'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Margaret Powell
|title=Below Stairs: The Bestselling Memoirs of a 1920s Kitchen Maid
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Below Stairs'' was first published in 1968, and it's no exaggeration to claim Margaret Powell as the trailblazer for the memoir genre. This book encouraged hundreds of autobiographies of common life, and spawned a whole generation of tv programmes. In its vernacular and popularist way, it was probably as influential as Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor'. Before her, only famous people wrote their stories, and that without too much regard for reality. Unless they were literary writers, achievements were downplayed and emotions hidden away, in the stilted style of the British stiff upper lip. Not so Margaret Powell, who became a publishing sensation when she blasted through with a robust Voice rather than a polished narrative, in the first-ever tale of an ordinary servant writing about everyday life below stairs. Imagine being talent-spotted from an evening class and invited to write your memoir: those were the days!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535382</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Barrie
|summary=After the the events of ''The Island'', Otto, Jen and Charlie have gone their separate gap year ways. Otto is in Mumbai but isn't having nearly such a good time as he'd anticipated. Jen has moved on from the retreat and is travelling with Kumar, but is getting itchy feet. She's not sure she wants to take things with Kumar any further. But Charlie is ecstatic in her dream job at the tiger sanctuary. It's challenging - poaching and corruption are big problems standing in the way of the sanctuary's funding - but she loves it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070738</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stuart Clark
|title=The Sky's Dark Labyrinth
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=This book is heavily based on fact. All of the characters are real people - apart from one. Some of us may be familiar with the names of Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler (due to the importance of their respective work, both men are afforded healthy chunks in my Oxford English Dictionary). Clark also has a rather impressive working CV including holding a Fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society. But what I personally really liked and appreciated was the line on the book's front cover which said 'Knowledge can be a dangerous thing.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971748</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jon Courtenay Grimwood
|title=The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=I'm always in two minds about books that echo other works of literature. I'm all for reworking myths and legends – they're so ancient and have been so often retold, even before arriving at the accepted 'true' versions, they're fair game – but works of literature written in recent enough history to have been actually ''written'' and still widely read in their original form? It can go one way or the other.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498459</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kveta Pacovska
|title=Number Circus: 1 - 10 and Back Again!
|rating=3
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=This is an unusual counting book which doesn't have a story line, or the usual simplified numbers and related illustrations. It seems, instead, like a piece of art with pictures becoming numbers, or numbers becoming pictures. It's very interactive, with lots to see and do throughout the book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881915295</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Evans
|title=Poggle and the Treasure
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Poggle and his friend Henry are spending a fun day together at the beach playing pirates. They have made a pirate ship, eaten a pirate picnic, and fought a sea monster! Now they're hunting for buried treasure, but rather than a chest full of gold they discover a large, pink egg!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248122</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Janni Howker
|title=The Nature of the Beast
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Bill Coward is mature for a child his age – cooking for his father and grandfather (Chunder), undressing his father and putting him to bed when he comes home drunk. So when the mill his father and grandfather work at is closed down, their world is thrown into turmoil. Mike's (Bill's best friend) father has a nervous breakdown. Bill's father goes off to Scotland to work in the oil fields.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406329908</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Linda Newbery
|title=Barney the Boat Dog: Very Brave Dog
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Not too long ago Jim, Annie and Barney lived in a house by the canal but after Annie died Jim didn't enjoy living in their house anymore, so he and Barney went to live on Jim's narrowboat. They moved around the canals as they wanted and really had quite a good time. There were one or two things which worried Barney but by far the worst was the very scary tunnel. It was long and dark and water dripped from the roof – and when Barney barked another dog barked back at him. But one day everything went wrong and Barney found himself in the tunnel all on his own.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409521982</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nicole Krauss
|title=Great House
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Great House'' is unashamedly literary in style and while undoubtedly not everyone's cup of tea, it's hard not to admire the cleverness of Krauss. It also covers such broad issues that it's not the easiest of books to sum up in a few words. Certainly, to enjoy this book you will need to have a tolerance for cerebral fiction. You will also need to appreciate the role of the book in commenting on aspects of the human condition rather than just telling a good story. This is most certainly not a plot driven book. You should also be prepared that the stories told are unremittingly dark, sad, and almost oppressively depressing. But while all of this sounds negative, the payoff is a book of exceptional cleverness and shot through with lovely and often beautifully observed writing about the human condition and in particular about memory. It would be wrong to say that it's cerebral with no heart: there's plenty of emotional heart here, but unless you buy into the cerebral game, then it's a book that will infuriate you before you reach it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919322</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ruta Sepetys
|title=Between Shades of Gray
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The central character, a teenage girl called Lina: her younger brother and mother are being forced from their home. All is confusion, suspicion and fear but they obey orders anyway. To disobey would be to lose their lives. Torture or murder - or both. Unthinkable. The small family unit of three mix with many other families caught up in this situation. They collect in the streets and are rounded up - like sheep. It will be some time before any of them feel remotely like human beings. Their names are on some sort of 'list'. Even a young mother who has just given birth, is manhandled on to the waiting transport.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141335882</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gail Jones
|title=Five Bells
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It is a lovely sunny day in Circular Quay, a tourist hotspot in Sydney, Australia. This novel is about the thoughts and memories of four people, three women and a man who visit the place that day. None are locals. Ellie and James were teenage lovers in Western Australia, and are meeting up again after not seeing each other for years. Catherine has recently come to the city from Ireland. Pei Xing is a Chinese immigrant, now settled in Sydney. The novel is full of descriptive visual imagery from the first page onwards, and it is significant that three of the four characters are seeing Circular Quay for the first time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554020</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Juliet David and Helen Prole
|title=My Very First Easter - Candle Bible for Toddlers
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=As one of a specially written series of bible stories for toddlers, this board book tells the Easter story in a very simplified way. It would work well for the very young who you perhaps would like to experience a taste of bible stories without going into too much detail.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1859858848</amazonuk>
}}
