Calon – serie

What does ‘home’ mean? Is it where you come from, or is it somewhere that you have to create for yourself, building brick by brick on the ruins and treasures of everything that has gone before? In this compelling memoir, Gosia Buzzanca tells the story of a young woman who leaves Poland at the age of nineteen in search of a bigger life, hoping to leave the traumas of her teenage years behind her. After studying in England, she finds a rich new tapestry of experience awaiting her in Wales, with intertwined threads of love and literature, hope and despair. Motherhood brings new joys, but the pain of the past must be faced before this new life by the seaside can truly feel like home.  With the fearless honesty of a poet, Gosia offers her account of an extraordinary ordinary life where every flavour is tasted, every moment lived to its fullest. This story of a lifelong quest for home will call to anyone who has ever felt lost or incomplete, and who yearns to find a place where they belong.

What does ‘home’ mean? Is it where you come from, or is it somewhere that you have to create for yourself, building brick by brick on the ruins and treasures of everything that has gone before? In this compelling memoir, Gosia Buzzanca tells the story of a young woman who leaves Poland at the age of nineteen in search of a bigger life, hoping to leave the traumas of her teenage years behind her. After studying in England, she finds a rich new tapestry of experience awaiting her in Wales, with intertwined threads of love and literature, hope and despair. Motherhood brings new joys, but the pain of the past must be faced before this new life by the seaside can truly feel like home.  With the fearless honesty of a poet, Gosia offers her account of an extraordinary ordinary life where every flavour is tasted, every moment lived to its fullest. This story of a lifelong quest for home will call to anyone who has ever felt lost or incomplete, and who yearns to find a place where they belong.

Discover the power of our relationship with Y Môr (the sea) along the Wales Coast Path. Matthew Yeomans takes us on journeys along the official walking trail, which in its entirety covers 870 miles (1400 km) of the Welsh coastline. He uncovers how the sea has shaped our lives through history; how Wales’s rich mythology, literature and culture has been influenced by this fluid force, and the growing role that the sea plays in our lives.  Along the way, Seascape challenges us to face the realities of climate change and how we will need to adapt where and how we live. Only by recovering a healthy relationship with the sea can we meet our future challenges and unlock opportunities for better ways of living.

What’s it like to run away with the circus?Cardiff, Wales, 1983. A bunch of university dropouts and unemployed hippies find themselves united by two things: a talent for juggling and a desire to live a different kind of life. They decide it might be fun to juggle their way out of the rat race by founding a circus, which they call ‘NoFit State’.How does this group grow from its lowly origins as buskers on the city streets to become one of the most admired and respected contemporary circuses in the world?Stephen Glascoe, a member of NoFit State’s amateur community group ‘Splott State Circus’, takes us behind the scenes of the drama, stress and joy of a radical modern circus.Based on in-depth interviews with the founders of the circus and many others who have been part of its history, Circus Rebels charts the challenges and triumphs of underdogs turned Welsh creative powerhouse.

Reimagine our relationship with the natural world through the Welsh poetic tradition.At a time of biodiversity loss and climate grief, we need to reset our relationship with the natural world. Cynefin helps us hear the voices of people down the centuries who have, through poetry, expressed a different way of connecting with the living world around us.Carwyn Graves explores how the Welsh poetic tradition offers a different view of nature and connecting to our place in the world, and demonstrates its power to help us address the challenges we face.Find fresh perspectives from themes of grief and loss mediated through snow and the cuckoo’s song, to ecological sensibilities in medieval poems and the generosity of the water that drives the water wheel.In a thousand years of poetry we see the natural world portrayed not as a pristine realm but a human home; bittersweet as well as welcoming. Above all Carwyn invites us through these poems, to encounter the living world - in seagulls and sheepflocks, a lake or wheatfield - not in the abstract but in all its sparkling specificity

The story of trying to get life right even when things feels a little bit wrong, How an Egg Changed My Life is a tender, funny blend of memoir, cookbook and nostalgic observation on what it takes to feel fulfilled. From growing up as a gay teenager in the Welsh valleys to trying to find his own space in the city, Mikey Bell builds a life that looks good on paper – but a curious sense of dissatisfaction lingers, which makes even the best achievement feel incomplete. With honesty and wit, Mikey’s story captures the disappointment and struggle of discovering that life rarely unfolds as you expected. During an existential panic, Mikey takes a trip to Italy, cooking and eating his way toward clarity – and along the way examines identity, expectations, success and what it means to find fulfilment. With reaffirming recipes that turn everyday food into a lens for joy, How an Egg Changed My Life reminds us that we can always find a new appetite for life, but only when we learn to define what truly keeps us full.

Welsh Food Stories explores more than two thousand years of history to discover the rich but forgotten heritage of Welsh foods - from oysters to cider, salted butter to salt-marsh lamb. Despite centuries of industry, ancient traditions have survived in pockets across the country among farmers, bakers, fisherfolk, brewers and growers who are taking Welsh food back to its roots, and trailblazing truly sustainable foods as they do so.In this important book, author Carwyn Graves travels Wales to uncover the country's traditional foods and meet the people making them today. There are the owners of a local Carmarthenshire chip shop who never forget a customer, the couple behind Anglesey's world-renowned salt company Halen Mon, and everyone else in between - all of them have unique and compelling stories to tell about how they contribute to the past, present and future of Welsh food. This is an evocative and insightful exploration of an often overlooked national cuisine, shining a spotlight on the importance - environmentally and socially - of keeping local food production alive.

‘There is a certain feeling – standing between rows of richly dyed blue cloth – that you are within an enclave of protection, that within this ocean you can feel calm; a separation from the outside world.’One summer, a mother and daughter are reunited in the small village of Betws Gwerful Goch in North Wales following the death of a father and grandfather. Ellie returned from studying at university, while Jeanette had been studying the art of indigo dyeing in Japan. In this lyrical memoir, Ellie Evelyn Orrell transports readers to their hillside garden, reflecting on a summer spent learning to work with indigo, and witnessing the power of creativity in moments of mourning and recovery. In it, she weaves together stories of resettling in a once-familiar landscape; the healing powers of art; the historical, mythological and present day properties of indigo; and the presence of this indelible colour within the Welsh landscape.An Indigo Summer is an absorbing meditation on art, rural life and roots, grief, creativity and the artistic process.

Discover 366 fun and surprising stories about Wales – each linked to a specific day of the year. Did you know that the recipe of Tennessee’s famous Jack Daniel’s whiskey is rumoured to have originated in Llanelli, or that the world’s first radio play was set in a Welsh coal mine? Why was a showing of the Jurassic Park film in Carmarthen so special, and how is Rupert Bear connected to Snowdonia? Delve in to discover the stories that most history books leave out.

When and how did we humans lose our connection with nature – and how do we find it again? Matthew Yeomans seeks to answer these questions as he walks more than 300 miles through the ancient and modern forests of Wales, losing himself in their stories (and on the odd unexpected diversion, too).Return to My Trees weaves together history and folklore with tales of industrial progress and decay. On his journey, he visits landmarks that once were home to ancient Druids, early Celtic saints, Norman Lords and the great mining communities that reshaped Wales. He becomes immersed in the woodlands that inspired the country’s great legends. At one point he even stumbles upon a herd of television-watching cows. As Yeomans walks, he reflects on these woods’ uncertain future, his own relationship with nature and the global problems we need to solve if humans are to truly make peace with the natural world. from tree-planting in ways that are actually beneficial to the environment and local communities to embedding the value of nature into our financial and economic systems. The result is a fascinating and funny adventure that offers insight into the past, present and future of Wales’s woodlands and shows what the rest of the world can learn from them.

When and how did we humans lose our connection with nature – and how do we find it again?Matthew Yeomans seeks to answer these questions as he walks more than 300 miles through the ancient and modern forests of Wales, losing himself in their stories (and on the odd unexpected diversion, too).Return to My Trees weaves together history and folklore with tales of industrial progress and decay. On his journey, he visits landmarks that once were home to ancient Druids, early Celtic saints, Norman Lords and the great mining communities that reshaped Wales. He becomes immersed in the woodlands that inspired the country’s great legends. At one point he even stumbles upon a herd of television-watching cows.As Yeomans walks, he reflects on these woods’ uncertain future, his own relationship with nature and the global problems we need to solve if humans are to truly make peace with the natural world. from tree-planting in ways that are actually beneficial to the environment and local communities to embedding the value of nature into our financial and economic systems.The result is a fascinating and funny adventure that offers insight into the past, present and future of Wales’s woodlands and shows what the rest of the world can learn from them.

