'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Deirdre Madden
|title=Jasper and the Green Marvel
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Have you read [[Snakes' Elbows by Deirdre Madden|Snakes' Elbows]] yet? If not, you really should. And although you can follow this story without having read the first one it's much nicer to know all about everyone really, isn't it? So, let's carry on as if you have read ''Snakes' Elbows'' so you know all about the little town of Woodford and a certain millionaire who lives there called Jasper Jellit. He's a rather nasty piece of work, and it was with great relief at the end of the first book that we saw him get locked up in prison. However, he's served his time and he's just been released back into the community, which can only mean more trouble for Woodford...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571260071</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jonathan Evison
Many Americans believe that the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the American democracy, the fountain-head of the American Way of Life and the American Dream. The 4th of July is the national holiday and often thought to be the single most important date in American history.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474520X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stella Newman
|title=Pear Shaped
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=One night Sophie was out with her friend Laura. They met a couple of men and there was an immediate chemistry between Sophie and James Stephens. He was good looking, charismatic, great fun and obviously attracted to Sophie. The fact that he was rich (complete with Maserati) didn't matter to her - but it didn't do any harm either. What's not to like? Well, there's nothing 'not to like' but just the odd thing that might give some pause for thought. He's forty five and never been married - and has a history of dating super-slim models. But - he is obviously very taken with Sophie and she falls head-over-heels for him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847562701</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Erica Heller
|title=Yossarian Slept Here
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary='To live forever or die in the attempt' was the essential glory in life and living that is at the heart of John Yossarian in [[Catch 22 by Joseph Heller|Catch 22]]. This autobiography of the daughter of his creator, Joseph Heller, reveals how the same excitement and joie de vivre suffused throughout the Heller family. The harebrained unpredictability, the madcap exploits and relationships bowl us through this book with terrific pace and verve.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570084</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sue Eckstein
|title=Interpreters
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Julia Rosenthal whilst visiting her childhood haunts, is invited to go around what used to be her family home. As she wanders around the rooms, she relives her past and seeks to understand why her parents (particularly her mother) were as they were. Julia also desperately seeks reassurance that she has not, in turn, damaged her own daughter, Susanna. Meanwhile the reader is given the privilege of knowledge unavailable to Julia. Via transcriptions of discussions with counsellor, the reader learns about Julia's mother first hand. Slowly, in alternating chapters, whilst Julia goes over her far from normal 1970s upbringing, her mother haltingly and touchingly reveals the secret life which almost destroyed her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559964</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Toby Lester
|title=Da Vinci's Ghost: The untold story of Vitruvian Man
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=
As the number of popular non-fiction titles grows, the authors on the hunt for new-book material often use a ''concept'' approach, trying to come up with an USP for a new title. This uniqueness is often achieved by adopting an obscure subject, or an unusual perspective from which to view a popular theme.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684544</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chambers and Joan Bakewell
|title=Chambers Biographical Dictionary
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=It's now the ninth edition of this famous volume and that came as a bit of a shock when I glanced at the bookcase and realised that my copy dated back to 1974 and was still in regular use for a quick guide as to who might have been who. It's advertised as 'the great, the good, the not-so-great and the downright wicked' and it's difficult to better that summary. It has eighteen thousand biographies and differs from ''Who's Who'' with it's thirty thousand entries in that covers the dead as well as the living and the ''interesting'' rather than those who need to be included because they have achieved a certain position.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0550106936</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kevin Barry
|title=City of Bohane
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Bohane is a thoroughly lawless town, set in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set in 2053, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuries. It's a violent place fuelled by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get into. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and ''City of Bohane'' is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly good.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090577</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matt Whyman
|title=Pig in the Middle
|rating=4.5
|genre=Pets
|summary=
I'm so pleased I read this book. It's only the occasional writer who grabs me by the short and curlies with his observation of human nature, but accomplished children's writer Matt Whyman not only grabbed me, but sold me on the mini-pigs as well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444711466</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marcus Chown
|title=Solar System
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=With beautiful photographs of the wonders of the solar system, this is a gorgeous coffee table book for anyone with even a passing interest in astronomy. Marcus Chown's descriptions are in-depth enough to warrant considered reading, but if you're after a simple and casual flick through, you'll still find plenty to appeal.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571277713</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adam Ross
|title=Ladies and Gentlemen
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Adam Ross's characters are driven - but I mean that in the wrong way. They're not the ones riding on a crest of a wave of motivation, steering their course through life. No, instead they are passengers, and who or whatever is at the wheel seems to have lost the satnav. So, in 'Futures', a middle-aged unemployed man finds himself giving life lessons and a kick up the backside to a teenaged neighbour just as his own career seems about to enter its nth phase, with an airy-fairy psychic-oriented company that won't ever go as far as telling him what his job might be. A professor who has to settle temporarily where his work takes him and not where he would like, has to wonder what to do when told of the action-packed adventures of a devil-may-care, come-what-may mechanic.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087746</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Early
|title=Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent (The Father of Lies Chronicles)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Joe Quinn is offered a great job working on the new Metro tunnels, within just a few days, he and his son Arthur have packed up and moved from a peaceful life in Kerry across country to central Dublin.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1856358275</amazonuk>
}}
