Books

Contrary to popular belief it is possible to learn stuff from books. Those who say; "You can't learn anything from books." bkSo how did you learn to read exactly? It is possible to learn from books, but only by actually reading them... should be consigned to a special Hell with its Demons, along with anyone who says "They didn't mean any harm..." or "Boys will be boys..." bwbbDidn't much care whether they did any harm though... after some careless and tragic event. Anyone who thinks you can "Make more than 100% effort" can also fry. Personally, I would consign anyone who says they do not need a degree as they've been to the "University of Life". Yeah. I have been there as well, we all have.BScIt turns out that intelligence is not correlated with 'not being a dick'...
So note that I have no issue with anyone based on their academic qualifications, education or ability. None at all. Whatsoever. Or age, race and gender for that matter. Also down there, on a rolling boil, are those who, rather missing the point, really actually believe "The exception proves the rule.".

While I am damning, any circle of hell is too good for anyone who spends ten minutes (or longer) in a coffee shop queue and only when they reach the till, start on the "Oh er...hm. I wonder what I want..." routine. It is indeed fortunate for those with this special sort of narcissistic selfishness, that when I am behind them in the same queue I do not have my cricket bat to hand. I am recently reminded of the need to make provision in the fifth circle for those 'well-meaning' folk who insist on asking "How are you - in Yourself?". If I wanted to discuss that you would not need to ask. Bu88er off.

Of late, I find myself considering that Eternity with all of Hell's demons, might be too good for people who clump around to where you are quietly and unobtrusively fishing, then stand on the skyline behind you in bright clothes asking you in a loud voice if you have caught any. All those who compound this sin, by asking me what bait I am using, discover that I am "Using corn mate and haven't had anything yet." And finally, one more special torment should be reserved for those who start a patronising monologue mlHint: I called it a monologue because no one else is listening. with the phrase "If you think about it...". I have thought about it. You are wrong.

I recently read that one should spend at least five hours a week learning something. Although this smacks of a fad that the enterprising can expand into a 200 page self-help shThe only person these kinds of book generally help, are the authors, as buying the book helps them to be richer. book, it is not a bad rule. So, if you are one of the readers you can, I believe, do very much worse than read some of the below.

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I am content to wait. I am well used to it...(and back to the top of the page)

Watch for magpies on your path. Throw salt over your left shoulder. Walk around ladders.

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"If people don't occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you're doing something wrong." ~~ John Gierach ~~

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Gonks, gobbies, gudgeon (and return to the top of the page)

Gonks, gobbies, gudgeon

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I have given some of the books below a 'star rating' and if so moved, have written stuff. Some books are all about fine prose and atmosphere, some have 'technical' stuff on fishing and tackle. A very very few have both. I will give a good 'technical' book four stars, because one does not necessarily expect to enjoy a good text-book for the language. Equally, I might rate a book highly even if I know it is a bit 'madey uppy'...if you want truth, fishing literature is not the place to start...

"...if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire..."~~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~~

star rating = Outstanding, essential, enjoyable. Read more than once.

star rating = Very good.

star rating = Worth reading. Probably.

star rating = Means I never finished reading it.

star rating = Means the three random pages read in the bookshop failed to part me from the asking price, or I tried to read it and gave up.

There are not many one or two-star ratings as I probably will not mention those books at all. Probably. A penultimate thing; some folk never read a book twice, "What is the point?" they say. I have not got an eidectic memory and arguably semantic memory is a weakness of mine. So, I keep books that I might want to refer to or even read again for the sheer pleasure of it.

Lastly, the menu items below include the 'book list' for those diary pages that have such, and the last entry leads near-seamlessly into a big chronological list of the all the other books mentioned on the site.

2016's Books and then the Rest of the Website's Books

Gobio Gobio (and return to the top of the page)

Gonk

Gobby

Gonk

Gobio Gobio

Gobby

Gobio Gobio

Gudgeon

Gobio Gobio

2010's books

This year, I've decided to make a note of books read and any thought on them, more for my own interest than for any other reason.

