Recently in books Category

You might not think pigs would be a good subject for a book.

You might not think pigs could be objects of beauty.

You'd be wrong on both counts.

Mike Pannett charted some of his experiences as a country copper in his first book, Now Then Lad...

I'm looking forward to reading his latest humorous offering which has just landed on my desk: You're Coming With Me Lad...

He outlines in it how "life as a rural beat bobby is no picnic" - recounting such incidents as when a crazed swordsman threatens to take his head off and a stag night turned ugly.

Let it never be said policing a rural area is easy!

I used to keep ferrets as a kid - but I think fewer people have them nowadays than years ago.

There must still be quite a lot of interest in them, however, if there's a market for books like this. It's published by Quiller.

I'd rather read it than the camping book.

I presume the author's middle name isn't Luther, incidentally...

If you already know your sheep, and indeed already know more sheep, then here's a chance to get to know your combines. This natty little book, priced £4.99, is about to be published by Old Pond.

Talking of books, I hear this morning that five new editions of Gerald Durrell books have been published.

Field Day regular wil remember the Know Your Sheep book. OK, so it never troubled Harry Potter in the bestseller lists, but it proved popular in sheep circles.

And now I've been sent the follow-up (the sequel!), Know More Sheep. I think my favourite is the Manx Loaghtan (picture below) which looks like an extra from Doctor Who.

 
Former Blue Peter presenter Matt Baker has provided the voice for the story of a sheepdog in a special book made possible by funds raised by Newbury Young Farmers.

It's been produced by Living Paintings, a charity that makes touch and sound packs for blind and partially sighted children.

More book news.

Mick O'Hare, who's been a guest blogger on Field Day, and has edited such popular books as Does Anything Eat Wasps? and Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze? is back on the shelves with his new offering Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? It looks fabulous.

For every great book, though (and I'm sure economists must have a law for this), there's a stinker. And today it's this. The snappy, fast-paced and engagingly titled Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps. It was first issued in 1941 and apparently has been reprinted in response to the credit crunch and consumers drive to reduce food bills. If anyone wants it, let me know. I certainly don't.

Maybe you can't judge a book by its cover, after all.

After the recent mixed post bag, another one arrives today and when I looked at it I thought: This man is mad.

Two more books arrive at the office. One beautiful, and one that's put me off my tea.

The former is Animal Life - The Definitive Visual Guide to Animals and Their Behaviour by Charlotte Uhlenbroek. The latter is Cattle Lameness and Hoofcare - an illustrated guide by Roger Blowey.

The former is a book so big it could put your back out: it would make a fascinating, elegant addition to any coffee table; the latter talks a lot about foot diseases in dairy cows and has gory pictures with captions saying such things as "... a large drainage hole is created from the depth of the abscess" and "proud flesh amputated".

I've had a run of receiving books recently that I didn't want. There was the one about The Archers and the snappily titled Advanced Transport-Phenomena.

Because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to give these books away. Post a comment shedding some light on chicken hypnosis and the sender of the one I like best will get the animal book (unless, of course, you'd prefer the lameness one in which case, just let me know!)

This made me laugh.

It's one of the drawings from The Countryside Cartoon Joke Book by Roger Penwill. Might make a nice birthday present...

I get sent a lot of books that are - eeer, how shall I put this delicately - not exactly my cup of tea. Actually, let's be honest here: that look rubbish.

But one's arrived today that I can't wait to read. It's called Now Then Lad... by Mike Pannett. It's an account of his life as a rural policeman in North Yorkshire - he went to the patch after years of tackling armed robbers and drug gangs in London and the book is billed as a cross between Heartbeat and something by James Herriot. Sounds hilarious.

Guest blogger: Mick O'Hare

I'm slightly ashamed to admit it, but I know nothing about farming. Nothing. Zilch. Not unless you count the last three minutes of Farming Today on Radio 4 before the start of the Today programme at 6am: "I'm Anna Hill, the producer was Chris Impey".

I live in the suburbs of London and I work in the centre of the city. I only visit the countryside on holiday. So to some extent I presume (indeed I worry), that I'm a rather eccentric choice of guest blogger...

I flicked through my latest pop-science book, How to Fossilise Your Hamster, for some inspiration - something that Field Day readers might relate to - but aside from explaining how you would need a big space in order to carry out an experiment measuring the speed of sound using a hammer and a large rock everything seemed very urban. Most of the experiments I described took place in the back garden or, even more likely, in the house... in the garage... even in the smallest room...

