Tag: memoir

#BookReview The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn @MichaelJBooks

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About the Book

Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home.

Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalized in nature. Together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible.

Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult – until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything.

A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow.

The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirit’s instinctive connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all.

Format: Hardcover (288 pages) Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 3rd September 2020 Genre: Memoir, Nonfiction

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My Review

I recently read – and loved – The Salt Path by Raynor Winn so how could I resist reading this, the follow-up to that book, especially as Raynor Winn took part in this year’s online Henley Literary Festival and I was lucky enough to bag myself a ticket.

In The Wild Silence, Raynor Winn recounts how the writing of The Salt Path came about, namely her growing realization that Moth had no memory of certain events during their time on the South West Coast Path. “He had let go of a moment that hung so brightly on my tree of memory that I could find its glow in any dark place. But for him the light had dimmed and gone.” She decides to transfer the pencilled notes from their trusty guidebook into a more readable form. “If the guidebook could put me on the path, could it do so for Moth too?”

The book goes on to describe the journey to publication of the book that eventually became The Salt Path (not the author’s original preferred title) and readers’ reaction to it. An introvert by nature, Raynor talks honestly about how difficult initially she found it to attend public events to promote the book. However, hearing the very personal responses to it – “Stories of lives lived, loves lost and walks that changed beliefs” – made it easier over time.

Ironically, it is publicity for The Salt Path that leads to an offer too tempting for Raynor and Moth to refuse – the chance to restore a neglected cider farm and increase its biodiversity. As Raynor notes, “The South West Coast Path had led us out of anguish and despair to a place of hope and possibility. And now, by walking it again on paper, The Salt Path had led us to the farm.”

What started as observation in The Salt Path, namely the positive impact on Moth’s health of their time on the South West Coast Path, is translated in The Wild Silence into a passionate thesis on the contribution that exposure to the natural world has on our physical and mental health. In particular, human interaction with the chemicals emitted by plants. “We need the plants, the land, the natural world; we actually physically need it.”

And it seems to work, having an effect on not just Moth’s health but the natural world on and around the farm. “As surely as removing heavy human interference from the land was allowing the wildlife to return to the farm, so Moth was surviving by returning to a more natural state of existence.” That wildlife includes mice, ospreys, herons, badgers, roe deer, moles, foxes, goat moths, skylarks, goldfinches and toads – not all of it outside the farmhouse.

In fact, Moth’s health is restored to such an extent that he proposes they undertake another long walk. I won’t say where except that it’s through a cold, harsh environment.

As in The Salt Path there is some wonderful writing such as this description of sunset over the Cornish coast: “Torn ribbons of colour fluttering across the evening sky, a maypole dance of light“. Or this, describing the impact of the cider farm being restored: “A deep glow of noise, moving like a whisper across land freed from pollution, lifting over pollen-filled banks of new-sown flowers.”

If you loved The Salt Path you’ll enjoy finding out what happened next and immersing yourself in more of Raynor Winn’s passionate advocacy of the benefits of nature. I received an advance review copy courtesy of Michael Joseph via NetGalley.

In three words: Honest, inspiring, heartfelt

Try something similar: The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

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About the Author

Since travelling the South West Coastal Path, Raynor Winn has become a regular long-distance walker and writes about nature, homelessness and wild camping. Her first book, The Salt Path, was a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the 2018 Costa Biography Award. In The Wild Silence, Raynor explores readjusting to life after homelessness. She lives in Cornwall with her husband Moth.

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#BookReview The Museum Makers by Rachel Morris @SeptemberBooks

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The Museum Makers Blog TourWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Museum Makers by Rachel Morris. My thanks to Diana Riley for inviting me to take part in the tour and to September Publishing for my review copy.

The Museum Makers - front coverAbout the Book

“Without even thinking I began to slide all these things from the boxes under my bed into groups on the carpet, to take a guess at what belonged to whom, to match up photographs and handwriting to memories and names – in other words, to sort and classify. You can tell that I am a museum person because my first instinct – I can’t help myself – is to believe that in the past lie both the secrets and the answers.”

Museum expert Rachel Morris had been ignoring the boxes of family belongings beneath her bed for decades. When she finally opened them she began a journey into her family’s dramatic story through the literary and bohemian circles of the nineteenth and twentieth century. It was a revelatory experience – one that finds her searching for her absent father in archives of the Tate, to wonder why Gran was predisposed towards tragic endings, and which transports her back to the museums that had enriched her lonely childhood. By teasing out the stories of those early museum makers, and the unsung daughters and wives behind them, and seeing them reflected in her own family, Morris digs deep into the human instinct for collection and curation.

Format: Hardcover (272 pages)         Publisher: September Publishing
Publication date: 27th August 2020 Genre: Memoir

Find The Museum Makers on Goodreads

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My Review

Subtitled ‘A Journey from Dark Boxes of Family Secrets to a Golden Era of Museums’, the book is described as part memoir, part detective story, part untold history of museums.

The author argues persuasively that objects have the power to evoke memories more strongly than words alone. Not just because they can be experienced via other senses, such as touch, but because they provide a more direct link to stories. The author’s passionate belief in the power of stories comes across as she talks about them making objects “glint with light” and helping to “set them moving in our imagination”.

The book traces the transition from 19th century national museums “devised by history’s winners” to the museums of the 20th century aimed at telling the stories of “the underdog, the poor, the dispossessed, history’s losers”. In doing so, Rachel Morris addresses topics of contemporary debate, such as the racism and colonialism associated with the acquisition and display of some objects in museums. (It was for this reason that a recent article in The Guardian newspaper about Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum, caught my eye.)

In uncovering and collating the stories that constitute the author’s family history, it helps that it is peopled with characters such as the Free Lover and the London Aunt. The person who features most prominently, and memorably, in the book is Gran, one time romantic novelist and curator of most of the family’s stories. Those stories involve family scandals, illegitimate children, mistresses and the author’s rascal of a father. The latter gives rise to the detective story alluded to in the blurb.

Being a fellow book lover, one of my favourite chapters was the one in which Rachel Morris discusses imaginary museums in books (and film). To her list of suggested titles, I’d like to add Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson, The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson and The Museum of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan.

The Museum Makers is a fascinating book about the history of museums and museum-making. In picking out some of her personal favourites, Rachel Morris reveals herself to be drawn to the small and/or curious, such as the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. But what makes the book even more interesting – and poignant – is the author’s childhood memories and her desire to tell the stories of the (often long-suffering or overlooked) women of previous generations of her family. In this respect, the family tree is useful for navigating the complexities of the author’s extended family and there are some wonderful photographs to help bring those people to life.

I can’t do better than echo the author’s own description of The Museum Makers as being the ‘catalogue’ for her museum – “a quirky, unconventional, very personal catalogue”. I hope her fears for the future of museums, especially small local museums, due to loss of local authority funding prove unfounded.

Follow this link to listen to a fascinating interview between Rachel and Imogen Greenberg in which Rachel talks about the inspiration for the book, what she learned from writing it and much more. As well as being the Globe Theatre’s podcast presenter and producer, Imogen is also Rachel’s daughter. You can also hear Rachel reading an extract from her book here.

In three words: Fascinating, honest, persuasive

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Rachel Morris author The Museum MakersAbout the Author

A director of the museum-making company Metaphor, Rachel Morris has been part of the creation, design and delivery of some of the most exciting displays, renovations and museums of the last few decades, from the New Cast Courts at the V&A and the Ashmolean, Oxford to the Terracotta Warriors at the British Museum and Grand Egyptian museum in Cairo.  Rachel is also the author of two novels.

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