Just Read: Slow Train to Switzerland

Slow Train to Switzerland

By Diccon Bewes

Published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2015

A chance encounter with a book's footnote detailing the published journal of a young British girl who visited Switzerland 150 years ago on a mountain climbing trip led Diccon Bewes to track down a copy of her journal. Fascinated, he then developed a plan to take his mother with him as they attempt to recreate the journey of Miss Jemima Morrell on the first ever Thomas Cook "Tour of Switzerland".

They use public transport, following the route as exactly as possible and attempting to stay in the same hotels, visit the same tourist sites, climb the same mountains and visit the same glacier. It isn't always possible to follow the itinerary slavishly, but they do their best and the differences between the oft-desperately poor and isolated inhabitants of the rural Switzerland of 150 years ago stand in stark contrast to the prosperous, healthy and health-giving tourist destination it is today.

Lots of old photographs of places Miss Jemima visited and excerpts from her journal give a lovely picture of this enterprising and rather brave young lady as she travels with her Junior United Alpine Club across some really quite dangerous terrain even for the modern well-equipped climber, let alone a lady wearing full Victorian dress.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read, which I savoured slowly over a period of weeks and was very sad to reach the end, though there is a most interesting twist there too!

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Just Read: Under The Knife

Under The Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations

By Arnold van de Laar

Published by John Murray, 2018.

Somewhat of a misnomer as I have actually listened to this as an audiobook via Audible :-)

The author has picked 28 operations, some mundane and some utterly amazing to us nowadays, which have changed the history of surgery.

From Abraham performing circumcisions using a stone knife to the most high-tech equipment imaginable in the 21st century, from alcohol as an analgesic to the complexities of modern anaesthesia, this remarkable book covers the ever-evolving understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human body and the evolution of surgery into what we are familiar with today.

 It covers Kings and Queens, Popes, Presidents and astronauts, as well as the brave ordinary folk who experimented on themselves or allowed others to experiment on them. This really was absorbing to listen to and the book would undoubtedly be just as enjoyable to read.

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Just Read: Swiss School

Swiss School

By Mabel Esther Allen

Girls Gone By Publishers, Radstock, 2017


I am slowly collecting as many school stories by Mabel Esther Allan as I can find, and this is a shiny new reprint produced by  Girls Gone By which I received as a birthday present from my family in the US.

I was especially thrilled to find this was not a stand-alone story but introduced an old friend from "Three Go To Switzerland", Hanni Werter, who befriends the newly arrived Felicity and introduces her to a way of life vastly different from that of her previous co-educational and very progressive school in the Welsh mountains.

There are trials and tribulations, misunderstandings and spats between girls, as you would expect in a school story, but Felicity is a nicely-drawn character and is is a pleasure to read how she settles in the new school and manages to cram in adventures too.

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Just Read: To Raise the Fallen

To Raise the Fallen: 

A Selection of the War Letters, Prayers and Spiritual Writings of Fr Willie Doyle S.J.

Complied and Edited by Patrick Kenny.

Published by Veritas Publications, 2017

I enjoy reading about WW1 in general, and was delighted to know this book had been published. There is a wonderful website by the same author about the heroic and saintly Fr Willie Doyle, covering his life and exploits in the First World War, but this book is rather more sober in content and repays slow and careful reading.

How a pious young lad who loved practical jokes but suffered ill-health ended up being accepted at seminary, being ordained and then saving many physical lives as well as countless spiritual ones by his priestly ministrations is inspirational indeed, and to read his own words about his spiritual life and how he tried to emulate Christ so closely is a privilege.

Many thanks to Patrick Kenny for the website and for this lovely little volume!

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JUST READ Adopted By The Amish

Adopted By The Amish:

A Family's Pilgrimage Back In Time

By Bob Brawley

Published by LifeRich Publishing, 2017


When I first started to read this book, I foolishly allowed myself to flip to the end and discovered that the family did not remain Amish. I was a bit disappointed and laid the book aside for a while, thinking it was not what I had hoped to be reading.

