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This is a remarkable book, it has an interesting history, written as part of a series of books for young Japanese nationals, it shows them how to behave in the world, how to become a great human and how you should treat others. I found it really inspiring but at the same time it made me realise how world weary I have become, each time I go on social media there is always somebody showing their worst side and I just wanna sit them down and make them have a read of this book.

The book is centred around Copper a 15 year old school boy, we follow him as he makes friends, deals with bullies and cares for those who are considered outcasts. His Dad has recently died and his uncle has stepped up to be the father figure in Copper’s life, the uncle is the sort of person everybody needs guiding them at a young age, very wise and ethical, it is his diary entries that guide Copper through any tricky situation. As well as giving fatherly advice he teaches Copper about history, we learn about gravity, Napoleon and Buddhist statues and he has a fantastic voice the keeps the reader engrossed.

If I had read this as a child would I have found it interesting? I doubt it, it is the sort of book that needs to be read to you when young for you to fully appreciate it’s message, I reckon if my parents had read this to me I would be less of a troll as an adult

How do you go about describing a book by Nicholls? The trickiest thing is to describe it without giving anything away and ruining the reading experience….here goes nothing! Condemned to Cymru is a love letter from a struggling writer with body issues, whose biggest outspoken bully is himself, possibly down to the incredibly deep rooted over powering mother and absent father issues he has which leads to him being in an abusive relationship…I therapist’s wet-dream.

Our narrator is Magnus, he has Quantum IV level acne on his face, the pimples have enough presence to get their own names, Wales has been at war with another European country and Magnus gets sent over from Iceland to carry out a anthropological study…What Magnus returns with is not the results you’d expect from said study. There are a number of absurd local stories from people in pubs and random strangers who randomly get into his car, there are little snippets of overheard conversations, definitions of town’s names, poems from the biggest name in Welsh poetry and ya know those little blue plaques you see when visiting a town in the UK? well it has them too. For me my favourite part were those trips down memory lane remembering Welsh bands of the past…used to love Catatonia. You may think that the information that Magnus is providing is irrelevant but once you start digging deeper you’ll see just how clever the book is.

I’ve read a few books by Nicholls now to know what to expect, a proper onion of a book with so many layers that you can get lost in the dialogue and forget what the actual plot of the book is, there are always those little references to things that have already happened to keep you from completely losing your way. It’s like an abstract painting, he lays everything out on the pages and leaves your own imagination to unravel the book’s mysteries. If you live in Wales, or were born in Wales or have visited Wales or are an actual Whale then ya gotta get this books to see if your town/village gets mentioned…you might want to sue.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/23/condemned-to-cymru-by-m-j-nicholls/

It says on the back of this book in big capitals “TRAVEL WRITING MATTERS”, this has never felt more true since the lockdowns started in 2020, with people unable to travel they needed some way of escaping the monotony of home schooling/working from home and becoming an armchair travel was one method of escape. The editors of this book have been travelling the world for many years and being trapped at home inspired them to look into what other writers had experienced and put together this collection of short travel pieces.

I always think that the first piece in a book like this is always the most important as it sets the standard of what to come, this fell to Leon McCarron with The Night Train. Travelling across Iraq by train at night, not much you can write about the view…due to the sun being AWOL…so the focus is on those using the train, a fascinating insight into the people on the train and a great start to the book. There are some very good pieces here and they cover a lot of places and events I know very little about and in many of the pieces the pandemic is ever present.

Favourites here include visiting well known Safari park during the lockdown, without the many many tourists the animals seem very content, relaxing in the peace and quiet. A father’s ashes being taken to the Ganges as a sort of pilgrimage and somebody taking part in the Hajj pilgrimage were probably the best in the book, I knew nothing about the Hajj and Tharik Hussain shares their experience and explains why they go and the fear they experience before getting the euphoric feeling that they achieved what they set up to do.

