Very late this month, and although I read as much as usual I only finished 4 books! Here they are:
David Greene’s Midnight in Siberia is a travelogue of a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The author was the Bureau Chief of NPR’s Moscow office for 3 years and he had done the trip once, in 2011, but after he returned to the US he got the opportunity to do the trip again, which he did with his Russian NPR colleague Sergei. They stop at various places (some more obscure than others) meeting interesting and ordinary people, as well as chatting with the people they were sharing their carriage with en route. I think if this had been his first and only experience of either Russia or the Trans-Siberian then this would have been a bit sparse, but as well as the travelogue he draws on anecdotes from his time in Russia, as well as his previous journey on the Trans-Siberian, and so there is a depth here which I really appreciated. This book is an excellent way of armchair travelling (that’s a compliment! I love armchair travelling when I can’t do the real thing), and a really good insight into a (huge) part of Russia that’s less well-known than Moscow and St Petersburg. 4.5/5.
Martin Summer’s book Connecting with Life: Finding Nature in an Urban World looks at how humans have become increasingly disconnected from nature over the millennia, and what we can do – particularly if we live in an urban environment – to reconnect with the natural world, as well as get more of a balance between nature and technology. It’s well-written, although I personally felt that other authors have covered this subject in more depth (I’d recommend Florence Williams’ The Nature Fix as a good example). However, as an introduction to the subject it was very good. 3.5/5.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with my taste in books will know that military sci-fi is not my most read genre. In fact, I think Jan Kotouc’s Frontiers of the Imperium, translated from the Czech by Isabel Stainsby (who is my very good friend, and who gave me the book) is the first military sci-fi book I’ve ever read. So I feel a bit of a fraud reviewing it, as I don’t really have anything else to compare it to. That said, as something completely different it did hold my interest, and if the next books in the series find their way to my bookshelves I will be interested to see where the story goes from here.
This is the book’s blurb:
Daniel Hankerson was perfectly happy being just a midlevel spy, genetically enhanced low-ranking member of the royal family and an avid poker player.
Then the war started, someone tried to murder him, he met a strange war correspondent with an even stranger secret, and he found himself aboard a prototype warship going to the fringes of the Central Imperium.
Then things got worse.
An ancient enemy is approaching with a large fleet aided by people Daniel thought he could trust. Now Daniel must use his analytical skills to figure out a way to stop them before millions die.
As the first book in the series there was quite a lot of world-building going on, and a huge number of characters (although I found once I stopped trying to remember who was who and just read further on that it was clear enough for me). There were a lot of weapons and science and explosions, and thankfully just the one (short) sex scene that wasn’t cringey. I liked that there were a lot of powerful women who were equals as leaders and commanders. The book ends with the Central Imperium in disarray and their enemies in the ascendency, and the 1 page Epilogue drops a clanger which sets up the next books in the series.
So, not my usual cup of tea at all, and I don’t know that I’ll be rushing to read more military sci-fi but I’d read the next books in this series. 3.5/5.
Economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ book Talking to my Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism is an introduction to the principles underpinning economics, written as though he is answering the questions of his then-15 year old daughter. It’s therefore accessible and very readable, drawing a lot on cultural references such as the Greek myths and the film The Matrix. Personally I think I would have liked something a little bit more academic (with references), and I might try some of his other books which are more academic in scope. Though as a beginner’s guide I mostly thought this was good, and his chapter on the market as expounded by a British POW who used his training as an economist to interpret his experiences in a German POW camp was fascinating. 3.5/5.
A little late (partly me being late, but also I was having some wordpress issues when I did try to put this up a few days ago), here are my October reads:
I am Malala, by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb, is Malala’s memoir of growing up in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, until she was shot by the Taliban for her campaigning for education for girls, and through her hospital stay in Birmingham (UK) and her ongoing life and campaigning. The bulk of the book, whilst detailing the politics and events in Swat and Pakistan, and the deterioration in civil society, also reads very much as a love letter to the Swat Valley, and to her family. The shooting and its aftermath take up the last quarter of the book; the rest is full of descriptions of her home, her school, her family and friends, and the campaigning that she and her father were involved in as the Taliban gained traction in Swat and beyond. It’s impossible not to be full of admiration for this remarkable young woman, still now only in her early 20s, and all she has achieved. 4.5/5.
60 Postcards by Rachael Chadwick is the memoir of a project the author undertook in memory of her mum, who died very quickly after a cancer diagnosis a few months short of her 60th birthday. She went to Paris, and left 60 postcards around the city stating that she was visiting in memory of her mum and asking those who found one of the postcards to contact her to tell her what they were doing when they found it. The project quickly grew arms and legs as the replies started coming back, and she clearly gained a great deal of comfort from the contact with people from around the world.
The first part of the book deals with the 16 days between diagnosis and her mum’s death, plus the funeral and the first few months, until the idea of the postcard project took shape. Then there’s the trip to Paris, the replies, and their aftermath – a second trip to New York to leave more cards, and the contacts and friends and stories from the replies. Overall it was a moving account, although particularly at the beginning I felt quite voyeuristic reading the very personal story of someone with whom I have no connection. It’s left me with lots to think about about memoir in writing – I’m not averse to reading memoirs, including of ‘normal’, non-celebrities, but I think I need to think about why this one made me feel like that. It’s had really good reviews so I think mine is a personal thing rather than something about this book per se – it’s me, not her, definitely! 3/5.
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May is a lovely book, where she explores the experience of ‘wintering’ in life through observing places and nature and people who have learnt to anticipate and prepare for the wintering experience rather than trying to power through it. During her own wintering time – illness in both her and her husband’s life, stress at work which ultimately required her to resign while she dealt with her health, and troubles with her son at school necessitating a period of home schooling – she acknowledges her need to stop and linger and allow the experiences to take their course, noting that it is really common for plants and animals throughout nature to spend the summer times preparing for the hard winter, ie that it’s an inevitable part of life, rather than an unfortunate setback. She also spends time in Norway and Iceland, and closer to home swimming at her local beach. This is a gentle, non-judgmental exploration that I feel has huge resonance in these stressful times. 4.5/5.
Well, I enjoyed this month’s library book so much I immediately went and bought my own copy! Stephen McGann is the actor who plays Doctor Turner on Call the Midwife (he’s also one of the McGann acting brothers – probably his best-known brother is Paul McGann, who was in Withnail & I, and was briefly Doctor Who in a TV special between the old and nu-Who eras). His book Flesh and Blood: A History of my Family in Seven Sicknesses is a really fascinating mix of family memoir, genealogy, and social history. He traces his family back to its mid-19th century Irish roots, through to their emigration to Liverpool, eventually through to he and his brothers escaping the poverty of their family history to forge their own way. Through this story, he is able to cover a number of historical and more contemporary historical events that have touched his family – the Irish potato famine, the sinking of the Titanic, the D-Day landings, the Hillsborough disaster, the Alder Hey organ harvesting scandal, and others – and the developments in public health, sanitation and medicine which occurred contemporary to his family story throughout the 20th century. It’s really well-written, and the fusion of family genealogy and wider social history works so well as a framework for the narrative. Definitely a cut above the usual celeb memoir. 4.5/5.
