The London Book Fair, at Earls Court, is super. Everyone appears to be happy to be here. And, why not? It’s a happy time and a happy place. The people who are involved with books, who like books, are here. They come from China, and Russia, and, of course, America, to be here. Everyone has something to say. We are all listening.

It is here you meet old friends. Here is where you talk shooting and fishing. Julie Sankey is here, from the Crowood Press, where they have two new excellent books just recently published, which we will be reviewing a bit further on. One is a fish and game cookery book, with some great new recipes, and the other is on zander fishing, called “wall-eyed pike” in the US, where they are highly regarded, although less so in England.

Say hello to Aaron Silverman, the California-based book distributor, doing his day job at the London Book Fair. He is featured in “Let’s Go Turkey Hunting”, this time decked out in camouflage, along with the wild turkey he bagged. Have you spotted him?

We had a look-in at the Independent Book Publishers’ extensive presence (we are members) where we encountered HandE Publishers, manned (or should I have said "womanned"?) by very friendly personnel, and I came away with a book to review.

Midas PR created the happy atmosphere at the Book Fair, as usual. It takes outstanding people to do an outstanding job. And they are it. They have this ability to make you feel that they are glad you have come.

It was all so good I stopped by the Fair organiser’s office to say what a splendid job they had done.

We started out hunting and fishing because we needed the food, and pretty soon it became obvious that we were pretty keen on the doing as well as the eating. Our success came with eternal gratitude from those dependent upon us, and there were probably few complaints when we stayed away in the pursuit of dinner.

Things have changed in some ways since we moved out of caves and into houses, like, for example, having to pay mortgages. Also, there are probably fewer shrieks of delight upon our return home with the catch or kill than there used to be, as a result of easy access to an abundant food supply, obtained without our help. This is a shame, because it has lowered our status, and failed to engender the encouragement that it had previously. There may also have been some expressions of dissatisfaction at our going in the first place.

However, there is a solution to all of these problems, and a fairly easy one at that. Get hold of “Cook Game” and start doing it. Clean it, cook it, serve it, and clean up afterwards. And of course, kill or catch it first. The shrieks of delight will be there – will have returned, and you will be encouraged to spend more time afield. The recipes found within the covers of this book are new creations, probably few of which you have ever heard of before, and obviously delicious. Don’t be afraid to be a hero again. The only real difference is that you will be doing all the work.

There’s a recipe for tea-leaf smoked pheasant breasts. It serves four, so you might as well have some friends in. You will be a hero to them too. Next time do pheasant enchiladas. If you are getting partridge on your shoot, there are numerous recipes for it, including sherried cream partridge livers. There’s grouse, snipe and woodcock, duck and goose. Do crispy goose tex-mex casserole. There are also some great sounding fish recipes; we were pleased to see that the coarse fishermen have not been left out: for them there is carp stuffed with caviar and capers.

They’re called ‘zander’ in Europe, and wall-eyed pike in North America, where the natives go crazy for them, sojourn up to Canada like they are on a holy pilgrimage. But in England, things are different. English coarse fishermen (naturally) didn’t want this magnificent fish, a member of the perch family, and delicious to eat, which was stocked in the Fen District, and an object of controversy. The coarse fishermen didn’t want a fish that was good to catch, good to eat, and would devour the pesky tiddlers; and get to be ten, fifteen pounds and more. This book is replete with super colour photos of such fish

The zander survived, despite the best efforts of the coarse fishermen to eliminate them, and appear to be thriving. The zander-haters killed them – out of enmity, while the zander’s friends just threw them back in. This book questions how well they actually survive after having been caught, and returned to the water.

Zander fans are something of a cult entity, and if you are interested in joining the cult, reading this book will get you in shape. The zander population is spreading rapidly, and now this marvellous fish is said to be swimming around in the Thames. Fly fishermen will need to get in the act, but will want to take the catch home, using the COOK GAME guide reviewed above for two very nice-sounding zander recipes. In this we risk the enmity of the “thrower backers." One wonders if we could get legal backing, and protection. Can you imagine being picketed by other fishermen, shouting “Down with fly fisherpersons! Conserve our zander. Don't put them in the frying pan!" .

This is a book you will want to own. And study. It could save your life. It could prevent a problem before it happens. If it has the DK label on it, you know it is thorough, dependable and reliable. And it is done in association with the Royal Marines, who know something about survival. It will make you a more self-confident outdoors person, and if something unfortunate does happen, you will know how to deal with it. Like all DK books, it is beautifully illustrated.

