Micro Review 12 (2025)

 

The Green Kingdom by Cornelia Funke & Tammi Hartung (illustrated by Melissa Castrillon) Dorling Kindersely.

Right now the world feels a very strange (and scary) place and I am having trouble losing myself in novels, which does seem counterintuitive I know! Even old favourites and comfort reads aren't working so I was very pleased to become instantly immersed in The Green Kingdom.

This is a delightful middle grade novel and while it is packed full of action it is also incredibly gentle and positive.

Caspia's plans for a summer spent hanging out in the wilds of her hometown with her two best friends are scuppered when her parents announce that they will be spending the summer in Brooklyn, due to the work and learning opportunities that they have been offered.

And that is the absolute maximum of threat/peril that happens in the book. Caspia's parents are happily married and not working through any issues and Caspia has only the normal worries of an on the cusp of adolescence girl and even her friendship triangle is mostly issue free.

What we get instead is an exploration of friendship, and cross generational friendship, and of the plant world that can be found even in the heart of a huge city. Caspia comes across some old letters from the family who own the apartment the family are renting and from these unfolds a botanical treasure hunt which spans the world.

In the best sense of the word this is an old fashioned story, and one that can be read and enjoyed by so many people. It reminded me a lot of Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea (but with less peril) and also of Elizabeth Enright's series about the Melendy Family. 

In fact it was so gentle that perhaps my biggest criticism is the freedom Caspia has to wander around a New York Borough - even with a mobile phone this lack of supervision did worry me a bit, although removing parents from a narrative to make the story is of course very common!

The botanical details and illustrations are as important as the story in this book and it is absolutely delightful. I was a huge fan of Funke when I was working as a bookseller and I am so pleased to rediscover her with such a gem.

Books of the Year (and related thoughts) for 2024

 

2024 Reading Round Up.

Well another year passes and once more it has been book-filled with a mix of reading for projects and pleasure... while I have read about the same number of books as for the past few years fewer have leapt out at me as potential books of the year.

While I am still enjoying trying all of the Japanese and Korean books in translation that are breaking through to the UK market I might be reaching saturation point when it comes to ones set in cafes or restaurants with cats... I also noticed that lots of books set in the former East Germany (and covering reunification) crossed my reading path in 2024. I would like to read more nature writing/travel books by women so will be actively searching them out in 2025.

Before I share my reads of the year some statistics...

• 65% of books have been by women, or with women listed as the lead author.
• 58% of the books I've read have been fiction 
• 42% non fiction 
• 21% of my reads have been in translation
• 8% of the books were written with a children or YA audience in mind (probably the least I've ever read in this genre)

Narrowing the books down to a top 10 proved impossible and instead I have 24 books for 2024.

Fiction

El Hacho by Luis Carrasco (Epoque Press)

Berlin Duet by S W Perry (Atlantic Books)

The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (Bloomsbury)

The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier (Harper Collins)

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Hodder and Stoughton)

Brandy Sour by Constantia Soteriou, tr. Lina Protopapa (Foundry Press)

The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson (Transworld Press)

One Grand Summer by Ewald Arenz, tr. Rachel Ward (Orenda Books)

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (Harper Collins)

Le Fay by Sophie Keetch (Oneworld Publications)

There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak (Penguin Books)

Letters from the Ginza Shihodo Stationery Shop by Kenji Ueda, tr. Emily Balistrieri (Bonnier Books)

The Lover of No Fixed Abode by Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini, tr. Gregory Dowling (Bitter Lemon Press)

Non Fiction

High Caucasus by Tom Parfitt (Headline Publishing Group)

The Vanished Collection by Pauline Baer de Perignon, tr Natasha Lehrer (Bloomsbury)

Alice's Book by Karina Urbach, tr. Jamie Bulloch (Quercus Publishing)

Broken Threads by Mishal Husain (Harper Collins)

Cull of the Wild by Hugh Warwick (Bloomsbury)

A Ride Across America by Simon Parker (Duckworth Books)

The Place of Tides by James Rebanks (Penguin Books)

What I Ate In Once Year by Stanley Tucci (Penguin Books)

A Cheesemonger's Tour de France by Ned Palmer (Profile Books)

Sapiens: A Graphic History vol. 1 by Yuval Noah Harari & David Vandermeulen, illus. Daniel Casanave (Vintage)

Slow Trains to Venice by Tom Chesshyre (Octopus Publishing Group)

I am slightly surprised that in the end that slightly more than half of my top reads are by men, when compared to the overall ratio but pleased that a quarter of my best books were in translation. I've also tried to read more from independent publishers this year and I think that this is reflected in my top reads too.

