Africa From East to West

Africa From East to West is an amazing book in which David Happold, a zoologist, shares with his readers, the story of his travels from the Red Sea all the way across the African continent to the coast of the might Atlantic Ocean.

This is the story of his journey from Massawa which ios on the coast of the Red Sea in Eritrea all the way over to Cape Verde in Senegal in West Africa.

Travel with him through the dry regions of semi-arid terrain which lie to the south of the Sahara desert, plus enjoy detours with David as he ventures to the south and finds himself fascinated by the rain forests and savannas of Western Africa.

You'll appreciate the map of the journey and the photographs that help to illustrate this most fascinating travel book.

The journey was undertaken back in the late 1960s, when Africa was enjoying a period of relative peace.

David travelled by whatever means he found at his disposal, walking, boats, cars, buses and trains.

The book is broken down into separate chapters each one covering a particular and different section of the journey, plus there are additional chapters about a special expedition to a remote volcanic crater in Sudan, plus living and working conditions in Sudan and Nigeria in the 1960s.

It's an ideal book for the armchair traveller or the person who know the area well and wants to go back there in their mind's eye.

It's published by The Book Guild at £10.99.

Gabriel's Journey

Gabriel's Journey tells the story of Gabriel. He awakes in a hospital bed with no memory of how he got there and he cannot understand why he is discharged into the care of a Japanese woman who he doesn't know.

Desperate to learn what happened, to make sense of the situation that he finds himself in, he suspects that the answers he seeks probably lies somewhere in his past, which he feels was probably quite unorthodox, if the dreams that keep happening to him  are truly a reflection of his past life.

His past life was hedonistic and adventure-filled and he sees a past world of different continents, of a lifestyle that brought him in contact with the world of espionage and treachery. 

But will his dreams help to bring him to the truth?

It's a very moving and compelling book as Mary Collis has employed the diaries in which he journalled his extensive travels round the world, of her own brother to form the basis for this book, plus many hours of later talks with her brother, after his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease, several years previously. 

It's a fictionalised account of a story that is, sadly, the truth for many people who have Parkinson's disease and their families and careers.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

Dora Annie

Dora Annie is an interesting look into life in service that many children had to go into even in fairly recent times.

It's a debut book by Patricia Stone and Brian Bone. It's aimed at children but will be enjoyed by everyone with an interest in social history.

It tells the real story of the grandmother of the author, how she began as a young girl and her hard but loving family life, how at the early age of eight she began her working life as a helper and companion to the sickly wife of a farmer.

How she subsequently went into service at the tender age of 14 as a Tweeny Maid, becoming a Nursery Maid and then, ultimately, as a Ladies Maid.

The book also shows her family life, too, so is not all about her working life, fascinating though that was.

It provides real insights into the lives of people like Dora and others like her, who worked in service,  the early starts to the day, making the kitchen ready for the cook and her staff, washing the dishes, family prayers and the reverence she felt for the house in which she worked.

Dora Annie's life was a very interesting one and she ended up travelling to Canada with the family she worked for.

The book is wonderfully illustrated throughout by Lawrence Cornes.

The book is published by Matador at £10.99 and is aimed primarily at children but will be loved by adults, too, especially those with their own family tales of life in service.

This book also needs to be in social history sections of public libraries and in school libraries, too.

The Seven Pillars of Nonsense

The Seven Pillars of Nonsense is a collection of 86 short stories from the outstandingly, err... outstanding, imagination/s of Michael Roselaar.

Some are so short that post-modernists would declare them to be flash fiction. Which is just a way to describe them as being very short stories or in some cases, very, very short stores.

We hear of as dog that doesn't bark, because it does, technically speaking, exist. Though can more than hold its own doggy end up in a conversation. There's moree from Dr Magnus Fell throughout the book, so do please pay attention!

There's Albert the independent scientific adviser, who waxes lyrical (or otherwise) about pogonophra, the restaurant that very commendably specialises in food, there's a murder in Colchester, or is there?

There's quite a lot from Clifford, a man of great erudition and even greater depth of thought, trips to see the window on the world by the wonders of Fenestrology,  the disadvantages of seeking out or worse, finding expert advise and what happens when historians go bad. Well, have you heard of Sidney "the World Wide" Webb? Did you know he never owned a computer? And what about the Fabians?

The interesting thing about this wonderfully bizarre collection of short stories is that they are written at a 45% degree angle to real life. You think you know some of the stories, but you can't actually be certain, it's like you are reading them in a fun house distorting mirror and suddenly realising that you know or think you know the story you are reading.

It's no good. I can't explain any more, but I do know that you'll love these stories as much, if not possibly more, than I have loved them. Especially the play Harry Stophanes and the Birds. And the copious and highly illuminating footnotes. So please buy as many copies as you can for yourself and your family.

 As an aside I think this will make an excellent book to take on holiday with you.

It's published by The Book Guild at a highly reasonably £8.99.

Chrysalis

Chrysalis is a novel from Jeremy Welch.

Sebastian is a man of his times. He is self-absorbed and works a a financier. He his floating through life, not satisfied with his lot, he seems unable to make any positive decisions following a catastrophic error of judgment when he was a young officer serving in the armed forces in the war in Iraq.

Suddenly he finds himself without a job. He turns to Zoe, his former lover, for advice and assistance.

Zoe believes that Sebastian needs to get back in touch with his passion for writing.

As a result of her advice he leaves Britain for Holland where he lives in Amsterdam and makes an effort to finish off the novel that he started, but abandoned, whilst he was a student.

By this method, he thinks, or rather he hopes, he will be able to rekindle his zest for living.

He becomes friendly with someone called Chrysalis,  the unusual and compelling owner of a travelling spiegeltent (a large tent for entertainment purposes) filled with a cast of some very interesting entertainers.

The spiegeltent cast present to him a glimpse pf a life that he desires for himself. But his old problem, the crippling curse of indecision, is the only thing that is holding him back.

However, his normal air of passivity is thrown to one side when he sees that a prostitute is being assaulted and he rushes in to defend her.

This one out of character incident opens up a portal into the seamy underside of Amsterdam and perhaps, in a someone circuitous route, to the pathway to his redemption?

It's a very well written story that makes sense of PTSD, modern life and sex trafficking.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

Ellen Lives On

In Ellen Lives On, new author Lynda Haddock has written a very important booked aimed at the Young Adult (YA) market.

The novel is not only a debut for Lynda, it is also a first in another and more compelling way. It is probably the first novel (well, the first in a long while) that deals with the concept of the suicide of a parent and the devastating impact it can have on the lives of their children in a sincere and sympathetic way.

It's 19071 and Ellen is fifteen and is going through the usual traumas that afflict all children of that age, which we all went through in one way or another, male or female.

But then, Ellen's life takes a terrible and mindblowingly tragic turn. Her mother commits suicide.

This shatters Ellen's entire life and as a consequence of her mother's suicide, Ellen is forced by circumstances to fave up to sexism and bullying from her thoughtless peers.

Ellen realises that she needs to take matters inot her own hands and she takes flight to London. She eventually becomes involved in a women's rights group.

This gives her the opportunity to grow emotionally, to become braver and to stand up not only for herself but for all women.

The book is published by Matador at £7.99.

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