3.5 out of 5 stars

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

What makes a good bookshop? Well having books is a good start. To be serious though, a well-curated selection of different genres that are drawn from mainstream and back catalogues and staff that are readers and know and love books. But what makes a good bookshop a great bookshop? That requires a little something extra, be it the selection of books, the bookseller or just the location of the shop.

From her first bookshelf that was originally an orange box and the happy memories of going with her brother to the bookshop each Saturday where he bought a Penguin paperback, Anne Scott has always had a thing about bookshops. In this beautifully produced volume, she has picked 18 of her favourite bookshops that she has developed a relationship with over her years.

They are mostly based in the around the UK, though one American one and another Irish one have snuck in, each has been chosen for a variety of reasons. Some because they were the places she discovered poets that other bookshops never even considered stocking, others have that quiet calm as if they were cathedrals to the written word. There are bookshops where the books were placed on easels, with pages opened out to show the art within and a London bookshop that sells children’s books, has ivy curling around the door and a secret garden within.

Sometimes, as here, a Bookshop may be defined forever in a life by a single found book.

I must be honest and say that I had only come across one of these bookshops, the rest were a mystery to me. But what a mystery though, Scott writes about these places in a dreamy evocative way, linking back to memories of discovering books and authors that would play a part in her life. It did make me think though about what bookshops would I include if I was choosing 18 that had made an impression on me as a reader. I really missed having page numbers, but I get why they did it, as each essay about the bookshop is short enough to read in a few minutes. If you have a thing about bookshops then I can recommend this as a book to lose yourself in.

4 out of 5 stars

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

I am a book addict. There I have said it. They seem to consume my life at the moment. I have read more than ever this year, so much so that I am going to finish my Good Reads Challenge a month early this year. I spend lots of time in bookshops and charity shops looking for new things to read and the bargains. I have 12 bookcases around the home, all full to overflowing and ever-increasing tsundoku (piles of books) that my long-suffering wife is now commenting about…

Like Tom, I always look at the books when I visit someone’s home, even if I have been there many times before. Your library is a rare glimpse into your very soul. Shockingly, I have even been to houses where there are no books. NO BOOKS! (Yes this is a real thing). They feel empty and barren. There is much more to a physical book than thin slices of a tree with random marks on. I don’t know quite what it is about books that makes them so appealing. Perhaps it is the heft that you get from a quality hardback, or the detail that goes into binding them or for the price of a couple of coffees you can have an entertaining few hours venturing into another world that someone has created or that you can learn something about our amazing world and the people in it. For me, though I find their presence in my home reassuring, that I can access knowledge and experiences from other people by taking a book off the shelf.

Tom Mole is another fellow obsessive book collector. (It’s not hoarding if it’s books) He works at the University of Edinburgh and is Professor of English Literature and Book History, so he is perfectly placed to write this book about books. Beginning with clay tablets and papyrus he takes us all the way through the scrolls to the codex format that we see all around us today. You will learn about binding errors, how we can become utterly absorbed in the magic that is reading, how some people manage to read their books and leave them utterly pristine and others who pass them on (or horror of horrors back) most foxed and often slightly badgered too. There is a certain amount of pleasure in owning a signed book, even more so if it is dedicated.

Some people develop relationships with their copies of favourite books, scribbling notes, folding the corners of the pages down, leaving splatters from cooking and adding their own unique and distinctive embellishments. There is a chapter on how books can affect people’s lives and two on the future direction and technology of books? Is it kindles? Or apps on a phone? The physical object is resilient to the ravages of time there are books around that are hundreds of years old that can still be read, whereas if you have a novel on a 5 1/4″ floppy disk then you will be extremely lucky if you can ever read that again.

It is a well-researched book stuffed full of interesting anecdotes and facts and Mole has done a great job in not making this feel like a slightly stuffy academic paper. The chapters are short and can be dipped into in no particular order and I liked the brief interludes. If you have the remotest interest in reading or books then I can highly recommend this book. Great stuff.

