Reviews and Comments

Audiobook.
Good content, although the gimmick of the "conversations" with the dog feels clunky, clumsy and unnecessary. Audio delivery (by the author) is painful.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe", is how he could have opened the introduction.

2.5 (audiobook)
Meh. Mostly charming, but thin, disjointed and with many implausible scenes. Keeps teetering on the edge of magical realism and then deciding it doesn't want to be.
Might have made it to 3 if I had read it rather than listening to the audiobook - the gushing reader was intrusive.
It did, though, introduce me to the books of Charlotte Delbo, who I had never heard of before.

2.5*
Audiobook (with some extraordinary vowel sounds purporting to be Scottish)

Twee. Implausible plot crammed with coincidences and conveniences, unlikely characters. Occasional unexplained woo-woo stuff that stumbles in and out and made me wonder if this had been badly edited out of something worse.

Entertaining enough, and often a decent sense of place.

Thoroughly enjoyable, and a good insight into the meagre revenue from even a well and creatively run bookshop. A little while in I thought the diary format might become repetitive, but it provided a good rhythmic framework for events to hang from.
I shall be adding Bythell's other books to my list, and shall buy them from him.

3.5* (audiobook)
I'm a long-term Bryson fan, but this fell short of the mark for me. It's a book form publication of a regular newspaper column, and the short pieces on eclectic topics make it rather superficial.

3.5* (audiobook, read by the author)
I very much liked the sections about his life in Devon, walking in Holloway's and on the moor, and the insights into the lives of his friends there. I was much less keen on the family memoir parts, although others might enjoy those more than I did.
The writing is mostly accessible and enjoyable, apart from the frequent anaphoric repetition; used occasionally, this would be humorous, but used every few pages it becomes a bit irritating.

Lovely and interesting introduction to a load of stuff I had no notion of about trees, in particular the ways they communicate within and between species. It's a little too twee and anthropomorphic at times, but is charming as well as scientifically informative.