Tag Archives: nature writing

#BookReview ‘Run to the Western Shore’ by Tim Pears #historical

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Run to the Western Shore by Tim Pears is the mesmeric story of Olwen and Quintus as they run together across Wales, living off the land, heading westwards to the sea. Britain AD72. Given by her father in marriage to the Roman governor Frontinus as part of a peace treaty, Olwen flees in the night. She awakens a slave boy and together they run. Both are nineteen years old. Tim PearsQuintus is a translator, he has lived in many foreign lands but has no real home. He serves his Roman masters as they conquer one country after another. Olwen is part of tribal royalty. She leads Quintus through the countryside and seems at one with nature, wildlife, the land, the soil and its legends. The Welsh woodland, valleys, peaks and streams are beautifully described as they follow a meandering path designed to defeat their Roman pursuers. As they lope across the countryside they share stories of their lives, families and cultures. Quintus is unsure whether Olwen’s story are true, myth or a moment of fanciful imagination.
The writing style is simple and elegant. When a dark purple sky heralds a snow blizzard, ‘It was as if they were bottled inside some receptacle not much larger than themselves and a whimsical god was shaking it. Perhaps two such gods were tossing it to the other.’ Another day they near the River Wye, ‘Below them lay a wide green mead, its grass covered in white lace.’ Made by ‘the little people,’ Olwen says, a funeral shroud or a bridal veil. In fact they are cobwebs, white in the morning dew. The further they travel, Quintus becomes more aware of the ground beneath his feet, the birds that soar above, the joy of feeling free.
Only 152 pages, this is a memorable novella which is effortless to read as the pair day by day approach the western shore and their destiny. It is part history, part road trip, part nature essay, part love story. Beautifully written, it stayed with me for many days afterwards. Enchanting.

Here’s my review of another novel by Tim Pears:-
THE HORSEMAN #1WESTCOUNTRYTRILOGY

If you like this, try:-
‘The Good People’ by Hannah Kent
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett
‘My Name is Yip’ by Paddy Crewe

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview RUN TO THE WESTERN SHORE by Tim Pears https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7AP via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Alys Clare

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Lark & Merlin’ by Tom Pickard #poetry #nature

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Tom Pickard grew up in the working class suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne and left school at fourteen. Three years later he met poet Basil Bunting and Pickard began his life as a poet. His background in the North East is the spine of his work, local words and slang inhabit his work, but two recent volumes have taken him to the isolated countryside of the Borders where England meets Scotland. Most magical of all this work is ‘Lark & Merlin’ is about the dance between a man and a woman; like the hunting/courting flight of two birds – the lark and the merlin – diving and flying, tossed in the wind as memories are tossed in the middle of the night.

Tom Pickard

Tom Pickard [photo: Charles Smith]

‘Lark & Merlin’ is included in Pickard’s Fiends Fell, a combination of journal entries and poems, telling of one year in his life on a bleak fell in Northern England. Pickard is now working on the second edition of Fiends Fell.

This poem is subject to copyright restrictions. Please search for the full poem in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Lark & Merlin’

a wren,

perched on a hawthorn

low enough to skip

the scalping winds,

 

sang a scalpel song

 

sea frets drift

sheer along shorelines

Listen to Tom Pickard read ‘Lark & Merlin’ here.
Tom Pickard BUY THE BOOK

Read the first lines of ‘After a Row’ by Tom Pickard.

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Sounds of the Day’ by Norman MacCaig 
‘A Shropshire Lad: loveliest of trees, the cherry now’ by AE Housman 
‘The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Lark & Merlin’ by Tom Pickard https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4n4 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘All Among the Barley’ by Melissa Harrison #nature

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All Among the Barley by Melissa Harrison is set in a small world, the world of Wych Farm and the village of Elmbourne, in the inter-war years. The story is introduced by Edith June Mather, now an old lady, and transitions into the story of one summer when she was a teenager. Hanging over the first few pages is an unspoken warning that events so long in the past can be forgotten or recalled in error and that Edith may not be a reliable storyteller. Melissa HarrisonBut All Among the Barley  is more than a coming-of-age tale; it is a story of society adapting to change, a story which resonates today. It is 1933 in East Anglia and Edie Mather is thirteen years old, a clever well-read child who longs to fit in. She lives on the family farm where hardship is an everyday fact. Edie, balancing between childhood and womanhood, is unsure of what she should do with her life, unaware she has choices and at times overwhelmed by her seeming lack of power. Superstitions become real to her. This is a book combining the pragmatic facts of daily farm life, the looming presence of anti-semitism and fascism, with teenage volatility, fantasy and a little witchery. Into this tight-knit rural world walks city reporter Connie FitzAllen who is writing about the loss of the old rural ways. Connie becomes a catalyst for change for the whole community, not just Edie, and in ways not at first obvious. Despite initial distrust of strangers, the locals and Edie’s family become used to Connie’s presence and she becomes a stand-in older sister for Edie, dispensing advice and pushing behavioural boundaries.
Writing about nature with as light a hand as the flight of the birds she describes, Harrison combines agricultural change, rural poverty, the rise of anti-semitism, and the changing role of women. The role models available to Edie are her mother, who worked the land in place of men during the Great War but reverted to being a housewife afterwards; her sister Mary, married young and with a baby she is not sure she loves; and Connie, who tells Edie there is life outside Elmbourne. Harvest time approaches and decisions must be made; Edie’s father must sell his crop at the right time to get the best price while Edie, uncertain whose advice to listen to, receives a job offer based in the nearby town. In the heat of summer, reality merges with imagination and Edie loses the ability to judge what is real.
A beautiful and tragic novel flawed only by its slow descriptive pace and a rather sudden ending. I was left with the feeling that perhaps the author tackled too many issues for such a calm, contemplative novel.

If you like this, try:-
‘Ghost Wall’ by Sarah Moss
‘The Call of the Curlew’ by Elizabeth Brooks
‘Elmet’ by Fiona Mozley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ALL AMONG THE BARLEY by Melissa Harrison https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3IW via @SandraDanby