3 out of 5 stars

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

Mankind has looked to the heavens for aeons. Sometimes seeking meaning for events, tracing the movement of the stars as the earth hurtles through space and often just marvelling at the wonders that the night sky can bring. We lost some of that magic with the advent of artificial light, the glory of the Milky Way faded as the glare from cities stopped us seeing it. But head out into the countryside away from street lights and security lighting, wait for your eyes to adjust and the wonder of the night sky is revealed once again.

But where do you start? This is a book that can help you discover the night sky. Abigal Beall has packed this full of seasonal star charts, constellation charts, details on the myths and legends of astronomy how to identify the stars and constellations in each month and information about some of the equipment that you’ll need to see the sky properly.

This is not a bad little book for those wishing to begin stargazing. The information is laid out is a logical and clear format and is eminently practical. This is very much a beginners guide though and should be considered a mere opening chapter for those that want to get into looking at the night sky. It has enough to pique the interest for someone wishing to dabble in it, but they will need more books on the subject if they wish to expand their hobby.

4 out of 5 stars

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

These days people imagine going off-grid, turning away from the technology, screens and the constant interruptions from the modern world. There are those that have done it are a special breed, such as Mark Boyle who tells his story in The Way Home. Most seem to be happy with their choice of limiting their interaction with the modern world.

And what a perfume there was to it! It was like the scent of fresh tea with something else added, something essentially English, the sweetness and fragrance of the woodlands of this England.

Go back 100 years and it was all off-grid! But even then you could find places that were isolated from normal life if you knew where to look. Back in the 1920s Walter Murray had been living in London and working as a journalist, but he had become tired of city life and decided to move back to the country. He moved to Horam in Sussex into an almost derelict house near a farm. He wanted to make a living writing and collecting wild herbs.

One of those days which are like jewels among the many-coloured beads of spring. A day when we seem to breathe not air, but sunshine, when the sky is high and deeply blue, the horizon faintly far, when the woods ring with the bird music and the new green is still so light that there seems to be more branch than leaf.

This is the book that he wrote about his stay there over the course of a year. It is partly a matter of fact journal of his day to day activities, the battle with purging the place of rats and making the place semi habitable. He wasn’t alone but had the company of a collie mixed breed dog called Floss but it was still a hard year collecting and carrying all the herbs back to Copsford for drying. Each chapter concentrates on a herb that is in season and the work he does in collecting them, it is back-breaking work for a paltry reward.

It is mundane work, but what he relishes is being outdoors. He goes from being restless and agitated to being calmed by the natural world. Staring at the hedgerows and slowly he beings to really see what is around him, the dance of light beneath the canopy of a tree, taking in the scents of the meadows and watching the birds go about their business without noticing him. This sort of work is lonely too, he manages mostly, but his spirit is lifted when a close friend from childhood visits.

I did think rather him than me a few times. The thought of spending a year in a dwelling that leaks and is borderline derelict (it’s the house on the cover), doesn’t hold a lot of appeal, really. That said, being able to take a step away from modern life and do something different every now and again does have some appeal. Murray writes about the things that he sees as he walks from the house to where he is collecting the herbs from and slowly over the summer he goes from being merely an observer to someone who becomes in tune with all the living things around him. This is one of those deceptive books, you think there is not going to be much apart from the tedium of work and yet there is much more to this and that is solely down to the quality of his writing.

4 out of 5 stars

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

There are five people in my house and as come meal times it is like feeding the 5000. We eat together almost every night, and if I can drag the teenagers away from their phones, we often have conversations about all sorts of things, including politics. It is the hospitality provided over those shared dinners where long term friendships are formed.

Priya Basil has grown up in a family of food fanatics and she probably thinks that it goes way back past her grandmother. She has provided for years for her family, ensuring that all those that sit at her table struggle to get up after. This greed-gene flew in the face of her mothers aim to get her and her sister to sit and eat politely, as every time temptation loomed, she abandoned all that she had learnt, just to eat. When it comes to her mothers kadhi though, she still experiences pure greed.

Recipes are the original open source … You only need to successfully make a recipe once to feel it is your own. Make it three more times and suddenly it’s a tradition.