Margaret Silf’s Landmarks: An Ignatian Journey turned out to be a very good religious complement to Katherine May’s secular Wintering (thank you, Jar of Fate!). It’s kind of an introduction to Ignatian spirituality, without being an in-depth dissection of Ignatius’ writing, specifically looking at slowing down to deepen our spiritual life, and looking at starting from where we are and finding those pointers to help us explore and discover more in our faith (I don’t think I’m describing it very well!). I’m thinking about returning to this in Lent next year and going through it more thoroughly, it struck me as a really good Lent companion, although it’s not written as such. 4/5.
The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott & Peter Marren is a lovely gentle book, chronicling the emergence of spring nature during 2020 when the UK was under its first lockdown. They live, respectively, in suburban SW London, rural Suffolk, and rural Wiltshire, and each day from mid-March to the end of May has an entry from at least one of them about what they’re noticing in terms of nature, sound, weather, as well of course as what is going on in the country at the time with rising covid deaths and ongoing lockdown. I will admit to an ulterior motive in buying this book, in that the book that I am currently writing is doing something very similar to this (it’s sufficiently different that I think I’m tapping into the zeitgeist rather than rueing the fact they’ve got there before me!). Certainly discussion of that extraordinary spring, where nature seemed so vibrant even as society shut down, was everywhere, and this is a really nice addition to that discussion. 4/5.
Although I’m no longer on the academic gravy train, I do still appreciate a well-written and accessible academic book, even more so if it’s from my own former research field (broadly, Central & East European Studies) and Jennifer J. Carroll’s Narkomania: Drugs, HIV, and Citizenship in Ukraine doesn’t disappoint. The result of several years research throughout Ukraine between 2007-2014, this is an ethnography of drug services in Ukraine (specifically opiate replacement therapies such as methadone and buprenorphine and the clinics where they are dispensed) and the people who work in and use these services. Set against the backdrop of separatist unrest and political turmoil in Ukraine, and the competing demands of Western funders and government authorities, this powerful account details how competing discourses of addiction and citizenship play out in the lives of service users and workers. Fizzing with humanity and righteous anger, this is a really important study challenging taken-for-granted discourses and perceptions, and appealing to a recognition of our common humanity. 5/5.
The Swordsman’s Intent by G.M. White is a prequel novella to the author’s Royal Champion series, book 1 of which I started after finishing the novella. If swordfights and swashbuckling is your thing then this is a good series to check out. Belasko, a decorated soldier from a humble farming background, is summoned along with the best swordfighters in the country by Markus, the current Royal Champion (swordsman and companion to the King), to train and duel to become his successor. This novella fills in the backstory of how the position was filled, and where Belasko’s enemies came from. I’m looking forward to book 1. 3.5/5.
Following on from The Swordsman’s Intent, I went straight into G.M. White’s The Swordsman’s Lament, the first in his Royal Champion series (the first one is a prequel novella, which I’m glad I read first as it helped make sense of some of the relationships in the novel, which takes place many years later). Swordsman Belasko, the Royal Champion, finds that absolute loyalty and integrity count for nothing when the heir to the throne, Prince Kellan, is poisoned and Belasko finds himself accused of the murder. He slips into the nooks and crannies of the kingdom, determined to clear his name and find the true murderer. I much preferred the book at this length rather than novella-length (although the novella was good too), and was pleased that I (as per usual) didn’t see the twist at the end coming. The next book is out next year, and I’ll definitely read it. 4/5.
Wish We Knew What to Say: Talking with Children About Race by Pragya Agarwal is a short but vital book looking at issues of race and racism, and how to talk about them with children in an age-appropriate way. I particularly thought the section talking through issues with 10-12 year olds was excellent. 4.5/5.
My other library book this month was Back to Nature: How to love life – and save it, by TV presenters and naturalists Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin. Ultimately this book is about the biodiversity crisis that the world currently faces, and forms of activism and practical action to try and address it. It was born out of their lockdown experience last year of doing the daily Self Isolating Bird Club on social media, as well as the lockdown Springwatch (which I still think was the best yet), both experiences showing them how much people were reconnecting with nature. Mostly it is Chris discussing (and ranting) in detail about the issues, and then Megan occasionally comes in with factoids about recent scientific discoveries about various species, and she also writes the bits at the end of the chapters about the specific projects they’re focusing on. I found it both fascinating and a bit frustrating – they are definitely preaching to the converted in this particular reader, but I found the structure a bit annoying, and wondered if it wouldn’t have been better with the species factoids more fully integrated into the overall narrative. That did knock off half a star for me, but there’s no doubting the importance of the message, and the need for action. 3.5/5.
Philip Pullman’s Daemon Voices is a collection of essays and presentations given over several years, about stories and storytelling. He draws a lot on the His Dark Materials trilogy and other books he’s written, as well as stories by other authors, to explain his philosophy and approach to writing and storytelling. This was interesting, but as is the nature of talks and presentations in particular, he does recycle some things more than once so there was a good bit of repetition of some points. This also included his side of debates with faith leaders (eg an event in the early 2000s with the Bishop of Oxford). 3.5/5.
Morality and Health, a collection of work edited by Allan M Brandt and Paul Rozin, is another of the books that I acquired in the latter part of my PhD which I always meant to go back to when I started my eminent post-PhD academic career. That career went the way of most things, and so did the reading of the book, until recently. It looks at various issues (smoking, teenage pregnancy/birth, vegetarianism, tuberculosis, sugar, drink-driving, etc) from the perspective of a number of different academic disciplines and time periods, in particular considering the issues around how imbuing them with moral overtones affects how they are viewed and treated. As usual with these collections, some chapters were more interesting than others to me, but the volume as a whole was worthwhile, even though it is now quite old (published in 1997). I’d be interested to read more recent scholarship on the subject. 3.5/5.
James Rebanks’ first book, The Shepherd’s Life, is one of my favourite ever books, and his second, English Pastoral: An Inheritance, is right up there with it. It chronicles the changing farming methods over the years on his Lake District fell farm – he is now farming with much more of an eye to promoting nature and biodiversity as well as good farming practices. His love of farming, the land, and nature shines on every page, and his call to move away from monoculture farming and artificial ‘solutions’ to increasing productivity is clear and urgent. 5/5.
Will Storr’s The Science of Storytelling is a fascinating book looking at exactly that – particularly the psychology of why people do what they do in certain situations, and then applying it to character development in creative writing. Even though I don’t write fiction I found this really interesting, and I would definitely highly recommend it to anyone I know who is writing any kind of fiction. His argument is that character development, really getting deep into who the characters are, is the best defence against cliche, and he provides loads of examples from literature and film to illustrate his points. Very good read. 4/5.
Don’t Step in the Leadership is one of Scott Adams’ early Dilbert collections. More tales of pointless work life in the cubicle, incompetent managers and evil executives. This has been on my shelf for years and years. 3/5.
This month’s library book is a travel book by TV presenter Paul Murton (who presents the Grand Tour of the Scottish Islands programme). The Viking Isles: Travels in Orkney and Shetland is a lovely book with nice paper and gorgeous photos. He is able to go into a bit more detail than the segments in his TV show, as he travels round most of the inhabited isles that make up the Northern Isles of Scotland. Great for island-philes and travel book-philes. 4/5.
