The perfect golden circle by Benjamin Myers

Apologies for the picture quality of this one folks but I made a sudden decision to visit the library to grab another book, and it wasn't till I got there that I realised I hadn't taken my blog pic. Anyway you can see what it says on the front despite the light glaring off the plastic cover.

This was a good one and it makes a perfect summer read. Not too taxing but very believable and there can't be too many fiction books that cover the subject of crop circles.

It's set in 1989 which was a time when we were all obsessed by the mysterious appearance of ever-more complex crop circles that appeared in cereal crops. No-one knew how they got there, but everyone had a theory. Some people thought they were caused by freak weather conditions, but as they became more geometrically complex, many people genuinely believed they were created by aliens.

Almost disappointingly, they turned out to be man made, and this book follows the creative excursions carried out by Calvert (a veteran wounded in the Falklands conflict) and Redbone (a failed musician living an alternative lifestyle). It's a book that is above all about friendship and the two men share a love for the countryside and always aim to do no lasting damage. (The crops are not destroyed if the the stalks of the plants are not broken and will eventually return to an upright position).

They don't do their work out of a desire for notoriety. These are the days before social media and everything they do is simply for the love of their art which they strive to take to the edge of possibility. Every project is carefully planned and meticulously measured, and unless they create it on a hillside, they are not able to see their handiwork once it is finished. Fortunately, crop circles had captured the imagination of the press and television companies, and once a new piece was discovered by a farmer, the helicopters were sent to photograph it and Calvert was able to keep the newspaper clippings as a record.

It's quirky and amusing, even though several more serious points are made about damage done to the countryside, and if you enjoyed the television series The Detectorists, you can't fail to enjoy this.

Comments

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