Hi there - as well as being a keen blogger, I'm a bit of a bookworm as well.
So, I'm going to post reviews of the last 5 books I've read - as I read another one I'll take the last one of the list.
All the reviews are also posted on Amazon UK - you may care to visit the links if you think the book sounds interesting. All reviews are put up under the the name "SCM - Victoria, Australia". You can find all 227 reviews here.
A Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines - 5/5
This is a really very good book about a boy
and a kestrel.
Yes, it’s bleak rather than uplifting.
Yes, the image of school with its bully-boy
pupils and (largely) complicit staff may be a little too close to real memory
to be enjoyable.
And yes, most of the characters in the book
are at best flawed and often unlikeable.
However, the composite of these elements
gives a real feeling of truth to this book – and while it may play the “it’s
rough up north” card strongly, it does not over do this. In fact, it may be possible to argue that the
presence of farm land just outside of most of the pages of the book runs counter
to the smoky hell cliché of northern England.
Under most circumstances I don’t take well too
phonetic spelling of accents, but in this case it did not jar as much as in
some cases.
The book lacks the happy ending, much
beloved of other tales of growth and redemption. The boy flies for a while, but just like his
bird, this flight does not last forever.
Very highly recommended.
Sightlines - Kathleen Jamie 5/5
This is a really rather remarkable
book. Normally I would recommend a book
on the basis of the majority of its pages.
But this one is different.
Even if the rest of the book were poor – which
it most certainly is not – it would be worth reading Sightlines just for the
observation about sheep in a winter landscape.
Clearly, I’m not going to tell you what that line is – but it made me
stop, put the book down and wonder just how acute your observations would have
to be to come up with a line like it.
The rest of the book is excellent and just
as in Findings, some of the best sections are based indoors rather than
outside. Time spent in a pathology lab,
and a museum (maybe mortuary?) for whales produced wonderful essays.
The prose in the book is neither flamboyant
nor self-consciously clever, but it is wonderfully well constructed – there is
barely a word out of place, and each one seems to add to the sense of place
that this book is about.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough –
and you may be pleased to know that the line about the sheep come early in the
book!
Fresh Woods Pastures New - Ian Niall 4/5
This volume is a combination of two books
published in the early 1950’s. They
recount the meandering adventures of the author through fell, moor and wood in
search of game – and possibly understanding.
There are at least two aspects of these
books that make them stand out from other similar “country childhood”
books. The first is the voice of the
author and the second is the structure of the books.
In terms of voice, the author often
addresses the reader directly – “Let me take you to the far pasture”. I found this a little distracting at first as
these sentences seemed take me by surprise – they often bobbed up when I was
least expecting them.
And this element of surprise may have been
caused by the second aspect of the books – their structure. There are no chapters in either of the books–
the prose just rolls on and on.
As you may be able to tell this is where I
get to the “however” part of the review.
The chapterless structure seemed to
encourage a rather rambling approach – with places that we had visited before
coming back to the fore again and again.
While this may be a realistic way to portray childhood wanderings, with
favorite places revisited time and time again, it does lead to a sort of “I’ve
been here before” feeling in parts of the book.
The thing that rescues this book is the
quality of the writing and the depth of the observation.
Did I find going back to the same places a
few time a bit annoying? – yes.
Did this detract from my overall enjoyment
of the book? – a little.
But would I still recommend the book? – yes
I would.
Read, enjoy and take chapter breaks whenever
the urge takes you!
Australasian Nature Photography - South Australian Museum - 4 /5
The tenth collection of images from the
broader Australian region maintains the high standard of the previous collections.
Like most collections of award wining images
there are ones that take your breath away, and others that leave your wondering,
“How long did it take to get that image”?
But
there are also a few images that leave you thinking, “I could have taken that
as well”. I’m not sure this is really a criticism,
as it seems to offer at least some faint ray of hope for us neophyte nature photographers.
The Overall Winner is a remarkable image of
two birds – but maybe is a sign of the times my “Photoshop Antenna” were
twitching as I looked at it. I am almost
certainly wrong about this, but the picture does have a strange “other world”
kind of luck.
As I am based in Australia I think I may be
a bit biased toward seeing images of places and animals that are at least
theoretically available to my camera and me but I think the pictures would have
a wide appeal.
Recommended.
Street Photography Now - Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren - 3.5 /5
Street photography is clearly not
easy. The shifting composition of the
street, the difficulty of getting close enough (but maybe not too close), and
the modern suspicion of photography in public places all combine to make it a
challenge.
This rather good book looks at the work of
a number of street photographers, who all meet these, and other challenges, in
a variety of ways to produce a body of varied and interesting work.
There are a number of longer chapter that
explore the “philosophy” of street photography, as well as shorter accounts of
the specific works of each photographer.
So far so good.
Many of the pictures are really interesting
– full of great composition, found humor and visual puns. And even on repeat viewing (and reading) I
found things I had not noticed before.
Still so good so far.
But I can help wonder about some of the
images here. Some of the pictures seem
to be about the power of the photographer to show people in as ugly a light as
possible; the awkward looks on peoples faces, the distortion caused by short
focal length lenses, the broken clothes.
Here the power rests with the photographer who seems to be saying –“look
at these” and of course, “don’t look at me, because I am not like that”.
I am not suggesting that street photography
should be all about cute dogs and bunches of flowers, but the ethic of ugliness
seems to go unchallenged.
This is an interesting book that I would recommend
– but I think some sections would benefit from a more critical eye.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain - 5 /5
This is a really wonderful read. The fact that I need to say that is based on
my experiences of other classics, which I have often found disappointing! Nothing
could be further from the case here.
Although the settings – and some of the behaviors
– in this book are dated, it is the understanding of the minds of the young
characters that makes the book so readable.
The ‘psychology’ aspect of the book has not
really dated at all - the need to
impress and be wanted and the “you’ll be sorry when I’m gone” thoughts leading
up to a runaway are all wonderfully explored.
This is not a long book, but it is a good one.
Highly recommended.
