Category: Book review

I have reviewed 28 books on this blog this year – an average of more than one a fortnight. Some of these are sent to me by publishers or authors, some I simply go out and buy. Which books you like is as personal a choice as what music you like. But for what it’s…

Sometimes I have a book for a while and I keep putting it down and the voice in my head says ‘I’ll settle down and read it a bit later’ and when that happens it’s a pretty good bet that I’m not going to be gripped by the book.  This was one of those books…

I liked this book. It’s about Ash trees and what you can make out of their wood. It’s a simple enough idea but it takes the author, Robert Penn, to many parts of the UK , Europe and America and he meets a variety of interesting craftsmen on his journeys. Baseball bats, cricket stumps and…

This is the book of the radio programme. Have a look at that cover – very clever! And quite pretty, too. I’m almost totally addicted to Radio 4 and so I have heard bits of several of the radio programmes that make up the subject matter of this book. The basic idea is that each…

This is a book written by an eminent economist who is also passionately interested in wildlife. There may be lots of such people but I haven’t met many of them. And Professor Dieter Helm has been since 2012, the chair of the Natural Capital Committee in England. The author states in his preface that ‘The…