Reviews and Comments

My 1000th review on Goodreads!!!!!!!!!

Like any sane person I have fantasized about the end of the world….anything to not have to get out of bed and go to work….I even have plans in place of the places I’d hit first once I know I’ve survived, in order of being hit is The Library, a Supermarket, a Garden Centre and then the Hospital, finally I would then rummage around in the neighbours houses to see what they got there. One thing the pandemic of 2020 and this book have shown me is that things ain’t gonna play out like that, mostly because too many will survive, so I’d have to hit the Supermarket first….gotta get me as much bog roll and pasta as I can seeing as it will be the currency of the New World.

When picking up this book I was expecting it to be very tongue in cheek, but it is much more serious than expected, Roberts does include the odd joke and pun to try and keep things light and stop the reader from spiralling into depression. There is a lot of science here and Roberts’ excellent writing keeps it simple and interesting, I’ve learnt loads, one of the most interesting was about the Big Bang and “The Big Crunch” (Read the book to find out what that is). Zombies, aliens, meteors, climate change and nukes are all stuff I know about from movies, but to read about how the Sun will die and what the future holds was mesmerising, Roberts takes the reader to that bleak abyss of nothingness and leaves you standing there for a while.

One problem with this type of book is finding any reference material, there ain’t many apocalypses to draw info from so Roberts has to delve into literature, film & TV and video games to base the chapters around the common methods of apocalypse. This was almost a trip down memory lane, remembering past episodes of Star Trek and books like World War Z, this left me wanting to re-read and re-watch many things, it also mad me realise that the book could do with an additional section, a list of books and movies mentioned in the book, I’d work my way through them.

I think Roberts has done a good job with this book, he has covered all areas of the apocalypse and tries to figure out just what our fascination is with the total destruction of everything, I pretty much agreed with all the points he made. The arguments were well structured and he tries to keep his distance from putting over his own opinion, especially in matters of religion. He started this book before Covid 19 arrived and continued writing whilst it was all going on and he does a good job weaving that experience into the book.

A very good read that I would highly recommend to anybody with an interest in science, books and movies and that like me hears a voice telling them to kill all humans.

Blog review (including a video): felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/its-the-end-of-the-world-but-what-are-we-really-afraid-of-by-adam-roberts/

This collection of stories contains some of the bleakest writing I've ever read, there is a reoccurring theme of wastelands which is used in some very inventive ways. From lands on the brink of death to an aging vampire everything is starting to decay and when writing about something mundane Lane manages to create a haunting quality that leaves you with chills. Lane gives nothing away in his tales, you can guess how it is going to end but I can guarantee you'll be wrong there is no way you can match Lane's imagination.

A few favourites in this collection, "This Night Last Woman" an odd title but a wonderfully dark story with lots of twist and turns. "Those Who Remember" is the best of the bunch, the first one in the book and a great introduction of what you've got ahead of you. "Feels Like Underground" has a real Hammer Horror feel to it, a sinister building which almost feels alive with unknown events happening in the background.

This is the first work I've read of Joel Lane and I can tell what an incredible talent he had, it is very difficult to find another writer to compare him too, so all I can say is give this epic collection a go.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/12/04/scar-city-by-joel-lane/

There is no doubt whatsoever that Venice is a special place, the beautiful buildings, the waterways and the ability to float endlessly around the city has inspired artists and writers for hundreds of years. Rilke was one of those poets who fell in love with the place as soon as he first visited. During his many visits there he wrote a lot of poems about what he saw, in this day and age he would have been perfect as an advertisement for coming to Venice. He spent so much time exploring that he could recommend the best places and describe them in such a way that you would adore the place before you even got there.

I haven't read any of Rilke's books, I've only read snippets in other books, but his poems seem to be quite unique, the focus is not on people or his experiences but the heart and soul of Venice itself, the poetry flows well and gives you a picture perfect image in your head.

This book is 11 walks around Venice with reference to places Rilke visited or stayed, this is a bit misleading as it does not contain structured walks, each chapter gives you an area, highlights a few places of interest on the map and gives you the history of the area and how Rilke spent time there.
The book gives you the freedom to explore by yourself just like Rilke did, I reckon he would have loved that. The highlight for me was the Ghetto, I never knew this part of history and that Jewish people were forced to live in these places way before the Nazis made them. The Ghetto contains one of Rilke's short stories and having all the background information before starting the story creates a fascinating read.

