Farm Land: Intelligence by G Lawrence

Farm Land: Intelligence by G Lawrence
Self published in the UK on the 1st October 2019.

Included in my Vegan Bookshop

How I got this book: 

Bought the ebook from Amazon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

It is the future. The world is not as you remember it. 

The world has changed. Seas have risen, land is scarce, and thousands of species are gone, cast into obliteration. 

One young woman, born to darkness and silence, has become the leader of her people. 

Rising up in rebellion against those who would kill her and her people, Holt and her allies have seized the town, but the island is not yet theirs. Taking an army of newly freed people to march upon the Factory, where she was born, Holt endeavours to set her people free from their former masters, and to free herself from the pain of her past. 

Farm Land: Intelligence is Book Two in the Farm Land Trilogy by G. Lawrence.

It's been two and a half years since I read the first of G Lawrence's Farm Land trilogy, Farm Land: Sentience, so I was a little concerned on starting its sequel, Farm Land: Intelligence, that I would not remember enough of what had gone before. I need not have worried. Farm Land: Sentience was such a memorable novel that I was soon thoroughly engrossed in Holt's story again, feeling as if I had never been away. I think it would be advisable to read the series in order as, while Holt's drive for freedom in this book could be read as a standalone adventure, much of what makes these stories so gripping for me is the environment within which they are set. Farm Land: Intelligence does drop hints and reminders, but to fully appreciate the enthralling depth of Lawrence's created world I feel it's necessary to journey with Holt from the very beginning.

Farm Land: Intelligence cracks along at a faster pace so, while I appreciated its greater sense of energy, I did also miss the depth of world building and detail from the first book. Idiosyncratic characters such as Hathor seemed to feature less strongly too although I appreciated Lawrence's depictions of how psychologically damaged the rescued factory prisoners were. I wondered if these images would be as strong to non-vegans. I wasn't as astounded by Holt's inter-species interactions because I already understood them. The reactions of other characters were nicely portrayed though and I especially loved one minor character's awakening to the reality of the 'cows' he blithely ate. Lawrence has a real skill for illustrating the wrongs of our own world through the distorted lens of Farm Land. I hope these these thought-provoking moments are as shocking and eye-opening to all her readers!

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Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou
First published in French as Petit Piment by Edition Seuil in France in 2015. English language translation by Helen Stevenson published by Serpent's Tail on the 23rd March 2017.

How I got this book: 

Bought the ebook from Amazon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

It's 1970, and in the People's Republic of Congo a Marxist-Leninist revolution is ushering in a new age. But at the orphanage on the outskirts of Pointe-Noire where young Moses has grown up, the revolution has only strengthened the reign of Dieudonné Ngoulmoumako, the orphanage's corrupt director. 

So Moses escapes to Pointe-Noire, where he finds a home first with a larcenous band of Congolese Merry Men and then among the Zairian prostitutes of the Trois-Cents quarter. But the authorities won't leave Moses in peace, and intervene to chase both the Merry Men and the Trois-Cents girls out of town. All this injustice pushes poor Moses over the edge. Could he really be the Robin Hood of the Congo? Or is he just losing his marbles?

Vivid, exuberant and heartwarming, Black Moses is a vital new extension of Alain Mabanckou's extraordinary, interlinked body of work dedicated to his native Congo, and confirms his status as one of our great storytellers.

I had Black Moses stored on my Kindle for well over a year after purchasing it and I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to reading this book. I'm now kicking myself for the delay! Moses himself, or Little Pepper as he later comes to be known, is a particularly engaging narrator who tells his story in such a humorous way that I often found myself distanced from the true darkness of this novel.

Little Pepper's childhood is scarred by repeated abandonment and delinquency which results in his suffering from delusions and mental health problems as an adult. The orphanage which houses him for fifteen years isn't a happy home for the children, with Little Pepper being one of the harsh Director's least favourite children. I loved Mabanckou's skill at illustrating the conditions for Little Pepper in that orphanage and, later, on the streets of Pointe-Noire so I could understand what he was running from, yet managing to keep Black Moses as an upbeat novel at the same time. Seeing events through Little Pepper's eyes doesn't shield us from knowing the truth, but his distinctive spin on the situations he faces allowed me to empathise with his outlook, even as it becomes obvious that his grip on reality is sliding. The circular structure of Black Moses made for a happy ending in a way. Although in writing this review I keep being assailed by the dark themes of Black Moses, I also remember as a heartwarming novel which I very much enjoyed.