I think that my absolute favourite book of the year is Tracy Chevalier's The Glassmaker although if you ask me tomorrow this could change to The Silence in Between or The Place of Tides!

Non Fiction November

 

A monthly challenge that I can get behind!

I keep setting myself laudable reading goals/challenges and then failing miserably to keep to them but Nonfiction November is right up my reading alley!

It is supposed to be a month where you try something nonfiction if it isn't a genre you often read but for me it is an excuse to think about the non fiction books I've read all year, as well as the ones from November.

Keeping detailed reading journals through various apps (I'm paranoid that one might vanish and I'll lose all the data)* I can see that so far this year 42% of the books I've read have been nonfiction and so I really don't need a dedicated month to appreciate the genre so I looked a bit deeper in to the types of book I go for...

The majority are biographies or autobiographies, and within those nature and travel writing make up a large proportion, and following this come the books about books, but like most of my reading its really hard to pin down what is 'my type' of book as I'll try most things, except true crime!

In November standout non fiction so far has been:

What I Ate in One Year (and related thoughts) by Stanley Tucci - this was a wonderfully gossipy diary from Tucci, heavily focussed on food, drink and travel so just my thing. There were a fair number of recipes dotted through it too and I made note of several of them!

A Cheesemonger's Tour de France by Ned Palmer - I've often said that my 'last supper' would be really good quality French bread, butter and cheese and this book really helped me create the cheese board aspect of the meal. I also liked the pairing suggestions of what to drink with the cheese, and which areas of France I should add to my travel list so I can try the food in the setting it was made for. 

Sapiens: A Graphic History Volume 1 which is adapted from Yuval Noah Harari's book and illustrated by Daniel Casanave and David Vandermeulen. I'd tried Sapiens before and got a bit bogged down in it but this way of story telling really broke the big ideas down. I think Mr Norfolkbookworm got bored of just how often I was bringing up things I'd learned from it - however it did give us lots to talk about while we were our walking... I'm looking forward to reading the next two parts immensely.

There's still a third of the month left so I am sure I'll read more non fiction in November but it is good to stop and thinking about what I'm reading - it will help when it comes to writing those best of the year posts in a few weeks!

*this did happen to one app I really liked and while I have a paper reading journal too I've not always marked books by genre and so looking back at them I'm sometimes not sure what books were about!

Micro Review 13 (2024)

 

Turtle Moon by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (HarperCollins)

I think that it was Kentishbookboy who introduced me to Hannah Gold's work (or possibly his mum) but since reading Last Bear I've made a point of looking out for new books from Gold as a matter of urgency.

Turtle Moon is due out in a few days and I was lucky enough to be approved on NetGalley for an advance copy of this - and I think it might be her best yet.

The publisher blurb reads:

Journey to the heart of the adventure!

Silver Trevelon’s parents aren’t happy. They haven’t been happy since the nursery they decorated started gathering cobwebs, waiting for the baby brother or sister that never came. So when Silver’s dad is invited to paint at a turtle rescue centre in Costa Rica, she hopes it’ll be just the  adventure the family needs.

Under the hot tropical sun, Silver settles into life at the animal centre. She even witnesses a rare  sighting of a leatherback turtle nesting on the beach. But when the turtle’s eggs are stolen, events take a dark and dangerous turn. Can Silver and her new friends track them down before it's too late? It’ll mean journeying into the heart of the jungle and uncovering long-buried secrets.

And this both tells you everything, and nothing about the book! While Gold's last books have featured the plight of far more photogenic species (polar bears and whales) the extinction risk faced by turtles is no less acute even if they are harder to see and less easy to anthropomorphize. 

While it is often necessary to remove adults from a children's book to allow the adventure to happen this book also centres the story on the adults which gives it quite a different feel to many books - and one that I liked a lot. The climactic adventure itself was also (just) within the bounds of reality which was also a delight. Levi Pinfold's illustrations capture the spirit of the book, and the locations perfectly and the book wouldn't be the same without them.

I'm not sure if I am so enamoured with this book because I have been lucy enough to see turtles in the wild or because we got to visit a turtle hospital ourselves earlier this year but I really did think the book was fantastic.

I was also impressed with Gold' bravery in her afterword, and while this may go over the heads of many young readers it certainly gives food for thought and support the adults reading the book too - either as parents or just as fans.

