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Wild Hares & Hummingbirds by Stephen Moss: book review

Wild Hares and Hummingbirds: The Natural History of an English Village (2012) is about the author’s home town in the ancient West Country of England in the Somerset Levels, the home of King Arthur in medieval times. This is about village life, its nature, and the wildlife that lives in his garden and surrounding environment. The book is divided into the months of the year, beginning with snow in January. He tells of birds, insects, reptiles, and mammals—most in hibernation at this time of year. Weather plays a large part in this book, with the changing seasons and the unseasonal changes. As does the metamorphosis of insects, the reproduction of animals, the growth of the young, and their demise. As the months pass and the year unfolds, readers can visualize the landscape and the integral life of everything that lives within it. Here and there, a poem appears, to enrich the narrative. Colours are described in relation to the sunlight or shadow, in all the...

Miss Willmott’s Ghost plant

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Marin Montagut shop: colour and old world charm

The Question of Red by Laksmi Pamuntjak: book review

The Question of Red (2016) is set on Buru, the third largest island in the Maluka Islands—the Spice Islands—in Indonesia in the 1960s, and in 2006, ending in 2011. During President Suharto’s administration from 1965 to 1998, the island was a large penal colony for alleged Communist Party sympathizers. The story begins with Samuel and Amba in Buru in 2006. Amba Kinanti Eilers is 62 years old. She has come all the way from Jakarta to see the love of her life, Bhisma Rashad, but he is dead. Samuel Lawerissa is a 40 year old friend she meets on the ship on its way to Buru Island, where he spent his childhood in the 1960s. Amba was named after a tragic mythological princess (‘my name ended the battle of all battles’)—a story she has tried to rewrite throughout her life: ‘history is like a long, twisted joke. You never know when the punchline will come.’ Now in Buru, her mind returns to Jakarta in the 1950s when she first met her husband Bhisma, a refin...

The tapir takes a swim: Paris Zoo

The Complete Poems by John Keats: book review

The Complete Poems (1820, this edition 1994) is a full collection of one of the most famed Romantic poets in the world along with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. John Keats (1795-1821) was an English Romantic poet who died in Rome at the age of 25 with tuberculosis. I studied the poetry of Keats in high school and university, but, through this compilation I have re-discovered his works. Steering away from his most noted poems, such as Ode to a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, and To Autumn, I turn to his poems that I had previously overlooked or forgotten. I love his love of nature and beauty. I love Lamia and Bright Star. And many more. I prefer footnotes near the poem rather than at the end of the book. However, there is a timeline at the front of the book, and a slight introduction that is quite useful. Other than that, this is a great collection. MARTINA NICOLLS Website Publications Facebook Paris...