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Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards

Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards

Published by Thomas & Mercer on the 2nd September 2014.

How I got this book:

Bought the ebook from Amazon 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

A gripping tale of jealousy and obsession, from the #1 bestselling author of The Magpies.

When Andrew Sumner meets beautiful, edgy Charlie, he is certain his run of bad luck has finally come to an end.

But as the two of them embark on an intense affair, Andrew wonders if his grasp on reality is slipping. Items go missing in his apartment. Somebody appears to be following him. And as misfortune and tragedy strike his friends and loved ones, Andrew is forced to confront the frightening truth...

Is Charlie really the girl of his dreams – or the woman of his nightmares?

I first blogged this review on Stephanie Jane in August 2015.

A friend recommended Because She Loves Me last year and I put it on my Amazon wishlist. Fortunately I decided to look through that list a week or so ago, on the very day that the novel was in the 99p Kindle Daily Deals. I keep thinking I should probably sign up for the Kindle Daily Deals email, but I can't read fast enough to get through all the books I already have!

A creepy thriller, Because She Loves Me is fluidly written with only a few inconsequential typos. The story examines themes of jealousy and possessiveness asking where to draw the line between normal behaviours and obsession. It is an easy read which would be ideal for taking on holiday. I wasn't convinced by the central relationship between Andrew and Charlie, and there were too many jumps in the plotline for my liking. Some of the characters are more strongly created than others. Tilly is good, but Andrew seemed overly credulous and naive. Oh, and I really didn't like the ending which suddenly swerved in and lacked depth!

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Man's War Against Nature (Green Ideas) by Rachel Carson

Man's War Against Nature (Green Ideas) by Rachel Carson
Published by Penguin on the 26th August 2021.

Included in my Vegan Bookshop

How I got this book: 

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Waterstones

The Book Depository

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

With the precision of a scientist and the simplicity of a fable, Rachel Carson reveals how man-made pesticides have destroyed wildlife, creating a world of polluted streams and silent songbirds.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Penguin's 'Green Ideas' series is a new publication of twenty short books each written by an eminent environmental thinker and focusing on different aspects of our planet's environmental crisis. I am grateful to Penguin for sending me review copies of five of these works and, on the strength of what I have read so far, I look forward to completing the set myself.

Rachel Carson's famous call to action book, Silent Spring, which was first published in the 1960s, has been on my TBR list for a few years now and I will get around to reading it one day but, in the meantime, the excerpt published as part of Penguin's Green Ideas series under the title Man's War Against Nature has given me lots to mull over. In this little book Carson talks about the disastrous effects of our widespread dousing of chemical insecticides and herbicides across agricultural land and urban centres.

At the time her words were written, DDT was the controversial new marvel - the Monsanto Roundup of its day - and Carson relates incidents of its use destroying natural food chains far beyond what it was originally intended to kill. She also brings other chemicals to our attention, explaining how, although they might be declared harmless by the companies trying to sell such products, their long-term effects are likely to be seriously detrimental to the health of the planet - including human health. Particularly chilling were her comments about the potential for increased cancer cases decades in the future. We now are decades into that future and seeing exactly that result.

Man's War Against Nature was a particularly apt book for me to read immediately after another Green Ideas publication, The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah by Masanobu Fukuoka. Positioned opposite each other, Fukuoka's book discussed utilising nature's own methods for successful agricultural cultivation while Carson demonstrates the damage done by our arrogantly assuming we know better and can destroy nature at will. 

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In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home by Mona Hajjar Halaby

In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home by Mona Hajjar Halaby

Published by Thread Books on the 5th August 2021.

How I got this book:

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

‘Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land in different soils that become their reluctant homes’ my mother once told me. As a small child, I looked up at my mother and clutched her hand. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.

When Mona moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution in a school for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother’s memories.

As she settled into her teaching role, getting to know her students and the challenges they faced living in a militarized, occupied town, Mona also embarked on a personal pilgrimage to find her mother’s home in Jerusalem.

Mona had dreamed of being guided by her mother down the old souqs, and the leafy streets of her neighborhood, listening to the muezzin’s call for prayer and the medley of church bells. But after fifty-nine years of exile, it was Mona’s mother who held her daughter’s hand as they visited Jerusalem together, walking the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City. Their roles were reversed. Mona had become her Mama’s legs and her memory – and the one to tell her story going forward.

In My Mother’s Footsteps is a moving and heart-rending journey of a daughter discovering her roots and recovering her mother’s beloved past. It’s also an intimate and tender account of daily life for Palestinians as never seen before. For fans of The Bookseller of Kabul and The Beekeeper of Aleppo.

