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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1504321383Alastair Humphreys|title=SingleLocal|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, Againthe 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 Againaccess, 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, and Again …: What Do You Do When Life Doesnno single 'right or wrong't Go , that every upside is likely to Plan?have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Louisa PatemanEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we'You can't be happy and fulfilled on your ownre in Cuba. You are The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not complete until you find done nearly enough to create a man''level playing field for allThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. It wasnOur narrator's family weren't unkind: it was simply in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the adults in her life advising her country demanded (especially as to what they thought he would probably be best shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for herhis successful photography business, success being frowned upon. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where The mother gets the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by couple jobs with the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough party to be brought up ''without'' ease some of the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and heat, but in this sultry island country, it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sakinu AhronglongSarah Wilson|title=Hunter SchoolThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary= The flyleaf My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to this little collection tells us do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that it line so much because my answer is a work of fiction''This! Precisely this. That's possibly misleading' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. I am not sure whether it Sarah Wilson is "fiction" in the sense equally lucky. In her book that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the blurb goes on source) she pushes us to say think about whether we really ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical storiesare''. It feels like living the life we want – the latterbest life that we could be living. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as Her answer is an adolescentunequivocal ''no, as an adult we are real and truenot''. But memory is a fickle thingDon't care what you're doing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and thereshe thinks you (we, and maybe calling it fiction means I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people shouldwe are not.|isbn=19997912821785633848
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1785633457|title=A Philosophy Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of WalkingEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre= Politics Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and Societyhis wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary= I confess I picked this one up Seeking some light relief from the library in my pre-lockdown forage current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of random stuff2022''. Now I Sharp eyes will have to go out an buy my own copy so noted that I can turn down we're not yet through the year: the pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to. Some books draw you in slowly31 August 2022. This one had me Who can imagine what there will be to come in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|isbn=17816883702023 edition?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Lun ZhangConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Adrien GombeaudAlzheimer's, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|titleauthor=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesKari Loya|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsTravel|summary=I never really followed Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the events of Tiananmen Square way) wanted to spend some time with much attention when his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it . The decision was playing out – someone in made to ride the second half Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of their teens has other priorities, you knowit - in 2015. I certainly didn't know of They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue challenge that it would be for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the most people involved who considered taking it on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browserMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|isbn=1684056993
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sharon Blackie1739593901|title=If Women Rose Rooted22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre= BiographyScience Fiction|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Perhaps an even greater measure Instead of impact is setting out flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to buy my own copy before Itrack grandma.''ve finished reading the one  I've borrowedgot a couple of confessions to make. I want 'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to avoid clichés like read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There'powerfuls got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there' s science fiction: far too often it'inspiring' 'lifes the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-changingbuilding. It' – although it is definitely s human beings who fascinate me: the first two technology and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a reason and I'm not sure book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I can succinctly put loved it any better.|isbn=1912836017
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{{Frontpage
|author= Linda ScottJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title= The Double X EconomyBook of Hope
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.
|isbn=024147857X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788360737
|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism
|author=Alexander Adams
|rating=2
|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=''Women are economically disadvantaged Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in every country his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the world''Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of 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 more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It's had been on the cards for a bold statement for an opening chapter, while but it's far from hyperbole as was the following pages explainweek-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. This book shines a light on what is happening The end of November, particularly in different placesCentral Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, and in a world where the impact on the local normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and world economya pandemic. What can be learnt from Wilde had a few advantages: the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling area around her was a known habitat with a variety of young women into marriageterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and what can chimpanzees dehydrator. She had a car - and bonobos teach us about mothering?|isbn=0571353606fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Danny Dorling1529149800|title=SlowdownThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=Politics Home and SocietyFamily|summary= We are living in begin with a time of rapid change, and we're worried about ittelling story. Dorling tells us that All the birds and animals fled when the latter is normalforest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, natural and probably good for usunable to think of anything they could do. We are designed The tiny hummingbird flew to worry the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and with flying back to drop them into the current state of fire. The animals laughed: what we're good was that doing in the world we have much to be worried about. However, over ''I'm doing the next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you best I can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we are', or in some cases that we're worrying about said the wrong thingshummingbird. Mostly. Because mostlyAnd that, really, things are not changing as rapidly as is the only way that we think they are. In fact, will solve the rate problem of climate change in many things is slowing down and the direction – by each of change will in some cases go into reverseus doing what we can, however small that might be.|isbn=0300243405
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414467321638485216|title=Our House is on FireBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Scenes of a Family A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and a Planet in CrisisLaw Enforcement|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante ThunbergFrederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
 
''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
 
The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Matthieu Aikins
|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normalNaked Don't Fear the 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 a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. Malena Ernman was an opera singer There are tense moments and Svante Thunberg took gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on most of edge the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happeningwhole way through. In such circumstances, But it's natural to seek written with a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the family that they were ''burned-out environments and people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radicaldescribed.|isbn= B09N9157T6
