'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=David McKee
|title=Elmer's Special Day
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=My daughter has grown up loving the Elmer the Elephant stories and even though she is now six, he still remains one of her firm favourites. His brightly coloured patchwork skin, along with his wise words and thoughts, is particularly appealing. In 'Elmer's Special Day', all of the elephants become as bright and colourful as Elmer, as this is their one opportunity to paint and decorate themselves as brightly as him. They do become rather noisy and excitable though which causes some of the other jungle animals to complain. Elmer is both wise and resourceful though and soon realises that the way to keep all of the animals happy is to invite them all to join in. He does this and the outcome is truly colourful with lions, monkeys, giraffes, as well as elephants and many more animals, all uniquely decorated and wearing elephant masks. All except one elephant that is. Because this is the day when all of the other animals can shine, Elmer goes and rolls in elephant coloured berry mud until he is the one that looks like an ordinary elephant. At that moment the parade begins and it is truly enjoyable and spectacular.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709852</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ann Patchett
|summary=I'd like to introduce you to the polar bear pirates. They're the people who believe in life before death – the people who can deliver extraordinary results despite being just ordinary people like you and me. Well, me anyway. They're the manager who can motivate their staff to achieve those extraordinary results – even if their staff are sleepwalkers who live on planet complacency, amps or vamps. We won't mention the potholers. This is a management book like no other – you're going to laugh, cry just occasionally when you realise that you've been seen through and come away with plenty to think about.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857081276</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Morgan Matson
|title=Amy and Roger's Epic Detour
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Amy hasn't got in a car for months, since her dad died in the crash, so she can't believe it when her mother tells her she needs to take it from California to the East Coast, even if she '''has''' arranged for Roger, the seriously cute son of a family friend, to drive. She thinks the trip will be a four day nightmare, as scheduled by her mother. Except Roger's not keen on overly regimented trips, and Amy's so upset at being forced into doing this that she's happy to go off track… so the pair decide to take the scenic route and explore America on the way there.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857072684</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon
|title=Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul
|rating=3.5
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=For nearly thirty years Starbucks had measured its success by its rate of expansion. In 2007 anyone looking at the accounts might have realised that there were odd areas which weren't quite so good, but overall the results continued to improve as they had done for many years. If it wasn't broke what needed to be mended? Former Chief Executive Officer, Howard Schultz, then watched as the share price started to tumble and it suddenly seemed that the very existence of the company was in doubt. He did what no one expected him to do – after eight years away from the job he returned as CEO.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0470977647</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cathy Glass
|title=Run, Mummy, Run
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aisha is a young, beautiful and successful woman who has worked hard to get where she is. But there is one thing missing in her life: a man. Still living with her parents at the age of thirty and inexperienced when it comes to men, Aisha wonders if she will ever find a husband. But then she spots an ad in the paper and plucking up all her courage and determination, she decides to reply. This could be her only chance at love and she doesn't want to waste it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007299281</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cerys Matthews and Fran Evans
|title=Tales From The Deep
|rating=3
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Cerys Matthews has adapted two Welsh legends - ''Cantre'r Gwaelod'' and ''The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach'' - for a young and modern audience. The first tale from the deep, ''The Ghost Bells of the Lowlands'', tells of a drunken watchmen whose carelessness leads to the destruction of a village. The second tale, ''Myddfai Magic'', sees a man marry a beautiful lady of a lake, with the promise that she will leave him if he hits her three times.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848513127</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Blake Morrison
|title=The Last Weekend
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens in the sunny month of June when the invitation is given, via telephone, from Ollie and Daisy to Ian and Emily. Or Em as she's called throughout - there's a lovely explanation of why Ian insists on shortening his wife's name. And even with this generous and seemingly innocent phone call, all hell seems to break loose as Ian decides to de-cipher the call. Did they mean this? Did they really mean that? And lots of undercurrents and negative feelings start to bubble up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954234X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nicholas Hogg
|title=The Hummingbird and the Bear
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sam Taylor seems to have a charmed life – a City job that brings him wealth and prestige, a wonderful fiancée and a lovely London home. But all this can't compensate for a childhood that contained great sorrow; he is haunted by a sense of being somehow incomplete. When a chance encounter at a wedding brings a new woman into this life, he begins to hope that he has found everything he really needs.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901647X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lisa Jewell
|title=The Making of Us
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lydia, Robyn and Dean are three completely different people with only one thing in common. According to an online donor registry, they were all fathered by the same sperm donor. Some have known of their heritage for a while, others are just finding out, but none of them knew the other two existed. Until now. At the same time, their donor father's life is slipping away. His last wish is to know of the impact his 'noble' act may have had, the legacy it is leaving on the world. And in this information age it's not that hard to trace your roots, unless, that is, you're searching for people who don't want to be found.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846055741</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean Rhys
|title=Wide Sargasso Sea
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the late eighteen thirties the father of an English gentleman conspires to marry him off to a landed Jamaican Creole as a means of giving his second son an estate and stopping him being a burden on the family. Written in the nineteen sixties, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' was inspired by Rochester's first wife in ''Jane Eyre'', and is an impressionistic, hallucinatory account of that woman's alienation and subsequent descent into madness that can be read as a prequel to the Bronte novel. The book covers Antoinette's childhood in Jamaica and her honeymoon on a small Caribbean island with her new husband and their domestic servants, and the point of view shifts between Antoinette and her husband.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951550</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Margaret James
|title=The Golden Chain
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's 1931 and teenager Daisy Denham, along with her parents Alex and Rose, and two brothers have left their life in India and moved to Melbury House in Dorset, a place full of history for Alex and Rose. Daisy is not keen on her new life and surroundings and is desperate to escape, particularly when she discovers a long held family secret that casts a shadow across her past. She soon meets handsome Ewan Fraser, a young man forced to spend his holidays in Dorset thanks to his overbearing mother, and the two strike up an instant friendship that soon turns to love, spurred on by their joint interest in working on the stage. Ewan soon gives Daisy a golden chain and Daisy promises never to take it off.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190693164X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maxim Jakubowski
|title=The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The latest in the annual series of short story collections edited by Maxim Jakubowski gives readers a wide range of stories from authors as diverse as the much-acclaimed [[:Category:Ian Rankin|Ian Rankin]] and [[:Category:Kate Atkinson|Kate Atkinson]], newwcomers such as Nigel Bird and Jay Stringer, and father and son combination Peter and Phil Lovesey.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015678</amazonuk>
}}