 

Micro Review 16

 

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold. Illustrated by Levi Pinfold (Harper Collins)

I think that it was Kentishbookboy who first recommended Hannah Gold's books to me and while I'm not sure if he has grown out of them now I was very excited to see that April was back and off on another adventure with Bear in Svalbard.

This time April manages to convince her dad to be part of the adventure from the beginning as they return to Bear Island to make sure 'her' bear is safe after reports that a polar bear has been shot and injured.

Even with parental approval the book is full of adventure, peril, excitement and a bear cub... While you have to suspend a little belief for the story to work it is a magical read from start to finish and like the best books gets its message across without being at all didactic.

Pinfold's illustrations make this book even more special and I really hope that Gold's books become modern classics - and not because polar bears have become extinct and this is the only way to find out more about them.

Kentish Book Boy returns - part three

 

The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger by J T Williams, illustrator Simone Douglas (Harper Collins)

Synopsis:

Lizzie Sancho and Dido Belle live very different lives. Lizzie works at her family's buzzing Westminster tea shop, while Belle leads a quieter life at the majestic Kenwood House.

Their worlds collide when disaster strikes at the Theatre Royal, Dury Lane and Lizzie's father's life is put under threat. Why is someone after Ignatius Sancho? And who is the shadowy figure on the theatre balcony?

My View on the Book: 

I was really gripped into this book. The prologue encouraged me to read more, and it has a surprising plot twist as well. A very well written book and I want to read the sequel: Portraits and Poison.

Recommendation

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; I give it 6 out of 5 stars!

More people should read this because it is based on the black rights movement ad that is significant in history, all over the world.

When I saw the Bookily book token subscription at the end of last year I thought that it was a fun idea but I never dreamt just how many book recommendations I'd end up with thanks to the books the Kentishbookboy is choosing. 

I'm seeing him this weekend and hope to borrow this one from him too a book rated as 6 stars out of 5 can't be ignored. Interestingly I also have an adult novel on my TBR pile about Ignatius Sancho so perhaps I should read them back to back to compare...

Kentish Book Boy returns - part 2

 

S.T.E.A.L.T.H Access Denied by Jason Rohan (Nosy Crow)

Synopsis:

IT'S JUST ANOTHER ORDINARY DAY, UNTIL IT ISN'T. The kidnap takes place at 7:57. Arun, Donna and Sam are on the run by 11:43. By 17:23 they're operating MANDROID, the most powerful piece of technology the world doesn't know exists and are being shot at by unknown forces. All because one organisation's good idea is another one's weapon. So now someone has to step up.

My View on the Book:

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME! I really enjoyed this book. My favouite part of this was...well actually I don't have a favourite part; it's all really good!

Recommendations:

1,000,000,000,000% recommend this to anyone who likes action

I think that he liked this one, and I'm not so sure I'll get to borrow it!

Kentish Book Boy returns - part 1

 

The Very Merry Murder Club - edited by Serena Patel and Robin Stevens, illustrated by Harry Woodgate (Harper Collins)

One of the things KentishBookBoy and I used to hugely enjoy were our 'book splurges.' We'd go to a book shop with a generous budget and unlimited time to find a pile of new books. We'd often pull dozens off the shelf and read the blurbs or first pages and then buy loads of them.

Time has gone by and finding time when we're both free has become ever harder but I miss the joy of picking books with him - Book Tokens to the rescue as the new Bookily initiative tops up his book token every month so he can go into the bookshop and just chose whatever takes his fancy. To keep expanding his bookshelf the one rule is that the book has to be by a new to him author.

The books he chose in December (the token was a St Nicholas Day present) and January have been hits and he's kindly shared his reviews with me for the blog, and I'm hoping that next time I see him he'll lend the books to me!

Synopsis

"Cat-napping and crazy heists, suspicious Santas and Scrabble games, frost fairs and fancy dress...join the Very Merry Murder Club and put your  detective skills to the test with these fiendishly fun and festive mysteries."

My view on the book:

I really enjoyed reading this book. Personally, my favourite short story was 'Scrabble and Murder' by Nizrana Farook.* It tells the story of a family who stay at a hotel, play Scrabble and someone getting murdered in the middle of the night. I like it because it takes true courage and bravery to be a detective, especially a child with no experience standing up to a murderer.

Recommendation:

100% recommended. A must read and a good birthday/Christmas present for those who like actions, thriller and crime books.

* As many of the family have been trounced by KBB at Scrabble it doesn't surprise me at all that this was his favourite story.