One of the most impressive things about this book is each writer is considered British and such a large number of different cultures are represented, it’s wonderful see how varied we are. Each piece of writing here has featured in a magazine or journal of some sort and that restricts the word length, using this book as a way to scope out the talent works well, there are many writers here that I would happily read again.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/the-best-british-travel-writing-of-the-21st-century/

Well this was good fun, a nice gentle comedy interwoven with little bits of violence and crammed full of fantastic characters, what more could you want? An adventure Park you say? Well it’s got one of them too. Our main character is Henri a man lost in his own little world of maths and logic, after the death of his brother he inherits an adventure park and all the craziness of his brother’s life, his own life in turn becomes flipped on its head…all logic and order is thrown out of the window the moment he sees Laura. For Henri this is going to be a real coming-of-age story.

The comedy factor of this book is not slap-stick and it isn’t over the top, it is a humour that has you chuckling to yourself the whole time…even during scenes you probably shouldn’t be…how can a scene where a kid has a broken leg make you smile? You gotta read this to find out. There are a lot of discussions about maths, Henri likes to share his workings with the reader, the bulk of this did go over my head, some of it is real life stuff like loans that I will never understand so Tuomainen was onto a losing battle there. The park employees and the gangster types are all well developed and they each get their moment to shine, and this is going to be a series of books so I’m looking forward to finding out more from the likes of Joanna, Esa and the wild marketing lady.

The whole story is pretty tidy, it is all very meticulous and it will be tough to find any plot holes and at the book’s final conclusion this reader was left pleased with how everything was played out with no loose ends, the book left me wanting more. A huge success. This book is going to be made into a movie starring Steve Carroll, not sure how I feel about that at the moment, he isn’t who I pictured Henri to be like. A fantastic start to this series.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/blog-tour-the-rabbit-factor-by-antti-tuomainen/

Wow, what a woman Lady Mary was, such intelligence and wit in her writing, a woman living a life way ahead of her time. In a time where anything intellectual was the domain of men, the self taught Mary had a literally talent that put most writers to shame. There had been travel books written in the past but they were by writers passing through a place only seeing what their guide showed them, so things were briefly described and whole places unseen. Lady Mary lived in these places, explored them thoroughly, finding those places that had been missed, she fully included herself in the culture, learning the language and earning the respect of the people…you can’t help but feel proud of how she represented England.

I don’t think you can not help but notice how important these letters were to society back in England, Lady Mary’s opening words on the letters are all about placating the impatience from her friends demanding to know where she is, what she has seen, who she has met and demands for her to send them stuff. Also included are Lady Mary’s demands to know more about what is going on back at home, her words are sharp and amusing, you can see that any conversation with her could be quite daunting. Once she starts the main body of the letter it becomes more like travel writing, she takes care to go beyond what is written in traditional travel books, being a woman she was able to get insights into places never written about before, bath houses, places, harems and the private residences of princesses. I found what she saw fascinating, the details on fashion were very vivid and easy to picture in my mind. A few comments would have got her in trouble these days but you can see that what she wrote was innocent.

At the end of the book there is a biography about Lady Mary written by another mighty female travel writer, Dervla Murphy, and this insight into the life of Lady Mary was very good. This extra information gives an added dimension to the letters, I had wondered why the husband didn’t get mentioned much, almost a background character that she just happened to be travelling with. Most importantly was finding out about her work with smallpox inoculations, she had to deal with the same craziness as those trying to push covid vaccinations, the abuse, the bizarre theories about God not wanting this, but she was a strong woman who held her ground and eventually it was accepted and because of this one woman 1000’s of lives were saved…before this book I had never heard of her, she most certainly deserves far more recognition than she gets.

A book of two halves, first the unique views of a woman travelling across in the 1700’s and second the insightful biography of that woman…two very good reasons for getting yourself a copy of this book to read.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/30/the-turkish-embassy-letters-by-mary-wortley-montagu/

sigh! Shut up! I’m not crying you are! There is no way that you’re gonna finish this book without feeling just a little bit of grief that it is over, this book will effect you and you’ll not be ready for that. Hannah’s writing is so immersive after spending some time reading I would look around me in shock that I wasn’t in Ghana and I didn’t have a little baby Finch nesting in my hair (full disclosure I don’t actually have enough hair for this to happen but we can dream).

