Cue trumpet blasts, alert the town crier, Twitter prepare yourself, the January reviews are in!!
If you were kind enough to read my first blog you’ll know that I set myself a challenge, two books a month during 2022. So how did I do in my first month? Well I didn’t read two….nor three….heavens not even four….but (I hope you’re sitting down for this) FIVE books! I am one proud little book worm. What a start to the year hey? But enough patting myself on the back, “Get to the reviews,” I hear you cry. Well without further ado here are my reviews for the books I completed in January.
My reasons for picking this book were perhaps a little sentimental. It tells the true story of Malcolm (Calum in Scots Gaelic) Macleod, a crofter from Raasay, which is a small island off the Isle of Skye in the West Highlands of Scotland, who in an attempt to preserve his way of life single-handedly built a road when the local council refused to.
My own father – Malcolm (Calum in Scots Gaelic) grew up on the Isle of Skye, which added to the appeal of this book, but also it had an air of “stick it to the man” about it which I quite liked. It got off to a good start, the author tells of his first meeting with Calum –
“A wiry man, five feet eight inches tall, walked easily up out of the vegetation, smiled at me shyly and offered his hand…He had a weather-worn telegraph pole balanced on his right shoulder. He had found it washed up on the shore – he pointed several hundred feet below us – and thought it might be useful. I suppose we talked for fifteen or twenty minutes, but he did not rest the pole on the ground, or show any indication of needing or wanting to put it down….I now know that Calum was sixty-seven years old at that time…”
He was clearly a hardy man!
We then learn of the lack of road to connect the south of the Island, where most of its inhabitants lived, to the far north of the island where Calum and a handful of others lived. The Highland Council was petitioned to build a road but, as often happens with these things, red tape got in the way. Gradually all of his neighbours relocated but not Calum; no, he decided to buy a book on road building, take his wheelbarrow, shovel and pick, and spend the last twenty years of his life building a 1 and 3/4 mile road in some of the most challenging terrain and in some of the most difficult of weather conditions. All of this whilst running a farm, supporting his family, and not so much as taking an hour off sick, let alone a day, during the entirety of this project. His only rest was on a Sunday which he spent reading and educating him self further. This was an intelligent man, an award winning Gaelic writer, as well as a tremendously hard worker. The road itself was a marvel of engineering and I had the pleasure this winter just gone of driving along it myself when visiting the island.
The story of Calum’s road is wonderful, it is testament to the truth that hard work along with a little stubbornness can accomplish great things.
This sounds like a five star review you may be thinking, and it would have been but……it was a slog. *sigh* I really wanted to love this book, but a good portion of it was dedicated to the toing’s and froing’s of the various councils, and in my opinion not enough about Calum himself, or indeed the process of the build he took on. I persevered, begrudgingly at times, and for this reason it only gets three stars.
However if you have a longer attention span then me (which isn’t hard) and you want to learn a little more about this part of the world as well as be inspired by the interesting character that is Calum Macleod then I would certainly recommend this book.
⭐⭐⭐
Now this was a GREAT book! It tells the incredible story of a wolf who started out as the runt of the litter and who rose to an alpha male, and the most successful wolf in the history of Yellowstone National Park. It was fascinating to learn of the wolf re-introduction program at Yellowstone in the 1990’s, which proceeded to restore the park’s eco-system. This program was how Wolf 8 (the wolves were numbered rather than named) ended up in Yellowstone.
Bullied by his siblings the young cub showed immeasurable bravery, on one occasion saving his brothers from a grizzly bear. But it wasn’t just his bravery but his compassion. He adopted the cubs of a wolf that had been killed and raised them as his own. It is utterly fascinating to learn about the family dynamics of a wolf pack, how alphas will allow cubs to win in play fights, much like a human father will allow his child to win an arm wrestle, and how play and affection is a big part of wolf family life. In this regard Wolf 8 was an excellent example to one of his adopted cubs, Wolf 21 who became the most powerful wolf in the park.
Yet despite his power he learned much from his adopted father, he was goofy, loving to his family and had a code of conduct he learned from 8 – he never killed another wolf. Even when a rival pack attacked him, he fought off the entire pack without trouble but let them go without delivering a fatal blow which he easily could have.
