4 out of 5 stars

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

Bouvier has been travelling for a long time, he left Geneva in 1953 to go to Yugoslavia. He had no intention of returning and the story of that journey became a book eight years later. He kept travelling, heading out via India and Sri Lanka to Japan, which in time became another book. This latest book is a collection of shorter pieces and essays of his time spent in other parts of the world. Beginning in the Aran Isles, he then heads to Scotland and Islay. We then join him heading to Xian in China and Korea, and finally to his childhood home in Switzerland.

He is in Aran in the depths of winter walking the headlands and being battered by the winds from the Atlantic, sitting in the pubs being warmed and gently smoked by the peat fires and meeting the locals. He notes the desolation of the landscape, feeling that it is missing a certain something that other places have, but it isn’t something that he can quantify or identify.

Arriving in Scotland with sciatica he has no plan of what to do or see is not to be recommended, but it does give him the opportunity to discover things in Edinburgh by chance. Heading out of the capital, he heads east along the coast exploring the ports and to people watch in the pubs. Then onto Melrose via the Lammermuir Hills and finding how the Scots travelled the world taking their engineering skills with them. One rough sea journey later and Bouvier arrives in Port Ellen to discover the delights and drams of the island of Islay.

Leaving the windswept west coast of the British Isles the next essay takes us to the foggy heartland of China, Xian. Her were meet Monsieur X who will be his guide. This man had collected a small library of French books, but the Red Guard had destroyed all bar one of them, the last books, a Larousse was now buried in his garden. They have a good relationship in the brief time that he is in the province, Monsieur X revealing elements of the culture that he really should have been concealing.

The penultimate essay is on Korea. There were once seen as the poor relation compared to China and Japan and suffered at the hands of both countries, however, they were the source of writing, fire and Buddhism for Japan, amongst other things. He headed there in the early 1970s, and it was a place that wasn’t on most peoples itineraries of places to visit. However, it never really got over the war that almost triggers another world war and he finds a country that is crumbling and tired. But in amongst the dust and decay, he discovers a culture that is as rich and magnificent as its neighbours. Finally, he is back home in Switzerland, reliving memories from when he was eight years old.

This is the first of Bouvier’s books that I have read and I thought that it was really good. He has a gentle way of writing almost poetic at times, his keen eye selecting details, like the sparkle of ice on the sea of the coast of Arun, that turn the prose from a sketch of the moment to something with greater depth. He also lets the experiences of his travels come to him rather than seek them out. I do have a copy of The Way of the World that I must read very soon and must get hold of a copy of the Japanese Chronicles too.

4 out of 5 stars

If you were asked to name your own bodies largest organ you would almost certainly think of one of the ones inside like the liver or the heart, but it is actually the part of you that holds it all together, your skin. It is also an organ that most people think nothing of, day in and day out, but if you know what you are looking for you can see right into a person’s soul through their skin. Most doctors have an interest in all the bits inside, but Lyman is different, his fascination is the outside of us.

Unlike most other mammals we don’t have a significant amount of hair to protect us and keep us warm, rather what we have is a flexible and dynamic substance that can regulate temperature, is waterproof, resilient and is our frontline defence for all manner of nasty things. Flakes of skin are being shed continually, and it constantly regrows. It can be resistant to the sun, but too much exposure can lead to burning and even skin cancers. One of the amazing facts in here is just how sensitive the skin is. Every single square inch can relay back to the brain the fact that it has been touched.

There are some parts in here that are not for the squeamish, he begins with the story of a child who had a disease called harlequin ichthyosis, a horrid condition where the skin is dry cracked and scaly. He goes on to write about how we age and the inevitable wrinkles if moisturisers are any good and methods of keeping your skin in good condition. His skin safari provides details of all the countless bugs and microbes that we all carry, there are some really weird things that live in your belly button, as well of details of some really nasty things that occasionally appear.
I thought that this was a really good science book, he knows his subject thoroughly and has the skills to make the story of our skin very readable without becoming like a scientific paper. Well worth reading.

4 out of 5 stars

Blending different cultures doesn’t always work it all begins to feel a little bland. Sometimes you need that juxtaposition between different origins, things don’t sit nicely together, that conflict between outlooks is often the most fruitful for ideas. So it is with this collection from Zaffar Kunial. He can draw on influences from Kashmir, where his father was born, and the Midlands where his mother is from as well as a subtle nuance that his wider family from Orkney have given him.

In this tilted
Storm-knocked world

This drop of earth
That holds the lift

It means that the poems traverse place effortlessly. One moment we join him on the sub-continent standing outside his father’s house, another moment next to a grave. The pace and length of the poems change for each one, adding interest and acting as a prism to his varied family backgrounds. I liked this a lot and I can really say why other than the multicultural elements work together well with his prose. I was fortunate to win this along with the others shortlisted for the Costa Poetry prize and I must say that the book itself is a thing of beauty, such simple layout for all the Faber poetry books with a cover that is so tactile.

Three Favourite poems
Rainglobe
Ys
Still

3.5 out of 5 stars

If you are fortunate to have a garden but don’t really pay it much attention, then you might not be aware of the insects and other wildlife that inhabit it at the moment. It is a jungle out there, but one that you need to get down on your hands and knees to see properly. Everything from the microbes, worms and ants in the soil, to the insects that pollinate and right up to the small mammals and birds that prey on all of these creatures lower down the food chain.