In My Mother's Footsteps is a poignant memoir of loss and survival, of a people systematically ousted from their homes and of how those people's children and grandchildren are still traumatised by the way in which they were - and still are - treated in their occupied homeland. This book gave me an authentic first-person insight into the oppression I read about fictionally in Occupied by Joss Sheldon and My Name Is Adam by Elias Khoury. Through her own memories, family anecdotes and letters from her mother, Mona Hajjar Halaby emotionally describes how the 1948 Nakba, the violent Israeli cleansing of Palestinians from their homes, directly resulted in her family's sixty year exile. It was particularly saddening for me to understand how the open, tolerant and multicultural Palestine of the 1940s and earlier has been warped into impoverished, isolated communities that still remain and to understand how much ancient Arabic history and culture was both destroyed and denied by the people who now live on that land and, in many cases, in the very same houses from which Palestinians were ousted.

I felt Halaby related particularly well her internal anguish at being overlooked and unseen within her own homeland. I was frequently surprised at her polite restraint when faced with people who blithely believed official propaganda about how Palestine had been prior to its being split in 1948 (it certainly wasn't a wasteland!), and with the daily grind of obstructive bureaucracy and ridiculous rules for Palestinians today. Her rage is palpable, but this book is a balanced account, not a tirade. I was wearily ashamed to spot too that historic high-handed British interference was the root of the present day impasse. Is there anywhere in the world we didn't march into and wreck?

I appreciated the varied aspects of Halaby's Palestine experience that she chose to share with readers. In My Mother's Footsteps comprises an intensely personal family history, but we are also given an insider's view of the year she spent working within a Palestinian school. Halaby's specialisation in conflict resolution would seem to have been tailor-made for this opportunity, but her realisation of just how negatively affected the children are by the extreme violence they have witnessed made for uncomfortable reading.

I think there is dawning awareness globally of the plight of Palestinian people and a sense that the international community needs to step up. The events of the Nakba should be widely known and understood beyond the Palestinian diaspora and I think In My Mother's Footsteps is a valuable resource for spreading the word. I was both impressed and moved by Halaby's memoir. 

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Ten Thousand Shells and Counting by Nadija Mujagic

Ten Thousand Shells and Counting by Nadija Mujagic

Published by Pioneer Publishing on the 29th August 2020.

How I got this book:

Received a review copy from the publisher 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

Sarajevo 1992: a page-turning witness account of teenage life in a city at war that will immerse you in a world where survival is the only thought.

At the age of fourteen, Nadija watches from her window as tanks roll into the airport across the street. It’s the beginning of the Serbian siege of the Bosnian capital. When a sniper kills their next door neighbor, Nadija and her family are forced to flee. Where can they find safe refuge? How does this young girl cope during the terrifying and seemingly never ending war? The true story of a teenager who learns to survive under the brutal war-sculpted lifestyle and losses under siege.

I recently requested a review copy of Nadija Mujagic's newest memoir, Immigrated, from NetGalley, not realising it was her second book, so was grateful when her publisher got in touch asking if I would like to read Ten Thousand Shells and Counting first. (My Immigrated review will follow next month!) Mujagic writes eloquently and candidly about her life under siege in Sarajevo during the 1990s war, describing in detail how her family lost their home and how they managed to survive those awful years. What really came across to me throughout Ten Thousand Shells and Counting is just how young Mujagic was at the time and, therefore, how different her teenagerhood was from that of kids in other countries or even from young Sarajevans just a few months previously. I was reminded of Yusra Mardini's memoir, Butterfly, recounting her experiences in Syria's war, by how these two young women approached and coped with such extreme circumstances.

The Bosnian War was particularly traumatic for Sarajevans, I think, because of how swiftly neighbours were turned against each other in what had previously been a peacefully mixed city. Mujagic talks about this, particularly her family's struggle to understand how so many people could have blithely believed politicians' propaganda and lies over the evidence of their own experience. She also amusingly recounts her attempts to just be a teenager, staying out late and smoking too much. It was poignant though that whereas many young women might rebel by daringly nicking a cheap eyeliner from Boots (or so I'm told!), Mujagic climbed a gate in order to purloin vegetables to feed her family.

Ten Thousand Shells and Counting is a good read. Engaging and honest in its portrayals of civilians in the midst of a baffling war, I felt it gave me an authentic insight into just what Mujagic and her extended family had to endure, both during the war years themselves and also, after peace was declared, in the times that followed when these people had to come to terms with everything that had been done and the traumatised memories that remained.