The etymological origins of the word hospitality are from ghosti; the word hostility also shares these same roots and Basil traces the history of food being used as a weapon against populations to starve them or force them to migrate against their will. Sadly, we are in a time where hostility seems to be on the rise and places where people once looked after each other have become places of tension.

Thankfully, this is a book that concentrates about the shared pleasures of good conversation and even better food. It is also a call to say rather than being selfish, sharing mealtimes with friends and neighbours will help people belong in that community. We can play a part in reducing the friction that seems to be growing, by becoming a generous and selfless host. A slender volume, full of wisdom and is very much 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.

In the mid-1930s a young man called Laurie Lee arrived in Spain. For most of his life, he had not been out of the village of Slad where he grew up. He had worked for a while in London, but this new country was a revelation. He walked across the country playing his violin to earn a little money to enable him to eat.

Humphreys is an adventurer who has been around the world on a bike (as written about in Moods Of Future Joys and Thunder and Sunshine), crossed seas and deserts and many other things. He has also pioneered the micro-adventure, which is a small and cheap adventure that still pushes your boundaries and get you out into the wider world. But since getting married, having kids and ending up with something that he never would get, a mortgage, he was missing the challenge of something bigger.

Lee’s simple travel has long inspired others, including Alastair, and he had the idea of doing a modern-day version of the same trip discovering inland Spain and sleeping out under the stars. But he needed a violin first. Oh, and more importantly, some lessons to be able to play it and earn some money. He finds a teacher online who declares her musical inspiration to be heavy metal and classical and heads to a music shop and buys the cheapest instrument that he can find. Arriving for his first lesson he discovers an Australian lady who has a very different life to his, he has seven months to learn how to play. The first screeches send shivers down his spine; it was then it dawned on him that he might not earn enough to eat!

A few months later Humphreys was sitting on the harbour wall in the port of Vigo, in northwest Spain. It was time for the adventure to begin. He left his small pile of change on the bench to ensure that he knew he was starting with absolutely nothing as he began his walk. Later on that day he would hopefully earn the first money of his walk…

This is the fourth of Humphreys books that I have read now and like all of his others, it is an enjoyable read. He finds the Spanish people warm and generous and falls in love with the country. He swims in rivers, suffers the heat of the day, helps a postman deliver letters in exchange for a lift as he wanders from the coast to Madrid before heading south. I liked the way he links his trip back to Lee’s journey AS I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. The Spain that Humphreys is walking through though is a very different country than that of the 1930s which was teetering on the brink of a civil war.

It is not a superhuman effort like his cycle trip, but he does push his own boundaries by playing the violin to earn his keep. He thinks the world of his wife and children, but this book and walk is as much about his need to be out there doing something. Getting that balance between responsibility and adventure is very difficult and he is striving to find that in here. I must admit that I have resisted the temptation to go and watch the videos of Humphreys playing his violin though…

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

If you have looked at the news recently you’d realise that we are in a time of political turmoil; Brexit dominates everything in the national conversation, other urgent matters about the climate and the social malaise of the country are falling by the wayside as we get more and more introspective. I am one of those who has taken to skimming the weekend papers and generally avoiding the news as it is just so depressing.

There are others though who see that this time is an opportunity to explore a post-Brexit Britain, and Tempest is a collection of poetry, short stories and articles that contemplate a time after. Some of these stories were from a dystopian and science fiction perspective, which as a fan of that sort of material was good to read.

I really liked some of them, in particular, We should Own the stars, Nature and Culture and The Carp Whisperer. As with any collection like this, there were the odd one or two that didn’t work for me. But then the idea of these collections is to bring your attention to authors who you may not have known about and to hear viewpoints that you wouldn’t normally hear in your regular media consumption. I must say though that the cover is by an artist called Roz Strauss and it is stunning. Solid little collection.