Yesterday I picked the book up again and just read it straight through, and what a good read it was!  Bob had a very chequered past despite his Christian upbringing, and a precipitate second marriage started well but he and Shelly soon developed problems. A chance newspaper article mentioning the Amish piqued their interest and they went to Missouri to visit the Amish community. They were made very welcome and after their return, they kept thinking about the family they had met. It was not long before they decided to sell up and move back to Missouri with the aim of becoming Amish, and this book tells of many of their experiences as they started to become familiar with the Ordnung of the strict Old Order Amish community the Bishop allowed them to live in.

Unfortunately, things did not work out as they had hoped and ill-health and  accidents saw them making the hard decision to leave the community and rejoin the English world again. That too was an equally hard transition and led to heartbreak before an eventual happy ending.

It is a really interesting read and gives insights not often found in other books. It still left many of my  questions unanswered, but is an enjoyable read.

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JUST READ - Take Good Care Of The Garden And The Dogs

Take Good Care Of The Garden And The Dogs:

Family, Friendships, And Faith In Small-Town Alaska

By Heather Lende

Published by Algonquin Books, 2010

I have always found Alaska an intriguing place and thoroughly enjoyed this book by Heather Lende, who lives in the very small town of Haines in Alaska. It is a completely different way of life in Haines, where food is either hunted, trapped, fished or home-grown in an extremely short growing season, or shipped in from long distances. Food plays a large part in the book, and she relates how in her home, the rule is "you kill it, you eat it"; she discusses bear hunting, salmon fishing, harvesting wild produce and how Lasagne can even be considered an exotic treat.

Much of the book revolves around a major cycling accident she was involved in and her lengthy recuperation, how it affected her, her family, her faith, her friends and indeed her whole life. The accident brought her up short and made her reconsider anew the brevity of life and how life can be changed in a heartbeat; her occupation as obituary writer for the local newspaper makes her keenly aware of how every death in a small community affects everyone on some level and what each person brings to the life of their community.

A thoughtful read, with many touches of humour, and crammed full of information about native Alaskan customs, traditions and ways of looking at life.

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JUST READ White Silence

White Silence

By Jodi Taylor

Published by Accent Press 2017

Having read and loved all of Jodi Taylor's other books,  I was keen to see what she would produce with the start of this very different supernatural type thriller series starring Elizabeth Cage. This is a huge sea-change from her Frogmorton Farm contemporary fiction and her Chronicles of St Mary's  series about time travel investigating historical events in contemporary time.

As a child, Elizabeth rapidly learns that she can do things other people cannot, and that even when she does what she thinks is right and for the best, other people see her abilities very differently and see her as a threat to their wellbeing. Her ability to "read" people becomes something she suppresses, and she makes a determined effort to lead a dull, blameless ordinary life, never attracting attention to herself. 

It almost works. Almost. A "chance" encounter with a flasher in a park leads her to meet and fall in love with Ted Cage, and after a quick courtship, they marry, leaving her to lead a normal suburban housewife life until Ted takes a new job at the Sorensen Clinic. It isn't long before she is invited to accompany Ted to a function at the Clinic and she meets his boss, the unsettling and rather creepy Dr Sorensen, and one of Ted's colleagues, Michael Jones, who has an intriguing aura and nurses a mystery of his own.

Ted's sudden death and her enforced stay at the Clinic lead her to team up with Michael Jones and together they face a entity involved in the death of one of the other patients, travel back into the past, though we never quite find out how that was accomplished, and then escape the Clinic to hide in a remote castle which turns out to have secrets and dangers of its own and places both of their lives in danger...... and that's just for starters.

This is jam-packed with action, adventure, adrenaline, tears and fears and beautifully written scenes; I was absolutely hooked and read it compulsively as fast as I was able.  The story ends abruptly with Elizabeth fleeing for her life, not knowing who she can trust or which version of recent events is actually real; this quite literally stopped me dead in my tracks, simultaneously outraged at the cliffhanger and desperate to discover what happens next to both Cage and Jones. Subsequent more careful re-reading did reveal additional clues about what may have happened but I would not dare to regard them as cast in tablets of stone as Jodi is perfectly capable of leading us up the garden path and then springing the unexpected on us, as she has done a few times in the Chronicles of St Mary's.

Really looking forward to the next installment :-)

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