Book of the Week 3 – Local is Our Future
Local is Our Future by Helena Norberg-Hodge This book, Local is Our Future is a book about globilisation and about hope. HNH spent time observing the people of Ladakh, known as Little Tibet as they have been affected by the outside world. Their happy and peaceful existence was destroyed by the incroachment of progress. Rather, what we generally think of as progress. From her observations she began to see the world with new eyes. This book is one of the results of that process od re-seeing the world. It is a strangely uplifting and full of hope. Difficult Read This not a book that I bought and chose, it would not have been. The book a present and I was put off it when I glanced through the first chapter. The prose seemed to be dense and difficult. To me many of the doom laden pronouncements seemed to be presented as if they were written in stone, without evidence. It was, I assumed, one of those strident treatises written by true believers of whatever the latest neo-political fad happened to be. I was wrong. I knew that I ought to do my friend the courtesy reading it so that we can discuss it, As a result, I began to read it properly and found that I was so wrong about this book. Yes, I found the language difficult and I would have liked more references. However the book made perfect sense and it is not a difficult read, but it starts as a depressing one. Local is Our Future begins by identifying and illustrating what is wrong with globilisation. There are so many examples. Shipping fish half the way across the world for filliting. The shipping the fish back to be sold. Exporting and importing similar food stuffs. This is rediculous. The decline of our mental and physical health. The loss of true democracy and the increase in polution. The list of problems goes on, and on. It is a bleak and depressing picture that most of us know and understand, but really do not want to dwell on. This book paints this picture in detail and makes us take it all in. Uplifting Having spent the first 40 odd pages setting out the problem HNH spends the next 80 pages setting out her vision of how we change our future. How we should source food locally, grow our own if possible. There is advice on how to deploy counter arguments against the doom sayers. There are chapters that make you see that we can turn this whole thing arround. The problem is that sometimes it seemed so difficult that I caught myself thinking that this was all pie in the sky stuff. The problem was just too big, where to begin? HNH has the answer, she sets out what is already happening. Forget large organisations what we should be looking at are the small green shoots of change. Globilisation will be defeated by individuals taking small steps. Local is Our Future, Conclusion Local is Our Future is a book of hope. It is difficult and even turgid (to my mind) at the start. Would I ever have bought it for myself? No. Is Local is Our Future, an important book? Oh yes. Have I changed my life because of it? Not yet. Has it started an internal dialogue that might well result in a change in my behaviour? Yes. Would I recommend it as a book that is important and that should command a bigger audience? In other words, should you read it? A resounding YES. You can find it at Amazon, here. Books of the Week, Previous Reviews Week 1, The Death of Grass Week 2, At Risk by Stella Rimington
Book of the Week 2 – At Risk , by Stella Rimington.
At Risk by Stella Rimington At Risk Stella Rimington was the first woman to be Director General of MI5, Britain’s counter-intelligence service, so far she is the only woman ever to have served in the post. It was ineveitable, I suppose, that she should take to writing espionage and terrorism books to earn a crust. To my mind this genre can be divided into 2 groups. There are books by John Le Carre and then there is the rest. This book begins to change that grouping. At Risk is the first in a series of books that have a main character called Liz Carlyle. Carlyle is probably a cypher for Rimington but then all characters in books relate to the author, or so they say. In any event Carlyle runs agents in the UK and becomes involved in the hunt for a terrorist that has come into the country. What makes the hunt more difficult is the fact that the terrorist does not fit the easy shorthand of being a foreigner or different. The terrorist appears to be an average, white British female. For me the book was stilted when it started, looking back I think that was a product of what I expected. However the detail and pace of the book won me over. Not being a fan of coincidence or blind luck in books and their appearance in this book did strike a bad chord. However, not enough of one to stop me enjoying this book. Le Carre is head and shoulders above the pack but I will read more in this series by Stella Rimington. I have no hesitation in recommending this book. It is a book that contains a lot of detail which shows that Rimington knows her stuff. At no time does she include so much detail that the reader feels that she is trying to prove herself. She does not need to do that. I am looking forward to the next book in the series. Perhaps that will be a book of the week as well, I hope so. You can order this book from the fine people at Amazon here; At Risk You can read the first of my Book of the Week blogs here
Book of the Week, 1 – The Death of Grass
The Death of Grass by John Christopher Each week I want to highlight what I am reading at the moment. To start with is a great book. The Death of Grass. The Death of Grass An easy choice this week. I first read this years ago, it must have been in the 60s. It was ahead of its time. An infection starting in China watched with amused detachment in the West that becomes a world wide issue. Society disintegrating told by focusing on one family and their struggle for survival. In this case the infection is a rust virus that affects rice but then jumps species and come to infect and kill all grasses. Think about it, no grains, no fodder for animals, there would be mass starvation and society would fail. What I find chilling is that there are infections that are spreading through our cropsright now, Coronavirus just happens to be another virus but one that affects humans directly. Written in the mid fifties the tone of this book can appear stilted to our eyes. I know some people can find this a problem. I do not find it a problem at all, in some ways it makes the book more affecting. It reads a bit like John Wyndham (a good thing to me). It has that old British tone that is of sensible Sci Fi that is not Sci Fi at all. I can imagine it being read by a 60s BBC continuity announcer in a standard English voice and that only making the book more apocalyptic. Prescient is a word that describes this quietly chilling book exactly. I am so glad that I found this book again, and so sorry that it is so apposite now. you can find it at Amazon by following this link; The Death of Grass
Phil’s British Heart Foundation Donation – you know it makes sense
