'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Amy Chua
|title=Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Amy Chua has firm beliefs about parenting. She brought up her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, using a strict set of rules – including no sleepovers, no playdates, no school plays, no choice of extra curricular activity, no grades less than an A, and no being less than the number 1 student in any 'academic' subject. Then there's the piano and violin practice… On hearing she called her
daughter Sophia 'garbage', an acquaintance of hers burst into tears. The thought of praising one of the girls for getting a B, as many American parents do, would no doubt have a similar affect on Chua. Mother – or monster?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Diana Wynne Jones
|summary=When I first had a garden I did what I always do with a new project: I turned to books to see what help I could find. There were any number which told me how to do the basics and what I needed to know to make the right decisions. It was rather like cooking only with a few more uncertainties thrown in. Then there were the books which didn't really bother about the basics but provided limitless inspiration. At the head of these writers, if not way out in front, was Christopher Lloyd who gardened throughout his life at Great Dixter, producing colour combinations which stunned and probably one of the greatest gardens of the twentieth century.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950968</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rachel Simon
|title=The Story of Beautiful Girl
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book begins with widow Martha, an ex-teacher in her seventies living alone in her farmhouse in the Pennsylvanian countryside. Martha's life is filled with loneliness, a phone that never rings, and she rarely sees other people. But all that is set to change one rainy night in 1968 when Lynnie and Homan knock on Martha's door. Lynnie and Homan have escaped from The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, a harsh institution where people with disabilities are kept away from the rest of the world. Martha takes the couple in and soon discovers that Lynnie is carrying a new born baby.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809339X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin
|title=Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Meet Jenna and Jonah, Charlie and Fielding – they're the stars of the hit TV show 'Jenna and Jonah's How To Be A Rock Star'. On-screen they're next-door neighbours in a will they, won't they plot. Off-screen they're every bit the perfect couple they are on TV, romantic dinners, flowers – the lot. The problem is they hate each other. You heard me right, they loathe each other.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140881630X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jakob Lovstad
|title=Going Mental: Reaching Your Goals in Business and Sports - Full Contact NLP Coaching from a Full Contact Fighter
|rating=4
|genre=Sport
|summary=Some books seem determined to put you off. Unless it's literary fiction 'Going Mental' suggests something that I've gone to great lengths to avoid. The man on the cover is bald, bloodied and apparently screaming. I've been avoiding men like that too. '…not for the soft and sensitive!' it says and whilst I wouldn't describe myself as either I do wonder whether allowing Jakob Lovstad to mess with my head is the wisest thing I've ever done. When I realise that he's a cage fighter I'm ready to run. What has that got to do with my business? Because that's what this book is about – reaching your goals in business and sports.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685588</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Henry Sutton
|title=Get Me Out Of Here
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hapless (and you could also say hopeless) Matt is fed up with his rather sad and unexciting life. So, at every opportunity he wants to spice it up a bit. But does this strategy work? We're barely pages into the book when we see that Matt is an out-and-out snob. He knows all the designer labels for the best clothes, the best shoes (handmade, natch), the best champagne label ... I think you may get my drift here. That's fine. As long as you can pay for this high life, what's the problem? Well, Matt's problem is cash - or the distinct lack of it. He's down on his financial luck at the minute so it's time to try another angle ...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535629</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Joolz Denby
|title=The Curious Mystery of Miss Lydia Larkin and the Widow Marvell
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was a bit surprised by this book when it arrived. Joolz Denby is a punk poet, and has written four noir crime novels, including Billie Morgan, longlisted for the Orange Prize. This quirky little novella with a long title features a large black cat and recipes at the back. Has Joolz really written a cosy?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956778607</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jon Mayhew
|title=The Demon Collector
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Edgy Taylor – a 19th century dog muck collector for a cruel master, Talon – wouldn't claim to have had the best of lives. His only enjoyment of his 13 years or so so far has been setting and solving riddles, while he's spent most of his time avoiding the cruelty of his employer. But when Professor Envry Janus rescues him from Talon, revealing the tanner to be a demon called Thammuz and turning him to stone, Edgy may have cause to look back on his old life with nostalgia. Because inside the Royal Society of Daemonologie, there are people who think Edgy can help them in their quest to find the heart of the legendary demon Moloch, who turned against Satan. There are people who think he's a nuisance. And there are people who want him dead. Can Edgy figure out who's who? He'll have to, because a mistake could cost him his life.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803941</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean Teule
|title=Monsieur Montespan
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=The Marquis de Montespan is totally in love with his new wife Athénaïs and she with him, so much so that when she becomes a lady in waiting at the palace of Versailles, she begs her husband to remove her in case she falls for the charms of the famous Sun King. The Marquis refuses because of the prestige and fortune her position brings them – but it's a decision he quickly regrets, as Louis XIV
indeed manages to cuckold him. With all of France talking about the new woman in the king's life, Montespan is expected to take the rewards offered to him in exchange for his wife and leave the couple alone. But many years before the French Revolution, instead he takes the unprecedented step of standing up to the king, ignoring his offers and proclaiming his cuckoldry by adding horns to his coat of arms. Can the man who's become a figure of fun throughout the country win back his wife?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040303</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Kay
|title=Obliquity: Why Our Goals are Best Achieved Indirectly
|rating=4
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=Sometimes the shortest route to a destination isn't the quickest way to get there. Take crossing central America for example. Instinctively, you think that the best way to navigate your way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific is to travel directly from east to west. It may seem counter intuitive but the designers of the Panama Canal realised that the easiest way to make the journey was in fact to use a thin strip of land and then go in seemingly the wrong direction from west to east. Architects and cartographers found that the obvious route wasn't the best way to solve the problem put in front of them. An indirect or oblique approach would prove to be far more successful. That in a nutshell is noted economist John Kay's concept of obliquity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682894</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Aamer Hussein
|title=The Cloud Messenger
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mehran, growing up in Karachi, hears his father and sister speaking about London all the time, as if it were an exotic location. He ends up living there as an adult, but in the rainy, dreary climate he turns back to the poetry of his homeland, dreaming of other places. As he travels between Italy, India, Pakistan and London we watch his relationships grow and die and wonder if he will ever truly find a place where he'll feel that he belongs.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846590892</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Katie Fforde
|title=Summer of Love
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Sian Bishop is a single mum who makes her living by restoring and painting furniture. She hopes that by moving to the country she will be able to provide her five year old son Rory with a good life away from the hustle and bustle of London. Although she is happy on her own, she knows that her good friend Richard is looking for something more and would love to marry her and to provide a home for herself and Rory. However, although she recognises that he is a good dependable man, he does not excite her, unlike Rory's father who she had only a brief fling with many years before. Should she settle for security and a quiet life or should she hold out for something more exciting? That is the dilemma that Sian struggles with throughout this story.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846056500</amazonuk>
}}