'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Sam Hayes
|title=Someone Else's Son
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Charles Margerison
|summary=Bibb wastes no time in highlighting key areas of the whole ethics debate. What, exactly, does the word mean ... and why should it matter to us anyway? She starts by informing the reader that ethics (which is a branch of philosophy) is usually the poor Cinderella. Overlooked in favour of the more glamorous areas ie: big, fat, profits for the business or businesses concerned. Bibb wants us to think more about the ethical side of things and perhaps less about the balance sheet. She gives an example most of us will be aware of. Two words. Fred Goodwin. Bibb comments that had he applied his moral compass in his leadership role, perhaps, just perhaps, the Royal Bank of Scotland may not have fallen so far from grace. I'm aware that many will now be foaming at the mouth at the mention of FG (myself included).
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047068853X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Margaret Atwood
|title=The Handmaid's Tale
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed. For the worse, of course. The population is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male of enough esteem, called a Commander, who balances the household with his wife and what is practically a walking womb. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to what are reported to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types. It's up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feels.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Raymond Carver
|title=Beginners
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary= One thing you soon surmise from reading Raymond Carver is that he was an alcoholic. Carver's characters tend to drink excessively, and his stories often examine the negative impact of drinking on his central character's relationships. But nowadays, what we talk about when we talk about Carver is the role of his editor, Gordon Lish.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540320</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Yeoman
|title=Mouse Trouble
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Mouse trouble tells the story of an old windmill that is overrun by mice. The grumpy miller never sees these clever mice but he knows they are there and determines to get rid of them. He buys a large tabby cat but is too mean to feed him which means that the cat never has the energy to catch the mice. Rather than rejoicing in this fact though, the mice actually feel quite sorry for him and decide to make his life a bit easier. Without ever allowing themselves to be caught, they let the cat chase them and help him to become fitter and healthier. They also pretend to be very scared whenever they see the cat which does wonders for his self esteem.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392013</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carmine Abate
|title=The Homecoming Party
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Every year young Marco eagerly awaits his father's return, when he can for a few months spend precious time with him before he leaves again. Marco's father Tullio is a migrant worker forced through poverty to work in Northern France doing hard manual work. In this way he manages to earn enough to help his family have a decent living. The family, his eldest daughter Elise now at college, Marco his only son and a younger sister known only as 'la piccola' along with his wife and elderly mother live in Calabria, an economically depressed area of southern Italy. They belong to the minority Arberesh community, descended from Albanian immigrants settling small villages in the mountainous regions of La Sila. Just as the Calabrian people are looked down upon by other Italians the Arberesh people are even looked down upon by the Calabrians.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1933372834</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Macauley
|title=The House of Slamming Doors
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=My name is Justin Alexander Torquhil Edward Peregrine Montague, but my father calls me 'you little bollocks', or ‘you bloody twit’ or when he is in a really good mood, 'old cock'.
With this opening line, Mark Macauley clearly establishes his tone. Just entering his teens, Justin is the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional Anglo-Irish family. It is June 1963 and the US President, John F Kennedy, is visiting Ireland – his parents and their servants are very excited, although Justin is wrapped up in his own preoccupations, including a growing sexual awareness and his best friend Annie.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843511673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Rawnsley
|title=The End of the Party: The Rise and Fall of New Labour
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=After decades of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised by the New Labour administration. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in the public domain, but never before had I had quite such a feeling of really not understanding what was going on, of being party to only half a story. The age of spin told us little that we really wanted to know, but left unsaid all the important things. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that I'd missed Andrew Rawnsley's 'The End of the Party' but now I'm rather glad that I did as it's been republished in paperback with two additional chapters which include the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Graham Davies
|title=The Presentation Coach: Bare Knuckle Brilliance For Every Presenter
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=With plaudits all over the covers like a rash; plaudits from well-known people such as Nick Robinson, Political Editor of the BBC, Daniel Finkelstein of the Times and Boris Johnston, current Mayor of London, this book's bar is set pretty high. Straight away and yes, I was asking the usual question - why another one of these seemingly endless 'how-to' manuals? My first impression is of no-nonsense, time is precious but also a little in-your-face, American style er, presentation of the book. But that's good. I like that. It's all the wishy-washy books in this genre and similar that I don't like.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085708044X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nigel McCrery
|title=Scream: A DCI Mark Lapslie Investigation
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When I read on the back cover that McCrery's writing credits include television's 'Silent Witness' I was impressed and expecting a terrific read. But did it deliver? This book opens with DCI Mark Lapslie attending a terrorism conference, yes, you heard correctly, a terrorism conference which is being held in Pakistan. Meanwhile, back in wet and cold Britain, one of his colleagues, DS Emma Bradbury is having to step into her boss's shoes, so to speak. A body has been discovered and the police need to get their investigation started. There's no doubt, by the state of the body, that it is murder. And soon the whole team is a hive of activity - from the CSIs to the pathologist.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161151</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Kuzneski
|title=The Secret Crown
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The riddle is the whole crux of the book. So we're taken right back, albeit briefly, to Bavaria in the year 1886, via the Prologue. So, the scene is now set, foul play is most definitely afoot and lots of questions should pop into the reader's mind. Such as who? Why? etc. So far, so good, I thought. We then fast-forward straight to present-day Germany and due to an unfortunate hunting accident, something which was a secret, is no longer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241952123</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander Gordon Smith
|title=Furnace: Fugitives
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=It has taken three books for Alex to get out of prison. He wouldn't have been there if the powers-that-be hadn't framed him for murder, and he would have found it a better experience were it a regular prison. But no. Over those three books we have seen just what lives and works in the completely subterranean nightmare - The Warden, Mr Furnace, and the evil creatures they are both making, breeding and employing down there. But the whole experience has come at a cost. Alex has been around these evil men too much, and they are changing him too - making him one of their tools. It's only now, on the outside for the first time, that Alex gets a clearer picture of just how many tools there are - and just how much evil has been spread.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571259391</amazonuk>
}}
