Category Archives: Home

The Wrecking Ball

Posted on 15/04/2024 by Bobby Seal

Not so long ago The Guardian called Wrexham ‘a veritable Paris of what is lost’. For, despite the city’s rich history as a market town and the UNESCO World Heritage Site status of its Pontcysyllte aqueduct, Wrexham is most notable … Continue reading →

Posted in Home | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Final Approach by Mark Blackburn

Posted on 31/01/2024 by Bobby Seal

Final Approach charts the turbulent flightpath between a jetsetting father and a planespotting son. Final Approach is a long way from being the type of book I would normally read and enjoy. I do not share Mark Blackburn’s twin obsessions … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Psychogeographic Review’s Books of the Year, 2023

Posted on 20/12/2023 by Bobby Seal

What is psychogeography, anyway?  My understanding of the concept is three-fold: it is a theory, a practice and a body of evidence.  The most interesting of these, for me, is the body of evidence: the books, works of art and … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales – Edited by Martin Edwards

Posted on 05/08/2023 by Bobby Seal

Book Review – August 2023 Macabre fiction has been a particular strength of Welsh writers over the years, perhaps in part inspired by the alluring yet sometomes eerie quality of the landscape. I have to admit I’m a big fan … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Real Dorset by Jon Woolcott

Posted on 02/08/2023 by Bobby Seal

Book Review – August 2023 So it seemed to me that Dorset is ripe for a sort of psychogeography – a literary tradition that in essence is a sensitivity to the meeting point of place and history, finding meaning in … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Brittle With Relics: A History Of Wales 1962 – 1997 by Richard King

Posted on 01/08/2023 by Bobby Seal

Book Review – August 2023 This is a history of a nation determined to survive during crisis, while maintaining the enduring hope that Wales will one day thrive on its own terms. I was looking forward to reading Brittle With … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Valley

Posted on 23/07/2023 by Bobby Seal

From Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places by Gareth E. Rees (Elliott & Thompson, 2020): Some factories enter local lore in more subtle ways, especially when they are shrouded in mystery and rumour. In 1966, Bobby Seal, an eleven-year-old boy … Continue reading →

Posted in Home | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Wrexham Workhouse

Posted on 14/04/2023 by Bobby Seal

Having just read Anthony Trollope’s The Warden, with its depiction of a Victorian church almshouse, and recently discovering that one of my own ancestors, Mary Elizabeth Raley, was an assistant matron at Wakefield Workhouse in the nineteenth century, I felt … Continue reading →

Posted in Home | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer

Posted on 03/04/2023 by Bobby Seal

Book Review – April 2023 We come from water, and water runs through us. It carries our chemistry and our stories. It shows us more than itself: all the colours and none. We are mostly water for all of our … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Edge of Cymru: A Journey – by Julie Brominicks

Posted on 30/03/2023 by Bobby Seal

Book Review – March 2023 Like biodiversity, Cymraeg survives, but only just, sustained by the farming community, championed by campaigners, enabled by legislators. A language survey in 2013-2015 found only 24 percent of the population spoke Cymraeg – but that … Continue reading →

Posted in Home, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments