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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Mike McIntyre Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Chris Brinkley Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (narratorespecially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola)and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=The Kindness of StrangersThis One Wild and Precious Life: Penniless Across Americathe path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre= Lifestyle|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|isbn=1785633848}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary=In 1994 Mike McIntyre was Clive Wilkinson has a thirty-seven-year-old journalist history of travelling by unconventional means with a secret: preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was frightenednot totally outrageous. There were specific fearsIn fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, but what shouldn't it boiled down ?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was that he was frightened nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of life - and then there was a memory2022''. He remembered - with some shame - Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not stopping for a hitchhiker with a gas can in yet through the year: the desertcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. It was almost on a whim that he decided Who can imagine what there will be to cross America, from San Francisco come in California to Cape Fear in North Carolina, which might sound like a great adventure, but McIntyre decides to do it without money - to be completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. He was confronting his own fears.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00PWMVWTY</amazonuk>2023 edition?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stian Bromark and Hon Khiam Leong (translator)B0B7289HKQ|title=Massacre in NorwayConversations Across America: The 2011 Terror Attack on Oslo A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Utoya Youth CampSoul of America|author=Kari Loya|rating=2.54|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Anders Behring Breivik was 32 when he both planted Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a van bomb in Oslo's central government district good time to hit out at what he thought do it. The decision was 'Cultural Marxism'made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, which killed 8Virginia to Astoria, then left for an island Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in a lake 24 miles away, where a notably political youth gathering was enjoying itself2015. He gunned down 69 people – more They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than one in ten of those at the camp – and wounded many scores recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more. He also spammed countless people with another of his projects, a lengthy manifesto declaring his ideas about Islamisation and what he saw as a pernicious multiculturalism ruining his countrychallenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. His case Merv Loya was one of the more superlative events in modern Nordic history – as 75 years old and he was the surprisingly lenient sentence for over 70 lives of just 21 years. This is, as yousuffering from early-stage Alzheimer'd expect, one of the many books to result from the cases.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1612346685</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dan JonesJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy Book of the Great CharterHope
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society |summary=For what do we – and by courtesy of a lengthy timeline in history, would the Americans likewise – most likely owe thanks The done thing is to read a spigurnel? What is the most revered legal document in history, which sets out book all the rights of man – but also has time way through before you sit down to talk about widows' rights, fish trapsreview it. I’m making an exception here, and because I don’t want to be both sexist and to discuss lose any of the importance to people's estates to debts owed Jewish moneylenders? What will probably be the only notable historical experience of Britain in 1215reading this amazing book, when we finally get diverted from thinking about WWI and discuss the 800 years of something else, even though the authority of no less than the Pope declared I want to capture it as it hits me. And it null and void within ten weeks of its being finished?is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781858853</amazonuk>024147857X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Krishna Bhatt1788360737|title=Artivism: The Royal EnigmaBattle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams
|rating=2
|genre=Historical FictionPolitics and Society|summary=There Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is absolutely nothing wrong with books made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that cross genres‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The best historical novels are as much history as fiction. However, it Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is a golden rule adamant that a book must know who and what art is freer when it isart for art’s sake. One The recent trend of the problems with The Royal Enigma is that it suffers from so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a serious identity crisismore globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005Q8QCTY</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Hart1398508632|title=That's Racist: How the regulation of speech and thought divides us allThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Adrian Hart has It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long history consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of campaigning against racismNovember, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not least because he was subjected the best time to racial abuse when he was at schoolstart, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. With jet-black hair and Wilde had a complexion that few advantages: the area around her was just ''slightly'' darker than was normal he was the closest that his school a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to someone who might be of Pakistani originrun a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. It was only name calling from She had a group of boys but the experience stuck car - and he's put much of his working life where his mouth isfuel. SoMost importantly, you might expect that he would be she had shelter: this was not a devotee of the zero tolerance approach plan to racist speech, but he's far from certain that this is the right way 'live'' wild just to go and believes that this might be causing more divisions in society than racism itselflive off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845407555</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Encyclopedia ParanoiacaThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Henry Beard Eduardo Garcia and Christopher CerfSara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceHome and Family|summary=We're screwedbegin with a telling story. Wherever we lookAll the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, whatever we unable to think of doing, there is a reason why we shouldn't be doing it, anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and people flying back to back drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that reason up with scientific datadoing. Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eat''I'm doing the best I can'', how you work, how you rest even, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worsesaid the hummingbird. And outside that daily sphere there are economic disasters, nuclear meltdownsreally, errant AI scientists and passing comets is the only way that could turn our world upside down at we will solve the blink problem of an eye. Perhaps then you better read this book first climate change – for it may well turn out to by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be your last…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan ShawMatthieu Aikins|title=Britain in a Perilous World: The Strategic Defence and Security Review we need Naked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review has stayed in Naked Don't Fear the mind for the wrong reasons: Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather than looking a testament to develop how well Matthieu Aikins – a strategy, Canadian citizen who decided to examine the short accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and long term threats gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the country faced, the emphasis was on cutting costs, with some cuts appearing ludicrous at first glancewhole way through. In the intervening years there have been occasions when But it was difficult not to wonder if the United Kingdom was poorly equipped - 's written with a haunting and without clear-cut aims - as a result of almost lyrical quality that allows the 2010 review. The opportunity reader to put this right comes in 2015 perfectly envisage the environments and Major General Jonathan Shaw looks not at what the Review should say, but at how it should be tackledpeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908323817</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Economist1785633074|title=Pocket World in Figures 2015Staggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry
