What We're Reading

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Neil

The Offing, by Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury 2019)

This lovely, nostalgic, beautifully observed novel tells the story of Robert Appleyard, who one day at the age of 16, just after World War Two, sets out on foot from his home in Durham to seek adventure and experience. He walks for days, sleeping under hedges, picking up casual farm work here and there. He eventually finds himself at the house of Dulcie, at Robin Hood's Bay on Englands north east coast. She is eccentric, worldly, older, and with a mysterious past. She takes Robert under her wing, introducing him to poetry, interesting food, sea swimming; and they become friends.

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Neil

Blue Mountains Far Away: Journeys into the American Wilderness, by Gregory McNamee (The Lyons Press 2000)

Gregory McNamee was born in 1957, and is a writer, editor and photographer, who specialises in ecology and natural history. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, and has spent his life exploring and writing about the desert South West. This book is a collection of essays on that and related topics. From the development and legacy of the atomic bomb , to the history of dispossession of the Indians by the arrival of Europeans, to conflict over water rights, to the lives of local animals, it's a passionate and moving collection.

Neil's picture
Neil

Blue Mountains Far Away: Journeys into the American Wilderness, by Gregory McNamee (The Lyons Press 2000)

Gregory McNamee was born in 1957, and is a writer, editor and photographer, who specialises in ecology and natural history. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, and has spent his life exploring and writing about the desert South West. This book is a collection of essays on that and related topics. From the development and legacy of the atomic bomb , to the history of dispossession of the Indians by the arrival of Europeans, to conflict over water rights, to the lives of local animals, it's a passionate and moving collection.

Neil's picture
Neil

Blue Mountains Far Away: Journeys into the American Wilderness, by Gregory McNamee (The Lyons Press 2000)

Gregory McNamee was born in 1957, and is a writer, editor and photographer, who specialises in ecology and natural history. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, and has spent his life exploring and writing about the desert South West. This book is a collection of essays on that and related topics. From the development and legacy of the atomic bomb , to the history of dispossession of the Indians by the arrival of Europeans, to conflict over water rights, to the lives of local animals, it's a passionate and moving collection.

Neil's picture
Neil

The River in Winter, by Stanley Crawford (University of New Mexico Press 2003)

Stanley Crawford was a travel writer, essayist, and garlic farmer from northern New Mexico. He died earlier this year. He left behind a number of significant books about the natural world in northern New Mexico, and the process and value of small scale farming. This is a selection of short essays around those themes, and they are always well observed, passionate, and delightfully well written, wry and self effacing. A lovely book.

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Neil

Delirious, by Damien Wilkins (THWUP October 2024)

Delirious concerns an aguing couple, Mary and Pete, a former cop and librarian respectively, who, in their late 70s, are selling their suburban house and intending to move to a retirement village. Their son was killed as a child in an accident 40 years before, and new information comes to light about his death. This triggers memories of other family grief, and as this well told and emotionally astute story unfolds, we learn a lot about the challenges of ageing, dealing with loss and grief, and how we deal with each other in relationships.