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is a wonderful, wonderful novel, and I absolutely loved it. Ursula is the third child of Sylvie and Hugh, born just before WW1, and this is the story of her many lives. Not reincarnation, not time travel (although the book’s structure is time-hopping all over the place), but deja vu taken to the extreme, where she gets the chance to live bits of her life over again with different outcomes. It’s very cleverly done – Ursula doesn’t necessarily know what awful thing is going to happen, but the deja vu feeling means that she does something to change the outcome of what could have happened (and did, in another parallel life). There are a lot of difficult events – war, rape, backstreet abortion, Nazism, teenage pregnancy, murder, suicide, domestic violence, amongst others – and poor Bridget, the family maid, has a particularly hard time as Ursula tries several times to stop her from catching the Spanish flu at the end of WW1 and infecting the household. In some lives Ursula is a mother, in others she is a maiden aunt with a history, in some she lives in Nazi Germany, in others she is in London, but throughout, each timeline is believable even as you know you’re suspending disbelief. It’s not a short book, and I’ll need to decompress with some non-fiction now, but I’ll definitely be picking up her related novel, A God in Ruins (primarily about Ursula’s brother Teddy – thank goodness it’s not about her brother Maurice!), in the next few months before the characters start to fade in my mind. 4.5/5.
Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half is part cartoon, part memoir about depression, dogs, weird situations and self-awareness, based on the viral blog from 2013 or so. I absolutely loved it – there was a lot to recognise, and particularly her chapter called ‘Motivation’ which absolutely nailed the anxiety/depression-based paralysis when faced with a completely ordinary and easy task. I remember a friend saying that the cartoon about depression where she suddenly notices an old bit of corn under the fridge and finding it hilarious was the one where she felt like somebody got how she felt, that it wasn’t just her.
I laughed a lot at the dog chapters – her two dogs (simple dog and helper dog) really are great material for her quirky humour. But I think it’s the chapters about mental health that are really outstanding – her humour isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, at times it can be almost disturbing, but if you’re on her wavelength then she absolutely nails it. 4.5/5.
English Street is a collection of poetry by Irish poet Damian Smyth. I have a signed copy, courtesy of my brother-in-law who (as an NI-based poet) I’m pretty sure knows him. I’m not a big poetry buff, so there was quite a lot here that went right over my head, but even still, the language was lovely and I knew I was reading something special, I just didn’t always understand it! The Northern Ireland Troubles are never far away, and this is very clearly a place-based collection – people with more knowledge and experience of Northern Ireland would most likely get much more out of it than me. That said, one of the poems in particular (“The Windy Gap Miraculous”) was gorgeous, and it was worth reading just for that one. 3/5.
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by naturalist, TV presenter, activist and all-round national treasure, Chris Packham, is a memoir of his childhood as an autistic boy growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. I found it a thoroughly immersive experience reading this – to start with I struggled with the descriptive writing (every single thing has at least one adjective, so the prose felt a bit purple, especially to begin with), but as I read on it became clear that this is just how he experiences the world around him – noticing everything, missing nothing. It detailed both his loneliness and isolation at school, unable to make friends or relate to the other kids around him, but also his fascination, obsession even, with nature, and the comfort and sense of belonging it gave him. In particular, it details his rearing (in 1975, when he was in his early teens) of a kestrel chick after he stole it from its nest, and how much he truly loved that bird and was crushed when it died. Each chapter is made up of scenes, not chronological, from his life, and each ends with an account of a session, in 2003-4, with his counsellor following a mental breakdown. When it came out this book ended up inspiring his fascinating and moving documentary, Aspergers and Me, which I think has done a huge amount in raising awareness and understanding of autism and the barriers and challenges that autistic people face every day. Highly recommended. 4.5/5.
Killing it on Kobo by Mark Leslie Lefebvre is a really useful book for anyone thinking about self-publishing a book beyond just amazon. The author set up and managed the kobo self-publishing platform for several years, so really knows his stuff. I’ll be going back to this book again and again, I’m sure. I did have to dock half a star though for too many typos. 4/5.
Charlotte Mendelson’s Rhapsody in Green is subtitled “A writer, an obsession, a laughably small excuse for a vegetable garden”, and is a charming set of short essays, organised seasonally for a year, about her slightly mad-sounding tiny London back garden which is crammed full of things she’s growing (with varying levels of success) to eat. I found it quirky and funny – I was trying to think of a phrase to describe it, but then in one of her final essays she’s talking about old gardening journals describing the plant pioneers of yesteryear and she refers to them as ‘hilariously posh’, and I guiltily thought that that’s exactly what I’d been thinking about her throughout the book. Despite all the inevitable failures – seeds bought in exuberant enthusiasm with no thought to where they might fit (if at all), and her gardening short cuts that aren’t recommended for a reason – what shines through is just how much she adores gardening, and this particular garden. This was my favourite quote:
We live in a world of ceaseless human misery, nude selfies, celebrity dunderheads and online venom. The pain of it is almost too much to bear but you will bear it, you almost certainly will, if you go out into a garden.
I also absolutely loved her essay on composting – I love my compost worms, as benign Quaker factory-owners once cherished their staff.
Fabulous and fun. 4.5/5.
Through Russia is a set of short stories by Russian author Maxim Gorky, written in the early 20th century. I downloaded it several years ago from a free book site (feedbooks, I think) when I decided that my ignorance of Russian classics and famous writers was a bit embarrassing. I had hoped that this would give me a sense of turn of the century Russian landscape and place, as well as introduce me to a great author, but sadly I found this particular set of stories a real slog, and after valiantly reading through the first half, I extremely half-heartedly flicked through the rest, reading less and less the further I got towards the end. Pretty much every story primarily features circular and pointless conversations with not very pleasant or interesting people, and whilst rich in description, I still found it impossible to picture the place. I’m prepared to concede that I’m a bit of a Philistine, but I really didn’t enjoy this. 2/5.
This month’s library book was a lot of fun – the huge bestseller that is The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Set in a retirement home complex, four retired amateur sleuths while away the time looking at cold cases and trying to figure out whodunnit, but then a thuggish contractor who co-owns the complex is brutally murdered just after he learns that he is being frozen out of plans to expand the development and losing his existing share, and our heroes have a real-life murder to solve. I found this a great whodunnit in that everyone potentially had motives and opportunities and shady pasts, and whilst you have to suspend disbelief in the Club’s dealings with the two investigating police officers, nevertheless that didn’t stop me just enjoying the ride. It was also very funny in places. Great literature it isn’t, but a fun, entertaining read it definitely is, and I loved all the main characters. I’ll definitely look out for the next in the series. 4.5/5.
Several years ago I read Ian Mitchell’s Isles of the West, about his voyage sailing around the islands of the Hebrides in the 1990s, and the main things I remember about it was that he’s a really good writer, he really really doesn’t like the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), and he wasn’t mad on the idea of community land buy-outs (he visited Eigg before the buy-out there and was very unsupportive of their efforts to raise funds to buy the island). Now I’ve read his next sailing book, Isles of the North, where he sails from the Hebrides to Rona, Orkney, Shetland and on to Utsira in Norway, a journey he took a few years later, and in this book he’s still a really good writer, he still really really doesn’t like the RSPB (or SNH – Scottish Natural Heritage – either), but he does like Ardbeg whisky. He does make really good points about conservation bureaucracy and charity/NGO efforts, but it did feel a bit hectoring at times, which is a shame, because this is a fascinating account which tries hard to foreground the voices of local people who are living with the consequences of the bureaucracy of various environmental designations and political decisions. I think I would have liked a little more about his time in Norway – the comparison looked to be really interesting, but I was just getting into it when he sailed back to Scotland, and those two Norway chapters were shorter than all the others, despite spending comparatively quite a lot of time there. 4/5.
