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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)

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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''

{{newreview

|author=Antonin Varenne and Frank Wynne (translator)

|title=Loser's Corner

|rating=4

|genre=Thrillers

|summary=Meet Georges Crozat. He's a policeman in Paris, who boxes on the side. After a bout that leads to an almost embarrassing victory, he is made two offers – one from a clearly corrupt man behind the scenes in the sport, who seems to offer a few thrown fights for Georges, then some kind of status as assistant – training, guiding, profiteering; the other comes from a man known always as ''the Pakistani'' (or an unkind abbreviation of that), who has a friend of a friend who wants someone to do an enemy a mischief with their fists. Georges doesn't take too long to choose the latter. In alternating chapters, however, we're in the 1950s, and a rookie to the forces, Pascal Verini, is being shipped out to Algeria to work on the civil war causing the republic to break away and become independent from France. Like Georges, he finds his situation one which also causes what may be misguided violence, even if he has a very different attitude to it.

|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052276</amazonuk>

}}

{{newreview

|summary=''Here are the Young Men'' surges forward, oozing edginess, from the very first sentence. Is that a bad thing? Probably not. It just means that readers may at times slip out of the story, feel themselves taking a step back and admiring the spare coolness of the novel before easing back into the narrative.

|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408863731</amazonuk>

}}

~~{{newreview~~

~~|author=Noah Strycker~~

~~|title=The Magic and Mystery of Birds~~

~~|rating=5~~

~~|genre=Animals and Wildlife~~

|summary=Sometimes it is easy to overlook the wonder all around us. For example, that scruffy looking starling sitting on your garden fence may look unassuming and commonplace, but type ''murmuration'' into the search bar on Youtube and prepare to be mesmerised as a huge flock of the birds perform a gracefully hypnotic aerial ballet which has an almost alien quality. If we take time to stop and look at our feathered friends, we will see that they are anything but ordinary. The bird world is full of unsolved mysteries that humans are only now beginning to unravel: How do pigeons navigate? How do vultures find food? What are penguins afraid of? How do nutcrackers find their hidden food caches? ''The Magic and Mystery of Birds'' searches for the answers to these questions, as well as many more, opening our eyes to the hidden world of birds.

~~|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285642790</amazonuk>~~

}}

~~{{newreview~~

~~|author=Chris Priestley~~

~~|title=The Last of the Spirits~~

~~|rating=5~~

~~|genre=Confident Readers~~

|summary=Teenage Sam and his little sister Lizzie are starving on the streets of London, which is gripped by terrible cold. Asking an old businessman for money, a man who looks at them with such sheer contempt that Sam's heart fills with hate. He swears that he will seek vengeance and rob the old man, not caring whether his victim will live or die. But before he can do so, a strange spirit appears to him, and warns him about the terrible path he will put himself on with this violent act. Can Sam resist the temptation to gain revenge? Several more spirits show him the possible consequences of his action, as we see Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol from a new viewpoint.

~~|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408854139</amazonuk>~~

}}

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