I was excited for this title due to the buzz seeming to surround the author in England, as well as the hope of a dreamy sweet summer story. Unfortunately, I found the writing too wordy. It seemed like Myers was going for poetic, but to me it just read as excessive and boring.

I appreciated the nods to societal issues with consumerism and climate change-in some ways in reminded me of the feel of the movie Easy Rider, which I liked. I was also reminded of almost a modern day Walden, with the intense respect for simplicity and the beauty of nature. Ultimately though the writing style was simply not for me, although the message was, and I did not finish the book. I feel like it would be the perfect read for perhaps a freshman in college boy who is still forming ideas about the world-I simply was not the correct audience for this one.

This is one of my favorite books of the year (2022). I love it for its glory of language, its sly wit, its landscapes rendered in painterly strokes, and for its main characters' quiet, tender bond. Calvert, a deeply traumatized British special forces veteran, and his best friend Redbone, an affable, free-wheeling sometime-musician, spend the summer of 1989 creating crop circles in the English countryside. Two very different men, they treat one another with remarkable patience and respect, bound by a common commitment to subsist as social outsiders.
Elegantly structured, the novel consists of 10 chapters, each devoted to one of 10 designs, each design more complex than the last. Over the course of the 10 nocturnally performed crop circles, Calvert and Redbone flush various creatures from the fields, including myriad humans who represent the past, present, and future of the country. By definition, the pair's creations are superficial, yet they matter. Though fleeting, they are one more layer of story beneath the surface. "There exists an under-England, a chthonic place of hidden rivers and buried relics, of the bones of extinct animals and battle-slain bodies. layer upon layer of it, laminations of land, each made from stories packed down tightly by the weight of time so that they become something else ... So many stories, so many unseen footsteps. So many secrets that go beyond the limitations of the here and now."
I highly recommend this novel to those who like their novels quiet, subtly wry, with unconventional plots that pit the power of beauty against the weight of trauma. What's more, an audio version of the novel is finally out. Narrator Tim Key, a poet, comedian, and British radio personality, is the ideal reader for Benjamin Myers's gorgeous prose.

[Thanks to Melville House and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

Beautifully tender ..........

As Redbone rightly tells us, there is no perfect circle but Dum spiro spero (While I breath I hope), so we continue striving, breathing, hoping, even though PTSD is crippling us or the world buffets as along from one gig to another. Myers ode to a great gentle friendship and the huge satisfaction of creating beauty and being in harmony with the natural world around us.

Here (https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61332202) is were Myers does a Redbone-like creation.

An ARC gently provide by author/publisher via Netgalley.

Two counter-culture friends, bonded together through their art and quirks of personality, undergo an ambitious project of crop circles in ‘89, near London, attempting to outdo anything before constructed.

It’s a quiet, odd kind of story. Their relationship is very endearing. Neither militant nor full-on hippies, but more concerned with what the book feels to be attempting to convey: Anyone with a radical idea can add another layer of mythos to culture. In this case, in a very literal sense, they use the land in a harmless way to produce art that hopefully entices people to question the nature of their society, and what they think they know about the world. Hoping to unconventionally and originally revolutionary, leaving an indelible mark.

Of course, I was a child at that time and I know very well, drop circles. We know that these two people constructing what was often said to be impossible did leave a mark. But it’s also fiction, of course. But an interesting thought in relation to what crop circles beg to ask of the viewer. There’s some fun meta context reading this now, and I’m sure in the future.

This won’t be for everyone though. The prose are gorgeous. Sense of place, then natural world superbly well rendered. There’s no real plot other than the two working up to their final, grand design. The “conflicts” they encounter aren’t really that, and exactly what you’d expect. The ending does his a good note. But it certainly isn’t interested in telling anything other than a humble story of two humble people, stepped on by the government, fighting back in an unusual way. I could see some people saying it’s a book where nothing really happens, no plot, all those things. But plenty happens, it’s just not a conventional story. But not did it blow me away with its unconventionality, either. It’s a solid piece of writing that deserves to be consumed. No more, no less.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

A well conceived and executed story, combining the unique friendship between men and an obsession with making a mark in history, however impermanent. I love the way that the story continually curcles to remembering the many previous inhabitants of the area, and the effect of all those lives on the earth today. This book is written very lyrically and has poetic observations. This was a magnificent read.

It's the summer of 1989 and two friends, Calvert and Redbone, create crop circles in the night, about one a month in rural England. Each chapter is about the crop circle they create, while interspersing something about the two men so we get to know who they are, both broken in different ways. The crop circles get more intricate with each iteration, leading up to the ultimate one, the Honeycomb Double Helix. At the end of each chapter a short news report provides a glimpse into how their crop circles are being viewed by the public.

Some farmers are not happy about their crops being disturbed, while others have taken the opportunity to showcase the circle and charge visitors to make a little extra money. No one knows who, or what, is creating these intricate designs, and the two boys have a code so they won’t be caught. Of course, UFOs and aliens, or supernatural beings, are talked about the most as how these are appearing so suddenly.

The book is mainly in exposition form, with very little dialogue. The focus is nearly entirely on the crop circles and the designs themselves. We do get a little on how each one of them live, but not an extensive look into their lives.

I really enjoyed the book but felt let down by the intrusion of climate change into the book. The further along in the story the more it took center place, and it felt forced for a book taking place over thirty years ago. This diminished the story for me. Also, I wished for a little more on their lives, what led these two to start doing this. We only know this summer wasn’t their first, and maybe not their last.

Most are aware of Britain’s crop circles. Some think these mysterious designs that appear overnight in rural fields are the result of alien activity. But a more reasonable conjecture is that they are a form of guerilla art much like the graffiti that adorn buildings and public transit in major cities or Banksy’s highly regarded wall art. Clearly, Ben Myers is too good a writer to spend much energy on the what’s and where’s of the crop circle controversies. Instead, he gives us an entertaining account of the who’s, why’s and how’s.

This is a superb novel about friendship and collaboration accompanied by thoughtful meditations on such diverse topics as class, ecology, wartime trauma, the meaning of art and loneliness. The setting is rural England during the summer of 1989. This is key not only because the depressing heat and drought presage global warming, but also because the equally depressing Thatcher years are now over.

The protagonists are a couple of rural outcasts who form an unlikely bond built on their mutual interest in creating crop circles. They manage to overcome the masculine tendency to maintain a healthy distance by developing a close and appealing working relationship. Redbone is an imaginative artist with several endearing qualities, including affability and empathy. He lives a somewhat chaotic existence in a rundown camper. He’s the idea man of the duo. Calvert oversees logistics. He identifies and locates impactful spots for their designs. As a scarred and traumatized war veteran, he isolates himself in the second smallest house in England, wearing sunglasses 24/7, and cooking strange eclectic menus. The latter are the sources of much humor.

The plot is a picaresque that chronicles their nightly forays. Each chapter bears an evocative design name and is followed by articles that appear in the press the following day. The pair adhere to a strict protocol involving secrecy and rules designed to finish the job in one night while keeping them safe and anonymous. Each design is a wonder (drawings would have been a welcome addition to the text), and they increase in complexity as the season progresses, culminating in one they call the “Honeycomb Double Helix.” Myers avoids boredom from repetitive tactics and techniques by interspersing humorous and insightful dialogue between the two men. This he garnishes with unexpected excitement from rogue dumpers, homicidal drivers, a strange old lady looking for her pet dog lost decades ago, and (best of all) a drunken Earl and his date out for a nighttime tour of the family’s estate.

Myers’ language is filled with beautiful descriptions, exhilarating events, bitter irony and abundant humor. This short book is indeed a delightful and worthy reading experience.