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	Sarajevo print by The Night Press Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah (Green Ideas) by Masanobu Fukuoka

The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah (Green Ideas) by Masanobu Fukuoka

Published by Penguin on the 26th August 2021.

Included in my Vegan Bookshop

How I got this book:

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Waterstones

The Book Depository

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

In The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah, the celebrated pioneer of the 'do-nothing' farming method reflects on global ecological trauma and argues that we must radically transform our understanding of both nature and ourselves in order to have any chance of healing.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Penguin's 'Green Ideas' series is a new publication of twenty short books each written by an eminent environmental thinker and focusing on different aspects of our planet's environmental crisis. I am grateful to Penguin for sending me review copies of five of these works and, on the strength of what I have read so far, I look forward to completing the set myself.

I didn't find The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah as easy to get into as the previous two Green Ideas books I read, The Democracy Of Species by Robin Wall Kimmerer and This Can't Be Happening by George Monbiot. Fukuoka seemed to jump between ideas too frequently so this book felt bitty. That said though, it still packs in lots of intriguing food for thought. Through it I have newly discovered Fukuoka's 'do nothing farming' system, elements of which reminded my of the Native American 'Three Sisters' agricultural method. The aim is to work with nature rather than to attempt to impose upon it - an idea which seems blindingly obvious when Fukuoka explains how his farm works, yet is completely at odds with most Western farming practices.

The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah is an excerpt from the longer work, Sowing Seeds In The Desert, which I am now curious to read and am also keen to find a copy of Fukuoka's even earlier work, The One Straw Revolution, which gets a couple of mentions. I think despite its 1970s publication, will be quite the eye-opening read. I love how Penguin's Green Ideas series is bringing to my attention amazing thinkers who might otherwise have passed me by.

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	Japanese Orchard miniature watercolour painting by Obsessivo Art Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Creation (Why Odin Drinks #1) by Bjorn Larssen

Creation (Why Odin Drinks #1) by Bjorn Larssen

Published by josephtailor on the 4th August 2021.

How I got this book:

Bought the ebook via Bjorn Larssen's Ko-Fi Page

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com / Ko-Fi

In the beginning there was confusion.

Ever woken up being a God, but not knowing how to God properly? Your brothers keep creating mosquitoes and celery and other, more threatening weapons. What can your ultimate answer be – the one that will make you THE All-Father and them, at best, the All-Those-Uncles-We-All-Have-But-Don’t-Talk-About?

“FML! The answer’s why I drink!” – Odin

Perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

I'd been reading snippets from Bjorn Larssen's new Norse mythology novella, Creation, on his Ko-Fi page for a few weeks prior to the book's launch there so I already knew I would chuckle at it's humour. Creation is very different in its tone to Larssen's historical fiction novel, Storytellers, but it shares his astute observations and understanding of human nature - or godly nature as it should be in the case of Creation. I loved following Odin's baffling first few days of life, the world springing into being around him as his two brothers vye to create beauty and horror respectively. There's a wonderfully dry sense of humour throughout this novella so I would caution against reading it on public transport - everyone will glare grumpily at you if you can't stop giggling. I just wish Creation had been a longer work. I do hope Odin doesn't take to long on book 2!

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	Odin Pendant by Norseman Arts Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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The Man Who Wasn't There by Henrietta Hamilton

The Man Who Wasn't There by Henrietta Hamilton

Believed written in 1956. Published by Agora Books on the 12th August 2021.

How I got this book:

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Man Who Wasn’t There is the first of the recently discovered Henrietta Hamilton mysteries to be published and is part of the Sally and Johnny Heldar mystery series.

People who get mixed up in murder cases must expect to be bothered.

And so it is for amateur sleuths Sally and Johnny Heldar late one evening. It seems cousin Tim has found himself in a bit of a pickle: his fiancée, Prue, has reneged on their engagement after becoming a suspect in the murder of her unlikeable employer.

Desperate to clear her name and win her back, Tim pleads with the Heldars to help clear Prue’s name. But Sally and Johnny find themselves perplexed by the Willow Walk murder. Filled with blackmail and plagiarism, wartime treachery and lying witnesses, the crime-solving duo have their work cut out for them.

But will they be able to clear Prue’s name… or is she more wrapped up in the case than Tim realised?

