~1464349450~6 books June.qxp_Layout 1 27/05/2016 12:49 Page 1
BOOKS
MAN OF MANY WORDS?
Give your dad something to get engrossed in on Father’s Day, with our selection of books to suit all sorts of chaps
SPICE GUYS
Heat: Cooking with Chillies, published by Quercus, hardback £20 Pub quizzers, what do you measure on the Scoville scale? Answer, the heat of chillies. Just one of the interesting bits of trivia surrounding the power of the mighty chilli. A useful volume in the kitchen too, Kay Plungett Hogge’s clear and concise book gathers together recipes from all over the world. There’s the warmth of the desert in Bedouin lamb, the fiery heat of Jamaican chicken (made using one from the top of the Scoville charts, the Scotch bonnet) and the authentic taste of Bangkok street food in spiced fish grilled in banana leaves. There are also recipes for puddings and drinks using chilli.
WE COULD BE HEROES
No Dream is Too High: Life Lessons from a Man Who Walked on the Moon by Buzz Aldrin, published by National Geographic, hardback £14.99 It’s testimony to Aldrin’s status as a global hero that tickets to his Bath talk sold out within days. But, if you didn’t get tickets, this memoir gives a fascinating insight into a man who’s not only successful in what he’s done, but in managing his life too. There were those who perceived him as second best – he was after all, not the first man to land on the moon. But he managed to overcome any sense of disappointment about the last minute switch with Armstrong. He also overcame the inevitable sense of anti-climax on returning to ordinary life after such an extraordinary adventure. For his 80th birthday Aldrin went diving in the seas of the Galapagos and hitched a ride on a whale shark. Like that other favourite, David Attenborough, Aldrin inspires us with his love of life, his undimmed curiosity and his energy.
CULTURE VULTURES
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, updated by Steven Jay Schneider, published by Octopus Books, paperback £20 This is not one of those ‘best of’ books. There are films in here that you’ll remember as being memorable for all the right reasons – and those that you considered a complete waste of your valuable time. Whatever your views, this is a compulsive browser of a mighty tome, with each film given a thoughtful write-up by a team of more than 70 film critics. Each choice will provoke a reaction. Included are gems from An American Werewolf in London to The Wizard of Oz. More recent films that make this final cut are Tarantino’s Django Unchained, along with 12 Years A Slave and The Grand Budapest Hotel.
READING WITH DADDY
Kipper’s Monster by Mick Inkpen, published by Hodder, paperback, £6.99 For 25 years, stories about Kipper have been entertaining pre-school children. In his latest adventure, his friend Tiger has a new torch – it’s very bright – and he wants to try it out in the dark in the great outdoors. The pair go camping, but in the darkness of the tent, everything’s a bit scary. This is a bedtime story that gives Dad the chance to do all the voices and to provide the reassurance. Any monsters out there in the darkness can be explained, as this charming story, with its characteristically engaging illustrations, demonstrates.
ADVENTUROUS TYPES
Wild Camping: Exploring and Sleeping in the Wilds of the UK and Ireland by Stephen Neale, published by Bloomsbury, paperback, £14.99 What a bonding experience for father and adventurous son or daughter to pack a rucksack and venture into what’s left of Britain’s wild spaces. Stephen Neale celebrates the pleasures of sleeping under the stars, to lose our urban fears by unfurling a sleeping bag or pitching a small tent. He examines the legal aspects of wild camping and trespass. Dartmoor, for example, allows people to wild camp, and we’ve the right too to sleep on the foreshore, between low and high tide marks. He also gives a list of places where you might venture off the beaten track.
NOSTALGIC JOURNEY 1966: My World Cup Story by Sir Bobby Charlton, published by Vintage Publishing, hardback, £20
For a generation of men, well let’s be honest, more than one generation now, England’s finest hour came not on the battlefield but on the football pitch. Football fans still bask in the shared glory of the day the England team beat Germany. The potency of that cry: “they think it’s all over, it is now!” can still bring a tear to the eye and every World Cup dream is still fuelled by memories of that triumph. Now, 50 years since that long-ago win, Sir Bobby Charlton looks back on the most glorious moment of his life and England's greatest sporting achievement. In this memoir
26 THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE
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JUNE 2016
he takes us through the build-up to the tournament and to the final itself, describing what he saw, what he heard, and what he felt. He explains what it was like to be part of Sir Alf Ramsey's team, shares his personal memories of his teammates, the matches, the atmosphere; the emotion of being carried on the wave of a nation's euphoria and how it felt to go toe-to-toe with some of the foremost footballers to ever play the game. He reveals – just as astronaut Buzz Aldrin has done – what it means to be forever defined by one moment; how a life fully lived can come back to one single instance. The one day when a man stands side-by-side with his best friends united in a single aim, in front of a watching nation.