This post and others from KBB are all independent and neither of us are affiliated to Book Tokens (or Bookily) in any way.

Micro Reviews 78 and 79

 

The Lost Whale by Hannah Gold, illustrated by Levi Pinfold (Harper Collins Children’s Books)

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave with Tom de Freston (Orion)

Another two books, ostensibly for children, that I’ve read recently are by authors I read and enjoyed last year. Both are beautiful books with the illustrations perfectly complementing the text and working to move the story along rather than just depicting the written words.

The books very much wear their hearts on their sleeves and social issues/mental health plot lines are prominent in both and for me they just about stayed  ‘good books with a message’ rather than being ‘issue books’ hung around a narrative.

The Lost Whale follows a young boy as he is sent from the UK to his grandmother in California after his mother is hospitalised. While there he becomes fascinated with the grey whale migration and one whale in particular.  As well as Rio’s personal circumstances the book also has a strong ecological message and talks about climate change in a sensitive way.   

Leila and the Blue Fox is ostensibly about Leila, who lives with her aunt and cousin, visiting her scientist mum, Amani, in Norway for the summer. The blue fox of the title is an arctic fox who walks from Norway to Canada in 76 days, and who is being studied by Amani as this migration is unusual.

Just as with the Lost Whale there is much more going on in the book and as well as the ecological themes of global warming and melting ice caps, other issues covered include being a refugee, having a family torn apart, having to leave your own country and the power of social media.

I think that with both of these books you spot more of the underlying themes the more world experience that you have and that the stories are great in themselves, I very much like how important the illustrations are to create physically beautiful books.

Micro Review 65

 

The Magic Faraway Tree by Jacqueline Wilson (Hachette Children's Group)

As readers of my blog will know I am drawn to modern sequels of classic books like a moth to the flame, and like the moth all too often I do end up being burnt.

I still remember when I first read Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree books. My grandad came home from shopping with a green hardback copy of The Folk of the Faraway Tree. I don't recall reading much fantasy before this time and I can't remember how old I was when I was given this book but I know that it had a deep impact on me and even today on sleepless nights I use the idea of every changing lands at the top of a tree as a way to try and drop off.

This up to date sequel captures some of Blyton's out of time feeling to it, not including the bit that is necessary for the plot. They are a modern family but they don't have modern toys for instance, and their parents are fine with them playing alone and outside in an unfamiliar area... I know that as a child I didn't really think too much on the stereotypes, names and actions in the stories but in removing these, or explaining things away, the book felt very anodyne. Even the childrens' names no longer raises a smile!

For me the book just had none of the magic that I remember from childhood, even taking into allowance that I am probably about 40 years older than the target audience there was just no wonder, and also no real peril. All of the characters felt very flat and the adventures just not adventurous... I read an eProof thanks to Net Galley and this didn't include Mark Beech's illustrations so perhaps they do make the book more magical.

I am loathe to go back and read the originals again as I don't want to lose my memories of them but I feel that perhaps this is an author (and a series) that shouldn't be reworked for a modern audience.

Many thanks to the publisher for letting me read this book in advance of publication via Net Galley

Micro Review 41

 

The Writer's Cats by Muriel Barbery. Ilus. Maria Guitart & trans. Alison Anderson (Gallic Books)

Gifted copy

Following on from my recent review of Muriel Barbery's A Single Rose the kind people at Gallic Books sent me a copy of her new volume  The Writer's Cats- a book about writing, books and cats how did they know it would appeal to me?

As a bookseller I had a love/hate relationship with little volumes like this, especially at Christmas time. They had to be ordered so far in advance and you could never quite gauge the quantities needed, plus the run away best seller was always one that you'd not predicted.

As a consumer I've become very much more of a fan of this type of book, they do cheer you up and there's always so much detail making rereads a pleasure. It is also  nice to have a picture book for grown ups that isn't just 'adult' in nature.

I know several people who this book would appeal to (and who read this blog) so I am not going to review the book in case it spoils any Christmas surprises but this was a delight to read and so whimsically funny that it left me smiling for a long time after reaching the end.

Should we ever get another cat (or 2, or 4) then I'll definitely refer back to this book for name suggestions.

Many thanks to Isabelle and the team at Gallic Books for the copy - the book is published this month and will make a lovely gift for cat loving authors/readers.

Micro Review 38

 The Day the World Changed Forever by Baptiste Bouthier (words) Heloise Chochois (art). (Europe Comics)

NetGalley proof

The new(ish) NetGalley Shelf feature has meant that I've tried a lot more graphic novels recently - they didn't render well on my eInk reader but via the Shelf feature on my tablet they've become a delight to discover.