A brilliant little book which is ideal for an Armchair Traveller like me.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/rilkes-venice-by-birgit-haustedt/

If your child is getting a bit bored with children's stories and they've got to that age where they are looking for something a bit darker, something that could scare them just a little bit, then the books of A. F. Harrold are perfect for them. Guaranteed to have them on the edge of their seat and inspire them to take that next step and start reading slightly more grown up books. I read The Imaginary and The Afterwards to my daughter and had some great discussions about the story, alas by the time I got a copy of The Song From Somewhere Else she had stopped me reading to her....it didn't stop me from picking it up and having a read on my own.

This was another fantastic book by Harrold, a story featuring many of the everyday problems a child faces, embarrassing Dads, absent parents, fitting in at school, bullies, trolls and weird creatures from another dimension, I remember all these things from my childhood. Whilst this one wasn't as moving as the previous two books I read it was still a very good story and it was nice to read as the friendship between Frank and Nick developed. To read about all the inner turmoil that Frank was experiencing, the fear she dealt with each time she went near the park where the bullies hang out was awful, it was all the more awful because there are kids made to live like this everyday.

This is a great little book full of amazing illustrations, an incredible amount of detail in the images, I would consider each of these three books a piece of art that would look great on anybody's shelves.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/11/14/the-song-from-somewhere-else-by-a-f-harrold/

I dare you not to fall in love with this beautiful book…in fact once you open it and see a stunning snowflake on a blue background you’d have to be some kind of insane robot not to go ooooohhhh!!!! I am a massive fan of snow, from days off school to walking the dog during the winter, hearing that crunch as you break through virgin snow is perfection….It’s why I save up my leave and take December off work each year in the hope of having some snow.

When I started this book I was expecting to have fifty chapters each based on a word for snow but it is so much more than that. Campbell takes you on a journey around the world to see how snow has affected different cultures, she takes you places you would never associate with snow, Thailand, Hawaii and Ethiopia are three places I would never have considered having snow. I loved reading the stories and myths based around the origins of the words, being English the word snow to me means “that white cold stuff that causes people to drive like crazy and crash their cars” but to other cultures their words have so much more depth, quite often based around a tragedy. There is a lot to learn here too, a bit of science here and there and interesting facts like the coldest city, you’ll never guess it.

Climate change gets covered here and it is always shocking the effect this is having on the world, so many people rely on snow and ice and it’s gradual retreat is heart-breaking. Another hard subject was how some languages are spoken by less and less people, it’s sad how there is a chance that some could vanish forever, there is hope though, I think it is great that the app Duolingo increases awareness of old languages and is inspiring many people to learn them, an impressive number of people took up Gaelic when it was added.

Two of the most impressive additions to this book was that Campbell included Sign Language, so often books on words miss out that language, kudos to Campbell for including it. Also I loved that fact that fake snow gets a mention, quite often the snow in movies is all many people get to see, it may not be real snow but it is still important.

I do have one gripe with the book, some words are so strange that I had no idea how to pronounce them, it really could have done with a guide on how to say them out loud, in the end I just had to wing it. One of my favourite was “Kunstschnee” I’m pretty sure I was pronouncing that one wrong. Another fantastic word was from Iceland, Hundslappadrifa, a wonderful language.

This was a very interesting read and because the book is so stunning it would make the perfect Christmas gift for any reader out there.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/11/15/blog-tour-fifty-words-for-snow-by-nancy-campbell/

I recently read Richard Owen's book about Hemmingway, a very tough person to write about as so much about him was untrue. D. H. Lawrence is the other end of the spectrum, Owen has a huge amount of info and letters to wade through, the job becomes making sense of it all and putting it down in a way that flows nicely. Owen has done a fantastic job, the book is very interesting, well written putting the letters in chronological order and including the minimum of filler, letting the letters speak for themselves.

Before starting this I re-read Lady Chatterley's Lover and I'm glad I did that because I learnt so much from this book, a real insight into the man who wrote this classic. First I had no idea he wrote the book whilst in Italy and his relationship with his wife Frieda and personal issues really come across in the story. Venice gets quite rough treatment by Connie Chatterley and you can see why from Lawrence's short time there.

