any operational details.

A large number of people still haven’t really heard of them, though a large number of people are aware of the efforts during World War 2 in taking the work that the Polish did and breaking the Enigma codes of the Nazis. There were thousands of people involved in this process but one of two have become household names, Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers. Thankfully it isn’t too heavy on the Bletchley Park years. They do get a chapter of their own, but the emphasis is on all of their histories so there were things that I learnt about that I had never come across before.

Ferris begins the book way back in the 1840s tracing the origins of British efforts to intercept and break coded messages from those that were perceived as the enemy and to maintain the control we had over our global empire. It was a messy process though and each service undertook its own way of doing it. It would take a war to focus the attention from piecemeal collection to a department that is a central point for all its consumers of intelligence. This was to become the GC&CS. They shared a building with MI6 at one point and were under the secret umbrella of the Foreign Office.

In between the wars their prolific output of intercepted and broken transmissions of a huge number of countries never ceased. At one point there were thousands of messages being analysed. Germany was not of the priority list for most of that time, however, that would begin to change as they realised that Germany was in discussion with Italy and Japan and developing secret relationships with as yet unknown intents. Those would soon be revealed and the world would plunge into another war.

The amazing work in World War Two gave the allied powers great insight into the way that the Axis powers were thinking. Of all the chapters it is probably the most critical of the work that was completed. Post-war the goalposts changed dramatically and an ally in the war became enemy number one. The cold war had arrived and would shape world history for the next four and half decades. It was a time of close cooperation between America and the UK and other members of the five eyes network. There are chapters on the events in Palestine, Indonesia, the move out to Cheltenham and the rise in computers for codebreaking and of course the advent of the internet age along with all the positives and negatives that it has brought.

This is a fairly comprehensive guide to the history of GCHQ. However, being the official history there are no revelatory bits in it, rather it is the sanitised and unredacted version that portrays the organisation is mostly good light. I did have a couple of issues with it. The timeline that Ferris has chosen to use is different to the one I would have preferred. He has looked at the way that they changed in response to different world events, the cold war, the Indonesian conflict, the Falklands War. My preference would have been to take it a decade at a time which I feel would give a better flavour of the way that demands on their skills were shifting as world events unfolded. There is almost nothing on the way that they do things, I wasn’t expecting it in the book to be honest, but it would have been nice to read a little on the techniques and methods they use. He does mention traffic analysis a number of times, which looks at how people send messages and can derive an enormous amount of intelligence from that. It might not be for everyone as it can be a bit dry at times. I have read the official histories of the other secret services, Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher M. Andrew and MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909-1949 by Keith Jeffery and it felt that those authors had a wider scope to critically analyse the activities that those agencies had done over the years.

4.5 out of 5 stars

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

The loss of a parent can change your perspective on life in a big way especially if you are close to that parent. Back in 2017, Simon Moreton’s father suddenly became ill and very soon after that died. During his short illness the thoughts of growing up, how his family came to be and where they came from swirl in the tumult of emotions. It was something that he hoped would keep him connected with his dad and the family. Wanting to know how he became who he is now would mean going back to the place they live and his dad worked. The art that he would normally create felt insufficient, instead, that work he couldn’t create, became this book.

Heading back to the landscape of his childhood and back in time would bring back memories that have been suppressed for years. Some of those memories he mined were happy; holidays spent with the family, the times that he spent messing around with his brother, climbing the walnut tree and making things out of wood with his dad. The smells came back too, grass clippings, damp concrete, homebrew and horse farts. Other memories are more troubling, the teasing he had from other pupils about reading the encyclopaedia, the total lack of skills with any ball games and not even understanding the question about what team to support.

I sometimes think it would be nice to go back and feel like that again, and sometimes I am glad I never can.

His dad had quite an unusual job, he worked at a manned radar station on the Clee Hills and it would be the place that he would look for answers to questions that hadn’t yet fully formed in his head yet. Walking again through these places of his childhood that seemed familiar and yet different searching for the presence of his dad still left in the area, finding the magic once again in the gaps in his memories. He remembers trying to play the guitar one night. His father came and sat with him and passed him a book of poetry. He had written these at a similar age to Simon when he himself had been struggling with his own internal demons. It is a touching moment as each generation faces their own and their shared demons.

Those times are magical; so magical, in fact, that I don’t know if my memories of them are even real.

