august 2022 books…

Wilding (Isabela Tree): This is our Bloke’s Books next book and tells the story of Charlie Burrell+Isabella Tree’s ‘leap of faith’ in handing their 3,500 acres of West Sussex farmland back to nature. The project started in 2000, when the couple were forced to accept that intensive farming of the heavy clay soils of their farm (Knepp Castle Estate) was driving them close to bankruptcy. Their project has since become a leading light for conservation in the UK – demonstrating how letting nature take over can restore both the land and its wildlife. It’s a passionate, articulate book and an inspiring story – well-researched and full of detail based on their own experiences, both the positives and negatives. It talks about how intensive farming has badly damaged the condition of our soil – resulting in the increased dependence of fertilisers and chemicals (which, in turn, fail to replenish micronutrients etc and eventually reduce crop yields) – and how re-wilding has reversed such declines. Sometimes, I found her enthusiasm somewhat off-putting but, overall, I found it a very impressive book (I learnt a lot) – although I think I’d avoid getting into a discussion with her at a party (What? Me, going to a party? Dream on!), as I could imagine her enthusiasm being a little too evangelical for me to take!
Falling Upward (Richard Rohr): I continue to struggle in my spiritual wilderness and a lovely friend lent me this book (“A spirituality for the two halves of life”) for reflection. Rohr is clearly a very intelligent, wise man (he’s a Franciscan priest) and his writings are full of astute insights… and many of my friends find him a huge support/encouragement on their own spiritual journeys. Somewhat embarrassingly, I’m afraid, I struggle with his books. I’ve previously read 2 or 3 of them and, each time, have found that they don’t really ‘speak to me’ in the way I’d hoped they would. On the face of it, I thought that this book (focusing on the ‘second half of life’) would provide a helpful roadmap on my own ‘journey’ and, while it did provide useful insights into what he described as the “mature spirituality” of growing old as a Christian, it didn’t tackle the important matter, for me, of ‘self-doubt’ (and, to be fair, the book never pretended that this was its prime objective). I think I probably need to read Brian McLaren’s book “Do I Stay Christian?”!  
Red Sauce Brown Sauce (Felicity Cloake): Cloake is (among other things) a food columnist on The Guardian newspaper and I read this book after Moira had said how much she’d enjoyed it. It’s essentially a travelogue of her cycle tour of the UK (plus the various train connections) to ‘investigate and celebrate the legendary Great British Breakfast’ – and in the process gauge the merits/popularity/preferences of brown sauce versus ketchup. I must say, she’s a very funny and entertaining writer and the book is full of her adventures, anecdotes, culinary details and amusing greed(!). Strangely, although it’s a really easy-to-read book, it took me quite a long time to finish it (it’s some 370 pages)… a very enjoyable read nevertheless.   
The Help (Kathryn Stockett): This is our next Storysmith bookgroup book… and, this month, it’s with a difference – we’re combining our get together with a viewing of the film at ‘20^th Century Flicks’. First published in 2009, the novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s at the peak of racial segregation. The book is narrated by three very different women: a black maid who, despite her excellent cooking skills, frequently loses her job for ‘answering back’; another black maid who is raising her 'seventeenth white child'; and, in sharp contrast, a white woman who wants to be a writer (who was herself brought up by black maids). The ‘help’ are the black community who spend their lives bringing up the children of upper-class white families - with their own children being looked after by someone else. The privileged whites are shockingly discriminating and demand continuing segregation of the black and white communities. It’s long book (some 450 pages) and, I thought, quite an onerous challenge for our monthly bookgroup… but I found it an utterly compelling, unforgettable account and managed to read it within 3 days (the final 250 pages in a late night/early morning stint!!). The author (who herself grew up in the ‘deep south’) writes quite brilliantly - informative, shocking, saddening, amusing and uplifting. A wonderful novel… which will almost certainly be one of my ‘books of the year’.
Glucose Revolution (Jessie Inchauspé): I’m really not into reading books about food(!) and blame my great mate Jez for recommending* this one to me (* he was verging on the evangelical!). It’s essentially a book about balancing one’s blood sugar (I have no real knowledge of my own blood sugar characteristics, but hey). It seems that 90% of us suffer from too much glucose in our system – although most of us don’t know it – and this book describes ways in which we can ‘flatten our glucose spikes’. Inchauspé (@glucosegoddess) has a science/mathematics/biochemistry background and writes in a simple, but very accessible, way about factors which she maintains can transform a person’s health. Fortunately (from my perspective), it’s NOT a calorie-counting food book but one in which she provides a series of science-based ‘hacks’/tips, such as: how eating foods in the right order can also aid losing weight; adding a green starter to every meal; walking/exercising for 10 minutes after a meal; reaching for vinegar (I know!) before you eat… and much, much more. The book contains LOTS of sustainable, accessible, practical guidance and, although I’m not very good at taking advice(!), I will endeavour to take some of them on board. I’m hoping to persuade Moira to read the book too – in the knowledge that as our ‘principal cook’ (and therefore the reason I eat as ‘sensibly’ as I do)(obviously, that’s MY assessment!), she’ll be implementing and encouraging me to take on board some additional ‘new eating habits’.