Wild -Amy Jeffs

 

I’d always thought of myself as a Plantagenety, Tudory sorta gal. But Amy Jeffs changed all that with Storyland and now I find myself fascinated by the mediaeval history of England, brought to life initially by Storyland and now by Wild.

I always see history as continuous, it never ends. All that we are now derives from all we were then -  in perpetuity. People, places, events shape cultures and societies so that it’s folly to isolate one period from another.

The richness of mediaeval Britain is astounding. Not just the people and events but the landscape - Wild seems to encapsulate it all in an accessible book that brings a time in history closer than one would think possible.

The inspiration for the book comes from the Old English poems of the Exeter Book a surviving manuscript from Anglo Saxon times, the Welsh Englynion, a traditional form of poetry, short stanzas regarding the resting places of legendary heroes, and Immrama of the Irish tradition of travel to the otherworld. 

Amy Jeffs offers us fact and fiction beautifully fused together and accompanied by illustrations from wood engravings. Each chapter takes an aspect, for example -  Earth, Beast - and begins with an imagined retelling and interpretation of a poem or legend from mediaeval literature backed up by some historical background and physical research. Everything is put into a comprehensible context that allows the reader to make sense of a past that seems so long ago but Jeff’s treatment propels its relevance into new focus with a contemporary style. 

Wild will take its place alongside Storyland on my ‘books I must read again’ shelf. I have to thank my friend Kirsty for buying me this book as a Christmas present.

We Saw It All Happen - Julian Bishop - Blog Tour

 

If you read one book this year, I would strongly urge you to read this one. Especially if you care about our planet and the environment. In fact, even if you don’t usually read anything, let alone poetry, and you don’t care about our beautiful world please try, give this book some time and hopefully change your mind.

Why? It’s a collection of eco-poetry with a constant theme concerning the environmental holocaust unleashed on the Earth and the effects on the innocent flora and fauna. There is much doom and gloom, but also a smattering of hope. Plus it’s very good poetry with sustained themes and metaphors. Each page has an illustration of what looks like like some kind of horned, winged, beetle, and it’s like what we used to call flick books when I was a kid. You fan the pages and you can see the insect move. 

The contents are like a menu. You’ve got three sections - a Taster, Mains and Afters. Right from the off the food and eating metaphor hits you right away with the poem called For Starters, a perfect opening to the collection with a no punches pulled poem about an unusually hot Californian sea cooking mussels alive. I could easily go through each poem, extolling its virtues, but rather you read the book for yourself! So I will just try and restrict myself to those poems that were my particular favourites. 

Flip the Track is a very clever work that takes popular music from the Jacksons and the Bee Gees to Prince with some great word play, and a vegan/veggie message contained within its lines.

‘ Plump for less beef, let those artichoke hearts run free.

                The beets go on and on and on with vegan spanakopita, 

so rock the boat with a cauli, a hot pot of chilli  non carne’ 

Next up is We Crave a Sea Change which takes alliteration to a whole new level! It’s so clever, I was in danger of appreciating the structure of the poem more than the message it contains.

‘for closer cooperation, creation of a common centre, 

confident, but cautious, we champion a countryside

of cowslip, some clover conservation of all, 

its creepy, crawlies. No caveats, we need to see change.’

Green Wash takes the world of advertising to extend the environmental message where the poem is comprised of advertising slogans all in uppercase to emphasise the volume of the message.

‘EVEN THE FILTHIEST OUTFIT FLUFFS UP SOFTER THAN A LONG-FORGOTTEN ARCTIC WINTER.’ 

Global Warming particularly appealed to me, because it uses a poetic device, the lipogram, and a wonderful use of words to convey the message deep within it. The only letters used are a, b, g, i, l, m, n, o,r, w and the result is a wonderful almost tongue-twistery lament for the planet.

‘A liana growling in limbo, worn

rainbow, abnormal rain. An albino

gorilla aglow, a moralling aria, largo.’

And the final poem, not of the collection itself I hasten to add, but of those that I’ve selected as my favourites is To All The Insects I Ever Squished. I did find this poignant because I am an insect rescuer. But I wasn’t always. I remember as a child, my mother used to pour boiling water on the flying ants that came up through the floorboards and I thought nothing of it. It was only when I reached adulthood that I saw this as the most heinous insectocide. I save every creature that I can. No matter how many insects enter the house I will not kill them. I help them out by whatever means necessary. But when younger, I’ve killed bees and wasps, squished numerous ants without meaning to, killed moths, worms, snails in complete and utter naivete and ignorance. And my conscience pricks me. So there was a paradoxical element of reassurance in reading this poem.

‘……To all you 

trampled ants, all you cursive gnats and copperplate moths

signed by my citronella flames, I apologise…….’

Of course I could go on. But it would be better, if you grabbed a copy of this book and read it. I think it’s important. Art, literature is there to entertain us for sure, but it can also educate us and make us think. This collection of poetry should make you do just that.

My thanks to Isobelle Kenyon and Fly on the Wall press for a copy of the book and a place upon the blog tour.

About the author
Julian Bishop has had a lifelong interest in ecology and worked for a time as Environment Reporter for BBC Wales. He's now a member of the collective group Poets For The Planet. A former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, he's been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize.

I’ll Never Tell - Phillips East - Blog Tour

  

Oh my goodness! The tension oozes from every page here, that sense of knowing that something is very wrong but you just can’t put your finger on it. And so you just carry on reading and reading for you can’t put this book down until you know exactly what’s happening.

