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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Robert Winnett and Gordon Rayner|title=No Expenses Spared|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It's always struck me as strange that in a period of twelve months which saw Banks collapse, stock markets tumble and house prices slide the public have reserved most of their ire for a relatively small group of people who were not exceptionally well-paid in the first place, but many of whom took the opportunity to make the most of the generous expenses which they could claim. There are only six hundred and forty six Members of Parliament – twelve months ago they were generally respected but many are now pariahs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593065778</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alain de Botton !-- Remove |title=A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=A writer-in-residence at an airport is not as daft an idea as it might first seem. After all, TV programmes, and whole series, have entertained millions with what goes on in front of, and behind the scenes at such places. So this book, which is the fruit of such a residency, could be expected to produce few surprises.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683599</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anita Thompson (Editor)1009473085|title=Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S Thompson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' first graced the shelves. His gonzo style, putting himself at the centre of the story, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event he is describing. If that's the case then what is to be learned from a selection of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer is plenty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Ian Jack|title=The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain|rating=4.5|genre=Politics Anthony Seldon and Society|summary=I think I've now managed to master the maxim about not judging books by their covers. I still struggle with the one about not judging them by their titles and I very nearly cam unstuck and missed 'The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain'. Being just about of an age with the author I worried that it might be a treatise about the fact that 'things weren't like this when I was a lad'. I was even more worried that I might agree with him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087355</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Economist|title=Pocket World in Figures 2010Tom Egerton (Editors)

|summary=ItSometimes it's just about simpler to explain a year since I reviewed [[Pocket World In Figures 2009 book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Economist|Pocket World in Figures 2009]] and at the time – September 2008 – we were watching in horror as the world financial crisis unfolded before our eyesConservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. Looking back now If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the surprise is that for most people inside story about what ''really'' happened came out of on certain occasions, then this isn't the blue. The clues were plain to see and all here in this handy little bookfor you. There was the worrying state of the Iceland economy and different levels of mortgage lending in various parts of the world. Best of all it was presented as verified figuresIf that's what you're looking for, without any accompanying narrative and itI don't think Anthony Seldon's consequently free of political spin. Bliss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681367</amazonuk>}} book, {{newreviewamazonurl|authorisbn=Scott Kilman and Roger ThurowB0BH7SKG2S|title=Enough: Why the WorldJohnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty|rating=4a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If you have ever wondered why famine is still widespread, so many years after Oxfam started nudging middle-class Britain into consciousness, then read ''EnoughThe Conservative Effect''is an entirely different beast. As It's the seventh book in a young woman, I donated to Oxfam series which looks at the end impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the 1960s nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the belief changes that concerted international action through governments plus charities would eliminate hunger within a decade or so. Four decades later, it's impossible to comprehend why children are still dying at much occurred and the same rate: one every five secondssituation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485113</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Arundhati Roy Alastair Humphreys|title=Listening to GrasshoppersLocal