The Man Who Wasn't There by Henrietta Hamilton is a newly discovered and previously unpublished Sally and Johnny Heldar mystery believed written in 1956, but not available for crime fiction fans until now. Having enjoyed Hamilton's first novel in the Sally and Johnny Heldar series, I was keen to give this one a try too. Unfortunately the story is primarily told through a series of interviews so I didn't feel that any of the characters had the opportunities to particularly well define themselves. The book felt a bit flat on that account, however I did enjoy the intricacies of Johnny's investigation into the case. Sally is too sidelined by domestic duties to take much part. I was pleasantly surprised by Hamilton's ultimate revelation, having completely failed to draw the correct conclusion myself.

Hamilton does follow Christie's example of hinging her plot on A Foreigner which was especially curious here as half the characters seemed to be French, yet only one of them gained the Foreigner moniker - and the only person to speak with a phonetically written accent was the suitably common charlady. The Man Who Wasn't There is certainly a book of its time, but none the less engaging for that and I look forward to reading more of this series as Agora publish them for us.

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	Vintage Brass Weight by UKAmobile Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Fear of Barbarians by Petar Andonovski

Fear of Barbarians by Petar Andonovski
First published in Macedonian as СТРАВ ОД ВАРВАРИ by Ili-Ili in 2018. English language translation by Christina E Kramer published by Parthian Books on the 6th August 2021.

How I got this book: 

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

Gavdos: a remote island south of Crete, the southernmost point of Europe, surrounded by an endless expanse of sea. To Oksana, who has come from Ukraine with her friends to recover from illness in the aftermath of Chernobyl, it seems like a dream to live in a blue-and-white house with a lemon tree. To Penelope, a Greek woman who was married off to an unsuitable man by nuns from the convent where she spent her teenage years, it is a kind of prison. Their two narratives, interwoven with other stories - of the other women of the sparse community, of their own past lives and loves - are skilfully combined with themes of otherness and the notions of 'foreign' and 'barbaric' in this poetic and timely short novel by acclaimed Macedonian writer Petar Andonovski, winner of the European Union Prize for Literature.

Fear Of Barbarians is a short novella exploring local people's attitudes to a trio of Ukrainian newcomers on the isolated Greek island of Gavdos. The island only supports a tiny inward-looking population so Oksana, Igor and Evgenii cannot go unnoticed and frequently meet with antagonism even though, as we discover through the story, several of those unwelcoming locals aren't actually Gavdos-born themselves and even true natives such as twins Kiki and Aliki are similarly treated with suspicion.

Andonovski tells his tale through two narrators, Oksana and Penelope. Both women were brought to Gavdos by men from whom they now find themselves distanced. They are both lonely and live more in their memories of the past than in their presents, yet are kept apart by fear of the consequences of making a connection with someone who is Other. This theme is described by the title and threads throughout the novella even as the characters' individual stories are kept separate.

I found Fear Of Barbarians a difficult book to read, not so much in its prose, but because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be taking from each storyline. I felt as though I'd missed an explanatory opening chapter or a conclusion that would bring everything together (I hadn't!). Andonovski deftly captures the island's atmosphere and the menace of men who fear the unfamiliar and I loved his evocation of Gavdos' wild spaces, but I'm not sure I understood exactly what he wanted to say.

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	Gavdos Island  watercolour print by Brittlestart Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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The Democracy of Species (Green Ideas) by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Democracy of Species (Green Ideas) by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Published by Penguin on the 26th August 2021.

Included in my Vegan Bookshop

How I got this book: 

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Waterstones

The Book Depository

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

In The Democracy of Species Robin Wall Kimmerer guides us towards a more reciprocal, grateful and joyful relationship with our animate earth, from the wild leeks in the field to the deer in the woods.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Penguin's 'Green Ideas' series is a new publication of twenty short books each written by an eminent environmental thinker and focusing on different aspects of our planet's environmental crisis. I am grateful to Penguin for sending me review copies of five of these works and, on the strength of what I have read so far, I look forward to completing the set myself.

Robin Wall Kimmerer's contribution to Penguin's Green Ideas series is her essay The Democracy of Species which, as I began to read it, I realised was already familiar to me. It is one of the chapters in her incredible book, Braiding Sweetgrass. If you haven't already read that tome then this little excerpt is an excellent introduction to Kimmerer's ideas and ways of viewing human relationships with the natural world. She focuses on how our language determines our attitude to the world around us, particularly contrasting the callousness of English against the inclusivity of her ancestral Native American language, Potawatomi. She also discusses the idea of the Honorable Harvest, a concept alien to Western thinking, in which one only takes as much as is needed rather than taking everything and then being surprised when nothing is left. In a week when the IPCC report declared Code Red for humanity almost entirely because of our voracious overconsumption of Earth's resources, The Democracy Of Species is a vitally important little book that everyone needs to read and act upon.