"Supersense" by Bruce Hood.: Pfft.
"Hooked (fishing memories)" by George Melly.: Just brilliant. It soars and plunges with the author's emotional highs and lows and the book, along with Mr. Melly's sanquinity, is anchored by the fishing.
"The Solar Fraud" by Howard C. Hayden.: Insightful and sobering. There are many useful points in this book, but one of the most useful is the adjunct to calculate everything in watts. Thus we find that a square meter of PV solar panel has an average output of 20W in the northern hemisphere, which is not very much. Plus one is reminded that wind is ultimately solar power.
"Brendon Chase" by 'B.B.'.: A classic of its type.
"The Wee Free Men" by Sir Terry Pratchett.: Awesome. Feegles are one of the great inventions of literature. As is the word 'scunner'.
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larson.: The book really is better than the film - and the film(s) are good.
"Be Quiet and Go A-Angling" by Michael Traherne ('BB'): This little book describes a wide range of fishing experiences and in places is mystical and singular, but I think perhaps tells you more about 'BB' than some of his books. One to sink into.
"Preludes and Nocturnes" by Neil Gaiman.
"The Liar in Your Life" by Robert Feldman.: Meh. Even with appropriate academic hindsight, this wasn't great.
"Carp Sense" by Jim Gibbinson.: If one could read only six carp-fishing books in one's life, at least three of them ought to be Jim Gibbinson's.
"Quest for Carp" by Jack Hilton.: This one of those books aspiring carp anglers feel they ought to read, but while I enjoyed it I felt it was more autobiographical than instructive. Still.
Quest for the Best by Jack Hilton.: While it wasn't by any means as good a book as "Quest for Carp", it wasn't a 'two-star' read either.
"No Need to Lie" by Richard Walker.
'BB' Remembered by Tom O'Riley.: When I first read this I gave it 'two stars' and was disparaging. I've since re-read it and realise that I was expecting a different book and that as a result didn't judge this on its merits or on what it set out to do. As a portrait or a man who gave little away about his personal life, it's not bad.
"Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks.: Quite fascinating.

I am content to wait. I am well used to it...(and back to the top of the page)

...a very subtil fish

Watch for magpies on your path. Throw salt over your left shoulder. Walk around ladders.

if you will Fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience

I am content to wait. I am well used to it.

2011's Books

"Well and Springs of Dorset" (1926) by Whitaker and Edwards.: I was just interested, all sorts of odd books in the library you know. Amazing how many ponds and springs are no longer visible today.
"Eels; The Final Frontier" by Steve Ricketts.: A worthy book on the oddity that is the Anguilla Anguilla. It's illegal to keep rod caught eels now, not before time. If netting and trapping was illegal we'd be getting somewhere and might save them.
"A Passionate Angler" by Maurice Wiggin.: "Speaking as a very lazy man who is miserable if he is doing nothing, I must say fishing gives me precisely the right amount of occupation."
"Matter" by Iain M. Banks.: As far as I can tell this is a live action game of three dimensional chess. Maybe...
"Float Fishing" by Billy Lane.
"The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England" by Ian Mortimer.
"A Brief History of Robin Hood" by Nigel Crawthorne.
"The Little Book of Dorset" by David Hilliam.: A book that exists not to be read by the buyer, but to be bought as a gift by those who wish to appear thoughtful when buying the present - but for all that a quite interesting read.
"Unseen Academicals" by Sir Terry Pratchett.
"I Shall Wear Midnight" by Sir Terry Pratchett.
"The Painted Stream" by Robin Armstrong.: A surprise this, I flicked a page or two over and enjoyed the paragraphs I read, so handed over the money. On reading fully I found it engaging, evocative and beautifully illustrated. Highly recommended, even if you are not a game-fisherman.
"Fishing for a Year" by Jack Hargreaves.: This little book came well recommended and is a series of neatly drawn vignettes, a good read, but over too quickly and some might say overpriced as a consequence. Enjoyable nonetheless.
"Fishing Difficult Waters: Winning Tactics" by Ken Whitehead.: All of Ken Whitehead's books are worth reading. He solves problems his own way and the book are all the better for this. A really good angler.
"Tales From the Water's Edge" by Tom Quinn.
"Carp Pitch" by Tom O'Reilly.
"The Sherlockian" by Graham Moore.: Not great, not bad. In my defence I was stuck in Istanbul for three hours, but Victorian 5p 'shillings'? Ye Gods, grating doesn't cover that. But a nice exploration of the change in tone of the Sherlock Holmes canon as it progresses, that is, the change from a strict adherence to the rule of law and the involvement of the police, to the gentle shift towards taking the law into Holmes' own hands.
"The People's Poet; William Barnes of Dorset" by Alan Chedzoy.: Someone once described JAA as a 'polymath', as a compliment. Probably. William Barnes was a true polymath and one of the unsung heroes of the last century. I don't pretend to understand the meter of half of his poems, but they still resonate.; The Primrwose in the shade do blow,
The cowslip in the zun,
The thyme upon the down do grow,
The clote where streams do run;
An' where do pretty maidens grow
An' blow, but where the tow'r
Do rise among the bricken tuns,
In Blackmwore by the Stour.
"Fishing for Beginners" by Maurice Wiggin.: I recently found a copy for myself - I'd forgotten the dry, self deprecating wit that makes it so good.