‘I’ll Never Tell’ is a psychological thriller from that mistress of the genre, Philippa East and I think her books get better and better. What could be more unnerving than the suggestion of unruffled domesticity that is clearly out of sync somewhere along the line but it’s all bubbling underneath the surface. Is Paul’s devotion a tad too devoted? Was it just me who found his relationship with Chrissie a bit creepy? Is Julia’s workaholicism too much? I mean there’s working late and there’s working late! Is that why Chrissie disappeared? If you want any answers you won’t get them from me! You’ll have to read the story.

There are red herrings as you surmise the details of Chrissie’s disappearance. People you suspect. But this is a psychological thriller. Nothing is as it seems. The story is told from Paul and Julia’s perspectives so we never get Chrissie’s directly. And whilst Paul’s narrative is in the third person, Julia’s is in the first person, an interesting device, which had me thinking - flawed narrator? I found it hard to like either Julia or Paul, perhaps I did to begin with but it didn’t last and maybe I wasn’t supposed to like them? But then you reach the ending and you start to understand.

For fans of the genre this won’t disappoint. There are those experienced psychological thriller readers who may surmise the ending.  Indeed, the clues are there. And there are those who will be open mouthed at the revelations.

It’s taut, efficient writing. Well paced with some effective characterisations. A plot, that in many ways, is hard to second-guess and a gradual escalation of the pressure Paul and Julia find themselves under as the book reaches its conclusion. I felt physically drained by the time I finished the book!

My thanks to HQ stories at HarperCollins for a copy of the book and a place upon the blog tour.

The Swedish Art of Ageing Well - Margareta Magnusson

 

As somebody who is not ageing well or rather not dealing with ageing well this book seemed like the perfect choice for me. It’s neat, compact and there’s something very cosy about its size that makes you feel better just by holding it in your hands. It’s largely anecdote driven which supports the old adage that you should write about what you know and Margareta Magnusson has done just that. There’s a faintly conversational style about it so it comes across as less a self-help book than a chat with a new friend. A memoir almost. There’s a lot of wisdom from somebody with experience and there’s a lot of empathic and sympathetic observations about life and people in general. It puts ageing into a context. There are some practical, helpful suggestions particularly when it comes to “death cleaning“ which isn’t something I’d come across before I read this book and it makes perfect sense. Although it’s something I’m going to find very hard to get started on. But if that sounds like this might be a bleak doomy, gloomy sort of book nothing could be further from the truth. It’s gently pragmatic. Weighing in at less than 150 pages it’s very easy to read and well worth the time spent. It’s also something you can refer back to which I think I shall do particularly when ageing really gets me down. Although the author is Swedish, as the title suggests, she has spent a lot of time in other countries and cultures which enables a broader outlook. And chocolate features. Gets my vote every time!

My thanks to Canongate Books for a gifted copy.

The Mystery of Four - Sam Blake

 I wonder, when reading books like this it helps that I have a suspicious nature! For a while I suspected anyone who wasn’t Tess!! Then I composed myself and focused on the many clues and red herrings offered by this author and figured out who the perp was. Does that make me smartass of the year? Probably not but I do experience a degree of smugness when I make my deduction and get it right. It makes up for all the times I get it wrong!!

‘Restoring the country house seemed like a dream come true for Tess. But during rehearsals for the play that forms the opening weekend’s flagship event, her dream turns into a nightmare as those around her begin to fall victim to terrible accidents.’

‘FOUR TRAGIC DEATHS.

OR FOUR BRUTAL MURDERS?’

And that’s the blurb. A thankfully brief one giving little away. So the reader can settle down, strap themselves in, and begin this crime rollercoaster. This is my first Sam Blake book but it sure as hell won’t be my last. I was gripped from beginning to end, frantically trying to piece together the jig saw pieces of the puzzle. How did the past impact on the present? Who was who, and why were they, and what where they, and when did they etc etc.!!! There are times when I read crime novels and I feel that the writer is trying to outwit the reader, daring them to figure things out. But, here, the clues were all there and it was as if this writer was willing the reader to work it out bit by bit. 

This is a deliciously, twisty ‘Big House’ crime story with something of an Agathesque feel to it. Not a locked room mystery exactly but all the action happens on the Kilfenora Estate. There are lots of characters that you need to get straight in your head, you definitely need to pay attention. In the opening stages of the book you get no real feel for who are the good guys and who are the bad guys but as the pace picks up and you start to process all the clues that list gets narrowed down. And watch out for Merlin, the cat! He is my favourite character. I also enjoyed Clarissa, touch of the  Marples here, and Gen, mother and daughter. Tess, as the main character, I warmed to slightly less for some reason even though she had a lot to deal with both past and present. Lots of surprises, a certain amount of the predictable. (I sometimes wonder that when you read a lot of books within a certain genre you becomes skilled at figuring things out?) The ending is a killer one! (Ooops no pun intended). 

The story might come under the cosy crime mantle. I’ve always been perplexed by that. How can crime ever be cosy?! But it’s a book to lose yourself on a drab winters afternoon and you’ll emerge thoroughly entertained.

My thanks to Team Corvus at Corvus Books for the copy I won in their giveaway. 

My Books of the Year 2022

 I used to make this list every year. Then I started questioning why. Because I don’t think anybody ever read the post. So I haven’t done it for a few years. I don’t know why I’ve decided to do it this year but I have. I doubt anyone will read it! I was adding some text to the books, but for some reason blogger hasn’t saved them. Is it trying to tell me something?

Not in any particular order, or rather, more the order that I read them in.

Hunt Laird - Zorrie

The Chosen- Elizabeth Lowry 

Little Sister - Gytha Lodge

The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki 

I’m Sorry You Feel That Way - Rebecca Wait

Oh William and Lucy by the Sea - Elizabeth Strout (Cheating to lump,two together ? Don’t care. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I like!)

Fool’s Paradise - Zoe Brooks

The Garden of Evening Mists  - Tan Twang Eng

Lesson in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmin

The Flames -Sophie Haydock