Book Reviews

In recent years, more and more nature writers have begun to engage with the climate crisis. On the one hand, they want to raise awareness of the scale of the problem; on the other, they try to make more tangible those apocalyptic visions of the future. In Sarn Helen, Tom Bullough asks how the crisis is affecting Wales, while walking the old Roman road that linked the country’s south coast with the north. As he writes in his prologue, Wales is not the front line of the emergency, but by focusing on the local, he hopes to give meaning to this vast, diffuse and complex threat. Sarn Helen is several

This year is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit. The spring festival began on 22 January, and in Chinese culture the rabbit represents the moon. Some say it is because the shadows in the moon resemble the animal, but it also reflects its characteristics. The rabbit’s quiet personality hides its confidence and strength: it is moving, steadily moving, towards its goal, whatever the obstacles. Some also say that it lives in fear all the time, finds it difficult to open up to others and often turns to escapism. I never really thought about the meaning of a ‘rabbit’s pure characteristics’ in Chinese daily life until I read these two books

Halfway up the high street in Totnes, a small town on the river Dart in Devon, a modest stone is set into the edge of the road. It claims to mark the point at which Brutus, legendary founder of Britain, first set foot on this island. The grandson of the equally legendary Trojan hero Aeneas, Brutus was said to have been born in Rome; but, exiled from his birthplace, he travelled western Europe before finally settling here. Most of us carry with us a little Neanderthal DNA. We are all mongrels of a sort That the legend of Brutus was a ninth-century fantasy concocted by a Welsh monk named Nennius

If there were ever a Spectator competition for the best pastiche of the opening words of a Salman Rushdie novel, a pretty good entry might be: ‘On the last day of her life, when she was two hundred and forty-seven years old, the blind poet, miracle worker and prophetess Pampa Kampana completed her immense narrative poem about Bisnaga.’ By coincidence, these are also the opening words of Victory City, a book Rushdie finished not long before last summer’s stabbing. And, as it turns out, that first sentence sets the scene for much of what follows – because the novel takes its place alongside the likes of John Updike’s Villages (about

‘This is a book about how you don’t get over it,’ You Are Not Alone begins. If you’re new to bereavement, looking for a way through the death of a loved one, perhaps this doesn’t scream of optimism. But Cariad Lloyd’s warmth, generosity and gentle pragmatism makes her book one of the most reassuring I have read. She is a member of ‘the club’ – the Dead Dad Club. Her father died 24 years ago of pancreatic cancer when she was 15. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast Griefcast, through which she has interviewed many bereaved individuals – comedians, writers, actors, chefs, artists – who have suffered