Non-Fiction - Tristan Gooley - How to Read Water (hardback 2016)
Starting from puddles on muddy downland paths to ocean waves. Text supported with some good colour photographs, including some of very familiar stretches of water such as the River Arun. The author lives in West Sussex.
Fiction - Barney Norris - Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain
This is set in Salisbury, with five rivers flowing and converging in the area: the Avon, the Nadder, the Wylye, the Bourne and the Ebble. First and foremost, it is not a geographical or hydrological guide to the area. Neither is it an easy going story about five easy going chalk streams. Instead it a confluence of people: five people living in the area whose lives intertwine. Their lives much more turbulent than the courses of the rivers flowing through the area. It is one of the most emotionally intensive books I've read, full of grief, sadness, loss and regret; something I'd been forewarned about by my Literary Man who'd read the book not long after it was published in hardback last year. Being wary, yet curious because it was set in a city we visit regularly, I gave it a try in January. I was almost reduced to tears at times, especially the school boy having to confront the biggest fear I'd had as a teenager and young adult; the army wife dealing with loneliness and depression; and the farmer who couldn't face going back home after everything one particular day in May had thrown at him. Yet, even with all the swirling currents of emotion, it had me hooked. I tend read at bedtime, and usually it's head drooped over the book in a dose after a couple of pages (me, not the book), but not this one. It is powerfully written, with some good river analogies along the way: I liked the one about the "oxbow lake" family. Norris puts across the sense of place well, too, setting the scene in the first chapter, beginning with the formation of the river valleys and Britain as an island. Then a brief history of Salisbury from Wood Henge, Stone Henge, Old Sarum and the present Cathedral with the tallest spire in England (red light at the top for planes). We pass through Market Way, past the library, when parking in the large car park in the city centre, walking towards the square. I've sketched the view from Old Sarum quite a few times now. Beyond the Avon and Nadder between Stratford-sub-Castle and and Hardham, I don't know the rivers very well. This is partly because of the drought of public rights of way along them (and most chalk streams). Salisbury is also a convergence of a number of busy A'roads meaning awkward, tricky crossings when trying to explore the area on foot. As with the people in the story, there's a look at the OS Explorer map (1:25000) shows convergence, together with intertwining of waters. Rivers split into one or more channels to feed mill streams and water meadows. In between intricate networks of water meadows drainage channels, especially along the Avon downstream of the city. This is something I've been completely unaware of at ground level.
Non-Fiction - Rachel Lichtenstein - Estuary - Out from London to the Sea (hardback 2016)
Other than vague memories of crossing the Queen Elizabeth toll bridge enroute to East Anglia and even vaguer memories of visiting a great aunt living near Southend during the 1980s, I know very little of the tidal Thames downstream of the Thames Barrier. This engaged read went some way to filling these gaps in my knowledge. It is illustrated with photographs, though compared to Gooley's book, the quality and clarity is disappointing. Captions would have been helpful too. Thankfully not so for the maps printed on the endpieces, beyond perhaps the seven-squared reader's spectacle upgrade being overdue for reading the small print labeling of the treacherous channels and sandbanks in the outer estuary. Not knowing the area well, I found these essential for pinpointing the locations of the people and places encountered. The book covers the estuary from the Barrier eastwards, also taking in the north Kent coast, the Medway; Foulness and the Blackwater estuary to the north. It all begins with a trip on a Dutch barge out from London in 2011. It had to be cut short, though not before a very unsettling night moored at Southend Pier. The story Lichtenstein told of that reinforced the thoughts I've had along the Thames from time to time of the river being haunted by its very eventful history, especially in London and along its lower reaches.
Flowing on from this read, a move north to the Blackwater estuary for:
Fiction - Sarah Perry - The Essex Serpent (hardback 2016)
Was the serpent real or imagined? Certainly a sense of something creepy and unsettling seeping out of the estuary: an induced hysteria. With everything going on around the time of reading - giving me the general feeling that it wasn't just the winter weather stuck in a blocked pattern but everything everywhere, this atmosphere felt timely. It is set during the late nineteenth century, referring among other things to Mary Anning at Lyme Regis, the 1884 Colchester Earthquake, contemporary medical knowledge.
They say, don't judge a book by the cover. As with Lichtenstein and Norris, I'd had this recommended to me by my Literary Man. The story did not disappoint, though surely the cover with its strong blues and golds would have drawn people in. In January, Waterstones had it displayed prominently on their shelves. The endpieces inside attractively printed, too. It went to show that reading a well produced book is much richer and engaging experience than the equivalent electronic book via a Kindle or similar. I have a Kindle, though now almost exclusively for the OED and foreign language dictionaries here. The downloads don't come with a striking cover and tend to be rubbish for any illustrations.
Non-Fiction - Rachel Lichtenstein - Estuary - Out from London to the Sea (hardback 2016)
Other than vague memories of crossing the Queen Elizabeth toll bridge enroute to East Anglia and even vaguer memories of visiting a great aunt living near Southend during the 1980s, I know very little of the tidal Thames downstream of the Thames Barrier. This engaged read went some way to filling these gaps in my knowledge. It is illustrated with photographs, though compared to Gooley's book, the quality and clarity is disappointing. Captions would have been helpful too. Thankfully not so for the maps printed on the endpieces, beyond perhaps the seven-squared reader's spectacle upgrade being overdue for reading the small print labeling of the treacherous channels and sandbanks in the outer estuary. Not knowing the area well, I found these essential for pinpointing the locations of the people and places encountered. The book covers the estuary from the Barrier eastwards, also taking in the north Kent coast, the Medway; Foulness and the Blackwater estuary to the north. It all begins with a trip on a Dutch barge out from London in 2011. It had to be cut short, though not before a very unsettling night moored at Southend Pier. The story Lichtenstein told of that reinforced the thoughts I've had along the Thames from time to time of the river being haunted by its very eventful history, especially in London and along its lower reaches.
Flowing on from this read, a move north to the Blackwater estuary for:
Fiction - Sarah Perry - The Essex Serpent (hardback 2016)
Was the serpent real or imagined? Certainly a sense of something creepy and unsettling seeping out of the estuary: an induced hysteria. With everything going on around the time of reading - giving me the general feeling that it wasn't just the winter weather stuck in a blocked pattern but everything everywhere, this atmosphere felt timely. It is set during the late nineteenth century, referring among other things to Mary Anning at Lyme Regis, the 1884 Colchester Earthquake, contemporary medical knowledge.
They say, don't judge a book by the cover. As with Lichtenstein and Norris, I'd had this recommended to me by my Literary Man. The story did not disappoint, though surely the cover with its strong blues and golds would have drawn people in. In January, Waterstones had it displayed prominently on their shelves. The endpieces inside attractively printed, too. It went to show that reading a well produced book is much richer and engaging experience than the equivalent electronic book via a Kindle or similar. I have a Kindle, though now almost exclusively for the OED and foreign language dictionaries here. The downloads don't come with a striking cover and tend to be rubbish for any illustrations.
