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Lucy Jones – Foxes Unearthed | Review

Title: Foxes Unearthed

Author: Lucy Jones

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 312

Rating: 5*/5

Lucy Jones – Foxes Unearthed

Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.

First off, let me start by saying that this is a beautiful book. Photos of the cover don’t do it justice, because it feels slightly three-dimensional and is printed on the perfect paper. The interior layout is well-done too, and each of the different chapters are separated by gorgeous illustrations that just make it that little tiny bit nicer.

As for the book itself, it’s a stunning piece of non-fiction that investigates the British public’s perception of foxes, one of the most controversial animals in the country. From fox hunting – and the people who try to sabotage them – to Roald Dahl’s depiction of Fantastic Mr. Fox to the foxes we see in the media, the ruthless scavengers who maul babies and stuff.

Jones covers both sides of the fox debate – although there are really three sides: the hunters, the farmers and the public – and while the book has a tone that shows that the author is on the side of the foxes, I think it does a pretty decent job of remaining relatively impartial. I think it’s a good summarisation of the public debate about foxes as a whole.

Overall, I couldn’t exactly recommend this to a typical reader, but if you like to read non-fiction, love foxes and/or want to reconnect with mother nature, there aren’t many better books on the market. For my part, I loved it – I gave it a 5/5. But I love foxes, and I think they’re beautiful. There’s a fox that occasionally pops out to say hello outside my house, when I’m smoking a cigarette at one in the morning. I don’t feed it – I just look at it and watch it.

A Fox

Click here to buy Foxes Unearthed.

Terry Pratchett – Raising Steam | Review

Title: Raising Steam

Author: Terry Pratchett

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 480

Rating: 4*/5

Terry Pratchett – Raising Steam

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book, but I’ve also been putting it off. It’s one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, and because I’ve already read over sixty of his books, I’m very aware that there aren’t many more for me to work through. And now that he’s dead (I cried when I heard), there won’t be any new ones.

That’s why, when I started reading it, it felt like scratching an itch, or bumping into an old friend in a place where you wouldn’t expect it. Pratchett is on form in this book, and it’s impressive because there are so many of his regulars along for the ride, from Sam Vimes and Vetinari to Moist Von Lipwig and Sir Harry King. Those names won’t mean much to you if you haven’t read a Discworld book before, but it’s still a good read even if you’re new to Pratchett’s work. He does a great job of somehow writing standalones that also work as the latest instalment of an epic series.

In this book, the steam train comes to the Discworld, and Pratchett is able to put his typical spin on things and to look at the development of the railway in a new way. The denizens of the Disc need to find a way to develop the rails, but without the benefit of the technology that we were able to make use of here in Roundworld. Luckily, the Disc is home to such creatures as goblins, golems, trolls and dwarves, and the funny thing about the railway is that – like the clacks before it – is just seems destined to happen. It’s a technological advancement that could change the Disc for the better, for every race that calls it home.

Terry Pratchett

Of course, there are others who don’t want to see it happen, and so the development of the railway is plagued by sabotage attempts from the grags, the deep down dwarves who don’t want the world to change. And then there’s the patrician, Lord Vetinari, who wants the railway to succeed at all costs. Somewhere in the middle, we have former conman Moist Von Lipwig, who’s now in charge of the Ankh-Morpork bank and its postal service and who’s given the task of making sure that the train system succeeds. He doesn’t get much choice about it – he knows what the patrician will do if he fails him. It involves kittens.

Overall then, this is one of the better Discworld novels, and I’m definitely glad that I read it. You’d still want to start earlier on in the series before working your way up to this one, though. This is the Discwoirld’s swan song, and I like how it points to a future where technology and magic live side by side.