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=06486848061785633074|title=Clara Colby: The International SuffragistStaggering Hubris|author=John HollidayJosh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=The path Members of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated Parliament like us to believe that the USA. At country is run by politicians, headed by the time she was just threePrime minister -years-old but because the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, you who doted on her are Eton and saw Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the household and her childhood was gloriousgovernment. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers We are in the mid-west privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the United States and life man who was hard, as Clara behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join completely contained by the familyend of 2020. Clara would only You might not know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakeningname now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=183895015X1846276772|title=A Bit The End of a StretchBias: The Diaries of a PrisonerHow We Change Our Minds|author=Chris AtkinsJessica Nordell|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Documentary filmmakers don't usually get the run of establishments within the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel GroupAnyone who is not an able, but after getting involved white man understands bias in an illegal tax scheme that they may no longer even recognise the extent to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for which they suffer from it: it's simply a five-year staypart of everyday life. White men will always come first. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworthable will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, which is probably higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the oldestmedical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, largest that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and most dysfunctional prison in Europedegrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Michael Harris1529148251|title=SolitudeMisfits: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded WorldA Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary= This is not the book ''How am I was expecting it able to be. For some reason so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I expected were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it .'' Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be another in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help manual on how book. You're going to find calm, how read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to step outside professionals within the mainstream, but it is not that television industry at allthe Edinburgh TV Festival. Instead of telling us how it is more about You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''whylisten''to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. Harries examines how weThe disjointedness will fade away and you're eroding solitude, which used to ll be carried on a natural part cloud of our human life, and why that mattersexquisite writing. Of course, he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him.|isbn=1847947662
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17837843500008350388|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted HistoryWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Esther RutterOtegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going 'To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroadseen as less desirable, less hireable, discovering less intelligent and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the landscapeultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - ' ' a free-range child on the farm'We Need to Talk About Money' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.}}by Otegha Uwagba
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15"<!-- Peter Wohlleben -->|-| style=''width: 100.7%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' '|[[image:1846045576.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846045576/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]'The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
}}
{{Frontpage| styleauthor=Richard Brook|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life|rating=4.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'vertical-align: top; text-align: left;d have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it 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.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way''] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.|isbn=1800461682}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=[[Walks In The Wild by Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)]]Henry Mance|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''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.''
[[imageI was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book:4starno one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices.jpg I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1523092734|linktitle=Category:{{{A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife=5|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:genre=Politics and Society|Politics summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and Society]]again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
''An instruction manual for the forest'' To claim space is how Wohlleben's publisher described to live the idea for this book, life of choosing unapologetically and that's basically what it bravely. It is – although right at to live the end the author says that it is not intended to be a reference book, but an appetiserlife you've always wanted. [[Walks In The Wild by Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)|Full Review]]''
<!Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now -to be clear - Nayeri this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= 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 while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-->down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life|rating=5|-genre=Travel| stylesummary="width: 10%; verticalI was brought up on maps and first-align: top; textperson narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-align: center;"righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|isbn=1788161211}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman[[image:1786893452|rating=4.jpg5|linkgenre=http://www.amazonAutobiography|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own.co You are not complete until you find a man''.uk/dp/1786893452/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
}}
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.[[The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri|Full Review]] <!-- de Bois -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785903357.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785903357/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[Confessions of a Recovering MP by Nick de Bois]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]  I should warn you in advance: this may not be the best time for me to review the memoir of a Tory MP. Not only am I a left-of-centre - to put it mildly - voter and so probably have next to no points of political agreement with Nick de Bois, but I, along with everyone else, am currently subject to the debacle of parliament, government and Brexit, a dog and pony show currently revealing in hideous technicolour the absolute dearth of competent leadership among our political classes. And yes, opposition parties: I'm looking at you as well. You're just as useless. Sigh. Desperate cry into the void over. Sorry about that. At least Nick de Bois made me laugh! [[ Confessions of a Recovering MP by Nick de Bois |Full Review]]  <!-- Leah Hazard -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786331608.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786331608/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by Leah Hazard]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] Over the past few years, we've had a rash (sorry - no pun intended) of books by medical practitioners. Doctors have been at the forefront, but ''Hard Pushed'' is the first book I've seen by a midwife. It's an unusual profession in that it's one of the few callings within the medical system where most of the patients are healthy and the only one where one person comes into the system and (for the most part) more than one goes out. It's an amazing thing to be able to do - to escort new life into the world - and an enormous responsibility. Leah Hazard came to it after a career in television and ''Hard Pushed'' is the story of her career as a midwife - and the title tells more than one story. [[Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by Leah Hazard|Full Review]] <!-- Reeves -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788312201.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788312201/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] ''Women in Westminster have changed the culture of politics and the perception of what women can do'' ''Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics'' chronicles the battles the 491 women who have been elected over the course of the past century have fought and highlights their victories. It is remarkable that the history of female Members of Parliament began in 1918, the same year in which women were first given the right to vote but a decade before all women were given suffrage on equal terms with men. Although Constance de Markievicz was the first female elected to Parliament, it was only in 1919 that Nancy Astor became the first women to take her seat in the House of Commons and pave the way for women of the future. It was not long after in 1924 that the first female MP, Margaret Bondfield, was appointed into a cabinet position and since then women MPs have endeavoured to fight gender inequality and campaign for female rights. Within 100 years there has been a gradual revolution of change in politics and to date, Britain has been led by two female Prime Ministers. However, such great landmarks have overshadowed the other female MPs whose early achievements, which have paved the way for subsequent women politicians, are consistently overlooked. In ''Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics'' Rachel Reeves brings the forgotten stories into the spotlight to document the history of British female political history from 1919 to 2019. [[Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves|Full Review]] <!-- Ece Temelkuran -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0008294011.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008294011/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy Move to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Newest Popular Science Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:History|History]] A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. [[How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}