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	First Harvest altar tile by Eat Free Foodie Crafts Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Slated by Teri Terry

Slated by Teri Terry
Published by Orchard Books in May 2012.

How I got this book: 

Bought from a charity shop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

The first book in the bestselling and multi award-winning SLATED trilogy.

Kyla's memory has been erased,

her personality wiped blank,

her memories lost for ever.

She's been Slated.

The government claims she was a terrorist, and that they are giving her a second chance - as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whisper in Kyla's mind. Someone is lying to her, and nothing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?

I first blogged this review on Stephanie Jane in December 2014.

I spotted Slated on Twitter a year or so ago, but didn't get around to reading it. A fantastic review on Zuzana's blog jogged my memory (!) and on seeing a copy in a Xabia charity shop soon afterwards, I grabbed it.

Slated is mostly a fast-paced YA thriller with sci-fi threads around the edges, a little romance and a lot of teenage paranoia. Kyla is sixteen, has had her memory wiped and reinstated into society in a new family, a new town and a new school. The totalitarian government watches everyone and dissenting voices are quickly silenced. So when Kyla begins to suspect that maybe her memory wipe wasn't totally successful, she is naturally suspicious of pretty much everyone who might be in a position to help.

Much of Slated takes place in Kyla's head so we learn her thoughts as they occur. This could have ruined the impetus by dragging the pace, but I don't think it does. Much of Kyla's experience of not belonging is true to all teenagers, slated or otherwise, so this added to the realism while her dreaming glimpses of true horror added a creeping sense of dread that I found to be very effective. I would have liked more descriptions of the society at large. We are given broad views of this dystopian UK, but little in the way of real detail. Perhaps it is being held back for the inevitable sequels allowing the reader to learn as Kyla does? I loved the frequent use of running as a way to think clearly and raise happiness levels - I do the same myself so this rang very true. Despite being a reasonably thick volume, the language is easy and the font fairly large so I zoomed through Slated in the breathless rush of a single afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the read. 

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	New Girl In Town  acrylic painting by Canvas Or Wood Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by Teri Terry / Young adult fiction / Books from England

Kin by Miljenko Jergovic

Kin by Miljenko Jergovic
First published in Croatian in 2013. English language translation by Russell Valentino published by Archipelago Press on the 17th June 2021.

How I got this book: 

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

Kin is a dazzling family epic from one of Croatia's most prized writers. In this sprawling narrative which spans the entire twentieth century, Miljenko Jergovic peers into the dusty corners of his family's past, illuminating them with a tender, poetic precision. Ordinary, forgotten objects - a grandfather's beekeeping journals, a rusty benzene lighter, an army issued raincoat - become the lenses through which Jergovic investigates the joys and sorrows of a family living through a century of war. The work is ultimately an ode to Yugoslavia - Jergovic sees his country through the devastation of the First World War, the Second, the Cold, then the Bosnian war of the 90s; through its changing street names and borders, shifting seasons, through its social rituals at graveyards, operas, weddings, markets - rendering it all in loving, vivid detail. A portrait of an era.

I should probably start this review by admitting that Kin is a considerably bigger book than my usual reads. It's about four times the length in fact so I was somewhat intimidated before I even started - hence why this review is appearing nearly a month after the book's English language publication rather than coinciding with that date.

I would describe Kin as something between Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories of a City and To The Lake by Kapka Kassabova. Jergovic tells the history of his Stubler family's life in Sarajevo over pretty much the entirety of the twentieth century from their various immigrations as 'kuferas' (suitcase carriers) from Germany, Slovenia, Austria and beyond to the war of 1992 at which point the Stubler's effectively ceased to be a Sarajevo family. Jergovic begins by mentioning what is perhaps the defining event of that century for his family - the death of his uncle, Mladen, in 1943 - before repeatedly circling out and back again to recount stories from the lives of myriad family members, neighbours, and other vaguely linked people. Kin is a bewildering collection of anecdotes that sometimes swept me up into its narratives and, more often, left me confused as to how what I was currently reading about fitted into anything I had read before.

