The same probing intelligence behind "Golden Hill" informs these very interesting essays centered on subjects of enduring interest to the author. From probing insights into "Cold" (extending from his long book on polar explorers) and on "Red" (building from his non-fiction novel about the USSR during the 1930s), Spufford takes conventional wisdom on these and other subjects and turns them on their head. He has a refreshingly clear-headed view of these and related topics, and a very engaging prose style in which to examine them. For readers wanting to explore ideas, literary and otherwise, in a new way, "True Stories" is highly recommended.

A collection of journalism and essays, most of it thematically arranged around the topics of Spufford's non-fiction(ish) books (though not, interestingly, Golden Hill, his one definite fiction and I would have thought his biggest hit), plus the few book reviews which he felt worth reprinting on the grounds that they addressed something bigger than a current release. So it begins with cold - I May Be Some Time is one of his books I've not read, so I don't know how much overlap is here, but in this ghastly year without a winter I found a certain salve in all this ice. Sometimes, as with the Scott expedition, Spufford is teasing out the implications of a story we all sort of know; elsewhere he's excavating fascinating obscurities such as the Tikigaqmiut people in the far North-West of America, whose other term for themselves - Inupiaq - shares the same root as 'Inuit' but is doubly haughty about defining only the in-group as 'real people'. The account of their culture is fascinating for the interplay between its similarities to and differences from other folklores and customs; I was especially intrigued by their idea that as well as the individual soul, human bones have their own spirits. Of course, not all the pieces have aged as well as others. A 1992 piece on African-American polar explorer Matthew Henson is in many ways ahead of its time, but then ends on a list of other pioneers where the last name is Bill Cosby. Spufford can't be blamed for not knowing, or even for not wanting to rewrite old work, but it still can't help marring the effect.

What could have been the book's toughest stretch for many readers - defences of christianity, pegged to Unapologetic - instead gets off to a surprisingly good start. In general, Spufford does well at avoiding the genre's besetting sins of 'Richard Dawkins is a bit annoying, and consumerism is fairly depressing, thus I have proven that we need a theocracy' (an angle which, apart from anything else, tends to ignore the degree to which we already have one, what with bishops in the Lords and the tendency of prime ministers to bang on hypocritically about their own faith). Certainly, he has a number of fair points: he's quite right that the metaphorical view of life is part of being human, that belief is first and foremost an emotional rather than a rational decision, that to many religious people the community and the ethical aspects of faith signify far more than the metaphysics. And he forcefully distances himself from creationism, Hell and to a large extent even the idea of sin as conventionally understood.
And yet.
Spufford talks about The God Delusion as having been responsible for a less nuanced and more polarised discussion about faith in recent years - which, for all my own issues with Dawkins, is really not fair. It wasn't the New Atheists who kicked off the century by murdering thousands. And fundamentalists are not half the rare fringe which Spufford and others would claim - even before they were propping up the UK government, you still have eg 40-odd per cent of Americans disbelieving evolution. And given they aren't going to include many atheists, that's surely the majority of US christians? Yes, Spufford tries to distance British christians from such crazies, suggesting that before Dawkins mucked up the detente the UK had hitherto avoided such culture wars - but wasn't the church's dead hand part of the reason we didn't get gay marriage sooner, and still don't have legal euthanasia, or abortion in Northern Ireland? There was always a certain amount of pussyfooting involved in whatever ceasefire existed. And that emotional content which precedes religious codification does often seem to hinge less on a sense of cosmic love and purpose, and more on 'Urgh, gay!'.

Still, even that section, while occasionally wrongheaded, is worth reading. And the reviews section is amazing, not least because it contains a number of fine pieces on the most significant SFF writers of recent years (and then just as you're worrying whether the choice of Banks, Pratchett, Robinson might seem a little canonical, there's a celebration of one Felix Gilman, a fantasist of whom I'd never previously heard). The real gems, though, are the title essay, and one of the ones in the Red Plenty section, which between them offer as fine an explanation as I've ever read of the shimmering structures I see behind books when I think very hard about them. There are plenty of books and courses out there which talk about writing as craft, and the 'how' is obviously important. But there's precious little, and less of it recent, which gets into this high-level visionary stuff about the 'why'.

I think this is a terrific collection of many of Francis Spufford's essays, articles and talks over the last 25 years or so. Spufford is extraordinarily erudite, remarkably thoughtful, very insightful and writes prose which is dense but a real pleasure to read. He has grouped the pieces into topics and they make a fine compendium of thought-provoking and enjoyable ideas.

He had me at hello, really. The introduction opens with, " 'The imagination,' said Coleridge, 'is the power to disimprison the soul of fact.' Except he didn't. Say it, that is." I loved that and the way he then traces the misattribution, illustrating precisely the point he is making. This includes, just a page or so later "…fact that wants to be let out, from its literal prison of dates and documents, to roam free and have non-literal adventures. As Tolkien said, who doesn't approve of escape? Jailers, that's who." It's a wonderful essay to start the collection; perhaps controversially in 2017, Spufford maintains the distinction between fact and falsehood while, also against current trends of instant judgement and opinion, maintaining that a fact or idea needs to be thought about and left in our heads until it begins to speak to us and reveal what it really has to say – possibly in the form of a story.

And so on. This is a book to be savoured in smallish episodes, I think. Spufford's writing and thinking is packed with ideas and images and I like to let a bit sink in and settle before trying more. I come back to the book with renewed pleasure each time.

In short, this is a brilliant, hugely enjoyable collection by a brilliant thinker and writer. Very warmly recommended.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

I am sorry the book got arcived, but I was looking forward to reading it

Beautiful and poetic prose. This author doesn't refrain the bold and extraordinary.