'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Lauren Oliver
|title=Delirium
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Imagine a world without love... Where romance was dead, parents felt no affection for their children, and Romeo and Juliet was studied as a cautionary tale. Lena's world has nearly reached that stage. The cure has been found for amor deliria nervosa, and is given to all children when they reach the age of 18. After her mother's suicide for love Lena is desperate to reach that age and receive the cure. She knows things will change - she's seen the effect it has on those who go through it and the way it makes them all calmer - but she's ready to welcome it. And then she meets a boy, and her views on love are turned completely upside down. But with the date of the cure so close, can she possibly do anything about her new feelings?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980915</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
Despite the opening, this novel is more gritty realism than fantasy – there is lots of mythical imagery but in truth, the setting for this novel is a small industrial town cut off from everywhere else by the surrounding canals. It is 1933 (the middle of the Great Depression), and a stranger arrives in town to turn Ruby’s life upside down, for better or worse.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540053</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard
|title=The Colosseum
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=The Colosseum is the most famous and instantly recognisable monument to have survived from the classical world. Most readily associated with the gladiatorial games and contests between the Christians and the lions so beloved by imperial Rome, it originally held over 50,000 spectators, a number now completely dwarfed by the four million or more visitors who come each year.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684706</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Colin Mulhern
|title=Clash
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Alex Crow is the sort of kid who you stay well away from, whether you're the nerdy classroom joker or the loudmouthed bully of the class. From Kyle's point of view he appears to be a disturbed psycho, with barely restrained brutality, and he does everything possible to avoid him. However, events conspire to bring the two together, and we learn that there is a lot more to both characters than first impressions seem to imply. As tensions mount and stakes are upped, it is down to a tortured Alex to overcome his internal confusion, fight to save those close to him, and redeem himself as a person.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846471168</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jojo Tulloh
|title=East End Paradise: Kitchen Garden Cooking In The City
|rating=4
|genre=Cookery
|summary=It's easy to think that growing your own fruit and vegetables is only possible if you live in the country and have a large garden, but Jojo Tulloh prove that you can live in a city, have an allotment – in her case a patch of East London waste ground – and put good food on the family's table. Even if you don't have the luxury of an allotment (and in some areas the waiting list is longer than most people can contemplate) there are still ways that almost everyone can produce some of their own food. You might wonder why this matters, but anything you grow yourself is going to be fresher when you eat it and taste far better than anything you pick up at the supermarket.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523590</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Brennan and Harry Harrison
|title=Chinese Calendar Tales: The Tale of Rhonda Rabbit
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Here in this tale we find ourselves back in the year 221BC, and the Emperor Qin Shi Huang is having some rodent issues. As this is from a series of books called ''The Chinese Calendar Tales'' I think I was expecting the story to relate more to the Chinese zodiac and the rabbit's place within it. However, this is really just a story about a very naughty rabbit who keeps eating the Emperor's vegetables, his mission to capture and kill her, and the unfortunate conclusion to this romp of a tale...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881888255</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Richard Jenkyns
|title=Westminster Abbey: A Thousand Years of National Pageantry
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Few if any buildings in Britain personify history, and are steeped in so much, as Westminster Abbey. As the author says in his introduction, it is the most complex church in the world in terms of not only history but also functions and memories, perhaps the most complex building of any kind. In this compact paperback history, an updated edition of a hardback first published in 2004, he tells the story very readably from its foundation by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century to the preparations for the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William in 2011.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685346</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Marsden
|title=Tomorrow When The War Began
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ellie and her friends are going to Hell. On a camping trip, that is. Taking enough supplies to last a week, the Australian teens are determined to have fun in the remotest part of the bush and get to know each other a little better. Or a lot better in certain cases… The week goes well, but all too soon it’s time to
leave. Except when they get back, it’s to find their worlds have been turned completely upside down. Their farms are devastated, animals dead or dying, and families nowhere to be found. How can this have happened, and is it related to the mysterious planes they saw flying overhead on Commemoration Day? The teens set out to find out what happened to their families and work out just how they can survive.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857387332</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carol Lynch Williams
|title=Miles From Ordinary
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lacey wakes up one summer morning ready to start her new job at the library. Maybe she'll actually make her first real friend. It's also Lacey's mother's first day too, working at the local grocery store. But, Lacey's mother is ill – she hears voices, or to be more specific she hears the voice of Lacey's dead Grandfather telling her what to do. But they need the money after Lacey's mother spent all their money on tinned food ready for the end of the world that Lacey's Grandfather had told her was coming. Everything starts off well, and Lacey even manages to become friends with one of the cool kids, Aaron, on the bus to the library. But, as the day goes on Lacey's memories come flooding back and what started off as a normal day starts to spiral out of control.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312555121</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Titchmarsh
|title=When I Was A Nipper
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=There's something about Alan Titchmarsh that you can't help liking. He's got a wry sense of humour, seems unfailingly positive and, best of all, was born in my home town of Ilkley. You really can't get much better than that, now can you? 'When I Was A Nipper' is a look not just at his life in the fifties (although there ''is'' a lot about him) but about the way that things were then. There's an unspoken question about what we can learn from how we lived then and how we can apply this to our lives today. It's pure nostalgia only lightly seasoned with the reality of outside privies and harsh working conditions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184990152X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Richard Hughes
|title=The Fox in the Attic
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with a scene set to grab the reader's attention: a young girl has been found dead somewhere on the Welsh coast. And straight away I'm aware of Hughes' particular writing style. Fluid with proper sentences. It all has a traditional feel which I liked. Then we cut fairly briskly to the young Augustine who's rattling around in some pile. Due to the fallen in the First World War, many heirs did not return to England to take their rightful (I'm getting into the language, you'll notice) place in the family dynasty.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879784</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=S L Grey
|title=The Mall
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=I must admit that the front cover is extremely eye-catching and that drop of blood gives a hint as to what the book's all about. There are two central characters and their stories are told in the first person in alternating chapters. So first up, is Rhoda - and boy does she have attitude. She's babysitting for a friend and decides to take the youngster to a local shopping mall. Nothing wrong there, you could say except that it's late at night (the boy should really be in bed) and the shops are starting to shut for the night. Rhoda is a bit of a mess. She takes drugs, although she says she's not reliant on them, so when the 'kid' goes and does a disappearing act on her, she's both fuming and scared. Grey locates her story in Jo'burg and there's an element of threatening violence within its pages.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857890425</amazonuk>
}}