I am content to wait. I am well used to it...(and back to the top of the page)

...a very subtil fish

Watch for magpies on your path. Throw salt over your left shoulder. Walk around ladders.

if you will Fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience

I am content to wait. I am well used to it.

2012's Books

"A Passion for Angling" by Chris Yates, Bob James and Hugh Miles.: The companion book for the DVD series (or TV series as it was then) and although 'it is what is', it's well written and nicely illustrated both with line drawings and photographs. Interesting behind the scenes view as well, a lot of filming goes into those episodes. Well worth a read.
"The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb" by Keith Tutt.: Picked this out of a shelf in Oxfam and it's fascinating - to write anything on 'over unity' machines takes courage and this book is even handed and interesting. And the book had a letter from the author for the original recipient tucked inside. Funny old world. While I know most of this stuff is flim-flam, one can't help but think something is going on in there somewhere.
"Summer on the Nene" by 'BB'.: I've just finished this, it meanders much like the boat trip itself, but it is a delightful read for all that. I never knew bleak made a good meal or that the old name for a cockerel was "John Thomas". Heh.
"The Case for Working With Your Hands" by Matthew Crawford.: This book explains why bureaucrats lack empathy, why pointless paperwork saps your will to live, why office politics are the way of life for the grey people and why so many of us anglers make tackle. Amongst a whole lot of other things besides. Life is too short not to read this book and change things as a result.
"The Carp Strikes Back" by Rod Hutchinson and Friends.: A terrific tale of carp obsession that dives into despair, then climbs to elation and along the way teaches you something about carp and how to catch them. A great book for any carp angler, or for any angler of any sort really.
"Ghost Riders" by Richard Grant.: This is a quite entrancing book,dealing with, as a broad theme, wanderlust, but covering contemporary nomads in the USA and exploring in the process, some fascinating history of the America's from the Spanish to the Plains Indians. Remarkable.
"Collected Folk Tales" by Alan Garner.: If you like this kind of thing, you'll like this and as ever, for me at least, the best ones are those from Albion's shores with their echoes of unchanging human nature and aspirations, overlaid with supernatural forces and giddying plot twists. Intriguing stuff.

I am content to wait. I am well used to it...(and back to the top of the page)

...a very subtil fish

Watch for magpies on your path. Throw salt over your left shoulder. Walk around ladders.

if you will Fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience

I am content to wait. I am well used to it.

2013's Books (so far...)