Hannah follows her husband to Ghana when he gets a job there, she has no job herself and feels an incredible amount of homesickness and a loss of identity. She struggles to make friends and doesn’t conform to what is considered normal for a wife…as is often the case Nature steps up and embraces her. Witnessing somebody knocking a nest off a building she finds a young swift on the ground, too young to take flight, Hannah’s compassion kicks in and she takes it home. After much research she finds out as much information she can as she slowly bonds with the swift, gradually earning a sort of trust. There are many ups and downs and a huge amount of commitment on Hannah’s part, the ups will make you grin big time and the downs will hit you hard.

It’s when Hannah comes across a Finch in need of help that she truly finds herself, the bond between human and bird was incredible, the quickness that the bird decides Hannah will be the giver of food was impressive and each time it flew to her for safety had my heart melting. The question that was constantly on my mind was “is this bond too strong, has the bird lost it’s wild ways?” I said before that the book is very immersive and as the day arrived where the bird needed to be released I noticed the book was also nearing the end, it was a very weird feeling, usually at the end of a good book I feel happy that it is ending and gave me a good time, this time however, it was hard to let go, I decided if Hannah could let go then I would have to too.

There is more to the book than this little bird, Hannah shares with us all the other creatures out there from spiders all the way up to fellow humans, this is a full on nature book. How she sees other humans is very much like how I see them, nice to find I ain’t alone.

100% recommend this book, stunning cover, beautiful end papers and a wonderful, honest account of one woman trying to find who she is in a strange country, I enjoyed every single page. If I ever find a bird in need of help I feel more prepared now.

Blog Review (with a video): felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/blog-tour-fledgling-by-hannah-bourne-taylor/

This book wasn't too shabby.

Some books grab your attention and you love them straight away and some you hate straight away, this book kicks the crap out of you and makes you want to respect it.

The language is course and women are treated....well like objects, I would be surprised if it had been banned because of that.

It did feel like it was written by two authors, one writing about what was currently happening, taking a recording of the events and the second author writes and the "heroes" dreams and what he is thinking. The latter is great, everything flows so well and as you read the tempo picks up and the voices in your head get louder and louder (maybe that is just me though)

The type of writing is very similar to Bukowski, all observational, but I prefer Bukowski out of the two, probably because he is gentler.

Blog review of my second reading of this book: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/tropic-of-cancer-by-henry-miller/

Mesmerising! This was so good, one of those books that comes along in a blue moon that takes you on a harrowing journey and leaves you feeling exhilarated at it’s conclusion. This is a book exploring a childhood memory and how that person’s memory interpreted certain events.

It’s a boy’s first day at school and he experiences some incredibly violent bullying, the scenes are shocking and leave you feeling really uncomfortable. The subject matter is the sort of thing that many of us have dealt with in our time, the constant threat of a bully, the not knowing when the next attack will come and being unable to tell a teacher for fear of the consequences….all that life experience gives an added dimension to Scovell’s words.

The events have a rather amazing background, Scovell shows us an unexpected beauty in the landscape, a motorway bridge surrounded by marshland. It’s this land, or at least it’s spirit which saves the boy, it’s what gives him temporary sanctuary and it’s what keeps him strong during those scenes of violence. Scovell is revisiting his childhood home and he takes a polaroid camera with him, the images are included and I love how this is used as the stepping stone into the past.

This is a fantastic book, very poetic and easy to read, in fact a little too easy, I had to keep telling myself to slow down and savour the words. You’ve gotta give this book a go, it’s one of the best I’ve read exploring an individual’s past.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/06/nettles-by-adam-scovell/

I am a big fan of the Swann lady, her way of seeing the world always makes me smile and this collection doesn’t disappoint. Swann takes us into multiple futures (a future that seems to be edging closer all the time) full of apocalyptical scenarios that seem plausible when you think about them, covering bizarre situations of living under a glass dome, travelling in a glass hotel and a race to the moon on cheese and ladders.

A lot of the stories here have been featured in a number of publications and a few were taken from Swann’s book Fortune Box, it was nice to revisit those stories, I’d forgotten how fun they were. The stand out stories for me were Trump Moon (absolutely hilarious, had me chuckling into me tea) and Invite Ghosts and Earn Pounds, the idea behind this was genius, I would so be up for this if it was possible.