Vertical: The City from Satellites to Bunkers by Stephen Graham is a really interesting look at city/geography/social studies/urban studies from the vertical perspective, rather than the predominant 2D horizontal perspective of most maps and accounts of urban life. He covers everything from satellites and drones, skywalks (such as the one in Minneapolis), skyscrapers, elevator technology, favelas, to sewers, bunkers and mining. Using a lot of different cities to illustrate his points (Dubai, London, Toronto, Sao Paolo, Minneapolis, New York, Johannesburg and many many others) this is a scholarly but extremely accessible account of the issues facing the world as urban growth continues ever upwards and downwards. I found it fascinating, and I’m sure I’ll come back to it again. I did though have to dock half a star for the poor proofreading – not so much spelling errors, but missing or additional words were far more frequent than they should have been (and this is not something I usually experience with books published by Verso). 4/5.
Best known for her creations the Moomins, The Summer Book is one of Tove Jansson’s novels for adults, and reportedly her favourite. The author owned and lived for many years on a small island in the Gulf of Finland, and this book is the story of a family (primarily grandmother and granddaughter, Sophia – reportedly based on the author’s mother and niece) who live on such an island. It is absolutely delightful – there is no plot as such, and really very little happens. Each chapter is a vignette of a conversation or observation or event in the family’s life on the island. It was perfect holiday reading. I was a bit worried that it might be a bit twee, but as it features meditations on ageing, bereavement, environmental damage etc (while never bashing the reader over the head with these things), it never descended into the saccharine. Fabulous. 4.5/5.
This month’s library book was Joan Didion’s Let Me Tell You What I Mean, a collection of 12 essays, mostly from the beginning of her career (from the late 60s/early 70s) plus some newer ones from the 90s/early 2000s. She covers subjects such as a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, meeting Nancy Reagan, Ernest Hemingway’s posthumous publications, writing, and more. I think the piece on Nancy Reagan and the first one on writing were my favourites – I have found, from the few essays of Didion’s that I have read, that I feel a step removed from her, but in these pieces I did feel she offered a bit of herself, and was more relatable. 3.5/5.
Tom Michell’s The Penguin Lessons is a charming memoir of the author’s time in Argentina in the late 1970s, working in a boarding school for boys near Buenos Aires, and specifically of the penguin he rescues from an oil slick while on holiday in Uruguay, which he ends up taking back to the school where it becomes beloved of staff and students alike. It could have been a bit mawkish, but I think was saved from that by the author’s own musings on whether or not he was doing the best thing for the penguin (named Juan Salvado), and also whether or not he was anthropomorphising the interactions with the bird. He attempts to find an appropriate place for Juan Salvado, firstly at Buenos Aires zoo (which he decides against once seeing the lethargic, underfed, and unstimulated penguins there), and then at a penguin colony 1000+km away on the south coast (impractical after the only means of bringing the penguin there, his unreliable motorbike, breaks down in the middle of nowhere), but Juan Salvado seems in no rush to leave and enjoys the company of the boys and staff who treat (and feed) him well. A nice light read. 3.5/5.
De-Centring Western Sexualities : Central and Eastern European Perspectives, edited by Robert Kulpa & Joanna Mizielinska, is one of several academic books that came out towards the end of my PhD and which I bought with the intention of continuing my scholarship and staying up to date with relevant books and articles in the field. That didn’t happen, and I only ever got round to reading and citing the chapter that was particularly relevant to my PhD, by Shannon Woodcock. I’m pleased I finally managed to read the rest of the book, this is still a really interesting look at the state of LGBT/queer lives in CEE from social/cultural/academic perspectives, arguing that Western-focused activism and academic priorities don’t capture the nuances of the situation in Central & Eastern Europe, and indeed that studies from the region add to and problematise the academic canon. I still think that Shannon Woodcock’s chapter was my favourite (probably because the specific context of Romania was more familiar to me), but the whole book is excellent, and a decade on from publication still important for CEE scholars. 4/5.
Borders and Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story for our Times by Padraig O Tuama and Glenn Jordan is a short but really important book. Both authors worked for the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland, working across the religious and sectarian divide to promote reconciliation and peace. After the Brexit vote of 2016, where once again the issue of borders, and the potential for conflict, became (and still is) a huge issue, they carried out a series of workshops across Ireland and Great Britain, using the Biblical book of Ruth as the foundation to their discussions about borders and belonging, migration and prejudice, and this book is the result. They write alternate chapters, Glenn is the theologian and Padraig the poet, and both bring different aspects of the story to the discussion. Brexit is only mentioned sparingly, but it is easy to see how the lessons of the book of Ruth can be applied and interpreted in the light of Brexit. A very thoughtful, accessible and important book. 4.5/5.
C.K. McDonnell’s The Stranger Times is the first book in a trilogy (the next one is out in early 2022, I believe), and I can’t wait for the next book having raced through this one. Hannah, down on her luck, accepts a job at The Stranger Times (basically a knock-off of The Fortean Times), despite never having any journalistic experience and having a bunch of oddball colleagues – alcoholic editor Vincent Banecroft, Reggie the ghost hunter, Ox the UFOlogist, Grace the devout Christian office manager, Stella the teenage office assistant, and Manny the permanently stoned printman, plus Simon the nerdy teenager who’s desperate for a job at the paper and spends his life at the door trying to get in. Strange and dark goings-on soon show Hannah that there is more reality to the world the paper reveals than you might think, and the intrepid newspaper employees investigate the murder of one of their own, coming face to face with darker forces than any of them thought possible. This review really doesn’t do justice to how funny this book is, I loved it, and sniggered my way throughout it – think the film Men in Black meeting Terry Pratchett, and set in the grimier bit of Manchester. As the first in a trilogy it probably does spend a bit longer than some books establishing the characters and the world, but it is worth persevering, the reward is well worth it. 5/5.
One of my rare forays into poetry, thanks to the library! Helen Mort’s second collection, No Map Could Show Them, celebrates women who dared break new ground, particularly around mountain climbing, from a young Yorkshire woman who climbed the Swiss Alps in crinoline, to Alison Hargreaves, a mountaineer just a few years older than me who died in her early 30s while descending from the summit of K2 in the 1990s.
As is often the case with poetry, I could tell that the language was clever and beautiful, but couldn’t entirely always grasp what was going on. The set of poems about Alison Hargreaves was lovely though, I wonder if I related more to them because I knew what had happened to her. 3/5.
The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa is an anthology of short stories and non-fiction essays from 2001 which I think has been on my shelves from the early 2000s (it had probably been out a year or two when I got it, but it’s definitely pre-2005). British Newspaper the Daily Telegraph took 7 authors and journalists to southern Sudan and then collected the works the trip inspired into this book, the proceeds of which went towards aid projects in Sudan. Several of the authors are very well-known names – Alex Garland, Tony Hawks, Irvine Welsh, Andrew O’Hagan, Victoria Glendinning, Giles Foden – plus veteran Telegraph journalist WF Deedes – so the quality of writing was very high throughout, there wasn’t a single dud chapter (not something you can say very often about anthologies). I must admit I’d bought it thinking that it was a straight-up travel book (and I’d already read the Tony Hawks chapter which is reproduced in his book One Hit Wonderland), so I was surprised to find that most of the pieces were actually short stories, including the chapter by Deedes. It was only Tony Hawks’ chapter (about trying to find a musician to record a song with) and the final one by Victoria Glendinning (about the pros and cons of aid and development efforts) which were non-fiction, most of the others were short stories, and then about half the book was taken up with a novella by Irvine Welsh, which was as brutal and challenging (and sometimes darkly funny) as you’d expect from him.