|rating=4.5
|genre=ReferenceHumour|summary=There Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are people who donEton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime''t understand movers are the special advisers - the joy of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) SPADS - just a collection of figures relevant to a particular circumstancewho are the driving force behind the government. If you're one We are in the privileged position of those people then this book will mean little having access to youthe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, but if you want a pocket (well, certainly handbag or briefcase) work the man who was behind the skilful control of reference then this book will be a treasure. I once gave a copy to a diplomat and he kept his wife awake until the early hours as he came across another gem Covid crisis which she had to know without delaywas completely contained by the end of 2020. The 2015 edition is You might not know the twenty fourth in name now but he will certainly be the series - and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for the onslaughtman to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781252734</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=Stand and DeliverThe End of Bias: A Design for Successful GovernmentHow We Change Our Minds|author=Ed StrawJessica Nordell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Confidence in politicians Anyone who is at not an all-time low. In factable, an alarming number white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of Britons express outright contempt, not just for their leaders, but for everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the entire political class - for the politicans themselvesdisabled. Jobs, for the civil servants standing behind thempromotions, even for higher salaries are the Westminster bubble preserve of commentators and policy wonksthe white man. We vote for them in ever-decreasing numbers and even Even when those who continue to vote often do not feel represented. Worse still, wouldn't pass the younger you medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views areheard, the more likely you that their concerns are to be politically disengagedacknowledged. We It're in danger s personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of losing an entire generation from the political processbias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted. How can this be good for a democracy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099294760X</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529148251
|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''
Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=Harry's Last StandWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Harry Leslie SmithOtegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=RAF veteran Harry Leslie Smith rose to prominence last year with a famous Guardian article 'This year, I will wear 'To be a poppy for the last time' about the way in which the remembrance of those who died in the great wars has been codark-opted skinned Black woman is to justify today’s military conflicts. Here, he tackles themes of poverty, political corruptionbe seen as less desirable, unemploymentless hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a lack book by a writer of hope felt colour while only 7% study a book by so many people todaya woman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848317263</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard Brook|title=An AtheistUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's History of Belief|author=Matthew KnealeGuide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=I’ve been an atheist since I was old enough to take am a view on the subject. (Many atheists would argue firm believer that we’re all atheists at birthsometimes we choose books, but that’s not a subject for a book review)and sometimes books choose us. I did have to take Religious Studies at school but have entirely forgotten almost everything I learned!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584425</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Notebooks In my case, 1922-86|author=Michael Oakeshott|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Michael Oakeshott this is usually described as a conservative thinker. According to Perry Anderson, his work influenced John Major's style of politics; he named him in the London Review of Books in 1992 as one of four ‘outstanding European theorists of the intransigent Right’latter. Luke O’SullivanNot so very long ago, who edited if I had come across this collection book I'd have skimmed it, found some of notebooksit interesting, has often said but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that he considers such descriptions limitingit does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u. O’Sullivan s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is clearly enthusiastic about Oakeshott’s work and strove a predisposition towards expecting to enable these notebookslike the book, spanning even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a period of over sixty yearsbook I needed to read, to be publishedright now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845400542</amazonuk>1800461682
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday LifeHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Uri Gneezy and John ListHenry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Wow! This is a most surprising economics book''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alain de Botton1523092734|title=The News: A UserWomen's ManualGuide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Alain de Botton maintains that 'the news' has assumed the position in our lives which was once occupied by religion, with some consumers viewing it as often as every fifteen minutes (slight blush there She brings a hug-kick- let's say about thunderclap that every hour...)woman needs in her life. Furthermore, we do it completely unprotected against every political scandal or celebrity storyAgain and again and again. The sub-title 'A User's Manual' sets out to remedy this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HYGYIGA</amazonuk>}}(Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Play It Again: An Amateur Against The ImpossiblePolly Barton|authortitle=Alan RusbridgerFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=I’ve maintained Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a long time that I’ll read anything, while and if it’s wellthe world hadn't gone into melt-enough writtendown I would have visited by now. So it was with I may get there later this fascinating memoir, even though it’s a year in the life of an amateur pianist, and but I don’t play the piano – or indeed a note of musicam not hopeful. And like Barton, I couldn’t even have placed don't know the answer to the name Alan Rusbridger question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in his professional role before I read respect of the book. A quick browse through question in the first couple of pages essay, which is on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell a clear story: it is his stock-in-trade sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as Editor of being, among other things, the Guardian. And the book duly held me through a messy, interrupted week sound of bedtime reading''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>1913097501
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=WinterStephen Fabes|authortitle=Adam GopnikSigns of Life|rating=45|genre=ReferenceTravel|summary=In this collection I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season tales of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and societycuriosity. Unfortunately, through I didn''Romantic Winter'', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideast inherit what Dr. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, Stephen Fabes clearly had which add a charming, individual touch was the guts to this booksimply go out and do it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England|author=Nigel Cawthorne|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they havenI also didn't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk… It's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind inherit the 'disgusted kind of Tunbridge Wells' tagsteady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and as a book to be shelved alongside those basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the wackier letters sent to the requisite 'bottle'Daily Telegraph'. In order words I', these selections from m not the Royal town's press itself make sort of person who will get on a bike outside a great eye-opener to the complaints London hospital and complainants of Kentnot come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>1788161211
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?: A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought - You can't be happy and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situationfulfilled on your own. He's You are not complete until you find a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the 'man'compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>}}
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