Worst story in the collection you ask? Why that would be How To: Make your own Live Kitten Necklace, brilliant idea and I want to make one of these…a catalogue is mentioned about things you can buy to help you achieve this but no link is provided, outrageous! I think this story shows what a crazy sense of humour Swann has.

The stories may be heavily of the absurd kind but the more you think about them they become scarily accurate, take Trump Moon for example, somebody is doing something incredible dumb and even though you can see this you still get caught up in the madness and this is just like having a twitter argument with a douche bucket. I also like how Swann messes with your concept of time, the stories are based in the past, present and future but once you get into it you soon forget when you are.

This book was great fun, there are so many layers to these stories that when you re-read it you are definitely going to spot new things you missed the first time around. It is fantastic that all these stories have been gathered together here for you to see just how fashionable Swann is with her live kitten necklace.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/the-sharp-end-of-the-rainbow-by-madeleine-swann/

I was the sort of kid at school it was impossible to get interested in learning, everything was so very dull with the teachers droning on and on…my history teacher actually taught PE and had no knowledge of the second subject he was forced to teach. So as soon as I got a chance I dropped history…now and then though a book comes along that makes me regret that decision big time, imagine how much I could have learnt if Anna Keay was my teacher. This book was a fascinating read, I always assumed that Oliver Cromwell was a psycho that killed many to fill his need to become King, what this book has done is bring him to life and explain his role in the ending of Charles I reign and the years that followed. I feel like I have a great understanding behind his motives and that he did believe he was following god’s will and not doing this all for himself.

The book isn’t just about Cromwell, I only mentioned him as he was one of the biggest players in this moment of history, it actually follows a small number of people, not all of them well known, and the book looks at how they played their part in events and how in their small ways they influenced things. The book follows these people in a chronological format starting with those that were involved with the King’s trial all the way up to those that helped get Charles II on the throne. The research has been impeccable, it must have taken a long time to find out all this info about those with smaller parts, in fact Keay has to admit defeat on the ending of one person as they just seemed to vanish. A lot of history books can be very dry and filled with quote after quote, this one is very different, the quotes are kept to a minimum and the rest is all Keay’s words, at times I got so caught up in the narrative that I forgot it wasn’t fiction. The book is over 400 pages and not once did I get bored and that is a huge accomplishment for this sort of subject.

For me the most interesting thing in this book was the part women played, they were so strong and without their influence over the men things could have been very different…and as is usually the case they get mostly forgotten over time. I loved how one Lady held a castle under siege against one of the toughest generals (A real Game of Thrones woman), another held her own in court against some manly lawyers and another was instrumental in putting a King back on the throne. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I highly recommend this book, a small period of history that was very unique and these peoples stories have been told in a riveting way.

Blog Review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/28/the-restless-republic-britain-without-a-crown-by-anna-keay/

I am one of those annoying people who has done things the wrong way around, I watched and loved the series before I found out it was a graphic novel and because of that there is no way of reading this volume without comparing it to what I saw on the TV.

I didn’t enjoy the graphic novel much, it feels very disjointed, more a collection of adventures there is no smooth transition between the events and for some reason things don’t seem to be explained very well. The spiritual force known as Genesis has escaped and some heavenly beings…not quite angels…are trying to get it back, they talk to a cowboy and then that’s them done for this volume….this left me thinking what’s the point? The characters on the TV were miles better, Tulip is rubbish, Ruth Negga truly made the character her own.

Jesse feels very whiney, Cassidy though still rocks, I thought he was awesome in both book and TV, Ennis and his team have created a brilliant character here. The plot and scenes are violent and shocking and some of the subject matter will make a fare few people raise an eyebrow.

