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Along with many others, I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture; it remains a country that can seem mysterious to many, even though its influence pervades all of our lives. So, when On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan by Lesley Chan Downer crossed my path, I jumped at the chance to read it and explore the hidden depths of this enigmatic and beautiful culture.

After a number of years living and working in Japan, Leslie Chan Downer, whose lifelong fascination with the country, took the chance to follow in the footsteps of Japan's famous poet, Matsuo Basho, who over 300 years ago set off on a pilgrimage to explore some of the country's remote northern provinces and creating one of Japans most (arguably) famous travel books The Narrow Road to the Deep North. 

Setting off from Tokyo and taking the audacious approach of actually walking, using public transport and hitchhiking, Downer takes us step by step through a rural landscape, changed by post-industrialisation, yet holding on to traditions passed down which have brought the small communities together for centuries.  One of the main aspects of what I found so engrossing in On the Narrow Road to the Deep North was this sense of community within the more remote areas of Japan, welcoming the author in, wanting to learn more and welcoming her into their homes, hearts and communities.  It imbues a sense of sharing that is so common to suppose as a thing of times past, but remains a thriving part of small communities and, for me, became the more intriguing and surprising part of the book over the actual pilgrimage.

However, the focus of the book always remains on Basho's pilgrimage, and I did sympathise with the author's efforts to meet the Yamabushi hermits, and I can only imagine when realisation struck when they were certainly not as expected as time moved on. However, in all of Downer's travels through Japan, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan remains a comfort to many an urban dweller.

In On the Narrow Road to the Deep North: Journey into a Lost Japan, the reader is not only taken on a pilgrimage following Basho's footsteps, but we also share his Haiku to paint the cerebral landscape in which he walked.  In walking in the master poet's great footsteps, Lesley Chan Downer has become the perfect guide.

If there's one taboo in human nature, it's the idea of eating another human.  In Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters, Kevin J. Wetmore Jr takes us on a tour de force journey throughout history and mythology to examine how one of our greatest underlying fears (being eaten) has permeated our worldwide cultures for millennia.

Although the title alludes to the idea of cannibalism as we are shown in popular culture, with varying horror films such as Cannibal Holocaust, and TV shows such as The Walking Dead, in Eaters of the Dead we delve not just through history, but also mythology and folklore where a variety of creatures exist, such as the ghūl whose origins in Arabia have become adapted not just through our own ghost stories, but also our more common parlance, when describing someone as 'ghoulish', the renowned Grendel in the popular tale of Beowulf, which has been passed down for centuries, and like the Arabic ghūl is known for eating human flesh.

In our history, especially in areas such as Nepal, the practice of sky burials where bodies are placed on top of mountains to be eaten by birds and other animals is something I was not aware of and, with Westmore's help, we see how eating the dead takes on a different, and more spiritual perspective.

However, it is the more recent past which often takes a preference for the reader, with our age of mass media, takes of modern cannibalism such as the tragedy of The Donner Party, serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer have become part of modern culture.  With numerous films and TV shows being made relating to cannibalism, it is a subject that has remained close to human consciousness which Kevin J. Wetmore Jr provides a greater understanding of why.

In Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr makes the taboo seem almost enjoyable, broken down into sections so the reader can take the book bite-size (pun intended) or as a whole. Full of fascinating history, exploring not just our own cultures, but allowing the reader a greater understanding of why we're so fascinated with this most taboo of subjects.

The small boat crisis is certainly one that has permeated mainstream news over the past ten years. For me, the issue was highlighted when former Prime Minister David Cameron very publicly refused to take in migrants from Calais, brandishing them “a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain”. Cameron was rightly admonished for this statement; however, this, in many ways, set the scene for a number of public attitudes since then, with rhetoric and treatment of migrants becoming more and more dehumanising from many public figures.

In We Came by Sea, Horatio Clare sets out to give not just the migrants a voice, but also those who work in border forces, charities and the RNLI, who also came under fire from Nigel Farage, who branded them a “taxi service” in yet another failed publicity stunt (donations to the RNLI rose 3000% following this event). In a world of media and political hysteria, We Came by Sea provides a voice of reason in a debate that seems intent on dividing the country, giving those who’ve been silenced on this issue a long-overdue voice in the matter.

Many of the issues talked about in We Came by Sea were not new to me. I was aware of the conditions of the refugee camps in Calais, which had not just been revealed in the news, but also friends who’ve had to visit whilst working in Home Office Asylum contracts, who also made me aware of the actual conditions these Asylum Seekers are placed into while waiting for their cases to be processed by the Home Office, so I was in a fortunate position when reading this book, to have some preparedness when opening these pages.

