'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Howard Jacobson
|title=The Finkler Question
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Julian Treslove is a middle aged former BBC radio producer now working as a professional look alike but quite who he looks like varies. Although never married, he has fathered two sons, neither of whom he sees regularly. Dismissed from the BBC for being too morbid on his late night Radio 3 programme, he is given to depressing levels of self-analysis in his small flat that's not quite in Hampstead. What Treslove lacks is a sense of belonging and this, he notes his Jewish friends have in spades, particularly his old school friend and rival, the best-selling philosopher and TV personality, Sam Finkler. Treslove, by contrast, always feels on the outside of life.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808870</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tony Ross
|author=David Williams
|title=11:59
|rating=4|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb informs the reader that this novel was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. And the front jacket is stylish and a bit Hitchcock-esque. All the signs looked promising for a decent read. But did it deliver?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956373356</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alan Davies
|title=Teenage Revolution: Growing Up in the 80s
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Born in 1966, Alan Davies grew up in Essex, the son of a staunchly Conservative-voting father and a mother who died of cancer when he was only six. It was a childhood dominated at first by 'Citizen Smith' and the other TV sitcoms, 'Starsky and Hutch', 'Grease', Barry Sheene, the Barron Knights, and Debbie Harry. The book begins at 1978, ''the year I started venturing out more'', and finishes at 1988, when he graduated from Kent University to find that stand-up comedy could be an alternative to finding a job where he would have to do what he was told.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141041803</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Oaten
|title=Screwing Up
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Like John Profumo and others, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for the wrong reasons. It was the episode which made him for a while the country's No. 1 paparazzi target, and which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his 'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detail. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with the Blair and Brown years. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Priestley
|title=The Dead of Winter
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Michael Vyner's father died when Michael was just a baby. He was a hero, sacrificing himself to save the life of Sir Stephen Clarendon whilst fighting for the British Empire in Afghanistan. This was precious little comfort to Michael and his mother, who resented the rich man's largesse over the years, wishing for the man they lost and not the charity of the man he saved. So, when Michael's mother dies too and he finds himself all alone in the world, he is not entirely overjoyed to discover that Sir Stephen is now his guardian and has invited him to spend Christmas at Hawton Mere.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800136</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ryunosuke Akutagawa
|title=The Beautiful and the Grotesque
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The author, the tongue-twisting Akutagawa is 'hailed as one of the greatest short story writers in world literature' says the back book cover. I was truly impressed and very keen to get reading. The front cover is both eye-catching and colourful, there's no doubt that this book is about Japan. There is a comprehensive Introduction with its lovely title ''A Sprig Of Wild Orange'' written by the translator. And straight away I got a strong sense of his enthusiasm for the short stories to follow. It is a good lead-in as it informs the reader of the gulf which exists between Western and Japanese values (a gulf as big as it gets, apparently) and of the conservative nature of the Japanese people.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0871401924</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adrian Magson
|title=Death on the Marais
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=We meet the central character, Inspector Rocco and are informed that he's a city man, happiest pounding the elegant streets of Paris. But suddenly and against his will, he finds himself in the sticks. He's not too happy about it. His new colleagues are more than happy to rib him a little, tell him that nothing much in the way of crime happens here. One of these colleagues takes things a stage further - puffs up his cheeks before commenting 'we get the occasional punch-up over a game of bar billiards ...' Rocco thinks he'll be bored out of his skull in no time. Big surprise then when on day one, yes, on day one he's involved in the discovery of a young woman. And Magson wastes no time in giving his readers all the gory details of this woman's last few hours alive. We almost feel her slow, agonising death. And the question is why?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749008342</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Berlie Doherty
|title=Deep Secret
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=
Every now and again them there publisher people do this reviewer a big favour and reissue a book that she missed first time around. This is one of those now and thens. Anybody who loves words - child or adult - will love the way Berlie Doherty writes. Her graceful, lyrical prose just floats from the page and you lose yourself in the worlds she creates. She's known for her versatility too - writing realistic books about contemporary issues, fantasies and, as here with Deep Secret, historical novels.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392358</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Leigh Hodgkinson
|title=Scrummy!
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Sunny McCloud is back after losing, then finding, her [[Smile! by Leigh Hodgkinson|smile]]. This time she's considering what kind of sandwich ingredients her family are. When her sandwich turns out to be a bit of a mundane cheese sandwich, she wonders what would spice up her sandwich and her family, going wild with bananas/monkeys and ice cream/penguins. Ice cream in a cheese sandwich? Hmm...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140830936X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Leigh Hodgkinson
|title=Limelight Larry
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Limelight Larry is, like most peacocks, a bit of a show-off. He's absolutely delighted to be the star of his very own book, and can't help but preen and boast about how wonderful he is, and how amazing his book will be. When Mouse pops in to the corner of a page, Larry is annoyed to be sharing the limelight, and his frustration grows and grows as more and more creatures show up to talk about Larry's book. How will Larry be able to get the attention he so desperately craves?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408301830</amazonuk>
}}