The graphics are top notch, it is amazing how old these books are now and they don’t look at all dated, some brilliant looking full page scenes and everything is laid out well so that it is easy to follow. Trying to decide if I’m going to continue on to volume 2 as I’m just going to keep comparing and picking at faults. If you are interested in this series then I highly recommend reading this before turning on the TV, I think the whole thing always works out better if you do these things in the right order.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/preacher-volume-1-by-garth-ennis/

This was a beautiful piece of writing, with an unique poetic writing style Quinlivan weaves together memories of her family and their history to try and discover who she is, from looking back over many generations she is able to see a part of herself in many family members. The story starts off with her father’s diagnosis of cancer and it follows the changes to Quinlivan’s life as she deals with this outcome, we all deal with this sort of news differently and Quinlivan gives us an honest account that warms the heart. The love for her father really shows on the pages and she gradually builds an image of her father that is as good as any photograph, I got really caught up in her words and was left feeling this could have been my father. I loved how this story spends so much time looking into the past and after the funeral the focus shifts to the presence and Quinlivan shares her own story adding her life to the family history.

I found myself feeling jealous at how many stories Quinlivan had about her family, the have lived a hard life, being uprooted and travelling around the world but they have made the most of their lot and cared for each other immensely….my family have lived in the one town for a million generations and barely see each other… I am grateful that these stories have been shared and in such a wonderful way.

This was a wonderful book, I really enjoyed the story, you could call it a memoir but it is more of a family tree and I wish there were more books like this out there.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/22/shalimar-a-story-of-place-migration-by-davina-quinlivan/

First things first….this is a play…personally I’m not a fan of reading plays, I prefer to go and watch them, I ain’t clever enough to understand how you read a play. Secondly….Holy crap this was good! I now 100% completely understand the appeal of reading a play, this was so vivid in it’s descriptions, in it’s setting of the scene and atmosphere that I probably couldn’t cope with actually watching this as a play. I was so impressed with how easy it was to picture the scene in my head, a few lines and I was there, I could sense the smoke and picture the characters, as scenes changed it was easy to follow along. The children come across as so small and fragile whilst the doctor is an imposing giant.

So what is the play all about? It is about the power of words, how you can use them to manipulate your reality, how you can rearrange the words and alter their meaning and it’s also about using those words correctly to fit in…at least that’s what I think. I like how the bigger words appear for the audience to see as well as hear, the children often say the same word but different spellings are used, the audience would be unaware of these differences. The Kinderkrankenhaus is a hospital for children who don’t fit in with what is normal, those that struggle to communicate in “the normal way” are sent here. The newest child to arrive is the wonderfully named Gnome (more a label than a name and it doesn’t give any indication of identity), they don’t understand why they are there and it breaks your heart to see them struggle to grasp their new surroundings. I’m sure I’m way off with my understanding of what is going on but that doesn’t matter, for a while I was caught up in events and that’s what a good play does.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/16/kinderkrankenhaus-by-jesi-bender/

I found this a very interesting book, really easy to read and I never found myself too far out of my depth. Most importantly I have learnt bucketloads…enough to annoy the wife with all the repeating of facts to her. Whilst reading this book I watched a movie called “Don’t Look Up” and I loved how much more understanding I had for this disaster movie, normally it would have been a big old rock about to hit Earth but this time I was able to identify that it was a comet as they were working it out, so massive thanks go to Newsam for making me so wise.

The structure of the book is well laid out, Newsam starts out looking up at the sky and moves onto the sun and our planets and gradually gets further and further away, eventually discussing how it all started with the Big Bang. Thinking about how scientists managed to figure this out has always hurt my head and trying to grasp the distances involved is tough to do but he has explained things in a way that I can almost get it, how they figured out the big bang theory and then proved it was fascinating.

A lot of my questions have been answered too, why was Pluto no longer considered a planet, it always seemed unfair but as per usual the media twists the truth and barely tell you any of the facts, Newsam’s explanation makes sense and I can see why it was changed, no longer shall I seek vengeance for Pluto. One thing I’ve always wanted to know is how they figure out all the facts about the universe and this book gives you a nice run down on how the science works, who figured it out and how it was proved. There are also plenty of diagrams and photos to aid your understanding.

So, if you are wanting to know more about what’s around us but don’t think you have the ability to understand then give this book a go, Newsam explains things in a way that always has you nodding along without feeling belittled by his expert knowledge, this is the sort of book that could make you want to have a career spying on the stars.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2022/02/09/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-universe-and-our-place-within-it-by-andrew-newsam/