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=Stories can provoke many different reactions in Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the reader: pleasure, pain, delight, horrorworld. The whole range of emotion is available to the fiction writer to ply and probeAnd then written about it. Reactions For this book he walked and cycled very close to non-fiction works can be equally wide-ranging home and can sometimes take the reader by surprise. Like most people I came to Roy via the Booker-prize-winning novel, ''The God of Small Things'', which then wrote about it transpires, is her only novel to date. In the intervening twelve years Roy has concentrated her undoubted literary abilities As he says in the political arenahis introduction, engaging with the less attractive side of her native India.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144620</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rupert Wright |title=Take Me to the Source: In Search of Water|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Whatever you expect from a book about water, is an attempt ''Take Me to the Source'' probably won't provide it. Neither share what I have learnt about some big issues from a whimsical aquatic travelogue, nor year exploring a polemic about the economics of watersmall map. Nature loss, it still manages to produce unexpected insights into the element which is so vitalpollution, yet so often taken for granted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512289</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Maria Tatar |title=Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood|rating=3|genre=Home land use and Family|summary=Like most avid readersaccess, agriculture, the food system, I donrewilding…''t remember One of the time before there were books. We were brought up with books. There are family tales joys of my father as a child eating his breakfast with one hand, while trying to tie his shoelaces with the other and still contriving to read at book for me was that the same time. They were a poor familybiggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, and books werenno single 'right or wrong't just expensive, they were valuable. They were dear, in that every sense of the word. Likewise my mother remembers her early school-years when every day ended with upside is likely to have a chapter from one of the classicsdownside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393066010</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Wadham Edel Rodriguez|title=The Secret Life of FranceWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=TravelGraphic Novels|summary=IWe'm rather at re in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a loss Communist, and not done nearly enough to describe this book create a level playing field for youall. Well, and I'm still uncertain how to categorise itthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. ItOur narrator's part personal memoir family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and part analyticalthe father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Whether you regard The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is downsultry island country, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Hitchens Sarah Wilson|title=The Broken CompassThis One Wild and Precious Life: How British Politics lost its waythe path back to connection in a fractured world

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=IMy favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''ve long held that there What is no difference between the major political parties such that could command it you plan to vote for do with your one or the otherwild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this. '' The new Labour party now seems to stand somewhere I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the right of what way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though of as I can't see that she acknowledges the old Conservative party and the Lib Dems appear source) she pushes us to be a coalition of those who donthink about whether we really ''are''t fit comfortably into either of living the life we want – the other main partiesbest life that we could be living. My voting patterns have changed radically from supporting a party because of its views to voting against another because of its actionsHer answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. I was hoping that Don't care what you'The Broken Compassre doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she'' might clarify my thoughtss effing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847064051</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein 1785633457|title=NudgeCharging Around: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and HappinessExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Choices are inevitable: from Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the lunch sandwich to idea of exploring the credit card and internet provideredges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, to the house and car it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and pension planhis wife, modern humansJoan, particularly those living in technologically developed democracies are blessed (or cursed) with the freedom (and necessity) to choose all the time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141040017</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Davies1529153050|title=Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global MediaBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Do you remember a Y2K bug? When Seeking some light relief from the worldcurrent political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's computer systems were to melt down in an Armageddon Best Political Cartoons of vital services failure and possible nuclear accidents? The Y2K panic is a great example of flat-Earth news2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: something that gets passed on in the media chain cartoons run from those unsure 4 September 2021 to those who might have a vested interest in maintaining it as fact 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to those who are completely ignorant, and come in the process gets bigger and bigger and – almost accidentally – assumes a status of orthodox, accepted truth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512688</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer WorthB0B7289HKQ|title=Farewell To The East EndConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya

|genre=AutobiographyTravel|summary=I am interested in social history and, as a motherKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the job of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the East End'' is period between two jobs seemed like a riveting readgood time to do it. The author Jennifer Worth decision was a midwife and nursemade to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the East End recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of London a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950she was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Rania Al-Baz|title=Disfigured: A Saudi WomanI's Story ve got a couple of Triumph over Violence|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout her life Rania Al-Baz has been an unusual womanconfessions to make. She was married off by her father when she was still at school I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a man she hardly knew few stories and was the only married pupil, forced then forget to conform return to the Saudi Arabian traditions of putting her husband first in all things but still expected book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep up with her school workme engaged. Pregnancy forced her to give up on her schooling but Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the marriage failed and Rania returned to her fatherworld-building. It might have been expected that she would fade quietly into 's human beings who fascinate me: the home, but in a most unusual step she became technology and the smiling face on a Saudi television programmeworld scape are purely incidental. No woman had ever been So, what did I think of a news anchor before and book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it was only to be expected that there would be plenty of men wanting to marry her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844370755</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian DunningJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Skeptoid 2: More Critical Analysis The Book of Pop Phenomena Hope |rating=3.5|genre=Popular SciencePolitics and Society |summary=Brian Dunning The done thing is the author responsible for a series of weekly podcasts debunking and analysing to read a variety of dubious, pseudo-scientific, un-scientific and downright loony ideas, claims and myths common or persistent in book all the pop (and not so pop) cultureway through before you sit down to review it. ''Skeptoid 2'' is essentially a written version of those podcastsI’m making an exception here, a collection because I don’t want to lose any of fifty pieces the experience of which many can be also read or listened reading this amazing book, I want to at his [http://skeptoidcapture it as it hits me.com/ website]And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1440422850</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dan Gardner1788360737|title=RiskArtivism: The Science and Politics Battle for Museums in the Era of FearPostmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=4.52|genre=Popular SciencePolitics and Society|summary=Picture Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a world terrorised vacuum. It is made by just two wordspeople. A civilised, healthy, wealthy world no less, in thrall Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to and under threat from two words. Not what those two words represent even, just modifying the actual small phrasesocial environment in which he develops’’. It sounds ridiculousTherefore, but when I say those two words – ''bird flu'' – and you've stopped laughingall art must be political, you may well remember how even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the panic started, the nonEra of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-existent worry was the biggest concern of the western wing” donors and media for some time, elites hoping to create a more globalist and then it went away againprogressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753515539</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Ashenburg1398508632|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of WashingThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde

|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=Although maybe It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the first book you'd be drawn best time to – start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a history variety of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem that appealing – but if you terrains. She had overlooked this excellent bookelectricity which allowed her to run a fridge, you would have missed out on an enjoyable freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and informative bookfuel. Most importantly, full of fascinating facts and she had shelter: this was not a jolly good readplan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529149800Attitudes towards |title=Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4|genre=Home and Family|summary=We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the last two thousand years forest fire took hold and this book chronicles many most of themstood and watched, largely in Europe and the USunable to think of anything they could do. Cultural differences with regard The tiny hummingbird flew to cleanliness the river and body odour (began taking tiny amounts of water and yesflying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention heresaid the hummingbird. And that, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at lengthreally, from is the Greeks and Romans to only way that we will solve the present dayproblem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Hatzfeld1638485216|title=The Strategy Of AntelopesBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Rwanda After the GenocideA Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds

|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=''Life offers me smilesCorruption is not department, and I owe it my gratitude for not having abandoned me in the marshesgender or race specific. It has everything to do with character.'' ''I've known the defilement of a bestial existencePeriod.''

''WhoOne more body just wouldn't matter's going to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.''

So say some of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide The murder of 1994George Floyd, when 800a forty-six-year-old black man,000 Tutsis were murdered on 25 May 2020 by their fellow Hutu citizens. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis and Hutus thenDerek Chauvin, publishing two awarda forty-winning booksfour-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. In We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The Strategy image of Antelopes, he returns to Rwanda to talk to Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the same people police - and explore life after genocidenot just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686865</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emmanuel JalMatthieu Aikins|title=War Child: A Boy SoldierThe Naked Don's Storyt Fear the Water

