The Gifts Of Reading (Robert
Macfarlane): This is
a short book/essay by one of my favourite writers about the joys and gifts of
books. He describes his relationship with a work colleague who was passionate
about reading… someone whose life had been transformed by books and who
subsequently passed on his passion to others (including Macfarlane). Macfarlane
goes on to talk about books that changed and influenced his own life (eg.
McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’, Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, Leigh Fermor’s ‘A Time of
Gifts’, Baker’s ‘The Peregrine’ and Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’) and
how he, in turn, now passes on his love through gifts of books whenever he can.
A beautiful, simple, tender reflection.
Seashaken Houses (Tom Nancollas): Between 1698 and
1905, 27 lighthouses were constructed on desolate and perilous footholds of
rock to mark the most dangerous hazards to shipping in the seas around Great
Britain and Ireland. Twenty survive today. Nancollas’s book is a
brilliantly-researched celebration of rock lighthouses around Great Britain and
Ireland... about the almost super human ingenuity of the people who built these
structures in the most isolated and wildest of locations with relatively
primitive equipment and tools. Nancollas combines stories of lighthouse
architecture/engineering with the human experiences involved in their
construction. He visits seven rock lighthouses, telling different parts of the
overall story – the early efforts and failures, the changing designs of the
lights themselves and the life of the keepers. Absolutely fascinating.
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the
Horse (Charlie Mackesy):
This is a simple, beautiful, powerful book… featuring the characters in the
title. It’s entirely hand-written and stunningly hand-drawn. It felt a bit like
reading ‘Winnie the Pooh’ - with the boy, mole, fox and horse taking on Pooh,
Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger characters. Simple straightforward, heartfelt conversations; wonderful
pearls of wisdom… and all linked with a common theme of friendship, love and
kindness. I read the following comment from Mackesy: “All four characters represent different parts of the same
person… the inquisitive boy, the mole who’s enthusiastic but a bit greedy, the
fox who’s been hurt so is withdrawn from life, slow to trust but wants to be
part of things, and the horse who’s the wisest bit, the deepest part of you,
the soul.” This might sound ridiculously sugar-coated and soppy, but it
works. I absolutely loved it and will continue to dip into the book (especially
when I’m feeling low).
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
(Rachel Joyce): I
first read this book in 2013, but it’s now been selected as our Blokes’ Books
bookgroup book (lots of ‘book’ words there!). I don’t often re-read books but,
somewhat strangely, I’ve now re-read two books in the last month. As with the
last one, it made realise how much of the detail I’d forgotten. This is what I
wrote 7 years ago: “I absolutely loved this book. It’s about a
recently-retired, married man (Harold) who sets off, with his wife hoovering
upstairs, to post a letter to a former work colleague at the other end of the
country who is dying of cancer… he decides, on the spur of the moment, to
continue walking (without hiking boots, map, compass, waterproof or mobile
phone) to visit his friend in Berwick in order to “save her life”. The journey
is both physical and metaphorical. It’s about loss and regret; it’s about
misunderstandings and relationships; it’s about romance and loneliness… but
it’s about simple pleasures, caring, kindness, encouragement and joy. You
REALLY need to read this book!” . If
you haven’t already read it, I still think you ought to!
Ness (Robert Macfarlane+Stanley
Donwood): I love Macfarlane’s
writing; invariably they’re evocations of nature in some form or another. This
short book, however, is unlike anything I’ve previously read of Macfarlane’s. Although
it does deal with the beauty and fragility of our world, it takes the form of
something of a prose-poem. The text (accompanied by Stanley Donwood’s beautiful,
haunting line drawings) relates to a 10-mile-long section of the Suffolk coast
(next to the shoreline at Orford)… which Macfarlane calls “Ness”. For much of
the last century, it was a top-secret site for military research (machine gun
testing during WW1; important work on nuclear bomb mechanisms during the cold
war etc). When the site (now a Site of Special Scientific Interest) was
abandoned by the military, the National Trust took it on – but ended up
deciding it could little to stop the ravages of erosion. In Macfarlane’s tale
(which in some ways had similarities to Max Porter’s “Lanny”), one of the
buildings has become ‘The Green Chapel’ and is ‘inhabited’ by people (or are
they really people?) who perform rituals focused on dereliction, destruction,
threat and power. Meanwhile, over time, other non-human forces approach the
ravaged coastline and begin to make their presence felt – with a view to restoring the stewardship of the planet to Earth’s own
non-human agency. Macfarlane has apparently described it as “a landscape
produced by a collision of the human death drive and natural life”… I found the
book mesmerisingly beautiful – almost hauntingly so – and one that I’ll
continue to ponder about (and re-read) over the coming months.
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