Walking to the radar station follows the path of the Titterstone Wake, a local festival that took place at the end of August. The station is still there, but now fully automated. He remembers being taken inside by his dad, it was a geodesic cathedral to the secret services. Meeting the men that he had worked with at the funeral gave him an insight into the character of his father that he had never really known or seen.

Okwell Soov is a poultice that was said to cure all ills. It is something that Moreton feels that he needs to cure his pain of grief, but its secrets have been lost to the past. The writing is often introspective but not in a bad way; his journey to the past to try to understand how he has become who he is now is quite some journey. I think that this book is a journey back with Moreton that we merely glimpse parts of because in between the prose is a mix of all sorts of art, photos and maps that come in a rush. His art is simple and yet full of the dynamics of life, they are interspersed with photos from childhood and significant moments in his life. It is primarily an artistic tribute to his dear father and also a look deep into the reflections that we see of ourselves when we look into the landscapes that formed us.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Several books that I have read recently have pointed out the obvious point that we are as much a part of this watery blue planet and its ecosystem as it is part of us. Over the pandemic many people have discovered or rediscovered the natural world and felt how just being in a woodland or near a river can help in so many ways. I spend a number of evenings walking down to the river, sometimes to watch the sun go down, or see if I can see the otters or sometimes just to watch the water flow under the bridge.

This new collection by Emma Blas is her conversations with the watery world that she wants us to start to correspond with too. They are poems that are drawn deep from her heart as she looks to the ocean for comfort and peace. In some she slings her anger deep into the cool silky water which absorbs and tempers her, the saline swell calm her boiling mind.

i will swap this ravens call

for a ride

on the wing of a gull

let this voice soften

salt and brined

to a howl for the moon

She finds herself at sunset, hoping to blend and blur with the sky and join the edge of the sunset. Her church is the ocean, a place that she holds dear and some of the poems reflect that spiritual side of her engagement with it. But there is anger in these words too, anger at the injustice in the world.

i have never tried

to hold something

so fluid as a river

Yet it feels more in my reach

than trying to grasp

what it means to be human

This is quite an emotional collection, Blas is baring her inner soul in a lot of the poems. From mourning not being near the shore for a long time to contemplating the vastness of the sky and counting the reasons why she cannot be loved. To Ripple is such a short poem, and yet full of profound mean about how we deal with relationships. As with any collection, there were a couple that I didn’t like, but overall I thought that this was a good collection.

Four Favourite Poems

In the Shadows

How High Will I Rise

The Edge of Moonlight

Worn Hollow

4 out of 4 stars

At the beginning of lockdown number 1, I was wandering through Waitrose last year I paused by a fairly empty shelf and I was surprised by seeing something on the shelf that I never expected to see; a Fray Bentos pie. Two things surprised me about this, one that they still existed and secondly that it was in Waitrose. It has been a while since I had one of those. And I think it was only ever one that I had…

You are what you eat is that well-known phrase that springs to mind, and on one level we very much are the sum of all the things we pop in our mouth. But on a different level, the things that we would call our favourite foods also define us as a person and make our class and the are we live very easily identifiable. When we think of India and its curries, France and the cheeses and gourmet foods and Belgium would be mussels and chips with mayonnaise. But what foods would you use to define Britain?

This was a question that Pete Brown often asked himself and it got him thinking. He was born and brought up in the north but now lives a London life. Couple that with his work as a food and drink journalist he has tried and drunk many different things, but he still has his favourites. Narrowing it down to eight different things to put in the book wasn’t going to be easy.

In the end, he made his choice of the meals that he wanted to include that he considered defined him and he considered were classic British dishes. These were Pie and Peas, cheese sandwiches, fish and chips, spaghetti Bolognese, a west country cream tea, curry, a full English breakfast and of course the classic roast followed by a Rhubarb crumble.

He decided that he wants to eat a typical example of each so rather than just wander out into the local area he decides to travel a little of the country to see the sights, meet the locals who make these things and most importantly eat. He heads to Blackpool to eat fish and chips, eats curries in Birmingham and enjoys decided whether it is the cream or jam first in Devon. He persuades two friends to make their version of spag bol and then decides to recreate the version he made as a teenager for his family. Searching for the typical cheese sandwich takes a little longer and the debate as to what you must include in a full English breakfast will run and run.