Another account related, of which I won’t reveal the outcome, tells the dramatic story of when the now grown-up Wolf 21, who joins a rival pack, comes up against Wolf 8’s pack, a clash that would surely lead to bloodshed. Will a now aged and weakened father face off against his powerful adopted son? The result is worth reading alone.
There are so many accounts that I would love to relate in this review, but I won’t, all I can say is – read it for yourself. Rick McIntyre has devoted his life to studying these amazing creatures, no one knows them better than he. He doesn’t just relate facts, he is a story teller, and the story of Wolves 8 and 21 will capture your heart, and quite possibly cause you (like me) to shed a tear. This just made it to the top of my favourite books ever.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I am, and always have been, fascinated by outer space. Right from a young child when I formed a UFO club (cringe) with my schoolmates to when I recently bought a telescope for my wife, I’ve been in awe of the stars and universe. Hence my selection of this book. Neil deGrasse Tyson manages takes a complex subject and condenses it into a 3 hour 42 minute audiobook of which he narrates himself.
Having completed this book I feel none the wiser about astrophysics, however I believe that one or two more listens will give it a chance to sink in and I will have an extremely basic understanding. Tyson has a very listenable voice and includes some humorous stories as he breaks down the basics. My only quibble would be the rather biased view against those who believe in creation (of whom I’m sure a number of Mr Tyson’s peers fall into that category), especially as a number of times the author admits that “we just don’t understand” a number of scientific discoveries. Aside from that, if you want a quick overview of an extremely complicated subject, this book does exactly what it says on the tin.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
How can you find silence in a world full of noise? In this modern world we are bombarded with noise but according to Kagge it is possible to shut it out. And not only is it possible, it is vital. Kagge, a Norwegian explorer should know, he spent 50 days walking solo in Antarctica. I particularly like Kagge’s observations on wonder, he poses that there is less and less wonder in the world; if we do wonder, we quickly pull out our smart phones and find the answer - this is so true. I often find myself automatically unlocking my phone with no real purpose. This is what smart phones and social media have done to us. In the last two decades, studies have found that the goldfish has overtaken humans as having a longer attention span, 8 seconds is all the time something or someone has to grab our attention. Another shocking (quite literally) bit of research was that humans get bored so quickly, and are so afraid of being silent and alone with their own thoughts that many chose to push a button that administered an electric shock, rather than sit in silence for 15 minutes.
I enjoyed this book, although a large part of it got a little too philosophical for my liking hence my not scoring it higher, but I too think it’s important to take a little break away from our devices, find some silence whether that is on a hike in the woods or enjoying a good book and as Kagge puts it - “take pleasure in shutting out the world”.
⭐⭐⭐
Bexy Cameron takes us on a harrowing but entertaining journey to exorcise her ghosts of the past. Brought up in the “Children of God” cult she endured a traumatic childhood. It is hard to comprehend the abuse these children went through, and years after escaping at the age of fifteen, Bexy decides to set of on a road trip with a close friend across America infiltrating various cults trying to get the inside story, talking to others that are experiencing what she experienced.
It always fascinates me how one charismatic leader can influence thousands to carry out their every whim, no matter how bizarre it may be. A perfect example being one of the cult leaders who can supposedly channels alien transmissions, one of which “chose” him to help facilitate the evacuation of the planet when the “change” comes. Funnily enough the same aliens also tell him that attractive women should leave their partners to be with him because they were together in a “past cosmic life” - how convenient. Those recruited must also hand over all their belongings to the leader, who also claims he has been Buddha, Alexander the Great, and various others in his previous lives. You couldn’t make this up.
This book is well written, I particularly like how it alternates between Bexy’s experiences as a child and the current journey she’s on. This helps the reader to understand her motivations for returning to places that dredge up painful memories. It is a way of moving on, closing a painful chapter in her life, a journey that culminates in her confronting her parents, the same parents responsible for her tragic upbringing. Not a read for the faint hearted but fascinating all the same.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
And that brings Januarys reviews to an end. Although I’m off to a flying start I’m not going to overcommit just yet so I’ll still stick to two books in February. My chosen books are:
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“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” - Bill Patterson
I did enjoy NDT’s “Astrophysics” but like you mentioned it was quite hurried and I feel that it does need another listen or two (or five if you’re me). And Erling Kagge is so right in that it’s so easy to forget to just switch off from things that don’t matter and enjoy just watching and thinking - something I definitely need to do more often. Great reviews, I will have to check out The Rise of Wolf 8.