Review: Vivien Horler

The Place of Tides, by James Rebanks (Penguin)

Before we all had duvets, some of us had eiderdowns. These were comforters stuffed with feathers that perched on top of our blankets (and usually slid off in the night).

The term comes from the soft breast down of the eider duck, which was traditionally used to fill the comforters. These ducks are found on remote coastlines and islands in the far north of Europe, Siberia and north America, all close to the Arctic circle.

Today the filling in comforters is more likely to be either synthetic or from domestic poultry breeds, according to Wikipedia, but the collection of down from eider ducks continues. Duvets and pillows filled with eider down are considered luxury items. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Trace – Case studies of a forensic pathologist in Africa, by Ryan Blumenthal (Tafelberg)

Doctors are notorious for closing ranks when a patient believes they have been wronged by their medical practitioner.

But Dr Ryan Blumenthal, the author of Autopsy and now Trace, isn’t that guy. That’s because he is only too familiar with the sort of mistakes doctors can make – he sees the results on his autopsy table.

He believes many procedures performed today are probably unnecessary, and based “on first-hand experiences where I have witnessed the negative outcomes of such cases”. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

People who like Dogs like People who like Dogs – Extraordinary encounters in an ordinary park, by Nick Duerden (John Murray)

Englishman Nick Duerden was a cat person, until he got a dog. He was also, as a result of not being very well, rather reclusive, not helped by the fact he is a freelance writer.

But when you get a dog, you have to walk it, so you’re forced to go out. And then you will meet other dog walkers, and possibly make friends with them, or at least become dog-walking companions.

The dog he got was a Border Terrier which, oddly enough, doesn’t at all resemble the doodle they’ve chosen to put on the cover. I was drawn to the book by the cover, since my own dog, a Border Doodle, looks exactly like that. And when Sofia wants to go for a walk she will sit, looking both accusing and gormless, sometimes with a ball in her mouth.

No matter, in the reading of this memoir I was drawn to Missy, his small terrier, about whom he writes with great affection and occasional exasperation. Missy, who is 13 months old at the start of the memoir, has a stiff wire coat and “the energy of a just-lit firework”. You’ll know what that’s like if you’ve ever had a 13-month-old dog. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Everything is Tuberculosis – A history and persistence of our deadliest infection, by John Green (Ebury Press)

Around 1940 or 1941 my Aunty Thelma contracted tuberculosis. It was in the early days of World War 2, and she worked for a company that had been making compressors for the mining industry before pivoting to munitions as many British manufacturing companies did.

She was not quite 20, and having a lovely war. She was engaged to a man who drove a sports car, she had a flashy diamond ring, and according to her younger sister – my mum – was partying till late and then going straight on to work in the shell shop.

They made explosive shells in the shell shop, which was housed in an old, damp building, and she got sick.

This was more than a decade before streptomycin became available as a cure for TB, and so she was treated, as people in the UK were in those days, in a sanatorium in a place called Tehidy in Cornwall.

The ward she was in had a roof and three walls, with the fourth side open to the elements all year round. In winter they would watch snowflakes drifting on to their beds, she told me (although in truth it doesn’t snow much in Cornwall). Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Remain – A supernatural love story, by Nicholas Sparks with M Night Shyamalan (Sphere)

A supernatural love story? Not my usual fare.

There’s a telling exchange between the main guy, the architect Tate, and his friend Oscar.

Tate tells Oscar he’s not in a good space, and Oscar responds: “I’m guessing you and Gigi had a fight?”

Mystified, Tate responds: “Gigi?”

Oscar: “GG? Ghost Girlfriend?”

In fact the ghost girlfriend is called Wren, but other than that, Oscar is on the button. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph)

You wouldn’t think a novel about a rather formal, acerbic 70-something woman from Annapolis, told solely in the form of letters and emails – mainly letters – would become a bestseller.

But you’d be wrong – The Correspondent topped the New York Times bestseller list in December. Of various reviews I’ve read, I think The Times said it best: “A warm, funny gem of a novel.”

Sybil Van Antwerp lives alone in a house with the view of a river through the trees. She is particular, precise, likes to write her letters with a fountain pen on good paper she gets from the UK. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

An Inconvenience of Penguins – Epic voyages in pursuit of the world’s most beloved bird, by Jamie Lafferty (Wildfire)

Some people collect stamps or medals – Jamie Lafferty collects penguins.

He’s a Scottish-born freelance travel writer, and in the Galapagos he conceived the idea of seeing and photographing all 18 species of penguin.

Now the thing about penguins, with the broad exception of our African penguins, is that they tend to be found in far-flung places like Antarctica and South Georgia and the Galapagos – all difficult or expensive to get to, hence the title of this book.

It also didn’t help that Lafferty had very little money, which made him dependent on helpful travel editors and travel and cruise companies that were willing to give him a free trip in exchange for some positive copy. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Swift – A memoir, by Melinda Ferguson (Ride or Die, an imprint of Melinda Ferguson Books)

When you get to the last line in this memoir, it’s hard not to weep.

The story catches us up in a desperate attempt to save a baby bird. Most of us have tried to do that at some stage – haven’t we? – finding a baby bird fallen out of a nest, putting it in a box with some water or even milk, and waking in the morning to find it dead.

This isn’t that story.

It’s about the courageous rescue of a Little Swift, a bird that, like some swifts, flies for up to two years without landing; eating, sleeping and even mating on the wing, and nesting only to breed. If you’ve seen a swift on a perch or a phone wire, chances are it’s a swallow.

But the story of Swifty is only one strand of Melinda Ferguson’s heart-wrenching memoir – it is also about the sudden death of her partner Mat, and her determination to save the bird so that it can carry Mat’s soul on.

Do not be put off at this point. This isn’t a woo-woo book, it’s a story of a desperate quest written by a woman in the throes of grief. Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Follow Me to Africa – A novel by Penny Haw (Sourcebooks Landmark)

Seventeen-year-old Grace Clark finds it’s a long way from Tewkesbury to the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, where her estranged father has dragged her so he can meet the famed archaeologist Mary Leakey.

A sulky Grace thinks the only thing worse than being somewhere you don’t want to be is discovering no one else wants you there either. Grace has overheard Mary telling her father: “We can’t have a teenager hanging around. This is a dig, not a discotheque. She’ll have to do something.”

Grace surveys the area – it looks dry, scorched and ragged. Her father doesn’t feel the same way: “Look at this place. Isn’t it magnificent? It’s nothing like Cambridge. Or Tewkesbury. Nothing like anything you’ve seen before.”

To which Grace responds: “Thank God.” Continue reading →

Review: Vivien Horler

Theo of Golden, by Allen Levi (Fontana)

Theo of Golden is a novel about an old Portuguese man who comes to stay in Golden, a small college town in the southern US state of Georgia. He makes friends and spreads love.

There’s a bit of a mystery – who is this old man who seems to go through life without a surname, and why did he come to Golden? There is some violence, not too much. Mainly it is a story about love and wonder and beauty and companionship.

There were times, especially at the beginning, when I found the novel less than compelling. And yet I kept reading, and I’m so glad I did. Continue reading →