To be honest, most of the short stories were good but not especially memorable, but the Irvine Welsh story will stay with me a long time. I enjoyed the two non-fiction pieces, and actually reading Glendinning’s overview of the history and politics of the Sudan conflicts, as well as issues regarding aid and development, it was easy to see where elements of the fictional accounts had got their inspiration, so that was a really good way to round off the book.
I did feel a bit uncomfortable reading stories by white Westerners about black and brown Africans and their conflicts, but the honest wondering about what good is being achieved and what problems are being created by Western aid and development efforts in Glendinning’s piece did redeem it. I don’t think what was being discussed is anything new in aid and development circles, even 20 years ago, but I appreciated that they did at least air the debate. 3/5.
I can always rely on an Asterix book to make me smile (and add quickly to my number of finished books!), and Asterix in Corsica was no exception. I enjoyed this one a lot. Our heroes Asterix and Obelix travel to Corsica to return the escaped prisoner Boneywasawarriorwayayix to his village, see how the Corsicans battle their local Romans, and stop this year’s Praetor from stealing a years worth of taxes and taking them to Caesar. The usual punch-ups and puns ensue. 4/5.
Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right is a thoughtful, sympathetic, and deep journey across what she refers to as ‘the empathy wall’ to try and understand, from her liberal, left-leaning perspective, folk on the other side of the political divide in today’s America. She spends time with a number of Tea Party advocates in Louisiana in the 3 or 4 years leading up to the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016 (my ebook featured an afterword about that election; the hardback was published in September 2016 so just before the election). She uses the issue of environmental regulation as a lens to try to understand the very different political worldviews of the people she comes to know as dear friends, and to try to get to the heart of what she refers to as ‘the great paradox’ – that people who in many cases are directly impacted by industrial pollution and state/federal courting of big business through incentives and tax breaks nevertheless oppose greater environmental regulation of businesses and vote for candidates with policies which negatively impact on their own health, environment, and jobs. She spends time with people in their homes, churches, and the places they knew as unspoiled during childhood which are now environmental no-go areas thanks to massive pollution, and shows a genuine respect and desire to understand, as well as seeking to try and bridge the political divide and find areas of common concern. I thought this was an outstanding and important book – I learnt lots, and was challenged again about my own ‘people like me’ bubble. 5/5.
North Korea Journal is the day by day journal kept by Michael Palin during the two weeks he spent in North Korea filming a Channel 5 travel documentary. Frustratingly for me I’m having issues with library ebooks which meant I had to read this on my computer on Adobe Digital Editions, and for some reason it only showed the top half of the (many, given it was a TV tie-in) photos. Apart from that though, it was an easy and interesting read, even if it didn’t reveal anything particularly new, and was of course influenced by the fact that their guides (aka minders) from the official tourist agency had to approve and vet their every move. I’d like to get hold of a copy so that I can see the photos in full. 3.5/5.
In Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of our Forests and Fairytales, Sara Maitland explores one UK forest per month for a year, and uses the visits as a starting point to look at the development of fairy tales in tandem with the growth and development of ancient and modern woodlands. Each chapter is one walk, and then ends with her retelling a fairy story, sometimes well known ones like Little Red Riding Hood, and sometimes less familiar ones (at least less familiar to me). It took me a couple of chapters to get into, but I really enjoyed her musings both on the nature and history of the forests she visited (and the people who work in them – I had no idea about the Free Miners in the Forest of Dean, for instance), and on the development and proliferation of fairy stories, so many of which are set in and around forests. Fascinating (also, gorgeous cover!). 4/5.
The Electricity of Every Living Thing is a wonderful memoir by Katherine May, one of my favourite authors (who also runs an excellent online memoir/narrative non-fiction writing course that I highly recommend). It details her walking parts of the South West Coast Path (the same path in Devon and Cornwall that Raynor Winn and her husband walked in The Salt Path – the two books came out at the same sort of time so I think that year they were on a lot of literary festival panels together) and the North Downs Way in Kent, while coming to terms with realising, at the age of nearly 40, that she is autistic. The book features details of the walks, of learning, with her husband and 3 year old son, how autism affects and impacts their lives, and memories of past events where suddenly awkward situations make sense in the light of her diagnosis. This is a beautiful book. Incidentally, the byline for the book seems to have changed from the hardback copy I have (“One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s”) to the byline on this picture, which is of the paperback (“A Woman’s Walk in the Wild to find her way Home”). 5/5.
The Unwomanly Face of War is the third book I’ve read by Svetlana Alexievich, and it was just as excellent as the others. In this one, she interviews women who participated in World War 2 in the Soviet armed forces (the interviews took place before the end of the Soviet Union, mostly during the 1980s). Her starting point is that most accounts of war are men’s accounts, and focus on things like types and numbers of weapons, the men who commanded the forces, etc etc. Her very interesting introduction included comments from the Soviet censors, to whom she had to submit drafts before publication, who insisted that people wouldn’t want to read about these accounts and that she should focus on Victory. As with all her books, the accounts are relentless, one after the other, with not a minute’s break for a breather. It’s therefore pretty harrowing in places, but let’s face it, nothing compared to what the women telling their stories went through. 4.5/5.
Simon Barnes’ On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet is a gorgeous account of the author’s home in Norfolk, which includes several acres of marshland in the Broads National Park. He charts the comings and goings of wildlife and plants throughout the year, shows how this habitat fits into the national and global scheme of things, and also shows how important the place is for his family, including his son Eddie who has Downs Syndrome. Several of Eddie’s poems appear in the book. I loved this, it was simultaneously a gentle and urgent read, and like several of the ‘nature’ books I’ve read this year was a call to observation and gratitude. There was also a joke about Siegfried Sassoon that really made me laugh. 4.5/5.
111 Days: Tales of a Fisheries Observer: Decapitation, mutiny, hurricanes and a dog named Pirate by Ross James (not James Ross, as the touchstone has it!), is a diary of the author’s first job out of university, which was as the observer on a Portuguese trawler in the North Atlantic. What could have been quite a dull tale was made interesting by his observations of the job, the crew and officers, and the sea and wildlife and weather he saw and experienced. I had no idea that such a job even existed, and it certainly was challenging, especially at the time which was before the ubiquity of mobile phones and satellite/broadband communication (early 2000s), so at times it was an extremely lonely job. It’s also a job I could never do (the thought of the constant smell of fish and engines turns my stomach from the comfort of my sofa, and the cooking sounded really vile!). The book is self-published, and a bit of light editing probably wouldn’t have hurt, but overall it was interesting and well written. 4/5.
I wasn’t expecting a book called White House Pets to be particularly high literature, and this book by Margaret Truman (daughter of President Truman, so of course a former White House resident herself) really did meet my expectations. It was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours, but I found the writing quite dull so it won’t be one I reread. In 16 chapters it covered many of the early presidents and their animal companions – the most recent were Kennedy and Johnson. 2.5/5.
The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature by Charlie Hailey is a book I’d never have thought to buy, but I got a copy through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme and my goodness what a gem! I absolutely loved it, and am so glad I got this chance!
