'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Gillian Morgan
|title=Salt Blue
|rating=3
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=I always judge a book by its cover. The eyes in the pretty face on the cover of ''Salt Blue'' are arresting, but difficult to assign to a period, though it’s clearly women’s or teen fiction. I imagine that the cover might attract fiction readers of mainstream women’s magazines such as Women’s Weekly or Woman’s Own, so it’s spot on for the story inside.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784159</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Shone
|summary=Meet Billy Harrow, curator of molluscs and other pickled creatures. Imagine if you will Billy's thoughts on entering the chamber that houses the highlight of his museum's tour - an immense squid, housed in a glass crate - only to find the entire thing - animal and tank - impossibly removed. Imagine, too, the more esoteric kind of policeman and -woman needed to arrive, to tell him that his exhibit was the keystone of a mysterious cult with the end of times on their mind, and that they might just like Billy to infiltrate it and see what was precisely what. Just consider - is Billy, the man who bottled the giant squid, a John the Baptist to this cult, or a Judas?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0333989503</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=A N Wilson, Nick Cave, Richard Holloway and Blake Morrison
|title=The Four Gospels with introductions
|rating=4
|genre=Spirituality and Religion
|summary=I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book. I only skimmed
through the description on Amazon, and understood that four modern
writers were introducing the four Gospels. What I hadn't really taken
in was that the introductions are brief - a few pages each - and that
the bulk of the book consists of the Authorised Version (known as the
King James Version in the USA) of the Gospels. The whole is published
in a fairly trendy looking paperback format, with the idea of
appealing to people who are not particularly religious, but who see
the Bible as valuable ancient literature.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678351</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Welch and Lucian Randall
|title=Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Redheads, they say, feel more pain than the rest of us. They may even have a layer of skin too few. However literally true this might be, it certainly seems to be the case for Vivian Stanshall. As his second wife says in this excellent book, 'There's nothing between him and all the sensations the world has to give us'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841156795</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Cookson
|title=The World At Our Feet
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
|summary=With the World Cup just around the corner, football is on everyone's lips. Paul Cookson, Poet in Residence at the [http://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/ National Football Museum], has compiled the best football poems for young children.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>033051086X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen Abbott
|title=A Most Rebellious Debutante
|rating=3
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Lucy Templeton, daughter of Lord Templeton, fell in love with her dancing master. It wasn't entirely unusual for a seventeen year old girl to feel this way, but it was better that it was unheard of when she was caught in his arms. A substantial sum of money for the dancing master ensured that he would disappear and Lucy was sent to stay with her married sister as punishment. She was not to attend parties or social functions and must spend her time looking after her sister's young children and doing good works, until such time as the Templetons could get her married off. All might have gone according to their plan had she not had a chance encounter with the notorious Lord Rockhaven and a stolen kiss catches her heart.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090315</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ben Okri
|title=Tales of Freedom
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Tales of Freedom is a book of two halves, with a short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up the majority of the book. Comic Destiny is made up of a series of short pieces that follow on from each other and are probably best described as being closer to prose poetry than anything else.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sara Wheeler
|title=The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
|summary=The title of this book suggests another travel book about adventure in the frozen north, but Sara Wheeler mixes her tales of her own travels with some history of polar exploration and a serious examination of the impact of visitors and of those who wish to exploit the Arctic’s natural resources on the region and its people. Rather than setting off on another expedition to reach the North Pole, she travels around bits of the Arctic divided between different countries and governments, including Chukotka (Russia), Alaska (USA), Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (Norway) and Lapland (Russia and Scandinavia). There is a huge amount of material in the book but Wheeler organises and presents it in a very readable, accessible style.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516888</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Austin Wright
|title=Tony and Susan
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Sheffield hadn't exactly been Susan's childhood sweetheart, but after a family tragedy left him homeless he came to live with Susan and her parents for a year so that he could finish school. Susan didn't particularly want him there but accepted that it was the right thing to do. Years later they met at university when Edward was studying law and after a short relationship they married. The marriage wasn't entirely successful; Edward gave up law to become a writer, relying on Susan's teaching income to support them, but whilst he spent a month away in a remote cabin 'to find himself' Susan found Arnold instead. Many years – and three children – later Susan receives a manuscript from Edward. She was, he said, always his best critic and he would like her opinion.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870205</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Wolff
|title=The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdoch. Over four decades he's built News International into a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in the UK media is such that he's courted by politicians and has what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizen. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Meg Rosoff
|title=Vamoose (Pocket Money Puffins)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=There are lots of reasons not to become a teen mum while still at school – there’s your loss of freedom, for a start, plus the fact that babies spend their days crying and pooing, not to mention the fact they’re expensive. But what happens to Jess is something that no one has warned her about: she goes into hospital and gives birth to a bouncing baby moose. Which is, it has to be said, slightly odd. As she and boyfriend Nick struggle through first-time parenthood and learn to deal with the Unique Challenge of having a non-homo-sapien child, there’s a lesson for all of us about biting off more than we can chew and unpredictable consequences.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141329149</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fernando Pessoa
|title=The Book of Disquiet
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you try to read 'The Book of Disquiet' from cover to cover, it is almost oppressively melancholic. Nothing much happens, and what we have is a collection of reveries and thoughts - almost a diary, but not quite - of existential musings about life, loneliness and the human condition. It's so introspective that after a while the monotony of the writer's mundane existence starts to wear on the reader. '''But''' I would urge you not to read this book like that. Rather, dip into it at random and you will find a work of undeniable genius. It's quite simply a masterpiece of modernist writing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687357</amazonuk>
}}