Lawrence was an interesting character, he essentially pops over to Italy to stay for a while because of his poor health and he soon falls in love with the place. The gentle beauty and friendly locals made it the perfect place for a man fed up with the cold, damp and over populated Britain. His many letters to friends really show how important the place was to him, even when locals annoyed him he still loved the country. The book gives a decent account of those people in his life, I really enjoyed reading about Rina, her time in his life may not have long but her impact was great, she was mentioned in so many of his letters and had a character based on her.

This book does what all good biographies do, it makes me wanna go and pick up more of his books to read, where to start though as he wrote so much.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/10/08/dh-lawrence-in-italy-by-richard-owen/

One thing I love about historical fiction is that uncertainty of whether this is real or not, yes the setting and events are real but are the characters involved in the story based on real people? I have to admit that I spent quite a bit of time browsing the internet to try and find any reference to them, the location and side events seem to be deliberately written to try and throw me off the scent…at one point I thought I had the upper hand when looking for a doctor but alas I came up empty handed.

Rose, Rudy, Ultan and Chink…oh and Freddy….are a great bunch of characters, Cunningham writes with such tenderness that you can’t help falling for them. Rose is blind and at the beginning of the book you find out she wasn’t born like this, an event has happened in her past to leave her this way, you can just sense that this event is rife with violence. Watching the love develop between Rose and Rudy was some real clever writing and I especially enjoyed the scenes on the beach with Rose and Chink, some real on the edge of the seat stuff. But always in the background is that element of danger and it doesn’t matter whether you want a character to survive or not you are left at the mercy of Cunningham. The epilogue was a real class ending, raising all my internet search questions again…very crafty indeed.

This was a tough subject to read about, I didn’t know much about the events surrounding the Irish independence, living in England my history lessons didn’t go into too much detail about how brutal we were and what the Black and Tans did to the people. This lack of knowledge by me made Cunningham’s writing truly heart-breaking, because these characters might be fictional but these events happened again and again to many real people.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, it was an intriguing read that left me wondering just how I would act in these situations.

Blog Review is here: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/11/04/blog-tour-freedom-is-a-land-i-cannot-see-by-peter-cunningham/

Well this book was certainly an eye opener for me, it wasn't long ago that I found out the kid from Home Alone was 40 and I felt really old...now I find out the the buildings of my youth are old enough now to potentially be haunted, I feel positively ancient now.

In this book Rees explores those places that are right in front of us but at the same time are almost hidden, Multi-storey car parks, industrial estates, pylons, flyovers and hospitals. These are the sort of places we take for granted, we have grown up around them and think of them as landmarks only, not many people realise there is so much life happening around or under them. To me the spaghetti junction is a nightmare of a road to navigate, but there are many who have found peace living beneath it, the way Rees describes things, it almost feels tranquil.

As a young lad I was a scout and we used to go exploring a lot, night-time walks into the countryside to find a farm, it was so eerie, large structures and abandoned machinery gave us a great time. Quite often we'd find ourselves pulled towards a large pylon, usually to listen to it's crackle and pretend we could hear voices. I have not explored like that in many years, my focus is usually looking for a bit of quite and some wildlife spotting, but after reading this I do fancy a walk around the local industrial estate and maybe a trip to the town centre to check out the car park.

One very interesting side of this book is Rees' many references to music, film and books which have all been inspired by these structures, most notable is the books by J.G. Ballard and any movie with a young lady being stalked in a car park. Rees meets many interesting people and manages to get some great stories from them.

My favourite part of the book was his trip up the M6, I have travelled that road many times on journeys up to Scotland and so far have missed out of so much....next time it will be different.

Absolutely loved this, such a strange idea for a book which makes perfect sense when you get to the end. Give it a go because Rees' words can be quite beautiful at times.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/09/26/unofficial-britain-journeys-through-unexpected-places-by-gareth-e-rees/

I loved the idea of this story, the last remnants of the human race travelling across space looking for a new home because "surprise surprise" we managed to cock-up Earth. They discover a new home but not all is as expected. The story follows two groups, first there are the humans protecting their cargo and fighting amongst themselves and then you have the occupants of the planet watching them evolve and making similar mistakes to humans during their evolution.