Genre-wise it’s certainly a bit niche – it’s a mix of architecture (specifically about porches, unsurprisingly), philosophy, and nature, with an occasional touch of memoir as subtle seasoning. The prose is absolutely beautiful, and I found reading this book such an immersive experience, it was like I was sitting on his porch myself. The author is a professor of architecture, and the bulk of the book is based on the porch of his riverside cabin on the estuary of the Homosassa River in Florida. He writes of the liminality of the porch, both inside and outside, part of the house and separate from it, and how those different roles alter and clarify perspectives on the nature and life outside and its relation to the inner life of the house. It also looks at the precarity of the porch – particularly his riverside porch, as he’s seeing the effects of climate change in real time, and doesn’t expect the cabin to be around more than a few more decades, if that. He includes discussion of a number of other different porches as well, in literature, antiquity, and also some religious buildings – the section on the porch of the Memorial Chapel in the main Stockholm cemetery was fascinating. But the bits on the Homosassa porch were my favourite – the prose felt like the river water lapping on the shore, it was gorgeous. 5/5.
Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland is an anthology, edited by the wonderful poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie, of essays, poems and a couple of photo-essays designed to represent the contemporary writing on nature and environment in Scotland. Some of the authors were well-known names (including some of my favourites: Amy Liptrot, Malachy Tallack, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy), others less known to me. Every piece was strong (although I must admit that I found it a bit harder to connect with the photo-essays), and it was the essays by Amanda Thomson (“Around Some Islands”) and Sally Huband (“Northern Raven”) that were my favourites. Topics impressively ranged from a pigeon on a city windowsill; watching a stag rut; sexism and the Lerwick Up Helly Aa festival; the reintroduction of sea eagles; sailing to an abandoned Hebridean island; wild swimming; and watching wasps build a nest in the garden, amongst others. A really excellent collection. 4.5/5.
John Galt’s Annals of the Parish is a novel written in 1821 (I’m trying to read at least one “classic” a year). It is the first person account of the fictional presbyterian minister Micah Balwhidder, each chapter representing a year of his 51 years of ministry at the kirk in the fictional town of Dalmailing, Ayrshire. To start with I thought it was going to be a satire of the minister’s sense of self-importance, but actually once it settled down (or rather, once I got into the feel of it more) it is more a chronicle not only of a particular place at a particular time, but also the impact of world and local events. The parish sees its men go off to fight in the American Civil War, the parish sees prosperity and growth with the coming of a cotton mill, there are religious debates and admonitions, insights into the view of the role of women at the time, the effect of smuggling on the community, and much more. The account is liberally sprinkled with Scots dialect so wouldn’t necessarily be the easiest read (although most words can be gathered from the context), but overall I really enjoyed this. 4/5.
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić, translated by Anthea Bell (who I know best as the translator of many Asterix books), is a strange but compelling novel about the Bosnian war. The main character, Aleks, like the author himself, flees the city of Višegrad as a teenager with his family and goes to Germany just after the start of the war. Some of the book looks at his family life and growing up before the war starts, some covers the start of the war before they leave, and some covers Aleks’ return to Višegrad years later to try to find out what’s happened to Asija, the girl he tried to save before they left but had lost touch with. It wasn’t always easy to work out whose point of view a particular bit of the narrative was (although I got there in the end), but that didn’t seem to matter. The slightly absurd situations actually reminded me of one of my favourite films, by Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica, Black Cat, White Cat, even though that’s a dark comedy and there is very little about this book that could be called comic. I found the book moving, absurd, thought-provoking, a bit grim in parts, and it will stay with me for a long time. 4.5/5.
Lev Parikian’s Music to Eat Cake By is one of several books I’ve helped fund via the crowdfunding publisher unbound.com in the last couple of years. The short blurb is contained in its subtitle: “Essays on Birds, Words, and Everything in Between”; the longer story is that as well as people like me who just chipped in a bit for the book, he also set himself the challenge of writing essays based on topics suggested by supporters (who will have paid a specific amount for the privilege), and of including individual words suggested by still more supporters. On top of this, he also set himself the challenge of writing 40 essays, with the first starting at 4000 words, and then taking 100 words off the length of each subsequent essay until the 40th essay was just 100 words long.
I have followed the author on twitter for a while – he’s a conductor and also a nature buff (especially birds), and has a wonderful way with words. So I was keen to see how he did with this challenge. I enjoyed the book a lot (subjects ranged from cricket, music, nature, walking, sports commentators, to a random Welsh TV weatherman), but I couldn’t help feeling that the extra challenges bogged it down a bit – not so much the word length (although the shorter ones didn’t really work so well for me), but the individual word suggestions especially started to get on my nerves a bit as I went along. Some fitted in seamlessly, but others felt a bit shoehorned in, and it ended up feeling like one gimmick too many. As with any collection I enjoyed some essays more than others, but overall he is, as I’d suspected from his twitter, a fine and genial companion and I’d happily recommend the book for a fun read. 3.5/5. (but really 3.75).
Jim Dodge’s Fup is a small (52 page) novella described in the blurb as “a wildly eccentric modern classic set in the coastal hills of Northern California … {a} whiskey-fueled tale…”, which I think is a very apt description. This is the first bit of the blurb on the back of the book:
Start with Granddaddy Jake Santee, a cantankerous, ninety-nine-year-old with a taste for gambling and whiskey; add Tiny, his gentle giant of a grandson, whose passion is for building well-crafted fences on land with no livestock; then add Fup, a twenty-pound mallard with an iron will and a fondness for hooch and romantic movies…
The story is a riot, and will provide fuel for anatidaephobics everywhere who think there’s something weird about ducks. 4/5.
Alan Brown’s Overlander: Bikepacking coast to coast across the heart of the Highlands is his account of a week spent biking from Taynuilt on the west coast of Scotland over to Findhorn on the Moray Firth. It’s the type of trip I’d never do myself (far too unfit and fair-weather!) but I enjoyed it from my sofa! Camping or staying in bothies overnight, he writes about the joys of cycling, of being in the open air, of Scotland, but also considers thorny issues such as land ownership, history, use of the land for grouse and deer shooting, access laws, and the scourge of the Highlands aka the midge. A very interesting and evocative account. 4/5.
Better late than never, here’s what I read in April:
I’m very much appreciating our library service’s expansion of the digital book catalogue over the past year of the pandemic! Florence Williams’ The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative is my most recent library book and I really enjoyed it. She’s a journalist by background, and this translates to a very readable and non-stuffy book. She looks at all the various research going on around the world into nature’s effect on our mental health and wellbeing, and visits a number of fascinating projects, in the US, Japan, Korea, Finland, Scotland and Singapore, amongst others. I found her writing style just the right blend of curiosity, critique, chattiness, openness, and snark. I’ll probably get myself a copy of this to keep, as I’m sure I’d dip back into it. 4/5.
Frank Kusy is an indie author who has produced a series of 6 travel memoirs, all of which I’ve picked up over the years on Bookbub deals. This book, Life Before Frank: From Cradle to Kibbutz is the prequel memoir to that series, detailing his life before embarking on those travels. I must say he has some cracking anecdotes (including being puked on by Keith Richards, working for a while with Russell Grant the astrologer, and having his hair ruffled by Ronnie Kray when he was a boy, as well as his Polish dad having a connection to Wojciech the bear in WW2), and he’s a good writer too. There are a lot of larger than life characters here – cruel Jesuit teachers, his friend Tristan who was into the occult, his Hungarian mother who is desperate for him to be a good Christian, his dim stepbrother, the cruel work manager at the kibbutz he ends up in towards the end of the book. I did feel sorry for his first girlfriend Addie (who he leaves at the end of the book despite her having supported him for years as he got sacked from job after job), but am interested enough to want to read the other books at some point. 3.5/5.
