Adam Thorpe

92/2020. This book couldn't be closer to having been written for me. Like the author, I too have a long-lasting love affair with Silbury Hill that began in my teens, although my home Downs were elsewhere and so were my supplementary spiralling mounds. However, if you're interested in the history and landscape of Silbury and the surrounding Avebury complex, and you don't mind those subjects being related to you partly through the medium of Adam Thorpe's personal memoir then you too might find this neatly written and beautifully illustrated book is for you (albeit maybe more of a 4/5 for a more general reader rather than my personal 5/5).

Ultimately, your relationship with an enigma such as Silbury Hill is what you bring to it as a passing tourist, a practising artist, a professional archaeologist, a hopeful neopagan, or whatever you choose, because the enigma never answers no matter what you call it.… (more)

This book is so difficult to absolutely categorise. It combines a history book, a memoir and with some natural history, all focusing on the prehistoric monument that is Silbury Hill.

This amazing structure is the largest man made mound in Europe measuring 40m high and covering an area of five acres, and is believed to have been constructed around 4750 years ago. Even though it has outlived its creators for several millennia, nobody has a single clue as to its purpose. That said, there has been plenty of speculation, and when viewed through the lens of the neolithic landscape it may have played some ritual purpose.

Thorpe first became aware of the monument when he was a boarder at Marlborough school. Of excursions from school he walked and cycled the landscape and even climbed it. It played an important part in his formative years as he escaped from the school. He makes journeys to Avebury and and other neolithic sites to try and understand the place, but without drawing any firm conclusions.

It is a beautifully written book though, as he deftly weaves the narrative between his childhood and recent visits to Silbury, with some of the characters that he meets on his travels, and the overlay of the paganism that you get around these sites. As an aside, this is a beautifully made book too. The size and weight of the book and paper feel just right, and the font makes for easy reading.… (more)

A thrilling and page-turning novel that follows the fast changing life of Bob Winrush as his shady past threatens to catch up with him with possibly fatal consequences. In the past Bob has been a passenger jet pilot, later a cargo pilot (a freight dog in the jargon) and at the start of the book, a personal pilot to a wealthy sheik from Dubai. In the midst of an acrimonious divorce, Bob is unceremoniously sacked by the sheik as details of some of the cargoes that he carried emerge and one of his former employers starts to have concerns that Bob may reveal too much information to an investigating journalist to avoid shocking publicity. This all makes for an highly entertaining read as Bob attempts to discover who is behind the threats and to avoid their clutches as he seeks to re-evaluate his earlier life.… (more)

The plot of ‘Missing Fay’ revolves around the unexplained disappearance of Fay Sheehan. This is similar to Jon McGregor’s recent novel ‘Reservoir 13’, but whereas that novel focuses on the consequences of a disappearance upon the villagers, Adam Thorpe’s book examines the effect upon a variety of people, some of whom are visiting or very new to Lincoln, where Fay lived, and never met her. Fay comes across as an authentic, lively fourteen year old, full of insecurities and thus defensive and mouthy towards her elders. As for the other main characters, often they seem to be unhappy in their existence and this is highlighted in their reactions to Fay’s fate. This makes for a depressingly sad picture of modern life and loneliness, not only in a relatively poor area of England, but in many parts of the world.… (more)