3.5 out of 5 stars

In June 2006 police were called to search the home in a road in Hampstead. The reclusive owner, a writer called Allan Chappelow, had not been seen for a number of weeks. The house was borderline derelict, it had an overgrown garden, trees growing inside the building and piles of rubbish in every room. They searched, but could not find anything, but a couple of days later returned with a police dog and then discovered that there was a body in a room underneath half a tonne of papers. What began as a missing person inquiry was now a murder inquiry.

As the murder inquiry began they had no leads on what the motive might have been and who the killer might have been. As the leads developed they found that bank cards and money had been used by a Chinese dissident named Wang Yam. As the police started to close in on him, they realised that he had recently left for Switzerland and put a note out on Interpol. Yam had been in the UK for a number of years, claimed to be a grandson of one of Mao’s closest aides, had been divorced, been made bankrupt and sailed fairly close to the law with some of his financial arrangements.

He was arrested in Switzerland and escorted back to the UK where he was arrested for the murder of Allan Chappelow. He made history in his trial though, as it was the first in to be held ‘in camera’: closed, carefully controlled, secret, unheard of in modern Britain. But there were certain things about this that didn’t add up and there was no DNA evidence to place him a the scene of the crime.

It was a case that had intrigued Thomas Harding for a long time. He knew the area well, having grown up just around the corner from the deceased’s home. But investigating this case came with onerous obligations; the court order would stop him and many others speculating about any of the details of the case or they would be in contempt of court.

I thought that this was a really good book about a relatively recent case that is not as straightforward as it sounds. The research is meticulous and he writes with a very strong narrative as he peers into the murky aspects of the case. If you like true crime, this is 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.

Some poetry sits lightly on the page, subtly infusing your mind with its imagery. Other poems are forged from sterner stuff, written with bold intent and carry a sense of urgency and drama within the carefully chosen words. Rarely do you get poetry that is created in conjunction with photographs. With Threads though, you get that, and it makes something greater than the two individual parts.

We’re on a rollercoaster
                  with no safety bar except each other

This collection is as flamboyant as it is surreal. There are pictures of mundane household objects alongside poetry about longing, images of aliens with a verse on being an outsider. There are poems of the suffocating embrace of love, photos of tattoos and street scenes. Each poem is coupled with bold and original images that challenge you. I really liked this book, the combination of words and photos have been lavishly put together and it really does work. I found the poems really accessible, but it is the subjects that Evans is writing about that challenge your perspectives. It did remind me of a book that I read last year called Take Me To The Edge by Katya Boirand which also combined poetry with strong images. Can recommend this if you want to take your poetry explorations in a different direction.

Three Favourite Poems
Bloody Valentine
Freakosphere
At the Serpentine

4 out of 5 stars

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

Water is one of the only elements that can exist on our planet in its solid, liquid and gaseous state. At the poles and high points of our world is where the ice, for the time being at least, still exists. It seems like a permanent, immovable substance, which it mostly is, but as the global temperatures climb then this cold heaven becomes more transient. Snow and ice are substances that have captivated Nancy Campbell since childhood and she decided that she wanted to follow in the literary footstep of other great writers and write about ice.

However this is not a travel book in the usual sense, she is as happy wading through the archives in the Bodleian library and looking at art as she is visiting Greenland and Iceland in the far north or reminiscing about the ice dance champions from the 1980s. She sees a shaman dressed in white and wearing antlers who is there to open the curling ceremony and learns in Scotland the correct way to make a rink for the sport.

To understand the ice, you need to think in term of deep time. Ice at the bottom of the glaciers in Antarctica has been there for thousands of years, and Campbell ponders the science of looking back through our planets climate history through cylinders of ice.

I really liked this book, there are contemplative and reflective moments as she seeks out these cold places of our planet, but also moments of warmth as she spends time with the Inuit in Greenland and understands how they have depended upon the ice for generations and the threats that they face. With her writing, there are points of lucid clarity like sparkling clear ice and other moments where the writing is diffused by the history of a moment.

4 out of 5 stars

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

It is only very occasionally that I see skeins of geese flying overhead around where I live. However, when I do it is quite a sight to see thirty or more birds in that distinctive V formation that they have. They are passing overhead to reach Poole Harbour home to many wading birds. When I go to Poole Park I always see the giant Canada goose that seems to have made this country it’s home too. But the regular native geese are not quite as big, and if you look carefully there then you can see some of them too.