Now for the bits that annoyed me, first the narrator, I couldn't get my head around if there was a narrator or we were hearing the thoughts of the beings on the planet, it seemed to jump between the two which was rather annoying, why would human words be used, for example there was a plague which was called....a plague. The technology was another issue for me, sometimes things would be explained and the ideas would be really inventive and then at other times you're just left hanging, I did stop reading the book for a few weeks when I got annoyed that the reader just had to accept that communication between the planet and an object in space was possible, yes I know I'm sad.

I wish I could have enjoyed this like so many others have but it just wasn't to be. I see there is a sequel and this book was good enough to have me intrigued to see what is next in this saga.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/09/17/children-of-time-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/

This was a fascinating book, I never would have believed that such a well known animal would not be very well know at all. The European Eel is a slimy ugly creature that lurks in dark streams and lakes....well that is what I thought before starting this book. In fact right from it's mysterious birth in the Sargasso Sea life is tough for this creature, many predators finding it to be a tasty snack and a very long swim to the shoreline of Europe, things ain't over yet as there is still the journey up rivers and even across land to find that perfect spot to call home until it is time to head back to breed.

The eel has moved way up my list of favourite animals for it's way of keeping scientists at bay for so many years, it is mind blowing that nobody has found the breeding ground or even an adult in the vicinity. I also loved that the eel has managed to prove the bible wrong, a bit was added to blatantly stop the poor eating eels by saying that you can only eat creatures with fins and scales....turns out the eels have both, very small fins and scales but they are there, which is brilliant.

Svensson's writing is very good, he draws the reader in with a bunch of interesting facts that makes you realise you are reading about something special. His personal history with eel fishing with his Dad is very moving, reading about their bond over fishing being developed and lasting a whole lifetime was a joy to read. I reckon his Dad would have been proud of this book.

This was wonderful, well worth reading about this mighty little animal.

Blog boy: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/09/15/the-gospel-of-the-eels-by-patrik-svensson/

2020 has been a crazy eventful year and reading this book was like a breath of fresh air, it had a real feel good edge to it. Dolls can be creepy 75% of the time but Mascarenhas manages to capture their beauty and hidden magic and weaves a beautiful story that easily pulls in the reader.

I loved the history behind Kendricks, doll makers for over 200 hundred years and a company full of as many secrets as Wonka’s Choccy factory. There are also a very good group of characters here and I was constantly changing my opinion of them again and again. Persephone’s story was particularly good, a real coming of age event whilst fighting for women’s rights at the workshop, I did find myself giving her a little cheer now and then. The plot of the book revolves around a crime, a valuable doll has been stolen and it is very tricky to settle on one thief, I had my theory and was correct but I had no idea how to prove it was them….once all was revealed I was suitably impressed with how it all played out.

This is a book that is so easy to get caught up in, such a fun read, Mascarenhas is such a witty writer that you settle in very quickly and before you know it you’ll have finished the book and be left wanting more. I haven’t read the first book by Mascarenhas but will certainly be adding it to my wishlist.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/the-thief-on-the-winged-horse-by-kate-mascarenhas/

Kathleen Jamie is one of my favourite writers, she has the ability to capture the magic out of the smallest thing and come up with beautiful words to describe it.  In Surfacing she is removing a layer to see what is underneath, archaeological digs in Alaska and on the isle of Westray revealing human history, losing a parent, kids moving out and searching for what that means for her.  

There are 3 big essay's here, two of them are the digs and the third is about time spent in Xiahe in Tibet when China shut the borders down and the students rose in protest.  All three of them draw you in and it feels as if you are there, you sense the cold in Alaska, the wind of the Orkneys and the quiet of the monastery at Xiahe.  Mixed in between are some short pieces, observations of things around us that we would normally miss, driving along and seeing an eagle and getting lost in the moment watching it glide effortlessly without beating it's wings.

A couple of favourite chapters of mine were the 3rd part of Links of Noltland, thinking of the people who lived there 5000 years ago and asking them question after question about their lives. Then there is A Tibetan Dog, a cancer scare and turning a dream of a memory on it's head, that was some mind blowing stuff.  I enjoyed the Links of Noltland sections so much I did a bit of googling to look for pictures and I laughed when I saw one photo of the team and found that Kathleen's descriptions of their clothing was spot on.

Fascinating stuff as always and as usual I'm left jealous of her experiences.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/08/16/surfacing-by-kathleen-jamie/