Nature Writing for the Common Good is a set of essays by previously unpublished authors on the subject of nature, ecological challenges, and connections between people and place, curated by CUSP (Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity). As is always the case with this sort of collection there were some that I liked more than others, but all made me stop and think. Some dealt with returning to childhood haunts, others with recovery from trauma, others with watching a particular natural phenomenon (eg the seal pupping on the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts). There was also one poem about so-called invasive species which mirrored some of the thoughts I’ve been having in my own writing. The collection is available at https://www.cusp.ac.uk/projects/arts/naturewriting/ 3.5/5.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, subtitled “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants”, is a beautiful, beautiful book. The author is from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and is also a scientist (botanist), and in this book she looks at how indigenous wisdom and teachings about the natural world can enhance and inform scientific knowledge. The main takeaway for me was the importance of gratitude, reciprocity, generosity and respect in our interactions with the environment and with others. And the writing is stunning – the links she makes between indigenous teaching and world events really stopped me in my tracks (especially towards the end when she talks about the start of the war in Iraq and the migration of salamanders to their spawning pools – I just had my mouth open in awe reading that). Highly, highly recommended. 5/5.
SPQR by Professor Mary Beard is a sweeping history of the first millennium of the Roman Empire. It’s quite a chunkster of a book, hence taking quite a long time to read, but I very much enjoyed it. As well as covering kings and senators and emperors, she also presents what is known about more ‘normal’ people and society throughout the Empire. What I liked about this, more than the actual history itself, was her discussion throughout as to the relative strength (and amount) of available evidence, and so how confident we can be about it, what can be claimed with some certainty and what is more speculative. I wish more history books would do that. As an aside, every time she mentioned Gauls I must admit to instantly thinking of Asterix, but that’s my fault not hers! A very good read, even with the mental interruptions of a small band of indomitable Gauls! 4.5/5.
A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland by Ben Aitken is a travelogue detailing the author’s time in Poland, which included the Brexit vote in the UK while he was there. He’d seen more and more Poles moving west to the UK and this made him curious about the country. Initially he gets a job teaching English (I had a lot of sympathy with him about that; I taught English in Romania and probably wasn’t any better than him at it!), but then ends up peeling potatoes at a restaurant, having a frustrating will-they-won’t-they non-relationship with a Polish woman, Anita, and travelling round to various parts of the country. He muses on Brexit, and on the experience of living abroad; I can’t say there’s anything massively profound here, but I enjoyed the read. 3.5/5.
The Full Cupboard of Life is the 5th installment in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Botswana. I always like these for a couple of hours of not very demanding reading, with likeable characters and mostly not very high stakes. I think this one is my favourite so far, I did laugh a couple of times, especially at the subplot of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni being coerced into doing a charity parachute jump. 4/5.
When I was doing my PhD, I bought all 3 volumes of Michel Foucault’s A History of Sexuality. I only managed to read the first volume, The Will to Knowledge, at the time. I found it really fascinating and helpful, and I always intended to get back to them just for interest and learning’s sake. So I’ve started by re-reading Vol 1. Clearly in the 10+ years since I did my PhD, my intellectual capacity must have atrophied because I found quite a large chunk of this book pretty incomprehensible, and I ended up skimming quite a lot of it. The bits I’d highlighted still made sense, and there were a few other parts where I thought that the ideas were really interesting, but I’m really not sure I can muster up much enthusiasm for the other 2 volumes. The book considers Foucault’s usual themes (knowledge, power, discourse) and was pretty groundbreaking at the time, influencing many (frankly much more readable) scholars working on sexuality. I may give Vol 2 a try at some point, but suspect though that I’ll be giving these away to someone who’ll appreciate them more. 3/5.
This month’s library book was Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; and, on the duty of civil disobedience. Written in the mid-19th century, Walden is the account of the author’s building a shack and living on the land by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. It’s considered a classic of nature writing, and an American classic (one of my American friends told me that, at least when she was growing up and at school, everyone had to read it in high school). This particular copy also includes his later essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Walden is a series of essays about the place, and I had high hopes!
Unfortunately, I found it pretty hard-going! I am coming to the conclusion that for the most part I’m really not suited to pre-20th century writing. I found this book verbose and a bit overblown, but most disappointingly for me, for the bulk of the book what I was wanting to know about – the nature and the place – were largely subsumed in Thoreau’s writing about himself and his deep thoughts. A couple of the essays, specifically about the pond itself, were sublime (extra half star for them), and most of the others had bits of nature writing if you dug hard enough, but I found myself skimming more of this than I like to do in a book. 3/5.
Into Africa by Craig Packer is an account of a fieldwork trip in the early 1990s to the Serengeti and Gombe national parks in Tanzania. Packer is an academic who has worked on lion studies in the Serengeti since the 1970s, also working with Jane Goodall on chimp/baboon studies in Gombe. During this trip he is initiating some new field assistants who will be collecting data in the field, and helping a PhD student collect samples. This is written as a daily diary, but he also reflects on the things he has learnt about the animals and the place over the decades, and his past experiences as well as what happens during this field trip. It was very readable, not dusty and academic at all, and gave a great sense of the excitement and mundanity of the work, as well as the challenges of the setting. I really enjoyed it. 4/5.
I received this book from the publishers as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme; thank you to the publishers and author for this opportunity.
Postcards from the Borderlands sees the author David H. Mould in several countries which have disputed, precarious, or otherwise not necessarily logical borders. He travels extensively, usually working as a consultant, and seeks out the more authentic experience of the countries than the average tourist would usually experience. I enjoyed reading this very much, although his accounts of some countries and in particular their issues around borders were more interesting and obvious than others, and in most of the chapters there were aspects which felt a bit more basic ‘travel writing’ than analysis of the impact of borders. The final chapter, where he sums up the main issues (eg different perceptions of borders depending on nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc), was very interesting – I’d have liked to have seen a bit more of that sort of discussion threaded more overtly throughout the whole book. 3.5/5.
Danny Katch is an American comedian and activist, unashamedly politically left-wing. Despite the deliberate provocation of the cover image, Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People is not just “Trump is terrible” (although he does think that) – he’s equally critical of the Democrats (even Bernie Sanders doesn’t get 100% favourable coverage here!), and traces how mainstream politics and society going way back led to where politics is today. Having read this a few years after it was published, it didn’t feel like there was much new as a lot of this has been hashed out in discussions and debates over the past 4 years. But as an outsider looking in at American politics, what was new to me was the sheer extent of wasted opportunities and general incompetence. It was a very readable account, and as someone who basically agrees with him I enjoyed this (if ‘enjoy’ is the right word for a book about so many missed opportunities and terrible politics). If you want an unbiased account of American politics then this won’t be the book for you, but as a short introduction to the major issues and players then it’s well worth a look. 3.5/5.