The magical world of Welsh mythology deserves to be better known outside its homeland, with its cast of heroes and tricksters, animals that can talk and change shape, and magicians and witches who can bring disaster or triumph to the people in their paths.Enchanted Wales is an invitation to voyage through the key stories of Welsh mythic literature, exploring not just their medieval texts but also their ancient roots, which can be glimpsed in sculptures, carvings and other artefacts from at least a thousand years earlier. These stories are more than epic entertainments: they allow us to explore our deepest questions about life and death, war and peace, and good and evil, secure in the knowledge that a skilful storyteller will guide us safely to the end of the tale.On this journey, you will encounter severed heads that speak, birds that can tell the future, cauldrons with magical properties, quests that are as intricate and exciting as the Labours of Hercules, and ghostly underworlds where strange and frightening things happen to the humans who visit them. Enter these pages, and prepare to discover a weird, wonderful and Narnia-like world of dreams – the world of enchanted Wales.

The television writing of Russell T Davies defies easy categorisation, ranging from children’s programmes, across Shakespeare, historical drama and comedy, to the landmark series that have made him a household name: Queer As Folk, Doctor Who and It’s a Sin.Gay Aliens and Queer Folk takes a deep dive into the queer narratives Russell T Davies has brought to our screens, exploring how each work created new space for LGBTQ+ stories to enter our living rooms and looking at their impact on the people who saw themselves reflected on mainstream television, often for the first time.Covering Russell T Davies’ career from his earliest work to his highly anticipated return to the TARDIS for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary, and highlighting key themes such as politics, sex, AIDS and the role of Wales in his writing, Emily Garside reveals how Davies broke down barriers, showing gay characters unapologetically living their lives to the full and celebrating the complexity and joy of queer identities.

What can one Welsh hill farm tell us about how we can help nature to thrive?In recent times, farming has often been viewed as harmful to nature and the environment, causing friction between those wanting to protect wildlife and the farmers whose livelihoods depend on upon the land.Conservationists and governments frequently propose well-meaning ideas and policies to enable farming and conservation to work together, but all-too-often these do not have the intended results. At the heart of this is a lack of understanding about the realities of farming life and managing the land for nature.In this captivating debut, conservationist David Elias explores a farm in the Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park and unpacks what it shows us about the gritty reality of trying to reconcile hill farming and caring for nature. Visiting through the seasons, he forms a deep relationship with the land and the people who work it, coming to understand their particular way of life, history and concerns about the future.It is also a farm rich in nature and he brings his experienced eye to how its habitats and wildlife have been shaped by changing farming practices over the generations.Through lyrical prose and first-hand conversations with farmers, Elias also shows what current government policies have achieved – or not achieved – and why it is so important for us to understand what it really takes ensure farming families remain on the land while simultaneously allowing nature to flourish.

A fascinating and exhilarating look at the many ways we love, and are loved.Following on from his bestselling The History of Wales in Twelve Poems, M. Wynn Thomas turns his attention in A Map of Love to poems from Wales and reflects on what they have to say on the age-old subject of love in its many and varied forms.Featuring twelve pieces dating from the fourteenth century to the present, this absorbing collection deliberately veers far from clichéd verses with its poems of regret and of mourning; straight love and gay love; bawdy verses of passion and desire, and gentle meditations on motherhood and marriage. It features anonymous and lesser-known writers as well as household names such as Gillian Clarke and R. S. Thomas, and it includes a previously unpublished poem by Emyr Humphreys.With original illustrations by Ruth Jên Evans throughout, this short but powerful collection will appeal to anyone interested in people and their complex relationships.

Wales is a land with a vast wealth of ghost stories, including fantastical animals, flickering death omens and unseen things that go bump in the night. Whether these tales are based on true events, or are the creations of active imaginations, is known only to those who have experienced them – but what is certain is that their power to delight and scare us remains undimmed to this day.In The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts, renowned folklorists Delyth Badder and Mark Norman present an intriguing and comprehensive selection of ghostly accounts, illuminating key themes running through them, and giving insights into the history and culture of Wales’s varied regions and communities.With original Welsh texts, many translated into English for the first time, the authors present a wide panorama of stories and first-hand accounts that will be new to even the most seasoned folklore reader. Ranging from the distant past right up to the present day, this collection shines a spotlight on the unique qualities of folkloric ghost beliefs in Wales.

