BOOKS
THE SWORDFISH AND THE STAR TURNS THE PENWITH PENINSULA FISHING INDUSTRY INTO A HIGH OCTANE ADVENTURE STORY
SUNNY SUGGESTIONS The focus this week, as we ease our way into the first month of summer, is on lightweight paperbacks for holiday reading By N IC BO T T OM L E Y
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s the summer months appear tantalisingly on the horizon, so the rush of paperback releases begin, ready to entertain us without impacting on our luggage allowance. For the next few columns I’ll make sure I stick to new paperbacks so that by the time we’re properly into that long, warm endless summer (who am I kidding?) you’ll have a list of recommendations the length of a baggage carousel from which to choose your holiday reads. Another thing that just precedes the summer is the cricket season, so where better to start than Emma John’s odd mix of memoir and nostalgia for bad cricket, Following On (Bloomsbury, £9.99). Back in the 1990s, the now award-winning journalist author of this hilarious book was just a regular teenager with an irregular hobby. Like many of her peers she was a sports team super-fan – collecting scorecards, crafting
oversized posters and making scrap books. It’s just that the team at the root of her obsession was awful. Spectacularly awful at times. You see Emma John had made the mistake of becoming an ardent follower of the England cricket team. In the early 1990s, when John’s heroworship kicked-in, England were in the early phases of what would soon accumulate into a particularly appalling spell of form. Twenty plus years later John just couldn’t understand how and why she had shown such dedication to her beloved Michael Atherton and his ever-changing array of team-mates. We follow her as she tracks down her erstwhile heroes to discuss the (few) successes and (many) epic failures of the era with them, and as she hilariously recounts her uniquely geeky, over-optimistic coming-of-age journey. For a more literal journey that also combines recent history and contemporary experience, join Tim Moore in his more than 9,000km cycle ride along the line of
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the former Iron Curtain. The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold (Vintage, £8.99) sees Moore pedal his way from a -22C start in the Finnish Arctic down to a far balmier Bulgarian Black Sea coast, passing through a total of 21 countries in all. Like John’s book the pleasure for the reader is twofold: first you have Moore’s unique brand of humour, born out of self-deprecation and the chaos that tends to reign supreme during his journeys; and secondly there’s the layer of history that underpins his trip – the ghosts of the Soviet era are ever-present in the tanks, brutalist monuments and watchtowers that he passes. Of course the journey itself is an ambitious one by any measure and Moore’s choice of bike makes it even more challenging. Ever a stickler for detail, he decides that the only appropriate vehicle is a MIFA900, the gearless East German ‘Trabant on two wheels’ designed more as a shopper than a long-distance adventure bike. Gamely Moore propels his cumbersome steed along every road surface you can imagine from packed snow, loose gravel tracks, rutted rural roads and even the occasional splash of tarmac, entertaining and informing us all along the way. If your holiday plans are closer to home this year – perhaps taking a cottage in some idyllic fishing village nestled on benign Cornish shores – then take Gavin Knight’s new book to give you an insight into the unfathomably tough lives of the Cornish fisherman. The Swordfish and the Star (Vintage, £8.99) turns the Penwith Peninsula fishing industry into a high octane adventure story, thanks to simmering rivalries between fishing dynasties and perilous rescues on the high seas. The two pubs that make up the title of Knight’s book are located in Newlyn, an economically troubled town that is one of the few in Cornwall not to have been gentrified for tourists and second-home owners. Knight spends much research time in the pubs talking with the locals and listening to them in full storytelling flow as they recount tales of risks taken, quotas dodged and violence inflicted. Be prepared, this immersive book will paint an altogether more tumultuous picture of life on this coast than you’ll get on your August fortnight.
Nic Bottomley is the general manager of Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, 14/15 John Street, Bath; 01225 331155; www.mrbsemporium.com
www.mediaclash.co.uk I BATH LIFE I 57