I will cover a little of my latest book which is Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris. I will give you the opening paragraph from the book so that you may get an idea of the style and a taste for the things to be enjoyed within it.
``WINE TALKS; EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. LOOK AROUND YOU. ASK the oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It talks. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great things, splendid plans, tragic loves and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It opens up Summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places; every one, from the commonest Liebfraumilch to the imperious 1945 Veuve Clicquot, a humble miracle. Everyday magic, Joe called it. The transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams. Layman’s alchemy.´´
So it begins and leads you into a wonderful tale which is split between the time of a man’s youth in 1977, as he spends his holidays in the dying coal mining town of Nether Edge and his adult life set in 1999, which has become ever more complex and fraught with the angst, of living up to a reputation as a successful writer. The story interweaves the narratives from both periods and it introduces us to an old retired coal miner named Joe who believes in everyday magic and lives a life that centres around his garden full of exotic fruits and vegetables. The true stars of this story are the product of Joe´s special talents, as he weaves his so called,``everyday magic´´ and makes strange and unusual wines from the plants that he grows. It is nice also to have the story return to the idylic little french village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes where ``Chocolat´´ was based and with a few of the original characters from that tale making a very welcome re-appearance.
As with her first book ``Chocolat´´ she has managed once again to capture smells, scents and perfumes and to deliver an overall literary bouquet that you can palpably taste in your mouth as you read. I can not recommend both books highly enough. I have been given for my birthday a copy of, ``Five Quarters Of The Orange´´, which is the third in this series of books. It sits on the bedside table even as I write this, begging me to turn off the laptop and give it the attention which I am sure it deserves. Doubtless, there are more late nights on the way. All of the books I have read so far by Harris are hard books to put down once you begin and they will certainly remain in memory as great moments in your literary life. I have noted that there appear to be 2 earlier books preceding these but I will have to wait until I can find a bookstore stocking them before I will now more about them.
12.3.05
Not So Amazing Amazon
I picked up on a nice little news item the other day which lays to rest a great deal of misinformation that has been bandied about over the years. It is from a former CSIRO scientist Professor Paul Jarvis and in the main discusses why life support doesn’t grow on trees. People have long claimed that the Amazon rainforest generates approx 20% of the oxygen that we breath and can therefore be rightly called , “the lungs of the Earth”. Tropical rainforests cover about 7% of the Earth’s surface. The Amazon makes up nearly half of all rainforest land, about 6 million square kilometres, just a little smaller than Australia. This area however is being reduced by about 5% annually according to Professor Jarvis. (I’ve got to say here that the idea of clear felling the rainforest from an area the size of Australia in 20 years is pretty worrying.)
It is true that living plants do release oxygen. When they die however, their decay uses up as much oxygen as they generated when living. So the Amazon rainforest is about neutral with regard to making oxygen. Instead, most of the oxygen that we breath comes from tiny plants called phytoplankton in the ocean. Indeed the oceans make up about 70% of the surface area of our planet, so it really should be called Planet Water , not Planet Earth. The Amazon rainforest has many fine qualities (e.g.: rainforests account for about 90% of the biodiversity of living species and as such are a hugely valuable resource to be protected and treasured) but the making of surplus oxygen for us to breath is not one of them.
However there's new protection afoot for some of the richest rainforests on Earth, thanks to a new agreement between Peru and the United States. The agreement, called a "debt-for-nature swap," was signed in Washington, D.C. this year. The deal commits the Peruvian government to provide local currency funding for Peruvian conservation groups, giving them the money they need for critical conservation work in 10 rainforest areas covering more than 27.5 million acres -- an area the size of Virginia or Cuba. These areas are really the heart of the western Amazon. They're the most pristine, the richest in terms of the species they contain.
Under the agreement, $5.5 million of Peru's debt to the United States is cancelled, saving the Peruvian government about $14 million in future payments. They instead will pay $10 million in local currency into a trust fund in Peru that will benefit conservation. The U.S. funding is authorized by the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998, which encouraged the reduction of foreign debt in exchange for a financial commitment to forest conservation.
Saving Peruvian rainforests is a major challenge for conservationists. In Peru there are some 20,000 species of vascular plants and nearly 1,800 species of birds, many of them found nowhere else. Their habitats are threatened by destructive logging, agricultural clear-cutting, mining and exploration for oil and gas. Peruvian conservationists will use their new funding for a wide variety of conservation work, including establishing and maintaining protected areas and reserves, conservation training, research, and supporting the livelihoods of indigenous people in the forests. Well that’s my little bit on the topic of conservation bit and it will have to take the place of a book review this month. Too little time and to many fish to fry.
It is true that living plants do release oxygen. When they die however, their decay uses up as much oxygen as they generated when living. So the Amazon rainforest is about neutral with regard to making oxygen. Instead, most of the oxygen that we breath comes from tiny plants called phytoplankton in the ocean. Indeed the oceans make up about 70% of the surface area of our planet, so it really should be called Planet Water , not Planet Earth. The Amazon rainforest has many fine qualities (e.g.: rainforests account for about 90% of the biodiversity of living species and as such are a hugely valuable resource to be protected and treasured) but the making of surplus oxygen for us to breath is not one of them.
However there's new protection afoot for some of the richest rainforests on Earth, thanks to a new agreement between Peru and the United States. The agreement, called a "debt-for-nature swap," was signed in Washington, D.C. this year. The deal commits the Peruvian government to provide local currency funding for Peruvian conservation groups, giving them the money they need for critical conservation work in 10 rainforest areas covering more than 27.5 million acres -- an area the size of Virginia or Cuba. These areas are really the heart of the western Amazon. They're the most pristine, the richest in terms of the species they contain.
Under the agreement, $5.5 million of Peru's debt to the United States is cancelled, saving the Peruvian government about $14 million in future payments. They instead will pay $10 million in local currency into a trust fund in Peru that will benefit conservation. The U.S. funding is authorized by the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of 1998, which encouraged the reduction of foreign debt in exchange for a financial commitment to forest conservation.
Saving Peruvian rainforests is a major challenge for conservationists. In Peru there are some 20,000 species of vascular plants and nearly 1,800 species of birds, many of them found nowhere else. Their habitats are threatened by destructive logging, agricultural clear-cutting, mining and exploration for oil and gas. Peruvian conservationists will use their new funding for a wide variety of conservation work, including establishing and maintaining protected areas and reserves, conservation training, research, and supporting the livelihoods of indigenous people in the forests. Well that’s my little bit on the topic of conservation bit and it will have to take the place of a book review this month. Too little time and to many fish to fry.