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Emmanuel JalIt's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, internationally successful rap artistbecause it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, spent but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his childhood friend as a solider in his native Sudan. He has written his story in order to help those children who are still fighting, refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and those who have managed to get awayat times painful journey. There are a number tense moments and gripping accounts of books about border crossings which had me on edge the Sudan by western aid workers whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and journalists, who do, I am sure, write fluently and passionately about the horror of Darfur. This is the first book almost lyrical quality that I have read which tells allows the story of war from reader to perfectly envisage the point of view of a small boy carrying an AK-47, a gun taller than he is himselfenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408700050</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ash Amin and Michael O'Neill1785633074|title=Thinking About Almost EverythingStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHumour|summary=A wonderful digest Members of ideas spawned Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by ongoing work at Durham University. The cross discplinary broad brush strokes give insight into the pastpoliticians, headed by the present, and Prime minister - the future, and inspire personal and critical thinking. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668188X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Mullin|title=A View from the Foothills|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Chris Mullin''primus inter pares'' (that's diaries cover the period from July 1999 to May 2005 during which time he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department those of the Environment, Transport you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the Regions, for reality is that the Department for International Development and after a period on ''prime'' movers are the back benches also at special advisers - the Foreign Office. As he says, there will be no shortage of memoirs from those SPADS - who have occupied are the driving force behind the Olympian Heightsgovernment. In A View from We are in the privileged position of having access to the Foothills he offers a refreshingly different perspective – that memoirs of a Rafe Hubris, the man at who was behind the lowest levels skilful control of government who's party to what's happening further up the hillside and down on Covid crisis which was completely contained by the plainsend of 2020.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682231</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Iain Sinclair|title=Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''Documentary fiction'' is what Iain Sinclair oxymoronically calls this book. It's a lot of other things too: autobiography, history, psychogeography to You might not know the name now but three. His ''Hackney book'' as he self-referentially calls it throughout, is a dense collage of reportage and ''inaccurate and inventive'' transcriptions of interviews, peopled by film-makers, novelists, politicians and painters, not will certainly be the man to mention booksellers, barbers and bus driverswatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142164</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Kay1846276772|title=The Long and the Short End of itBias: A Guide to Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Aren't in the IndustryHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell

|summary=Sometimes I wonder if authors set out to stop people reading their books, strange as this might seem. John Kay Anyone who is not an excellent example. He tells us able, white man understands bias in that he expects his readers they may no longer even recognise the extent to be erudite and to be readers which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of popular scienceeveryday life. They'll never knowingly have dealt with Goldman Sachs and White men will always come first. The able will pay tax at come before the 40% ratedisabled. At Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the other end preserve of the scale theywhite man. Even when those who wouldn'll not be bad credit risks and just to cut out anyone hoping for t pass the medical become a quick buckpart of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, they'll not be tempted to make a living from Stock Market speculationthat their concerns are acknowledged. If you donIt't qualify s personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on all points therethe receiving end of the bias but it's not even a hint of a pass mark which might allow you to sneak into just the checkout queueindividuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954809327</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sudhir Venkatesh1529148251|title=Gang Leader For Misfits: A DayPersonal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel

|summary=If you've ever wondered why young people join gangs, and what it's like How am I able to bring up a family surrounded by armed drug dealersbe so transparent on paper about rape, you'll find ''Gang Leader For The Day'' fascinating. Sociology student Sudhir Venkatesh wanted to learn by observing the poor, baulking at the abstract, mathematical research methods used by his professors in the University of Chicago. In 1989, armed with a clipboard malpractice and a questionnaire, he visited the Robert Taylor Homespoverty, a notorious housing project. Instead of neatly answering his carefully-prepared questions - ''How does it feel to be black and pooryet still compartmentalise? It'' by selecting s as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good'', he finds himself held hostage overnight by members of the Black Kings, a crack-dealing gang, at the behest of its charismatic local leader, J.T.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141030917</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Alex Perry|title=Falling Off The Edge: Globalization, World Peace and Other Lies|rating=3Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=From Russia You're not going to read a book of essays or a devastated subself-Saharan Africa, economic collapse and consequent protest in reaction threaten help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the established orderEdinburgh TV Festival. Globalisation, is putting You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the survival of populations words as though you're in the worldlecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you's poorest countries at riskll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706886</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor0008350388|title=On Kindness We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45