If you can tear your attention away from the screen and take a few moments to go out into the garden, then we need to understand what makes them tick and some of their lifecycle to help these creatures. For a lot of them, their lives are short, sharp and very often brutal. Oh and weird, very weird. Goulson ventures beneath the soil, into the compost heap and rootles around at the bottom of the pond to find out more about their lives and just how intertwined all layers of life are on this planet.

Insects are the bottom in a very long food chain, if they collapse in numbers then everything further up will suffer and the current evidence is suggesting that that collapse has already started. A garden that is sensitively planted can bring a huge number of insects in and will help all types of wildlife. Some insect-friendly’ plants that are available from garden centres but a crowd-funded PHD project found a cocktail of insecticides, in particular, neonicotinoids, fungicides and other pesticides on them. When Goulson raised this publicly, some organisation have made steps to do something about this, but other organisations who really should know better have maintained a worrying silence about this.

Didn’t feel that this was as good as his previous books, but it is still as well written with the occasional humorous moment. You also get a sense of his anger over the way that some things are continuing with the overwhelming evidence that drenching our land in chemicals, is doing far more harm than companies would have you believe. His greatest ire is for the insect friendly plants that are being marketed, his advice, don’t look for the label, look at the plants that have lots of insects gathering round them and buy those instead and don’t use chemicals on them when you do get them home. He has a strong message that we would be wise to heed. It is worth reading alongside The Bumble Bee Flies Anyway by Kate Bradbury and her account of changing a garden from a wildlife blackhole to a place full of life.

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 a lot of things wrong with our political process at the moment, pedlars of lies and half-truths seem to have the upper hand, algorithms threaten our democracy as they target people of a particular political persuasion. Social media doesn’t always help either, it has become an echo chamber as people hear only what they want to hear and reinforce their prejudices. Money is pouring into these organisations and they are growing in influence. It feels like we are living a political version of groundhog day and 1984 as the tyranny grows.

In this short concise book on the three elements that make up a modern democracy, liberty, equality and accountability. After the wars in the 20th century, society grew well under the Keynesian economic policies but the Thatcher / Regan assault of the state has led us to where we are today. He explores the way that the neoliberal movement and overly powerful corporations have hollowed out our democracy and governments and how the systems is geared to deliver power and wealth for an exclusive and select band of people and misery for the rest.

What can we do though? He argues that accountability is the key. Past concentrations of power do (eventually) lead to change, as the population realises what is happening and that they have to effect change. People and organisations need to be held to account, and to do this we need a strong rule of law where no one is above it.

Bragg really nails exactly what is wrong with our country at the moment, and while he provides some of the answers to what to do, he doesn’t have all of the answers. Whilst that is a shame, but then I don’t think anyone has those answers at the moment. We do need a strong constitution though and we are lacking that at the moment. Worth reading, if a little short.

3 out of 5 stars

Moving to a new home in Brighton was a little bit daunting for Kate Bradbury, but it was the right time in her life to do it. The only problem was that space outside her back door was a barren and lifeless decked yard. The decking wasn’t in that great a condition either, so one day she decided that the whole lot had to come out and ventured out with her screwdriver.

Removing it took a little while and it revealed the stuff that had been left underneath that needed clearing, but in the end, it is gone and she has a blank canvas to create her own garden. As she wrestles the man-made elements away, her neighbours are in the process of covering their gardens with hard landscaping. Enriching the long covered soil means that she is finally able to put plants in that are going to attract insects and other wildlife. Bird boxes and feeders and bee hotels start to have the desired effect, turning a lifeless place into one that gives her pleasure every day.

This book proves what you can do if you don’t cover your outdoor spaces with decking or paving and think of your garden in wildlife terms and have the vision to change things for the better. Can you imagine what would happen if everyone did this? Wouldn’t solve all the problems that we have, but would go a little way to redressing the balance. Overall I thought it was an enjoyable book, Bradbury is a reasonable writer but what comes across in this is her enthusiasm for her six-legged friends who find her garden an oasis in the modern concrete jungle.

3 out of 5 stars

There are those that believe that star signs determine our fate, that very moment that you were born your destiny was set by the heavenly bodies. Others think that we are completely free to determine and set our path in the world. It looks like both of these are wrong, as according to the science free will doesn’t exist.

Our neuroscience probes deeper into our grey matter, it is revealing the processes that we use to make our decisions, how we form the reality that we see around us and just how much effect that the subconscious mind has over our day to day life. The DNA that we have inherited from our parents plays a key role too, certain character traits, such as phobias, addiction and depression are hardwired into us before we emerge from the womb. The unconscious mind has all sorts of tricks up its sleeve. Certain processes become automatic after a while, it plays as much of a part in selecting our partner as much as visual cues and personality do.

Critchlow has lots of example of human behaviour and why some things are easy for us to keep doing and why other changes need much more effort to have an effect. She has some good ideas in here and I thought that it was written well, but it didn’t quite have that extra something that would lift it to great.