Monthly Archives: January 2022

Sea Room by Adam Nicolson

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Sea Room by Adam Nicolson was first published in 2001 and it is very curate’s eggish – that is good in parts, however the good parts will probably be different for everyone that reads it, so it should be of interest and entertaining to various types of readers. Having said that – although I’m really interested in geology – that part didn’t work well for me because I think you really need good photographs to illustrate geology and the small black and white photos in the book don’t show any detail at all. On the book cover it says “the story of one man, three islands and half a million puffins” which are probably the most well-loved of birds, but in this book they are only mentioned as a means of the inhabitants of the past being able to survive by eating them, and nowadays they are eaten by the thousands of black rats that infest the islands. Nicolson does write poetically about the islands which he is obviously in love with. The Shiants were owned by the author Compton Mackenzie in the past.

Adam Nicolson, who is Vita Sackville-West’s grandson was given the three islands 5 miles off the coast of Lewis in north-west Scotland as a 21st birthday present from his father. The Shiants (Shants) as the islands are called had been used in recent years by a sheep farmer who rented the pasture and left the sheep to get on with it until they were big enough for market. The only habitable house is lived in now and again by Adam Nicolson, although at the end of the book he claims that anyone who wants to visit the place can have the key to it! But this book is like a love letter to the wild place and its atmosphere and he covers it from all angles, history, geography, geology, the wildlife, the people who inhabited the place in the past. There’s quite a lot of humour from the real locals who live on the bigger islands and who generously enable Nicolson to live on his islands for a short time each year – and clean him up at the end of his sojourn. I suspect that it is their very good manners which guide them as I can’t imagine that an old Etonian landowner such as Nicolson goes down all that well locally.

For me it was the social history parts which were most interesting, the desperate struggle that people in the past had to keep body and soul together, living on puffins, sea bird eggs and large amounts of limpets.

Adam Nicolson sees the islands as a place for men, well neither of his wives took to the place at all and who can blame them, having to camp out in a tent as it seems safer than being in the house due to the rat population there. It seems like Nicolson has taken to the nth degree that shed bolt-hole idea that so many men cling to. He plans to hand the islands on to his eldest son eventually, whom he hopes will hang on to them and love them as much as he does. Apparently if they ever do come onto the market again there will be a chance of a community buy out, something which the Scottish Government has instituted for areas such as the islands.

One thing that the puffins have to thank Nicolson for is his refusal to turn the islands over to the RSPB who wanted to turn the whole place into a destination for birdwatchers, with all the necessary paths, cafe, toilets and such which go with large amounts of galumphing human beings.

You can see images of the islands here.

Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland – a Jigsaw Puzzle

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I was lucky enough to get a couple of 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles as Christmas presents, and as the Christmas festivities were very low profile indeed – it was just me and Jack on the actual day – and there was absolutely nothing worth watching on TV, it wasn’t long before we broke into the first puzzle which as you can see is a John Tenniel illustration from Alice in Wonderland, produced by the British Library.

Tenniel Alice in Wonderland Jigsaw

I think Tenniel’s illustrations are the best, but all that cross-hatching made this a fiendish puzzle to complete. Believe it or not I found all the white areas to be easier to deal with, at least I didn’t go cross-eyed with those bits.

Nearly Complete Tenniel Alice in Wonderland Jigsaw

As ever though there was a huge feeling of accomplishment as we fitted in the last piece, indeed we each put a finger on it and we slid it in together. It’ll be a wee while before we tackle the next one though! That one is an image from Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflower series.

Completed Tenniel Alice in Wonderland Jigsaw Puzzle

The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry

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I thoroughly enjoyed The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry. The setting is Edinburgh in 1847 where Will Raven feels lucky to have secured an apprenticeship with the famous Doctor James Simpson, he has moved into the Simpson family home and his scruffy appearance doesn’t go down well, especially with the servants there. A close enounter with a money lender and his gargantuan enforcer ensured that Will looks even worse than usual. He’s so glad that he’s now living in the New Town rather than the Old Town where his assailants are more usually to be found. However he soon discovers that when accompanying Doctor Simpson on his rounds they are often in the Old Town. Will had thought that Simpson would be working mainly with the wealthy citizens of Edinburgh, but often he’s attending poor women who are having difficulties in giving birth. Simpson has been using ether to help them with their labour but he is looking for something better and safer.

Will is also searching for something – he wants to find out what happened to his friend Evie who he found dead. She was a prostitute and when he found her she had obviously suffered a violent and painful death, and it seems that she’s not the only young woman to have died like that recently.

This is a great read, I loved being back in Victorian Edinburgh. Ambrose Parry is the name which has been adopted by the author Chris Brookmyre and his wife Marisa Haetzmen who is a consultant anaesthetist and they used the research which she had done for her Master’s degree in the History of Medicine as a base to weave the tale around. They’ve also nodded towards the Frenchman Ambroise Paré who was a pioneer of early surgical techniques. Apparently this is the first in a series, I’m really looking forward to the next one. The endpapers have a lovely map of Edinburgh to help those who don’t know the city to see where they are.

Three from Leon Garfield

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I first came across Leon Garfield when I was in primary 7 when for the last ten minutes or so of the day our teacher read a chapter or two of a book, actually I think that happened in every year at the end of the school day. Anyway it was Garfield’s Smith that she read and as I recall I liked it, but it has taken me until now to read any more by him. Most of his books have 18th century settings, he was influenced by Dickens and R.L. Stevenson.

