'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Garrett Keizer
|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=What is noise? Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noise? And if so, what different term would we use to describe a jet aircraft taking off? Why do we respond so differently to the two? Even more intriguingly, would our response change if the birdsong woke us from an exhausted sleep but the aircraft was taking off to jet us on a long awaited holiday?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mario Puzo
|summary=Cassel Sharpe dreams of a white cat and wakes up on the roof of his school building, perilously close to a fatal fall. Afraid that he's suicidal or otherwise unstable, his principal sends him home, while the school decides whether or not he can stay on as a pupil. This is completely devastating for Cassel, who is struggling with some major issues. For starters, he's only non-worker in a family of workers. His gloved hands cover useless fingers. His touch doesn't manipulate emotions, remove memories, bring luck, or kill, maim or otherwise injure. Even in a world where working is illegal, it's hard to be the only normal person in your family
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575096713</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Melvin Burgess
|title=Nicholas Dane
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=14-year-old Nicholas Dane is taken into care after his mother, a secret smack head, dies in an accidental overdose. Meadow Hill is an assessment centre, but the truth is that not much genuine assessment is going on. It's a savage, brutal regime and Nicholas fights against it from the start. Eventually, he's taken under the wing of Tony Creal, the deputy head, and the only person in the place who appears to have a shred of common humanity...
... or so Nick thinks.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141316330</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gladys Mitchell
|title=Death and the Maiden
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edris Tidson used to grow bananas on Tenerife. Not the world capital of banana growing so far as I know, but I guess such plantations could have existed and certainly they'd be believable when Mitchell penned this classic crime caper in 1947.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546833</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nick Hale
|title=Sudden Death (Striker)
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jake Bastin, son of famous former footballer Steve, thought his life was difficult enough even before his father enters negotiations to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as manager. But when the agent his dad’s discussing the move with collapses of a suspected heart attack, things get far more complicated – because Jake is convinced he was actually poisoned, and can’t understand why his dad seems happy to go along with a cover up. As the pair move to St Petersburg, the bodies start piling up, and Jake goes from having to fight to control his temper, to fight to save his life. With no way of knowing if he can trust anyone, even his own father, can the youngster stand up to criminals who are happy to kill to get what they want?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405249501</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Colin Waters
|title=A Pregnant Ghost and Other Sexual Hauntings
|rating=5
|genre=Spirituality and Religion
|summary=This is a book that does what it sets out to do on the tin, and does so in almost glorious fashion. The back cover blurb promises hilarity and tittilation, but this will also fit on the shelf of any academic looking into the hornier side of the Fortean world, as well as anyone relishing the most singular collection of ghost legends that I can remember reading.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089902</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dominic Barker
|title=Adam and the Arkonauts
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Adam is on a mission. Both he and his father have spent the decade since his mother was kidnapped by an Evil Scientist looking for her, and perfecting their own skills. They might have got the best clue of all so far - one that has led them to the mysterious, hidden, and downright alarming city of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able to communicate with animals. Since learning to gibber like a spider monkey they can both bark, purr perfectly, and more. It will take the extraordinary menagerie to survive the unusual city, and try and discover what happened to Adam's mum - and what the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for the same skills in return.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880025X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Juan Gabriel Vasquez
|title=The Secret History of Costaguana
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1904 Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote his novel about a self-publicising Italian expatriate by the name of ''Nostromo'', set in the fictitious South American republic of Costaguana. Columbian writer, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in his research by telling him his own story, only to find that the British novelist has subsequently inexcusably omitted him from his book. Now, he is seeking to set the record straight by telling the reader, who he imagines in the role of a jury, as well as someone named Eloísa (who we later find out about) the same story to pass judgement on if this was fair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nick Barratt
|title=Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=As Barratt points out in the opening pages, there are literally thousands of titles available about the sinking of the Titanic, at the time the largest, most expensive and most luxurious ship ever built. His aim in this volume is to bridge the gap between another forensic examination of how it sank, and yet another re-run of what he calls the familiar stories of heroism and tragedy from literature in the public domain to provide the human story behind the disaster.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091516</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patrick Woodhead
|title=The Forbidden Temple
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Luca, a mountaineer trying to escape from his disappointingly unsupportive parents and a past accident, witnesses something strange in the distance, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks he's never seen before. Back in England nobody else seems to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangri-La style Buddhist sanctuaries - could this be the prime one, hidden from prying eyes for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at all. Meanwhile, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Abby McDonald
|title=The Liberation of Alice Love
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=You can just picture Alice Love standing before the panel on Britain's Got Talent.
'And what do you do?' they like to ask.<br>
'I work in the film industry...'<br>
'Oooh, really?'<br>
'...as a lawyer.'<br>
'Oh.'
Like all those accountants they're always showing, you can imagine that Alice too would receive a rather luke-warm welcome on the show. And Alice would concur that her job isn't all that glam, even if her industry itself is a bit swish. But it's an appropriate job for her, since Alice is very sensible and by-the-book. She's certainly not the type of person to go overdrawn, or run into any kind of trouble financially, so when her card is declined one day she's pretty sure it's just a computer error.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099533928</amazonuk>
}}
