'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Natasha Narayan
|title=The Book of Bones: A Kit Salter Adventure
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I thoroughly enjoyed Kit Salter's previous two adventures, [[The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan|The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis]] and [[The Maharajah's Monkey: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan|The Maharajah's Monkey]], so I was looking forward to her latest outing. Here in ''The Book of Bones'' I read anxiously as Kit and her friends were kidnapped by their arch enemies, The Baker Brothers. The Baker Brothers tell them that one of the friends has been poisoned, but not which one, and the only way to save themselves is if they undertake a dangerous journey to China in search of an ancient book about martial arts, the Book of Bones. En route the children do battle with pirates, doctors of phrenology as well as the Emperor's army. Will they discover which of them has been poisoned, or find the magical book, before it's too late...?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162417</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Pennac
|summary=With the life she thought was before her ruined by her fiancé's cheating ways, Rose Taylor swiftly leaves her life in London and seeks refuge with her mother Mimi and her sister Lily in the beautiful city of Bath. Reeling from her fiancé's deceptions, now is as good a time as any for Rose to reinvent herself, although she is determined to win her fiancé back. Having always had an eye for clothes, starting a vintage dress shop seems like a perfect idea and soon 'Vintage Magic' is opened.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755354419</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Mullin
|title=Decline and Fall: Diaries 2005 to 2010
|rating=5
|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=At the end of [[A View from the Foothills by Chris Mullin|A View from the Foothills]] we left Chris Mullin wondering why he was no longer Tony Blair's Africa minister at the Foreign Office. He was never to get a definitive answer to this, but was later told that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweets, with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sacked. In Decline and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills of politics and return to the backbenches. He might no longer be in a position of power, but he's still in the thick of it. Perhaps though, some of the enjoyment is draining away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very important.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683998</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ruth Dugdall
|title=The Woman Before Me
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're introduced to one of the female central characters, Rose. There's been a serious house fire and a baby has been involved. Rose is implicated. But is she innocent or guilty? Unfortunately for Rose, she's been in the wrong place at the wrong time - and she's put behind bars. Five years is a long time for a young woman with the rest of her life to lead. Even more so, if you're telling anyone and everyone that you are, in fact, innocent of the crime. But is anyone listening?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907461159</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sara Starbuck
|title=Dread Pirate Fleur and the Hangman's Noose
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When a mysterious young girl in a barrel is fished from the sea and rescued by the pirate ship belonging to Fleur's uncle William, it seems bad news might be on the way. The girl turns out to have psychic abilities - and they're just about to hit landfall at Salem, right in time for the witch-hunts. But worse is to come. William gets captured there, and someone Fleur thought long dead starts to take his place on board instead. Fleur then has to skipper the craft herself, on a rescue mission, in a very tense domestic situation. That's hard enough when you're a mere teenaged girl, against ruffians and pirates, but when the ship has secrets of her own to be revealed...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862307296</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Taylor
|title=The Anatomy of Ghosts
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A grieving London bookseller and writer is offered a commission by Lady Anne Oldershaw. She hires him to go to Cambridge University, to help her son, who has been driven mad and claims he can see the ghost of a dead woman. Following tragedy in his own family, when his son Georgie drowned in the Thames, Holdsworth has written a successful pamphlet, The Anatomy of Ghosts, exposing the trickery and lies behind ideas about ghosts and haunting. The pamphlet was inspired by his anger at his wife Maria, whose response to Georgie’s death was to give money to a dodgy medium, and who ended up in the river at the same spot as her son.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718147510</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew McConnell Stott
|title=The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain's Greatest Comedian
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=This book has won several prestigious awards, so my expectations were raised before I'd even opened the book. And of all the plaudits given on the back cover, my favourite was Simon Callows' '(A) great big Christmas pudding of a book ...' Stott has researched his subject thoroughly. First up, there's a Grimaldi family tree, a Prologue, an Introduction and all this before you get to the story proper, so to speak.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847677614</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ken Howard
|title=The Young Chieftain
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=One minute, Jamie Doran is playing basketball with his friends in downtown LA, the next he's en route to the island of Doran in Scotland to bury his father. James Doran, you see, had been Doran's clan chieftain. The island proves a culture shock for cosmpolitan Jamie. It's remote and dilapidated, there's no internet or mobile phone access, and the only TV is in the community centre. Jamie's grandmother isn't welcoming either - in fact, she barely bothers to hide her distate for her black daughter-in-law and mixed race grandson.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848530331</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David McKee
|title=Elmer Again
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Elmer the patchwork elephant is back... umm... Again. Everything is gearing up for the annual Elmer's Day Parade, where the other elephants paint themselves brightly and he paints himself grey. Being a bit of a scamp, he decides that things need to be livened up, so he plots and plans, then sets about putting a smile on everyone's faces.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842707507</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Grant
|title=Lies (Gone)
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Sam is tired of being heroic. Tired of being relied upon. But he resents being sidelined by his own girlfriend. Astrid's Town Council is busy bringing bureaucracy and officialdom to the FAYZ, but will it ever do anything other than procrastinate? Sam doesn't think so and he's painfully aware that danger lurks around every corner. Zil's band of freak-haters are gearing up to cause some damage, Caine is down but not out, and food is still in short supply. Tensions are growing and the Town Council isn't up to the job. And what's worse is that Sam doesn't think he is, either...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405254297</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter Der Manuelian
|title=Hieroglyphs From A To Z
|rating=3.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=This look at hieroglyphs comes with stencils, so that children can write out their own coded messages. It's a simple introduction for any budding Egyptologists, and has a lot of additional information about Ancient Egypt to keep them interested.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0764953060</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jonathan Phillips
|title=Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In this book, drawing on a wealth of contemporary sources including chronicles, songs, sermons, travel diaries and peace treaties, as well as the existing literature from earlier generations, Phillips explores in depth the contradictions and the diversity of holy war, of friendships and alliances between Christians and Muslims, the launches of crusades against Christians, and calls for jihads against Muslims. In doing so he has written what is not so much a general history, but had vividly brought to life a rich tapestry of figures and events, while devoting equal attention in his narrative to the Christian and Islamic point of view. This traces the crusading impulse from the conquest of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, launched by Pope Urban II in France in 1095, to today, and in the process helps us to understand the origins of some of the sensitivities which have led to many of the conflicts still raging in the world today.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184595078X</amazonuk>
}}