When I was rooting around in an Edinburgh second-hand book-shop I came across three copies of what turned out to be part of Garfield’s The Apprentices series which runs to eight small books which were published in 1976/77/78 The books are very short at just under 50 pages, but they’re beautifully produced with illustrations by Faith Jaques..

Rosy Starling cover

Rosy Starling is a lovely young girl with red-gold hair and she’s an apprentice bird-cage maker, she makes the cages out of willow wands. She’s completely blind but braves the crowds in Drury Lane where a Maypole has been erected, it’s a holiday and she hopes to sell some of her wares. Unknown to her the young man who is chatting her up is apprenticed to a wig-maker!

Moss and Blister cover

In Moss and Blister it’s Christmas Eve in London and Moss (who is a midwife) and Blister her apprentice seem quite confident that there will be a ‘second coming’ when they are called to help with a birth which fits the bill as the circumstances are so similar to the first birth of Jesus, but their hopes are dashed.

In Labour in Vain Gully is a bucklemaker’s apprentice, but his mother constantly boasts to everyone that he is very successful and generous to her. Gully who is actually very poor is just like his mother as when he meets a young woman he boasts about how well off his mother is. Miss LaSalle says she is of the “huge knots” (Huguenots) and is an apprentice silver thread maker.

There is quite a bit of humour in these wee books which seem steeped in 18th century London, so I’ll be on the look-out for more of them.

You can see some images of the work of Faith Jaques here.

from The Guardian Books section and Visit Scotland

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It’s absolutely yonks since I shared a Guardian books link. I was particularly interested in The Books of My Life bit as this week it featured Penelope Lively, a writer I’ve really enjoyed in the past. You can read it here. I was interested to read that she too has been disappointed when re-reading what had been favourite books in the past, but sometimes she falls back in love with them again. I don’t know if I could be bothered with having another go though – considering how many books I still want to read for the first time.

There’s also a section on some of the books due to be published this coming year which you can read here if you’re interested.

If you happen to be more interested in what’s going on in Scotland you might enjoy looking at the Visit Scotland site. Even if you can’t travel here you can enjoy seeing what’s going on and maybe plan a trip for the future.

My Year in Books on Goodreads 2021

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If you are interested you can have a look at my 2021 books here on Goodreads. According to them I read 133 which is not bad as I had signed up to read at least 100. Actually I read a few more than that, for some reason a few didn’t make it onto Goodreads, and one I added twice by mistake. I’ve had a quick tot up of the books I read last year. I always note them down in an old school jotter (very old!) adding them in as I finish them along with notes in the margin denoting the genre.

Stats wise this year it was very uneven as I read 93 by female authors and only 40 by male authors. I have no idea how that happened as usually it’s quite ‘even Stevens’.

I read only three books in translation this year, it’s usually more than that I’m sure.

Only ten were vintage crime which is weird as I love that genre.

19 were contemporary crime.

24 of the books were for children, mainly older books that could be regarded as classics I suppose.

Only 7 of the books I read were non-fiction, I must do better this year.

I read 38 books by Scottish authors.

I read just 11 classics although I am quite strict in what I regard as a classic so that’s not too bad I think.

31 of the books were historical fiction.

Looking through the books I must have spent quite a lot of last year in 18th and 19th century Edinburgh. It must have seemed like a more comfortable place for me to be than the real world of the pandemic! I suspect I’ll be reading more historical fiction in 2022 too.

Exile for Annis by Josephine Elder

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With the Hogmanay celebrations being cancelled in Scotland and meeting up with people being discouraged, I needed a trip into a different world via a book, and Exile for Annis by Josephine Elder hit the spot. It was first published in 1938 and it’s the first book in the author’s Farm School series.

Annis is 14 years old and has been quite ill, her mother thinks it isn’t a good idea for her to go back to her school which is an ordinary High School that concentrates on a lot of sports. Annis loves her school, in fact she’s quite disdainful of any others, she thinks the way her school is run is perfect, but when it’s described it’s evident to the reader that the school and its pupils have fostered a rather elitist attitude as they all believe that any other schools are inferior. So when her parents decide that Annis will be sent to a school in the country Annis is horrified, she thinks it sounds awful, but she can’t wriggle out of it as her parents are going to be away from home for some time.

Annis soon learns that her prejudices were misplaced as she blossoms in the more relaxed atmosphere of the farm school and finds new friends. It’s a surprise to her that although the pupils don’t seem to be studying anything like as hard as they would if they had been at the High School they still all pass their important exams, and they also learn how to care for animals and do farm work. Despite some difficulties the experience has been a positive one as Annis has met people she would not have encountered at her old school and it has all contributed to enriching experiences for her, and for most of the people she encounters.

It was an enjoyable read. I had never come across the name Annis before but it’s explained in the book that it is a Scottish name for a girl, but I’ve certainly never heard of it before.

Happy New Year! 2022

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Just a quick one to say Happy New Year! I’m almost frightened to think ahead as last year I was hopeful that we would all be in a much better situation than we are now. I’m so longing to visit family abroad and just get back to the way things used to be, I’m sure you feel the same way too. Stay safe and well.