However, I found the underlying message in We Came by Sea to be one of hope, not just the hope these people have when trying to reach these shores, hope in that through the hard work of the various charities, the general supportive public and politicians throughout Europe who are working for the best interests of everyone, but also by exposing the hypocrisy of those who are whipping hatred against these people fleeing terror.

In We Came by Sea, Horatio Clare weaves a narrative that not only gives a voice to all those who have never had a voice in this more than vocal debate, but also a response to the ever-growing narrative by our public representatives that we are not becoming an “island of strangers”, but by helping those in need delves to the very heart of who Britain actually is, and that certainly is a story worth telling.

There’s an old episode of Charlie Brown, a short series called This is America, Charlie Brown, in which our eponymous hero and the rest of the gang travel to the NASA space station in one of Linus’s dreams, where calamities ensue but the day is (unsurprisingly) saved by these plucky youths. Yet, one part has always remained in my thoughts since watching that show in the 1980s, and it’s a scene towards the end where Lucy, Peppermint Patty and Sally (Charlie’s sister) are looking out of the window. Sally asks, “do you notice something from up here, looking down there?… There are no boundary lines!… Wouldn’t it be nice to have maps with no boundaries?”

I hope you’ll forgive my paraphrasing there. I didn’t have a copy of the script to use and had to rely on an out-of-sync video online. Yet, this, for me, was central to reading Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece by Julian Hoffman, which, on initial reading, reads as a telling of Julian and his (now) wife, Julia, packing up life in the uk and starting a new home in Prespa, a region of two lakes in aremote part of Northern Greece, bordering on Albania and North Macedonia. However, as with all things, life is more multifaceted, and what began as a simple take for a better life becomes a tale of new friends, discovery, awakenings and realisations.

Lifelines can mean a myriad things, but in Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece, Julian Hoffman brings to life the interconnectedness of the world in which we live. The sense of the pervading national boundaries seems very ridiculous when considering that these are boundaries that humankind has made for themselves, for which nature and wildlife have no comprehension. My imagination did run away with me as my mind drifted back to Greece’s mythology and a more comic telling of the siege of Troy, though in my telling, it’s the tale of trying to cross a land border dressed as a pantomime horse, yet I digress.

I’m often impressed (and jealous) of some of Julian’s photos, which traverse across my social media, and the land itself tells the tales that have worn through its mountainous landscape. With such tranquillity, it’s hard to believe that a civil war ensued here, yet its scars are another aspect of the interconnectedness of Lifelines, and remains as much alive in some of the residents as it did in those times, and it is here that Lifelines becomes so much more than one journey to a new life and the natural world’s resilience to human intrusion, but a new chapter to a story in a new home.

I felt there was an underlying nuance within Lifelines, in that not only are we interconnected with, not just the natural world, but with our own created world also. The communities we build are not just houses we build and live in, they are a part of the lifeblood of our world, where tales are created and passed down to our children and so on to theirs. This, for me, was another ‘lifeline’ where, if humankind is not careful, then it risks losing touch not just with the natural world, but with the very thing that makes us ‘human’.

I will admit that when I first saw Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s photos on social media, boldly walking through London naked to promote her campaign to save the UK’s swift population, I was initially confused, yet I soon learned that this was indeed a very effective campaign, one that gained the public’s attention and support, along with the incredibily difficult management of not diverting from the actual message the campaign was trying to convey.

In Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts, Hannah Bourne-Taylor takes us through what inspired her to take such drastic measures in order to help save a species of bird so many of us overlook, or completely ignore, creating a narrative that not only combines the fact that we are destroying our natural environments, but also her unmistakable passion not just for Swifts, but for nature in general, the reader is taken from the fields and roads of a local village and through the ‘corridors of power’ themselves at the Houses of Parliament.

It is here that Nature Needs You becomes its most revealing, as it helps expose the ‘behind the scenes’ operations of UK Government machinations, complete with all its machinations and corruptions, yet it is also here that I was left with more questions than answers, for example, why is there so little mention of opposition parties in relation to the campaign? Were they just not interested? I would have found it personally interesting to hear more of this rather than some of the other narrative that didn’t really push things along. I was also somewhat confused as to a number of comments made about brexit and single-sex toilets in relation to Housing Regulations, which were left with either no explanation or presented with a very one-sided viewpoint. However, these are just quibbles in relation to the larger narrative, and doesn’t take from the message being presented to the reader.

Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts is Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s call-to-arms for us to not just act to help nature, but to educate ourselves to live alongside nature. So often we build houses and roads with no concern for the natural environments which live in those areas, we shut it out and drown out the noise with Netflix, only to be concerned when someone, such as Hannah Bourne-Taylor, stands up for us to take notice. Yet it is successful campaigns, such as this that succeed in getting the right attention, there was no destruction, no shouting, no vandalism, just a walk (albeit naked) a petition and a lot of meetings, highlighting this is the way good campaigns work, aside from the numerous problems revealed in the pages.

I found Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts by Hannah Bourne-Taylor one of the most relevant books published at the moment not just to highlight the disastrous effects of humankind upon our natural world and the myriad species we share this planet with, but also a valuable insight into not just running a successful campaign, and all its frustrations, but how one person can make a world of difference.

I will admit that when I first saw Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s photos on social media, boldly walking through London naked to promote her campaign to save the UK’s swift population, I was initially confused, yet I soon learned that this was indeed a very effective campaign, one that gained the public’s attention and support, along with the incredibily difficult management of not diverting from the actual message the campaign was trying to convey.

In Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts, Hannah Bourne-Taylor takes us through what inspired her to take such drastic measures in order to help save a species of bird so many of us overlook, or completely ignore, creating a narrative that not only combines the fact that we are destroying our natural environments, but also her unmistakable passion not just for Swifts, but for nature in general, the reader is taken from the fields and roads of a local village and through the ‘corridors of power’ themselves at the Houses of Parliament.

It is here that Nature Needs You becomes its most revealing, as it helps expose the ‘behind the scenes’ operations of UK Government machinations, complete with all its machinations and corruptions, yet it is also here that I was left with more questions than answers, for example, why is there so little mention of opposition parties in relation to the campaign? Were they just not interested? I would have found it personally interesting to hear more of this rather than some of the other narrative that didn’t really push things along. I was also somewhat confused as to a number of comments made about brexit and single-sex toilets in relation to Housing Regulations, which were left with either no explanation or presented with a very one-sided viewpoint. However, these are just quibbles in relation to the larger narrative, and doesn’t take from the message being presented to the reader.

Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts is Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s call-to-arms for us to not just act to help nature, but to educate ourselves to live alongside nature. So often we build houses and roads with no concern for the natural environments which live in those areas, we shut it out and drown out the noise with Netflix, only to be concerned when someone, such as Hannah Bourne-Taylor, stands up for us to take notice. Yet it is successful campaigns, such as this that succeed in getting the right attention, there was no destruction, no shouting, no vandalism, just a walk (albeit naked) a petition and a lot of meetings, highlighting this is the way good campaigns work, aside from the numerous problems revealed in the pages.

I found Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts by Hannah Bourne-Taylor one of the most relevant books published at the moment not just to highlight the disastrous effects of humankind upon our natural world and the myriad species we share this planet with, but also a valuable insight into not just running a successful campaign, and all its frustrations, but how one person can make a world of difference.

Planet Earth is a forever changing place, and climate change is something that is always in the news, what with climate deniers on social media and the frequent news of lost ice shelves which cause rising sea levels, it seems we’ve lost perspective of what this means for our species as a whole, and how we’ve failed to learn from our mistakes from the past.

In Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost World, author Gareth E. Rees takes us on a tour of a number of the lands around the world which have now been lost to rising sea levels. With areas such as East Anglia’s Fens, which are slowly succumbing to rising sea levels and the region of Doggerland which connected mainland Britain to Europe our nation alone has changed over the centuries, with many of these regions not only being lost to time, but now only remain in our myths and legends, where their memory helps shape our cultures.

What makes Sunken Lands so interesting and vital is that throughout the world there are tales of great floods linked to many of these lost realms. From Doggerland, through Wales, which saw lands linked to Ireland, Atlantis, through to the lost lands of the Roman Empire in the holiday resort of Baiae where Emperors went to relax, all these lands succumbed to the rising tides. However, what I did find uncanny was the similarity of flood takes similar to that told in the Old Testament which takes place within the North American Choctaw people whose own legend sees a family building a boat and saving two of each animal before a mighty flood.

Although such tales of mighty floods exist in our ancient folklore, it is through the apparent voodoo priestess, Julia Brown, whose apparent curse of the town of Frenier, near New Orleans brings us closer to home. During the frequent storms which have ravaged the Gulf of Mexico over the past twenty years, the area has seen great devastation and land lost to the sea. This combined with over extraction of natural resources has exposed the area to more flooding from rising sea levels, and it is here that we see in Sunken Lands that we have not learned from the past that we are at the mercy of the elements, not the master of them.

In Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds Gareth E. Rees takes us on a personal odyssey through these lost areas, with a stoic philosophy that reminds the reader of the relevance of these places, and these stories, it creates a vital narrative for our modern-day attitudes and the need to change our ideologies to adapt to this world that is changing around us, largely to our own avarice. Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds not only tells of the need to change but highlights what happened to those people who refused to change and the consequences for future generations and should be a vital book for any twenty-first-century reader.

I don’t think anyone needs to be reminded that Islam has predominantly been in the news for over 20 years now. With the two Gulf Wars and other actions that have involved Western forces, the views of the followers of this religion have, largely, been directed by mainstream news and social media. However, is what we have witnessed on our screens and in newspapers a realistic description of not just the Islamic religion, but those who follow it? In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East, Barnaby Rogerson takes us through the history of this fascinating religion and provides an indispensable insight into its followers who have not just made history but helped shape the world in which we live.

Although the beginnings of Islam are filled with as much mystery as they are the spirit of adventure, its origins in Medina are of some of the humblest origins in Abrahamic religions, for its founder, the Prophet, Muhammad was, allegedly, unable to read or write, which left his (written) teachings in the realms of the miraculous. This, however, was also to create a long lasting issue as to who was to succeed him as ruler, as he left no written instruction.

In The House Divided this matter becomes central to the text, and how ‘house’ of Islam not only became divided throughout the centuries but spread as far as the reaches of Spain in the heights of the Muslim Empire spreading its message, splitting not only into the Sunni and Shia factions, but also the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, whose bloodthirsty and monetary legacies are the stuff of legend themselves, but remain one of the most influential states in the world, and to the Turkish Empire which embraced a more Latin style text and more Western attitudes. The House Divided is not just a history of a singular religion, but a history of the past 1500 years that have shaped our species.

Yet, The House Divided is not just a history of Islam, it tells the story of how the Middle East, as we know it was formed, maintained and how it came to be how we know it today, with heroes and villains not just in Islam itself, but a highly-focused exploration into those who aimed to profit from disruption (and creating disruption) in the area, namely countries such as Great Britain and the USA, whose aim for dominance over the oil markets have made millionaires out of some and destitute out od others. This is a story of great extremes.

In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East, Barnaby Rogerson has not just created a vital and detailed history of the Middle East, but an account of how people have profited out of others in some of the most exploited regions on this planet. If The House Divided excels in great narrative on an invigorating subject it triumphs in its ability to focus our attention on our failings as a species and celebrates our abilities to join and succeed at the harshest of times. A must-read!

Space: the final frontier. These are the pages of The Future of Geography, by Tim Marshall. Its 320-page mission: to explore not only our world but the strange new worlds that we, as a species attempt to seek out and exploit. To seek out new life and new civilizations (if any exist). To boldly go where no book has gone before!

In The Future of Geography, the latest and fascinating book by foreign affairs expert and author, Tim Marshall sets the scene for mankind’s futuristic ventures into geopolitical space ventures and our exploitation of not just the world around, us but also the final frontier, space.

The Space Age has existed throughout the majority of our recent history, being a predominant factor in our world since the 1950s, but Marshall takes us back to its earliest roots in the early twentieth century and its development through the Nazi missile program during World War Two under such auspices of Werner Von Braun, who became instrumental in the development of NASAs own space program, which ultimately led to the landing on the moon in 1969.

The Future of Geography, however, doesn’t just explore the future of space exploration but explores our earliest expeditions and the growing competition between the USA and USSR who based their own expeditions on the pioneering engineer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose equations helped the USSR dominate space throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

However, author Tim Marshall, does not stop there, and highlighting the now three dominant nations in a modern ‘Space Race’ (China, Russia and the USA) we explore the modern pioneers of not just these nations, but also the growing private enterprises of space exploration led by Richard Branson and Elon Musk and the developing countries eager to take their place in this new frontier. What we see in The Future of Geography is that our world geography is certainly expanding beyond the realms of our tiny planet.

The Future of Geography breathes a fresh and invigorating life into a subject that remains constant in the eye of many people, and Tim Marshall certainly provides an easily accessible and entertaining narrative that not only gives the reader a glimpse into this sphere which has dominated over the past half-century but also a glimpse into humanity’s place in the Final Frontier.