Category Archives: Book

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Read: Solace House by Will Maclean ★★★★ 📚

After sudden scalding exposure to the late twentieth century, and the garish monomania of the supermarket, it was joyous to return to the hospital, to the house. I found that I wanted to immerse myself in Solace House and its environs, gather it around me, cloak myself in it. I didn’t doubt, in that moment, that this was what Flayne had felt, sequestered here in his self-imposed exile.

Fun Gothic horror with magic mushrooms. A narrator who becomes more & more unreliable as the book gets weirder. I am not sure I really know what went on. Plenty of nineties details.

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Read Belonging By Amanda Thomson

ONE AUGUST, WALKING HIGH ON the Cairngorm Plateau, small groups of swifts came and went up and over us, slicing and screeching the air, moving north to south, arching, spiralling up and over, on their way again.

It is estimated that there might be as many as 90,000 seabirds on Mingulay during the summer, and on the day I was there, there were perhaps thirty people on the whole island – our presence so fleeting. It was clear that everything would go on, whether or not we were there, indeed despite us being there, and as a gust whipped up to unsteady us and we found ourselves suddenly too close to the edge, or on a bank down to another cliff edge that was slippier or steeper than we’d imagined, we knew how vulnerable, how remote, how isolated we were.

A wonderful book. Touches on so many things, some I know a bit about, trout flies, others new to me, the process of etching. Travels, walks, bird ringing & ecological surveys mix with family history. Lists of old Scot’s words for weather, gpx tracks turned into art. Capercaillies, hares and moths.

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Read: The Savage Landscape by Cal Fly ★★★★ 📚

Travelogue & wide ranging exploration of the idea of wilderness. Indigenous people, conservation, history, fiction & religion. The author digs through idea & puts herself in the picture, questioning her own ideas & coming up against lots of contradictions. Lots to think about. Curious & surprising details.

Travelogue & wide ranging exploration of the idea of wilderness. Indigenous people, conservation, history, fiction & religion. The author digs through idea & puts herself in the picture, questioning her own ideas & coming up against lots of contradictions. Lots to think about. Curious & surprising details.

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Read: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich ★★★★ 📚

IN SOME PLACES, lambsquarters is considered the Prince of Greens, one of the most nutritious greens ever analyzed; it was one of the earliest agricultural crops of the Americas. It also resembles amaranth, but the brothers rarely spoke of that. The rough-cut men were preparing to eradicate one of the most nutritious plants on earth in favor of growing he sugar beet, perhaps the least nutritious plant on earth. Evolution thought this was hilarious.

A very mixed up novel, romance, farming, ecology, a series of bank robberies, local gossip & lots more. Often hilarious, enjoyable & thought provoking.

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Read: An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★★★ 📚

But as for the likes of us, Ono, our contribution was always marginal. No one cares now what the likes of you and me once did. They look at us and see only two old men with their sticks.’ He smiled at me, then went on feeding the fish. ‘We’re the only ones who care now. The likes of you and me, Ono, when we look back over our lives and see they were flawed, we’re the only ones who care now.’

Hazy recall, guilt, regret, memory, aging. The book itself floats, a little sadly, with some troubling feelings. Super.

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Read: Clown Town by Mick Heron ★★★★ 📚

Familiar world & characters with some interesting developments. A nice surprise at the end. I am surprised at how the series continues to be enjoyable & pleased the author has not needed to make things increasingly dramatic.

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Read: Same as it ever was by Claire Lombardo ★★★ 📚

but the strangest thing I remember about having young children is how interminably the time moves, just these days upon days upon days, and every single one of them feels a million years long, but then suddenly months have gone by, enough time for a new baby to be born or one of the kids to start kindergarten, or college for God’s sake

Took me a long a time to get into this one. The central character irritated at first. She did grow on me as I got further.

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Read: The Names by Florence Knapp ★★★★ 📚

She wonders again if she is doing this right. Any of it, all of it. If it's even the right thing for Gordon himself to be carrying on this tradition. Maybe consenting to live in the shadow of his father and his father's father is only perpetuating the likeness, increasing the weight of it for him. Perhaps calling their child something different would be a liberation. Not at first, but later.

Names change character & experience. Three versions of the same characters lives. The sliding doors moment comes when the name of a wee boy is chosen.