Repealing the 8th: Reforming Irish Abortion Law by Fiona de Londras and Mairead Enright is a short book, originally published in 2017, the year before the referendum where the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution was repealed. This book does have an epilogue from after the referendum was announced, but before it took place – I’d be interested in a further update now that it’s been 3 more years further down the road. The two authors are law professors, and they look at the background to the 8th Amendment and related legislation regarding pregnancy and abortion, and propose an outline of new legislation based on their extensive discussions with interested parties. Law is not usually my field of interest, as it always seems so dry, but this book was interesting and it was really helpful to see how the legal situation was being analysed and proposals for future law being made. 4/5.
The Merciful Humility of God by Jane Williams is the book I’ve been reading for Lent this year. It is laid out in 5 chapters, which consist of an exposition of a relevant Biblical passage, an account of a saint or other holy person (eg St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila) whose life embodies the subject of the chapter, and some questions for discussion/contemplation. I think this would work better as a group read rather than an individual one – I’m probably a bit shallow, but I think I really prefer a more structured, day by day Lent read, and I’ll try to go back to that structure for my Lent book next year. 3.5/5.
Diane Ackerman’s Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of my Garden is a lovely book detailing a year in her clearly very extensive garden in New York state. She is an avid gardener, and describes the seasons and lives in the garden beautifully. Occasionally I felt a bit cynical, I’m sure if I had access to that sort of huge garden I could rhapsodise that much too, but I got over myself, because cynicism is just antithetical to such a delightful book. Lots of memorable accounts, although I think my favourite was the short chapter about the hospice garden she volunteers at, and the birdhouse competition they came up with to raise funds. Definitely recommended. 4.5/5.
Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2014, deservedly so. This chunkster of a book details the story of the town of Toms River, New Jersey, and the growing realisation of the impact of industrial pollution on the town. As well as meticulously detailing the various players: there was a big Ciba-Geigy chemical plant there from the 1950s, the town’s biggest employer until it was eventually closed in the 1990s; also Union Carbide used a local farm to dump waste; the local water company neglected to add filters or report about known pollution in some of their wells; local and federal government neglected to order or follow up on studies, and brushed rumours of pollution hazardous to health under the carpet; and meanwhile families throughout the town were unwittingly drinking water polluted with industrial waste, or working with minimal protection with highly hazardous waste. Over the years there seemed to be more and more cases of both adult and childhood cancers, and this book looks at each study which eventually built up a bigger picture of what was happening. At times it read like a detective story, at others like an epic family tragedy. I was absolutely gripped – with admiration for the investigative writing, rage at the incompetence, indifference and focus on profit over health and environment, and sorrow for the families affected. 4.5/5.
Alice Vincent’s Rootbound: Rewilding a Life was longlisted for last year’s Wainwright Prize. It’s part memoir, part discovery of the healing power of gardening and green spaces. After a breakup and having to live out of suitcases for several months, Alice finds solace through planting and growing, and discovering the green spaces of London and other cities around the world (I enjoyed her account of the High Line in New York particularly). Large parts of this are really beautifully written, and I’m sure I’ll come back to this again and get even more out of a reread, but curmudgeonly me would have preferred a bit more of the plants and a bit less of the relationship angst. 3.5/5.
A is for Apple: A Snow White Anthology, edited by Robyn Sarty, is from the same stable of anthologies as the Beauty and the Beast anthology I read last month. If anything I think I preferred this one – 6 stories retelling the Snow White fairytale from a number of different genres, including fantasy and contemporary literature (including one which recast Snow White and her stepmother as rival beauty influencers). The only one which didn’t really work for me was the paranormal fantasy story, but that’s more the genre than the author, as the writing was good, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I think my favourite was probably the first story, where the author Phoenix Xiao drew on Chinese mythology to explore the question of what if it was the stepmother who was the victim? Honorable mentions also to Julian Barr’s fantasy retelling, and to Mark Hood’s aforementioned beauty influencer contemporary story. A solid 4/5.
Calm Parents, Happy Kids by Dr Laura Markham is a parenting book which focuses on building connection with children and fostering resilience. It gives practical tips, as well as an easy presentation of the science behind espousing this approach. I pretty much agreed with the approach, although I didn’t always find it obvious what the practical tips were, and I preferred another book which she recommends, Lawrence J Cohen’s Playful Parenting. 3/5.
A couple of years ago I got a box set of 3 of indie author Joanna Penn’s books for authors, and am just now working my way through them. The first is The Successful Author Mindset, which looks at the issues which can plague authors at all stages of the creative and publishing journey (self-doubt, perfectionism, etc) and offers thoughts on how to deal with these. It’s a short book that will be good for dipping in and out of. There’s nothing here that I’ve not heard on her excellent podcast, but it’s good to have it all in one place. 4/5.
My first 5* book of the year – Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist won last year’s Wainwright Prize and I can certainly see why. It’s a diary of a year in his life (when he was 14 – he’s 17 now) chronicling his interaction with nature, his growing nature and climate activism, his life with his family, and his experiences of growing up as an autistic teenager (including how commonplace bullying and isolation was). I loved how he was able to explain how he experiences nature and how autism brings it into such sharp focus, but also how he so clearly and naturally explained how he experiences the neurotypical world and how exhausting it can be. He is a really impressive and accomplished writer, and this is a wonderful book. 5/5.
Akala’s Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire is an impressive and highly readable book about race and class, primarily in the UK although acknowledging there are global issues and threads. It is part memoir of his life growing up as a mixed-race, black-identifying boy in the 80s and 90s, and his experiences of racism, prejudice in education and at the hands of the police, as well as violence in his community and beyond, and part polemic about the roots of institutional racism in imperialism and capitalism. Highly recommended. 4.5/5.
The second of my Joanna Penn boxset of writing books, How to Market a Book is a really excellent primer for all stages of the book marketing process and I’d highly recommend it. 4.5/5.
The Crow Folk by Mark Stay is the first book in the Witches of Woodville trilogy (book 2 is due in October 2021), and I loved it! It’s 1940 in a Kent village, Woodville, around the time of the Battle of Britain in WW2. 17 year old Faye finds a book left her by her dead mother, full of recipes, runes and spells, and a previously unheard-of bellringing method. Meanwhile, strange goings-on are happening in the village. Scarecrows are walking round, led by the charismatic Pumpkinhead, and Pumpkinhead wants Faye’s book. The only thing that can stop Pumpkinhead are Faye, two eccentric village witches, and a bunch of church bellringers. Stylistically, think Dr Who meets Dad’s Army – this is a cosy, and funny, historical fantasy, and I can’t wait for the next installment (also, isn’t the cover stunning?). 5/5.
Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars! by daughter and father team Kassidy Shade and Andy Chapman is a bonkers chapter book for young children just starting on their reading adventure. 8 year old Tommy makes a wish as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake, and gets an awful lot more than he bargained for. Featuring a giant dinosaur called the Tommysaurus, a swimming pool full of jelly, a giant child-eating gummy worm, and a mysterious character known as the Disco Voodoo King (plus plenty of disgusting farts), this is the sort of mad and silly story that young kids will love, and I think it’s sorted out my birthday presents for the many 7-8 year olds in my life for the next little while! 4/5.
The third and final of the books in my Joanna Penn boxset is How to Make a Living with your Writing (which actually she’s in the process of rewriting and updating at the moment). Again, nothing here I’d not already picked up from her podcast, but again, handy to have all in the one place. I do think though that the price of the boxset was worth it just for How to Market a Book, I’ll definitely be returning to that one later this year. 3.5/5.
Jackie Kirkham 