And then there it was. A formula devised by an attentive (retentive?) New Scientist reader: how to calculate the amount of faeces produced by a human over the course of a day.* They are a hardy bunch New Scientist readers, almost as down-to-earth as the readers of Farmers Weekly. Which just about brings me to the subject of this blog: Just how does one relieve oneself way out in the countryside, with nary a convenience in sight?

Five things:

1 Countryman Ranulph Fiennes didn't make it up Everest.

2 I've had no reply from Mariella Frostrup (she's probably too busy berating men at Hay).

3 I'm worried I'm becoming a little bloodthirsty as I seem to have written lots recently about different ways to kill animals and eat them. Sorry if it's been a bit too much - I'll make more of an effort to be nice and soft and cuddly in future...

4 Speaking of gore, Nutmeg has just killed her first bird. There was blood and guts and feathers all over the kitchen. I was so proud...

5. The fonts are playing up on this blog.

Just seen John Craven on Countryfile. Don't know what it is about him, but he annoys me. Maybe I haven't ever forgiven him for the time he and his cronies tried to move me on at the Royal Show, because they reckoned I was standing in the way of where they were trying to film.

And then there's Mariella Frostrup. She's annoyed me. She's even made me turn off the Sky coverage of Hay, as she's made me abandon listening to one of my once-favourite Radio shows, Open Book. Why does she insist on turning every interview - whoever the interviewee, whatever the subject - into an anti-man rant? I've even just emailed her to have a moan, but I'm not holding my breath for a reply.

Anyway, I digress. This is supposed to be a blog about country life. I'll be writing about poetry soon at this rate! 

On a more serious note, there's an interesting piece about food prices and conservation in today's Observer.

And how's this for an unfortunate irony. When I opened the Observer's website to find the article, having read it first in the paper, guess who was staring out at me from an advert on the top right hand side of the page. Yes, you guessed: Mariella Frostrup!

There was me, glossing over our lack of fish at the NFU Fly Fishing day (lack of local knowledge, bad weather, unsuitable flies etc) and my friend Phil goes and blows my story out of the water (geddit?) with a write-up about how well some of the others did. Bugger.

I could, I suppose, talk about the monster trout I had on briefly, but I lost it...

Trouble is, 'the one that got away' stories are boring, so I won't.

The only person who can do 'one that got away' interestingly is Raymond Carver (pictured).

If you don't know him, he's an American writer (he died in the 1990s) who just got fishing.

One of my favourite pieces of work of his is a story called Nobody Said Anything, which is about two boys who catch a huge fish by hand. It perfectly captures the sense of excitement boys have about fishing (it also has, like a lot of Carver's work, a dark undertone).

He also wrote a poem (I think it's called The Kitchen but I'll need to check when I go home tonight) about a boy who loses his rod to a huge fish. The sense of disappointment is palpable...

If you've never read Carver, try him: he's a fabulous writer. If you're not interested in writing, apologies for the digression!

Another book arrives that make me smile. Know Your Sheep.

Now I realise this is aimed at youngsters, but something about the title made me laugh out loud.

More pig news this weekend (like my ‘in other cats news’ comment, that’s not something you can imagine John Humphrys saying is it!)

First, there’s a full page advert by the Quality Pork Standard people in the national press encouraging people to sign a petition calling for fair prices.

It shows a suitably rustic-looking farmer with a pig and the headline: Save a rare breed from extinction. No, we don’t mean the pig.

You know I’ve said I get sent a lot of books to review.

Well some are fantastic (like this one), some are pretty good (like these two) and some are positively bizarre – like the one that arrived today, Advanced Transport Phenomena – Fluid Mechanics and Convective Transport Processes.

I can only assume they sent it into the office because farmers use chemicals and it’s about chemical engineering. At least, I think it is, I couldn’t really understand the blurb on the back. Or even the title, for the matter.

Another weekend passes without me having bought a single Christmas present.

Luckily, I’ve been sent two books that will definitely make great presents (is that really mean, giving books away as presents I've been sent to review?)

The Illustrated Wise Words and Country Ways by Ruth Binney is a collection of accumulated sayings, mottos and superstitions – ranging from gardening and kitchen tips to traditional health and beauty hints.