"Icelandic Folk Tales I, II and III" traditional, by Alan Boucher.: Bonkers, fascinating, instructive, eerie, tales of human frailty, heroism and greed. It's all in there somewhere.
"The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli.: It's devious of course, as advertised, but thoughtfully written and cleverly argued and set out. But was the whole book a trap? You decide...
"Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Gray.
"The Virginian" by Owen Wister.: Written around the turn of the century, it's easy to dismiss this as clichès, but this was the first of its type in many respects, the characters are well drawn and the landscapes beautifully evoked. Give it a go I say, you can also get it as a free audio book. I prefer it to Zane Gray's better known "Riders of the Purple Sage" (although I like that also).
"Confessions of a Shooting Fishing Man" by Laurence Catlow.: This cost £1 in the Oxfam second-hand book-shop in Shaftesbury and was a great bargain for me. Dealing with a year-long diary of rough shooting and flying fishing in Cumbria spliced with the acquisition of the author's own patch and it's Christening(in every sense) is an episodic delight. If it occasionally veers toward the maudlin, well, who doesn't? But how many of us set it down for the world? Such a good read.
"Catch Carp and Tench With John Wilson".: Acquired for a whole £2.80 from a well known internet book-store. It's full of good practical advice on location and method for both species. It makes the valuable and under-appreciated points that location is everything, and that bolt-rigs are not the be-all and end-all.
"By Many Waters" by A.R.B Haldane.: I heartily recommend this. Bygone times and attitudes, but the waters are pleasingly evoked and one is transported to them. It's enough to make you take up fly fishing...

...wild...(and back to the top of the page)

...feral...

...wild...

...feral...

...wild...

...feral...

2014's Books (so far...)

"The Long Earth" by Sir Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter.: Bought as an audio book to drive to and I've enjoyed it immensely, with its infinite scope and smart exploration of the science and the premise of parallel worlds along with the social impliciations of migration to said worlds.; Plenty of TP's trademark humour and good characterisiation to boot. A very good book, I shall be after the sequels.
"The Knight" by Gene Wolfe.: I started with Severian the Torturer and have long stuck with the author and his works. This book a new one for me. GW's a master story teller and stories within stories are a trademark of sorts and this book, the first of two is no exception. Even though I'm more than lost in the intricacies of the plot, based on assorted folk tales, legends of faerie and Celtic myths, through which a brash boy-knight threads with his would-be concubines, a talking dog/demon and a talking cat, it's still a delight.
"The Hydrogen Sonata" - Iain M. Banks: I've not visited The Culture for some years, a pleasure I'd reserve for return flights or an hour on overnight stays. Still with a scope that is mind expanding and for me at least the exchanges between the Ships' minds are still highlights. Brilliant, humorous, dark thoughtful as ever. Much missed.
"A Touch of Frost" / "Frost at Christmas" by R. D. Wingfield.: I'd seen Frost on the telly of course, but the books were a pleasant surprise, in that they're lacking the sentimentality required for mass-market TV and are a lot more fun, without ever losing sight of the police work, with it's highs and lows. Intermingled are some pithy observations, usually just when you find yourself drifting leftish or agreeing with some ill-thought out observation by one of the secondary characters. Heartily recommend.
"Forever Odd" by Dean Koontz.: Unashamed holiday reading, but I read one of the previous Brother Odd books on holiday two years ago and find them fun, if courting everyman America a little hard, seeing the departed is a nice idea, but to have Elvis appearing every third page is bare-faced pandering... Still, I've read two of them now. Until next holiday then...
"Nothing But Blue Skies" by Tom Holt.: I've managed to avoid Mr. Holt's brand of Prachettian humour for some reason, perhaps too busy to read for the early years of parenthood. I enjoyed this, it was funny, had some great ideas, it's a shame that dragons don't control the rain, but I'm afraid I skimmed it a bit towards the end. But I'd read another.
"The Hare" by Jill Mason.: A enchanting book, crammed with useful facts and information on all species of hare. More importantly it's also crammed with the most incredible pictures of hares, which for me at least, are a source of never ending delight.
"Smoke in the Lanes" by Dominic Reeve.: Quite fascinating account of Romani traveller life in the late 1950's when the erosion of common land began in earnest. This isn't romanticised in any way, either the hardships of the life or the folk themselves and is all the better for it.
"Luck" by Ed Smith: A good read and it made some nice points about both luck and more tellingly the predominance of the privately educated in both the current rugby and cricket worlds, never mind our existing government. It's not a surprise to find social mobility is lower now that in the 1960's and the US situation is worse than Europe. Some nice insider titbits from the cricket world as well. I enjoyed it, but put it down thinking I'd expected more.