|summary=As ''To be a titledark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...''On Kindness '' doesnWe Need to Talk About Money't pack quite the same punch as Adam Phillip's earlier: 'On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored'. It put me in mind of an eighteenth century treatise, and, give or take a couple of centuries, that is exactly what the book provides: a thought-provoking exposition on a currently unfashionable virtue.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144337</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|author=Quentin Letts |title=50 People Who Buggered Up Britain|rating=3''0.5|genre=History|summary=In 7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a rather less permissive age, 20 or 30 years ago, I suspect that the author might have been at the top writer of some peoplecolour while only 7% study a book by a woman.''s list of culprits for using that naughty b-word. Good grief, man, you can't possibly have that in a book title, what!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845298551</amazonuk>}}'The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Nicola Sly |title=Dorset Murders (True Crime History)|rating=4Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old.5|genre=History|summary=Having examined a number of true crime cases from Bristol in Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her [[Bristol Murders by Nicola Sly|last book]]father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the author now does best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the same for largely rural yet not always idyllic Dorsetfamily acquired a car. Twenty two murdersFor Otegha, committed between 1818 education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and 1946then a place at New College, come under the microscope in these pagesOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0750951079</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam RobertsRichard Brook|title=The Wonga CoupUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life

|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=The chances are I am a firm believer that you've never heard of Macias Nguema. You probably don't know his nephewsometimes we choose books, Obiang Nguema eitherand sometimes books choose us. They're certainly up there in the Premier League of killing and disappearance In my case, alongside the likes this is one of Pol Pot and modern day tyrants like Robert Mugabe. The fact that the Nguemas are dictators from the tiny west African state of Equatorial Guinea meant they largely slipped off the radar of western consciousnesslatter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Schama|title=The American Future: A History|rating=4|genre=History|summary=After 9/11 America Not so very long ago, if I had the sympathy come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of most people. Whether or it interesting, but it would not you agreed with what have 'hit home' in the country stood for was immaterial – the horror of what happened left few unmovedway that it does now. How then has the country descended into being vilified around much of the world and suspected even where I believe it is came to me not guilty? Simon Sharma has lived half his life in the States and he looks at four areas – War, Religion, the American identity and Economics in an attempt just because I was likely to understand how the country has reached this point when give it seemeda favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, at least until so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the 2008 electionbook, even if it doesn't always turn out that many Americans did not even like themselvesway'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847920004</amazonuk>1800461682

{{newreview|author=Martin Lindstrom|title=Buyology: How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy Is Wrong|rating=3I was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it.5|genre=Politics Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and Society|summary=Considering I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the amount company of money spent on advertising humans and the staggering sizes company of corporate marketing budgetsanimals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, it's astonishing eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to what extent it's unclear what exactly those huge amounts of money buyeither do so without guilt or change my choices. Lord Lever famously said I suspected that half of making the money spent on advertising is wasted - but he had no way of knowing which halfdecision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847940110</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonio Negri and Raf Scelsi1523092734|title=Goodbye Mr Socialism A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=35

|summary=''Goodbye, Mr Socialism'' is She brings a collection of conversations hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in which Antonio Negri her life. Again and Raf Scelsi explore what it means to be 'left wing' today again and whether ''the word "socialism" still has a political space''again. Starting with an analysis of possible reasons for both the monstrosities of Stalinism and the actual collapse of the 'real socialism' in general and the Soviet Union in particular(Alma Derricks, former CMO, Negri defines the challenge of the left as finding the answer to the question ''how development can occur in the future for people who have been liberated from capitalism'' to then move to discuss the newly re-emerging sense of ''the bio-political common'' as distinctly different from both the public (stateCirque du Soleil RSD) and the private.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1852429526</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=James Polk|title=The Triumph of Ignorance and Bliss: Pathologies of Public America|rating=3|genre=Politics and Society|summary=They still live in suburbs (that ''To claim space is, those who don't to live in third-world-like squalor the life of inner city ghettos), diet and workout obsessively (that is, those who don't stand in food bank queues), buy bigger and shinier objects that consume more and more energy, more interested in celebrity bra sizes and nipple flashes than in who rules the country choosing unapologetically and for whose benefitbravely. Every so often, especially when the crisis looms, they vote for CHANGE (as they have done just now), but essentially, whether in the ranks of Christian Taliban of the red states, or among Starbucks slurping and therapy-addicted in-crowd of the blue states, Americans are living their lives in a state of deluded ignorance and bliss, while their country It is literally falling to pieces around themlive the life you've always wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1551643146</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=The Economist |title=Pocket World In Figures 2009|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We live Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in a world where every pundit seems the news, ''A Women's Guide to have some figures with which to persuade or possibly bamboozle us. Occasionally the people using the figures donClaiming Space't fully understand what they're saying but that rarely stops them using them with an air of authorityby Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Sometimes statistics are tainted by political spin and for people who need Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to know the truth disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's increasingly difficult something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to find reliable information – with one exception. The Economistbe about how women can be 's 'protected'Pocket World in Figures 2009'. I' has no political axe ve always thought that women need to grind and offers no narrative rise above this, to accompany the figures it presents – the statistics speak for themselvesbe people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681235</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark ThomasPolly Barton|title=Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-ColaFifty Sounds