This is certainly a book that requires perseverance! And, actually, it got easier to read as it went along because recurring motifs - events and people - became families, but Jergovic doesn't make it easy for non-family readers to keep up. If I hadn't been keen to plough on in order to claim this book for my WorldReads, I probably would have given up after an hour or so. As it turned out, from the third hour onwards I began to feel more comfortable, although was still frustrated at lengthy diversions into the detailed back stories of minor characters who then never reappear. I would recommend Kin to readers who have an interest in the history of Sarajevo because being able to envisage all the locations and maybe even remembering some of the people from their own experiences would be fascinating. For me though, I would have preferred a more focused, more stringently edited account.

Etsy Find!
<	Vintage Yugoslav  Beekeepers Association Pins by Veljan Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by Miljenko Jergovic / History books / Books from Croatia

Out Of The Silence: After The Crash by Eduardo Strauch

Out Of The Silence: After The Crash by Eduardo Strauch with Mireya Soriano
First published as Desde el silencio in Spanish by Montevideo: Random House Mondadori in Uruguay in 2012. English language translation by Jennie Erikson published by Amazon Crossing in 2019.

How I got this book: 

Bought the ebook from Amazon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository

A personal story of survival, hope, and spiritual awakening in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

It’s the unfathomable modern legend that has become a testament to the resilience of the human spirit: the 1972 Andes plane crash and the Uruguayan rugby teammates who suffered seventy-two days among the dead and dying. It was a harrowing test of endurance on a snowbound cordillera that ended in a miraculous rescue. Now comes the unflinching and emotional true story by one of the men who found his way home.

Four decades after the tragedy, a climber discovered survivor Eduardo Strauch’s wallet near the memorialized crash site and returned it to him. It was a gesture that compelled Strauch to finally “break the silence of the mountains.”

In this revelatory and rewarding memoir, Strauch withholds nothing as he reveals the truth behind the life-changing events that challenged him physically and tested him spiritually, but would never destroy him. In revisiting the horror story we thought we knew, Strauch shares the lessons gleaned from far outside the realm of rational learning: how surviving on the mountain, in the face of its fierce, unforgiving power and desolate beauty, forever altered his perception of love, friendship, death, fear, loss, and hope.

I vaguely remember first reading about the 1972 Andes plane crash and the incredible survival of sixteen passengers in one of those World's Greatest books which were popular during my childhood. The thought of that complete isolation captured my imagination back then and now, some thirty-five years later, Eduardo Strauch's memoir vividly recreates the situation he and his friends endured for over two months high in the Andean mountains. I especially loved Strauch's evocations of the majesty of this bleak environment and the total silence - an almost unimaginable experience for me as I don't think I've ever been anywhere with no sound at all. He also describes the terrifying reality of the crash itself and its immediate aftermath with traumatised survivors able to help their badly injured friends with only cobbled-together and primitive resources. These chapters are harrowing to read.

Strauch also explains the terrible conundrum that faced the dwindling group as their limited food swiftly ran out. With literally nothing else to eat, their only potential sustenance was the bodies of those who had already died. I felt a great respect for Strauch for honestly and openly recounting the discussions the people had. As a vegan, what particularly caught my attention was the question of consent. All those still alive at the time of the conversations willingly agreed that their bodies could be used to feed the others, yet those surviving them still faced immense psychological difficulties in overcoming deeply engrained social taboos.

I wondered if this book had initially been compiled from a series of essays or speeches because there are several instances of information overlapping or being repeated. I also found it difficult to connect with Strauch's explorations of the spiritual growth he had experienced in the years following the crash as he came to terms with what had happened and what he had lost. Out Of The Silence isn't a particularly long memoir and I did feel that the psychological chapters could have been extended. Strauch discusses his now making speeches about the effects of his return from the mountains and I would have been interested to learn more about those life lessons.

Etsy Find!
	Andes Cordillera  watercolour painting by Segolene Carron Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by Eduardo Strauch / Biography and memoir / Books from Uruguay

This Can't Be Happening (Green Ideas) by George Monbiot

This Can't Be Happening (Green Ideas) by George Monbiot
Published by Penguin on the 26th August 2021.

A Book with a Vegan and featured on my vegan book blog HirlGrend

How I got this book: 

Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Waterstones

The Book Depository

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.

In the galvanising speeches and essays brought together in This Can't Be Happening, George Monbiot calls on humanity to stop averting its gaze from the destruction of the living planet, and wake up to the greatest predicament we have ever faced.

Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Penguin's 'Green Ideas' series is a new publication of twenty short books each written by an eminent environmental thinker and focusing on different aspects of our planet's environmental crisis. I am grateful to Penguin for sending me review copies of five of these works and, on the strength of what I have read so far, I look forward to completing the set myself.