The beginning section starts in the obvious place: Before you go. You need to prepare yourself. You need to be in shape, or get yourself into shape. You need to get your gear right, which includes dressing for your particular situation.

Can you read a map, understand the symbols? The blue fish symbol will probably make it apparent to you that here is where you can fish. Can you read a compass, determine your bearings? Extensive instructions are provided. Keeping clean is of the utmost importance. “How you feel physically also has a direct impact on how you feel psychologically,” the book says, and provides illustrated instructions for building a shower. Need a fire? The Handbook says, “Fire gives you a sense of ‘being’, and, like a shelter, it can make a humble clearing under a tree feel more like a ‘home.’ ” No matches? Not to worry. A magnifying glass (on your Swiss knife) is but one of the many ways of doing it.

Caught some fish, shot some game? Bake it in clay. No utensils necessary. Or try cooking with hot rocks. And remember, never store the fish you have caught in the water, under the misguided concept that you are preserving it. You’re not. The fish, now dead, soaks up water and is destroyed for proper eating. Be sure to cook your fresh water fish thoroughly since it has probably played host to numerous parasites, salt water fish to a lesser extent. If it’s a bird - all are edible – pluck it, in order to preserve the skin for eating, which is highly nutritious. Going through this amazing book, you feel better already.

For almost ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant tried, and ultimately succeeded, in killing a sufficient number of fellow Americans, in Petersburg, Virginia, to claim a victory. He had tried, and failed, to take Richmond, the Confederate capital, so with a much superior force, decided he might do better here. This is a little book, with just 96 pages, but it is very thorough, and replete with good illustrations. The author, long involved with the American Civil War, was associate editor of the Confederate Historical Society of Great Britain (I didn’t know there was one) for nine years. A hundred and forty-four years after this needless slaughter ended, not just the Americans, but the British, continue to have a very deep involvement.

Besides this superb little volume, Osprey has published nine others, specialist aspects of the Civil War, such as “Gettysburg 1863,” and “Confederate Infantryman 1861-65.” This is not to say the British weren’t involved. There was a profound involvement; according to one source Britain was supposed to come to the aid of the South, militarily, but got cold feet when it was perceived that the South would be crushed. Britain was divided on the issue; the owners of the mills, where slave cotton was processed, had no strong objections to the way things were, but the workers in those mills had refused to work slave cotton, and suffered, in some extreme cases, death through malnutrition. The trouble with a civil war is that nobody ever forgets, particularly the losing side. The pain is passed on from generation to generation.

The Germans must have known that by the time the Allies had a firm foothold on the Continent, the war was over for them, and they had lost. It was only a question of time. Yet they persisted, employing booby traps and sabotage tactics, as if this were going to make much difference to the outcome. Allied troops suffered causalities, and a lot of German military personnel were killed; and even at the end, when there was nothing left, the Germans sent kids out into the field, supposedly to hold up the Allied advance. So what if they did? They didn’t. They just got killed, or surrendered. The Germans would appear to have been in pursuit of death.

Certainly the Japanese were; even in defeat, they were making conditions, few of them acceptable to the US, until they had “it” dropped on them, twice. It was only then that they got the message. They decided that war wasn’t such a good thing after all. Not really much glory in it. The Germans, on the other hand, got a new lease, a new mandate. Suddenly they were allies, comrades-in-arms with their yesterday’s adversaries, the US and Britain. Together they would confront America’s former ally, but more recent enemy, the Soviet Union.

The author, a Viet Nam veteran, will know about the booby traps set by ordinary folk in Viet Nam, meant to discourage US forces there; they dug broad, deep pits, planted sharpened stakes at the bottom, and covered up the place with just plain jungle foliage. You can guess what happened.

Thanks to the London Book Fair, I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely ladies of HandE Publishers, comfortably ensconced at their Independent Publisher’s Guild stand. Here I was fortunate enough to meet one of their authors, Katie Paterson, who very graciously presented me with a signed copy of her most recent book, The Jewels of Valonia.

Though meant for young people, it nevertheless holds the attention of adults, which has to be a good thing. Here, Ms Paterson shows her respect for her readers. The mother of two grown-up sons, she has first-hand experiences in knowing what young people want to read. She no doubt instilled in them her own interest in the Arthurian period, and the legends that continue to live on from one generation to the next. Here she has breached the time gap by making this the story of two young people of now, who go back in time, and see that this legend is quite real. Happily for her readers, there are three more of her works to appear in this series. We are all looking forward to them.

© Sidney Du Broff 2009