|summary=Where do I don't drink fizzy drinksstart? I could start with where Barton herself starts, aside from with the odd mixer in question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a rare visit to while and if the pubworld hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. ThereI may get there later this year, but I said itam not hopeful. And like Barton, Idon've consigned myself t know the answer to the dinosaur generation. I drink tea, and - gasp - water. From the tap. So I get to read Mark Thomasquestion ''why Japan?'s coruscating indictment of the Coca Cola Company with a rather smug smirk on my blameless lips.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091922933</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Justin Scroggie|title=Tic-tac Teddy Bears and Teardrop Tattoos|rating=4|genre=Trivia|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one She explains her feelings in respect of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at question in the exit end of a one-way street but facing the illegal way up it. Not all signs, of course, are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visiblefirst essay, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340976489</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Lyall|title=A Field Guide To The British|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=I have a fascination - one that borders on an unhealthy obsession - with books written about the British: and that fascination is clearly, not just a personal foible of mine sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as such books are uncannily common: from travelogues to memoirsbeing, hefty historical analyses to short satirical sketchesamong other things, the subject sound of Britishness (and Englishness) carries a seemingly endless fascination for natives and foreigners alike. Many of those books, somehow expectedly, are written by Americans as so is ''The Field Guideevery party where you have to introduce yourself'' by Sarah Lyall, an American journalist who married a Brit and came here for love in the mid/late 90's, exactly like I did, though I am sure that I move in slightly less elevated circles.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184724582X</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben GoldacreStephen Fabes|title=Bad ScienceSigns of Life

|genre=Popular ScienceTravel|summary=Bad science is everywhereI was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. People buy more expensive brand name aspirin than an equal dose in a different packetI was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Cosmetic adverts are peppered with pseudoscientific breakthroughs Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and ostensibly positive statisticsdo it. Newspapers and TV news (and sadly not just I also didn't inherit the tabloids) are riddled with scare stories kind of cannabis being 25 times strongersteady nerve, or miracle cures ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that will make everyone and everything fit and healthy immediatelyI would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. Ben Goldacre (NHS doctor and Guardian columnist) cuts through In order words I'm not the bullshit sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and gives people the tools to spot such nonsense not come home for themselvessix years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007240198</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=Alan Cowell|title=The Terminal Spy|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Find Bond bordering on This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the trivial these days? adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. Think It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that perhaps Le Carré is a little passé? they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'Spooks' too silly for words?  If you answered yes to any of those questions, I recommend you read The Terminal Spy: the Life expectation that they will marry and Death of Alexander Litvinenko – have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a true story of espionage, betrayal and murderbelief is a choice''.  If you think that because the Cold War is over and the Wall has been dismantled, then the Iron Curtain must be rusting away in an untidy heap at the bottom of the Black Sea – think again. That curtain still swishes as well-greased and unseen as ever. The spying game continues unabated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385614152</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Christina Thompson|title=Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=Subtitled ''an unlikely love story'', this was an interesting and inspiring memoir written by an American academic, who met and fell in love with a Maori - and what a beautiful tale it tells! Referred Move to as a 'contact' encounter (i.e., chance meeting) it sounds almost like a fairy tale, and in part it is - but a fairy tale which includes huge amount of hard work too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747582521</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]