The 11th of September 2001 has become a defining date in many lives, Gen X's JFK moment. I remember very clearly where I was on that date, although I didn't get home from work to see any of the footage on the news until well after the towers had fallen.

This graphic novel conveyed the incomprehensibility of events that day evocatively - told through the eyes of a French teenager you get to relive the feelings of the day and the way we repeatedly watched the TV reports even though we were completely overwhelmed.

The inclusion of some real biographies from the day just added to the feeling of somehow time travelling and being back in 2001 and frantically hoping for good news, and that perhaps somehow it wasn't real. 

As we reach the 20th anniversary of the day that truly did change the world there's been lots of coverage of events, but somehow this has reached and touched me more than all of the documentaries and news articles that I've come across. 

As I was reading it I felt the same anxiety I remember from the time, and including later terror attacks from around the world that all link back to 9/11, really do just emphasise how monumental that one day in September really was. Made all the more poignant by the shocking and shameful events in Afghanistan over the past month.

Being French there is scope for a little more partiality when talking about 9/11 but it also allows a bigger global picture, and shows how actions and events in one country quickly build and ripple right around the world.

Not a comfortable read by any means, but I feel that this is book that should be in every secondary school library.

(Apologies if this is in translation and I've failed to name them, I can't find details of this on the publisher's website.)

New but not improved

 

What to Look for in... Elizabeth Jenner, illus. Natasha Durley. Ladybird Books

Library books

After my utter delight in the 1960s editions of the What to Look for books I was looking forward to comparing them with the 2020 editions and I was delighted when my library reservations came in so quickly.

Sadly that's pretty much my only delight where these books are concerned. Where as I've already used the 60 year old books to identify wildlife I've seen in the past month or so I really can't see myself saying the same for these books.

They are bright and colourful but none of the pictures are in context, they are just illustrations on a page - not part of a scene and this means you' can't actually tell where you'd see the bird/insect/flower and on top of that the scale of the images is often out of kilter. A wren is not the same size as a robin for instance.

Some of the text is really good - I especially liked the part that explains how tides work for instance (and I could have done with this as a child for it was only recently I've been convinced that the tide being out in Kent doesn't mean that it is high tide in France) - the tone really annoyed me, especially the use of quotation marks when describing things:

Once the vegetables in these beds have been picked, the allotment gardeners will break up the soils and remove any weeds, using a metal tool called a "hoe".

 What to look for in Autumn p.12

It is good to see that there are nature books for younger children still be produced but however fond I am of Ladybird books I'd really recommend either I-Spy or Usborne books over these. New definitely isn't improved. 

Double page spread from What to look for in Autumn showing both of my main problems with the books.

 

The nature theme continues

 

"What To Look For in..." text E.L. Grant Watson , Illustrator C. F. Tunnicliffe. Ladybird Nature Books

own books

My interest in nature and nature writing hasn't waned after my Wainwright reading, and nor has my enthusiasm for being outdoors and looking at the world around me. This quartet of books makes the most of these facts.

Unlike spotter's guides or the i-Spy books these books are written as a narrative and are matched with beautiful pictures of the countryside.

I'm not 100% certain which came first, the picture or the text, but it really doesn't matter as both are fabulous and if you can't get out in to the countryside for any reason then these books are a way to take a walk. They are also a form of time travel - they date back to the late 1950s and very early 1960s!

As well as being able to use these as a guide on what to look for while we are out an about in Norfolk (or further afield) I'm also going to find it interesting to see what changes have occurred in the 60 years since they were written. Have the seasons shifted date? What species were common but are now more scarce? The one that instantly leapt out was the lapwing, in these books they feature in every season and in large numbers. Even though we live in an area with lots of nature reserves and birding opportunities we do now only see them in small numbers and people seem very excited to see them.

The biggest changes that I can see from  just looking at the pictures is not to the natural world, but rather to farming, despite there being some machinery in the pictures it is clear that it was a really labour intensive industry just 60 years ago, and that apart from replacing the horse with a tractor not a lot else had changed. Yesterday Mr Norfolkbookworm and I watched one combine harvester and one trailer harvest nearly an entire field during our half hour walk.

These books were republished in 2020 and  I have these new editions on order from the library - I'm intrigued to see the new images and if the text has been rewritten for the 21st Century. 

Right now to look more closely at Autumn so I know what to be looking out for (and also marking all of the things I've already seen whilst still in summer...