The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us

I mean, yeah, it's a good book. Lifts the lid on the sources of wealth from a random sampling of unbelievably rich / landed families. Bangs you over the head with the point a bit and gets repetitive; jumped over a wall, discussed the dark history of the owner's wealth, smoked a joint, had a sausage, repeat for the next chapter. The chapters when he talks about other trespass movements like Greenham and Kinder Scout are a lot more engaging, the stuff where he's just having a cheeky overnighter in someone's woods while justifying it by reference to the fact it's all built on stolen riches... it gets a bit self indulgent. There's an amusing bit where he says something along the lines of ‘seeing the keep out and private property signs gave me a weird feeling I was doing something wrong for a moment'. Bit of an odd, one-sided mindset. I enjoyed it overall though, it did contain some really interesting stuff and it does make you see walls and fences in a different light, as implements of oppression. The Calais chapter was great. Notice the pattern though, the best bits are where the author gets out of the way of the topic he's trying to cover.

Oh, and the illustrations - beautiful, unique, wonderful illustrations! You can really breathe them in and spend a moment gazing at these worlds. Except whoever put the book together decided these double page spreads should be placed mid-sentence, so when you turn the page you either have to skip the illustration to carry on reading, or have to stop reading to look at the picture and then flick back a page to pick up where you were cut off. Why not put them between chapters?!?

Despite the fact I've said a lot of negative stuff I did enjoy it on the whole, the source and distribution of much of the nation's wealth is an important thing to address. The overall theme of examining how land ownership interlinks with rights and power more generally is really interesting. The fact that this land and these rights were taken from common ownership and essentially privatised should be more widely recognised and taught.