4 out of 5 stars

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

Midlife affects all sort of people differently, some buy a motorbike or a swish two-seater sports car. Other have more adventurous plans, travel to exotic or remote places, or decide to throw themselves out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane and skydive. Peter Marren wanted to do something to mark his 50th, but considerable less onerous and dangerous. He did enjoy spending time rooting about in ditches and hedges, walking through woodlands, and occasional falling over in the search for all the plants of the UK.

So far he had found 1,400 of them, but there were still an elusive 50 that he was yet to clap eyes on, including the almost mythical Ghost Orchid, a plant so rare that it hadn’t been seen in the wild since 2010. This journey would take him backwards and forwards across the British Isles from Sussex to Cornwall, Norfolk to the Inner Hebrides, searching for ultra-rare plants that are wonderfully named, such as the Slender Naiad, Creeping Spearwort, Leafless Hawk’s Beard and the Few-Flowered Fumitory. On a lot of his trips, he is joined by friends and experts to assist in the search or to provide that detailed knowledge of the exact location where these plants are.

His enthusiasm for his small green subjects is compelling. He does mention a couple of personal matters in the book, as seems to be the habit these days. However, this is a very well written book one man’s search for some of our rarest plants, but more importantly, it is also a reminder that all of our natural world is under threat, not just the headline species. Thought it was interesting that the Plantlife, who is the organisation who carries out similar work to the RSPB but for plants, have a fraction of the membership of that organisation. Seems like they need our support as much as the others. It is a timely reminder to look all around you when out and about, not just at the thing that you went to see. If you like this then I’d recommend The Orchid Hunter by Leif Bersweden and Orchid Summer by Jon Dunn.

4 out of 5 stars

Dungeness is a place that has been on the edge of our society for a while now, home to a now decommissioned nuclear power station and military zone including some strange looking listening ‘ears’ this shingle desert was a place that some people made their home. It is a place that has a remarkable variety of wildlife too. There are over 600 different types of plant and it is one of the best places to find insects including some that are found nowhere else.

It also has an abundance of birdlife, too and it is that that which drew the lifelong bird-lover, Gary Budden, here. He was here to find the white heron, better known as the great white egret, but before he had even got out of his car, he had seen greenfinches, a bird he had not seen for a long while and is under threat.

On this shingle spit where land ends and the sea begins, things are never absolute, everything changes every single moment of the day. He was here though to discover other things too. Partly about the place and to contemplate why things were here and why this place is such an enigma, but also to discover things about himself and his love for the liminal and the melding of music, landscape, nature and punk.

It is a strange book, it feels deeply rooted in Dungeness and at the same time, edgy and untethered. However, it is the images by Maxim are really what make this. He has an utterly unique way of making art. They are utterly captivating pictures, bold and full of energy. I am proud to have been one of the 100 contributors to make this a real book.

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Life in the mid 23rd Century is the closest that humanity has got to a utopia, energy is pretty much free because of the quantum entangled portals and it has enabled mass transportation to almost anywhere. That comfortable life is about to come to an end as a threat of epic proportions has just been discovered. Feriton Kane’s investigative team has discovered that the supposedly benign Olyix race are heading to Earth.

They plan to harvest humanity, in order to carry us to their god at the end of the universe. It is the worst threat ever to face mankind and there is almost no time to fight back. As the Olyix ship appears it opens a portal and thousands of ship pour through with one aim in mind. Humanity could be wiped from the face of the universe; they have a choice; stay and fight, or flee out among the stars.

When I read the first in the series, Salvation, about this time last year, I thought it was a fast-paced and well-conceived sci-fi thriller. This builds on all the elements that he put in place in that first book but doesn’t have the relentless pace of the previous book. The plot is more subtle, with subplots that weave around the main thread and slowly are drawn in but the gravity of the ending. I did feel that it took a lot longer to get going than the first in the series, but then that hit the ground running.

His world-building of the habitats that humanity now live it and a futuristic London and other major cities that are preparing for the worst on Earth is really special. I also liked the space battles too, they just felt really plausible and are really well written. I thought that it concluded fairly well, but it suffers from a little of those middle book blues where a lot of the plot is unresolved and left open. That said, there is the third book coming that should resolve all these threads and I am really looking forward to it.