Whilst Rutt has always been a bird fan, it wasn’t until he went to live in Scotland near the Solway Firth, that he became more aware of the geese that were there. He sees thousands of pink-footed geese arriving in his hometown as they head south from the far north and Arctic.

With these arrivals comes winter.

This goose, along with the Barnacle, Greylag, Brent Bean and White-fronted become an obsession for him, he follows the skeins through the skies, revelling in the connections that they bring him to distant lands and the rhythm of the seasons. They brighten a bleak, dreich day, dragging him from a cursor blinking on a blank document to windswept fields in search of them.  This interest becomes an obsession and it will take him to different parts of the country in search of these magnificent birds. Heading south for Christmas, they celebrate it with a goose, a domesticated bird that has been eaten for over 3000 years now. Spending time away from the regular day to day stuff gives him time to ponder how humans and geese have interacted over that time.

In some ways, it is quite difficult to believe that this is the second book that Rutt has had published in the same year. He is quite an accomplished writer and like his first, The Seafarers, this has just the right mix of fact and anecdote tied together with a strong narrative. There are some personal elements in here, but no more than is needed to add context to what he is writing about. One for the nature lovers bookshelf.

4.5 out of 5 stars

This short, sweet and amusing collection of children stories from the master that is Terry Pratchett all have a Christmas or winter theme. There are some great little stories too, some are quite funny, some a little subversive and all have that bottomless depth from his imagination.

Not quite as good as his adult books, which have a darker and subtler humour, but huge fun none the less. These do show the vast scope of his imagination though and there are certain details in here that were developed much more in the Discworld series.

Great fun, easy to read and gives children that little opening into the magical worlds that he has created. Have passed it onto my son to read now.

4 out of 5 stars

Most people know the carol, Twelve Days of Christmas with it’s rather exuberant and expensive gift list from one lover to another. Six of the gifts given are birds, from the partridge at the beginning of the song, to the swans, midway through. However, Stephen Moss wondered if the other gifts were also birds and set about researching into the possible species that could represent the remaining gifts.

For example, for the present of Five Gold Rings, he has discovered that the Yellowhammer has an old Scottish folk-name of ‘yoldring’. It is this and similar corruptions to our language that have meant that he has been able to take an educated guess as to what the other birds might have been in the song. So for twelve drummers drumming he has chosen woodpeckers and for ten lords a-leaping, cranes were chosen.

This is another well-written book from one of our top nature writers in the country. I liked the way that he has used a little artistic licence to pick a suitable bird for the non-avian related gifts in the song. The logic behind these choices is clearly explained and the way that he uses anecdotes from folklore and history to expand on his chosen bird for each line in the song. A great little book which would suit anyone with an interest in nature or wants a Christmas themed book with a little more depth.

3.5 out of 5 stars

America has its hobos, and the UK has always had its tramps; men who walked the lanes and roads of our country. Graham sees these as vagabonds and outlaws. What he considers as tramping is a gentle and meditative style of walking that you take as much time as you need to enjoy the walk and you are  friend of society, a seeker of the unexpected and someone who travels light.

Know how to meet your fellow wanderer, how to be passive to the beauty of nature and to be active to its wildness and its rigour. Tramping brings one to reality

If you are considering taking to the lanes of the UK, then Graham has lots of advice for you. There are chapters on what boots to wear, carrying money, lighting a fire, drying off after rain, what to carry in a knapsack, the tobacco to take and that the book to take when walking should be one that you are just on the cusp of making your own.

From day to day you keep your log, your day-book of the soul and you may think at first that it is a mere record of travel and facts; but something else will be entering into it, poetry, the new poetry of your life

It is a book very much of its time, but then it was first published in 1927. Some of the advice isn’t relevant now, but as you read it you can find gems that still are relevant to walking and enjoying the outside world today. Things like, enjoy the time taken and not concern yourself with the distance covered, tramping is about earning happiness not money and the less you spend the more you will experience.  I thought it was a charming little book and I really love the endpapers too which are reproductions of his notebooks. Mostly it is a reminder that it is often the journey that matters more than the destination.