'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Katie Davies and Hannah Shaw
|title=The Great Cat Conspiracy
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet the new cat. A vicious thing, it's fond of having a go at any passing human feet, and is even able to stand its ground against the neighbourhood dogs. It also has a great habit of making a mess with its kills, which comes to a head (literally) when the front end of what was the vicar's prize carp ends up on Tom's pillow. After that the cat vanishes. Has it finally met a match? Has it been catnapped - and if so, who is seeking revenge by doing so?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385974</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Judith Viorst and Lane Smith
|summary=It's the 70s, and 13 year old Petra is in love, and not with a silly boy at school, but with a man. He's not from Wales like she is, or even from Britain. He's much more mysterious and alluring. He comes from across the pond and his name is David Cassidy. ''The'' David Cassidy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009946859X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Judge
|title=The Lonely Beast
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=The beast likes to garden. And drink tea. And read. And bake cakes. But he lives by himself, and he is lonely. So one day he decides to go on a journey to try to discover whether there are any other beasts in the world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392552</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Yeoman and Quentin Blake
|title=The Heron and the Crane
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Heron and Crane live at opposite ends of the swamp. One day Crane decides that he is lonely and he would like to get married. Heron seems the only suitable potential mate, and so he makes his way over to propose. Heron, taken completely by surprise, reacts badly to this sudden proposal and rejects Crane, rather insultingly. Poor Crane. As he makes his way home, Heron is overcome with guilt and decides perhaps she would like to marry him after all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392005</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Berlie Doherty
|title=Treason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Forced by his power-hungry aunt and uncle to leave the comfort of his modest family home, Will Montague finds himself utterly overwhelmed, as he works as a page to Prince Edward under the keen eye of the temperamental King Henry, just as prone to unexpected bursts of compassion as he is to brutal cruelty. Just as he begins to find his feet in this new position, Will finds himself suddenly on the run, desperately trying to clear the name of his father, convicted of treason for failing to revert to the Protestantism led by the King, and simultaneously gaining more awareness of the world he lives in and the plights of the working class.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849391211</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Elliot Skell
|title=Neversuch House
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Omnia is a girl who likes to know things, and when she sees something unusual she sets out to find out what is happening. It is a decision which almost kills her. Something is not right at the heart of Neversuch House, and at least one person is determined to stop her finding out what it is.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847387438</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Catherine Rayner
|title=Norris: the Bear Who Shared
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Norris is a bear – a large, brown bear. He's also a very wise bear because he knows something which will always be useful to him. He knows about sharing. It all began when he saw the plorringe on the tree and he knew that plorringes are the best fruit of all. All he had to do was to wait for the fruit to fall. In the meantime Tulip and Violet discovered the plorringe too. They had a sniff at it – and it was gorgeous – and even a squeeze which showed that it was soft and fluffy – but what were they to do about Norris who was ''much'' bigger than them and could easily run away with the fruit?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846163099</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter Hart
|title=Gallipoli
|rating=4.5
|genre=History
|summary=Early in 1915 the Allied Powers attempted to seize the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and eliminate Turkey, who had joined the Central Powers, from the First World War. The campaign ended in failure and retreat, yet for many years it was portrayed as a brilliant strategy undermined by bad luck and incompetent commanders. This painstakingly-researched account shows that this was not the case. It was more a matter of a wild scheme which was poorly planned and doomed from the start, compounding the Allies' problems by diverting large numbers of troops from attacking Germans on the Western Front, where they would arguably have been better employed. In his introduction he calls the eight-month exercise 'an epic tragedy with an incredible heroic resilience displayed by the soldiers', yet ultimately 'a futile and costly sideshow for all the combatants.' It was a huge drain on Allied military resources, involving nearly half a million troops, with the British Empire losing about 205,000 – 115,000 killed, wounded or missing and 90,000 evacuated sick – while the French lost 47,000, and the Turkish over 251,000.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681596</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Diane Janes
|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over a decade ago Jo's daughter was abducted from in front of a shop whilst she and her husband were on holiday. The pushchair was found on a cliff edge but there was no trace of Lauren, even on the beach below. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Lauren. The police, the people who know what happened believe the cards to be a hoax. Jo believes differently. She also realises that as she has moved house and remarried and the story has faded from press attention someone is going to a great deal of trouble to keep track of her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=G S Mattu
|title=Sons and Fascination
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book concentrates on emotions. Take an impressionable young man, add in a chance (?) encounter with an attractive older woman and then stand well back as the fireworks explode and as family, friends and colleagues get sucked in to their deepening relationship. I must say I'm not keen on the title (a little pretentious for a work of fiction in my opinion and more suited to poetry) and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in the book (twice) I still didn't warm to it. All in all, not off to the greatest of starts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Wilding
|title=Cross Country Murder Song
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with the (unnamed) central character in a therapy session in downtown New York. The air is charged and tension is present, big-time. This is one troubled human being. And of course, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer session. We soon find out that this individual has secrets in his basement. It all becomes too much, he packs a bag and hits the road and so the story starts proper.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert Rowland Smith
|title=Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life's Milestones
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=''Driving with Plato'' is a companion book to [[Breakfast with Socrates by Robert Rowland Smith|Breakfast with Socrates]], in which former Oxford Fellow Robert Roland Smith took various elements of a 'typical' day and provided insight into what a collection of thinkers might have to offer to make these mundane routines more interesting. Here, in the company of a similarly eclectic range of writers and thinkers, he considers the key aspects of a life, from birth, through school and riding a bike, to your first kiss, losing your virginity, having a family before a mid-life crisis, leading to divorce, old age and death. Montaigne said that to philosophise was to learn how to die, and here Roland Smith ensures that we think about each stage leading up to that moment.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668305X</amazonuk>
}}