Each of his chosen meals has a chapter dedicated to it and he talks about the cultural and history behind it as well as eating an awful lot of really good food. I thought that this was another really good book from the pen of Pete Brown. I like his writing style, is conversational and informative without coming across as patronising. There is a smattering of withering sarcasm and gentle ribbing as well as a strong shot of self-deprecating humour too. Would I have picked these eight dishes for my iconic British foods? No, but some of them would have been on there. He also shows that British food can be really bad and more often now, really good. Entertaining reading, though you may need snacks when reading it.

3 out of 5 stars

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

It is 1837 and the Carlist Wars are at their height. A young man by the name of Rudolf von Wielemann arrives to help in the struggle. He is not there completely by choice as he has been lent on heavily by his family as his father thinks that assisting in the war with the Carlists against the liberals will be honour for the family name. He is bearing an introductory letter from his uncle. However, this young man is completely out of sorts, he has had a well to do upbringing with a passion for music and had an ordered comfortable life. But here in Spain, he is utterly out of his depth.

For a start, he barely speaks the language, Catalan and the dialect that they speak in the region that he is in is another level of difficulty. He has gone from his ordered and organised life in a civilised part of northern Europe to the chaos of war. They are not quite sure what to do with this tall Prussian but eventually find him a task but he is not really suited to it.

He makes friends with Dr Miguel Foraster and captivates him with his musical ability. But it is time to move into war and he is put in charge of a platoon of men, who are better known as the Shambolic Six, as the liberals carry out their attacks.

I liked this book overall, the prose is richly detailed and full of vivid descriptions. It is full of subtle nuanced humour, especially between von Wielemann and the men he is in charge of. But it is a layered story too, part of the book is about the discovery of the papers that von Wielemann left and how the narrator of the book, Raül, is teasing out the details and working with a publisher to write a book. I must admit that it took me a short while to work out that the story was jumping back and forwards from a historical plot to an autobiographical part as the author wonders about the man he is researching and hopes that the editor will like his writings about him.

4 out of 5 stars

It was a night that she can still remember now, the full crowd, the warmth of the evening even though she was in Wales at the time. There came the moment in the concert where the violinist stepped up to play. The other instruments faded and the first notes flowed out from the strings.

When I heard the violin speak for the first time, with a voice powerful enough to open pores and unbuckle joints, and a shocking intimacy that left us all stupid with longing for emotions larger, wilder sadder and more joyful than we ever had known.

It became a memory and something precious in that very moment.

It was a bit of luck that after the concert they walked out and spotted the violinist. She went over to talk to him. He said that he had been told that the instrument had been made in Italy in the 18th century, but he had got it from a Russian and it is called Lev’s violin after the guy who had owned it before. He got it out of the case for her to see.

Expecting a pristine instrument, Attlee was surprised to see it worse for wear. Cradling it in her arms like a baby she realised that it carried the presence of everyone who had ever played it. He had been told that it was absolutely worthless when he had taken it to be valued. But surely a violin that was made in Cremona, home to the master craftsman, Stradivarius, and sounded like it did, must have a story behind it?

She thought about the concert and the sound of the violin a lot over the next few months, partly as the process of clearing her mother’s possessions meant that she wondered a lot about the stories that the things that we own have to tell us. As luck would have it she was offered work in Milan and that was really close to Cremona; she would go onto the town after to find out more about the history of the instruments made there.

It was the beginning of a journey that would take her from the workshops of that town and back into the past learning how they are made. She journeys high into the alps to see where the wood is sourced from and heads to Russia to meet Lev, the previous owner of the violin. Each of these helps her uncover a little more information about this particular instrument and the wider history of the various European diasporas that took the violins and the craft of making them all over the continent. She meets a modern-day luthier, Melvin Goldsmith who happens to make some of the best sounding violins mostly by not following conventional techniques. What would really tell her just what this violin that she had become a tiny bit obsessed with, is a dendrochronology check. Perhaps after that, it would reveal its secrets. Attlee was just about to find out.

It struck me that although people make things, things are very often the making of people

I really liked this, Attlee writes well and this has a strong coherent narrative as she follows the trail of Lev’s violin to north Italy and on into Russia gradually uncovering its history. I liked the blend of history, travel and memoir that has enough of each of them to balance it. If you have any interest in the history of music then you’d probably like this.

The violin is laying broken in it’s case and there is a crowdfunded here to raise the money to have it rebuilt and restored so it can be heard once again. You can donate money here