I began with George Monbiot's book, This Can't Be Happening, which is a collection of eleven essays, ten of which were originally published between 2017 and 2019 in The Guardian newspaper and one was a TEDsummit talk. Although I am familiar with Monbiot's name and frequently encounter his words on Twitter, I tend to avoid newspapers as a rule so don't think I've previously read a complete article of his before. I need to change that! Through these essays, Monbiot did reinforce plenty of the ideas I had already learned myself, particularly since my own awakening to veganism, however he also challenged other assumptions I had made particularly around issues such as the devastation wrought by vast monoculture farms.

I recognised echoes of Nesrine Malik's influential work in Monbiot's call for new stories to tell about our culture and its path forward. Without drastic change very, very soon we are unlikely to have a recognisable future at all and I struggle to comprehend why so many people seem content to remain oblivious. Monbiot's thoughts around our pre-adapted blind spots and evolved biases helped to explain the paradox for me. I feel I have a lot to learn from his writings so am delighted to have been given this opportunity to sample a concise collection of his essays. I dearly hope that This Can't Be Happening's inclusion in the Green Ideas series leads to a far wider, actively engaged audience.

Etsy Find!
	Set of Retro  Environmentalist Pins by Rad Badges UK Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by George Monbiot / Political books / Books from England

Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller
Published by Bloomsbury on the 19th April 2018.

How I got this book: 

Bought the ebook from Amazon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon UK / Amazon.com

The Book Depository / Waterstones

Woman. Witch. Myth. Mortal. Outcast. Lover. Destroyer. Survivor. CIRCE.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child – not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. Yet a woman who stands alone will never be left in peace for long – and among her island's guests is an unexpected visitor: the mortal Odysseus, for whom Circe will risk everything. 

So Circe sets forth her tale, a vivid, mesmerizing epic of family rivalry, love and loss – the defiant, inextinguishable song of woman burning hot and bright through the darkness of a man's world.

I remember absolutely loving Madeline Miller's previous mythological novel, The Song Of Achilles, when I read it way back in 2012, so I had high hopes for Circe - such high hopes that I decided to wait for some of the launch fanfare to fade so that I wouldn't be unfairly starting this novel with overly high expectations. Unfortunately, in setting it aside, I allowed my Circe ebook to vanish into the depths of my ereader so it's only now, some three years after buying it, that I've actually rediscovered and got around to reading the story. Oops!

I didn't find Circe captured my heart in the same way that The Song Of Achilles did and I don't know how much of that was down to the book itself and how much was my moods at the time of reading each of them. Circe is still a brilliantly told story though and I loved learning about this woman's whole life story. I had only glimpsed her before through reading The Odyssey by Homer and The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. Indeed, I still remembered Circe and her island, Aiaia, dismissed as a whorehouse with Circe as the madam in The Penelopiad so to see how those women's stories linked in Miller's work was fascinating and it felt satisfyingly plausible.

I don't know my Greek mythology very well so I can't comment on how closely Miller's novel retells the original myth of Circe, but I enjoyed the depth of detail she is given in this account. We get a rounded out picture of Circe, the woman, and can understand how her bizarre childhood led to her adult indiosyncracies. I particularly appreciated how Miller kept aspects of ancient deities' lives that don't sit well with modern sensibilities, yet still managed to portray Circe as a woman who makes sense to present-day readers.

Etsy Find!
	Circe Inspired Tote Bag by Hannah Hitchman Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by Madeline Miller / Mythological fiction / Books from America

WorldReads - Five Books From Afghanistan

If this is your first visit to my WorldReads blog series, the idea of the posts is to encourage and promote the reading of global literature. On the 5th of each month I highlight five books I have read by authors from a particular country and you can see links to previous countries' posts at the end of this post. From May 2016 until March 2020, WorldReads was hosted on my Stephanie Jane blog. From April 2020 onwards it is right here on Literary Flits
Click the cover images to visit their Literary Flits book review pages.

This month we are going to Afghanistan!

That's it for August's WorldReads from Afghanistan. I hope I have tempted you to try reading a book from this country and if you want more suggestions, click through to see all my Literary Flits reviews of Afghan-authored books!


If you missed any earlier WorldReads posts, I have already 'visited'

Africa: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Zimbabwe,

Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, United States of America,

Asia: China, Hong Kong, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam,

Australasia: Australia, New Zealand,

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Ukraine, Wales.

In September I will be highlighting five books by Algerian authors. See you on the 5th to find out which ones!