On a windswept stretch of the Durham coastline, there’s treasure to be found: jewels of shining sea glass, swept in by the tide after years at sea. Gathered together in a jar on the windowsill, each seaworn pebble is a moment in time, a glinting archive of unknowable lives.Seaglass is a collection of such moments; essays blending creative non-fiction with nature writing and memoir, and portraying with powerful observation and moving honesty the journey of a young woman navigating modern adulthood. The stories draw a map of Kathryn’s life, from Manchester to the South Wales coastline and out to the Thousand Islands in Canada’s Saint Lawrence River. Traversing wilderness, natural history, travel and water – rivers, lakes, coastlines and leisure centres – Seaglass explores shared experiences, anxieties, confidence and contentment.

In Tir – the Welsh word for ‘land’ – writer and ecologist Carwyn Graves takes us on a tour of seven key elements of the Welsh landscape, such as the ffridd, or mountain pasture, and the rhos, or wild moorland. By diving deep into the history and ecology of each of these landscapes, we discover that Wales, in all its beautiful variety, is at base just as much a human cultural creation as a natural phenomenon: its raw materials evolved alongside the humans that have lived here since the ice receded.In our modern era of climate concerns and polarised debates on land use, diet and more, it matters that we understand the world we are in and the roads we travelled to get here. By exploring each of these key landscapes and meeting the people who live, work and farm in them, Tir offers hope for a better future; one with stunningly beautiful, richly biodiverse landscapes that are ten times richer in wildlife than they currently are, and still full of humans working the land.

Russ Williams was raised on Wales’s stories, like the one about a mountain that would send you mad or turn you into a gifted poet if you camped out on it, the one about the lost civilisation drowned by the sea and the one about the bottomless lake leading down to the Welsh Otherworld. Stories of witches and giants and heroic kings, dragons and mad doctors, ghostly women, giant beaver monsters, vampire furniture and pirate-fighting monks.As entertaining as it is informative, Where the Folk follows Russ Williams as he travels in Griff, his creaky red Fiesta, in search of places associated with Wales’s legends, folklore and urban myths. In this joyful travelogue, not only does Russ recount some of Wales’s most interesting stories; he also explores the origins behind the myths, talking to experts and storytellers to find out how and why they might have come about, and what they tell us about Wales past and present.

Russ Williams was raised on Wales’s stories, like the one about a mountain that would send you mad or turn you into a gifted poet if you camped out on it, the one about the lost civilisation drowned by the sea and the one about the bottomless lake leading down to the Welsh Otherworld. Stories of witches and giants and heroic kings, dragons and mad doctors, ghostly women, giant beaver monsters, vampire furniture and pirate-fighting monks.As entertaining as it is informative, Where the Folk follows Russ Williams as he travels in Griff, his creaky red Fiesta, in search of places associated with Wales’s legends, folklore and urban myths. In this joyful travelogue, not only does Russ recount some of Wales’s most interesting stories; he also explores the origins behind the myths, talking to experts and storytellers to find out how and why they might have come about, and what they tell us about Wales past and present.

‘What should I read next?’ Alex Johnson invites you to join him on his year of reading Welshly on a warm and witty journey through 52 books from Wales and about Wales.   From novels to poetry to non-fiction, Alex explores a rich and eclectic spread of books. Covering famous favourites such as Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin’s Ivor the Engine, through to contemporary hits such as Manon Steffan Ros’s The Blue Book of Nebo and Tiffany Murray’s My Family and Other Rock Stars, Alex’s ‘Reading Welshly’ list spans decades and genres.It’s not just about mines and farming (though there are plenty of those), but a window onto Welsh culture in all its complexity and diversity. Discover with Alex how Welsh books both reveal modern Wales and speak to universal themes of love, social struggle and identity.   Complete with discussion questions about each book and space to chart your own Reading Welshly progress, this is the ideal companion for readers and book groups to discover Wales through its rich and varied literature.

Afon Hafren, the river Severn, is a mighty Welsh river. She has shaped many histories and is part of many stories. In Celtic traditions, water is a source of wisdom. In a time of ecological crisis, how can we listen to the wisdom of Hafren?  Sarah Siân Chave takes us on a journey from Hafren’s source to the sea, following Hafren’s route from Pumlumon in Wales and meandering through England, before she finds her way back home to Wales and to the sea. The journey weaves together Celtic myths, historical and personal narratives as well as Welsh words and ideas. Hafren not only speaks to the wisdom of this river, but of all rivers, encouraging readers to understand better their place as part of nature. This book will appeal to those interested in nature, sustainability and ecology, and also to those interested in Celtic and Welsh traditions, histories and myths and is evocatively illustrated by Sarah’s sister,  Rachel Collis.