'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=James McKnight and Mark Chambers
|title=The Day The Gogglynipper Escaped
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=
One day, when rounding up the rather dangerous and often very smelly Gogglynippers, Diggle discovers that there are only nine of the purple monsters, instead of ten.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849564507</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Neil Griffiths and Peggy Collins
|summary=In the London of 1858, the Irish are the poorest of the poor, despised and feared by the English. They were forced to emigrate from their fatherland because of the famine which decimated the population, and now the majority of them live in filthy, germ-ridden rookeries. Cholera is killing them off in their hundreds, and blame for their terrible conditions is laid squarely at the feet of their English masters, together with those Irishmen who have so far forgotten their home that they cooperate with the oppressors. And as the hottest summer on record drags on, and the tenth anniversary of the potato blight and its horrific consequences approach, the mood in the slums is ripe for violence and murder.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0312557698</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rachel Connor
|title=Sisterwives
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I first read the title (I hadn't yet read the back cover blurb) I glibly thought that it was about two sisters and their marriages. Wrong. This debut novel by Connor is about two very different women (one is no more than a girl really) who just happen to 'marry' the same man. I use the word marry very loosely indeed. Their community, their rules, their descriptions etc can be rather quirky. Marriages are normally called 'sealings'.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0946745587</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gregg Olsen
|title=Victim Six
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Olsen will have you on the edge of your seat'' says Lee Child. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed some of Child's books so I couldn't wait to get started on this book. Would it be as good and as satisfying as Child's?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780331738</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Barnardo
|title=Dragonolia
|rating=4
|genre=children's Non-Fiction
|summary=
This book is, first of all, a rather beautiful book to behold. The red cloth hardback cover with the curled-up golden dragon on the front immediately make you want to pick it up and look inside! It's also a rather unusual book, being a mix of both fiction and non-fiction, so when you begin it you're initially not quite sure what you're looking at. As you read on you discover that there's a story running throughout by Sir Richard Barons, a famous dragon hunter, and with each story he tells there is also a craft project of something related to make!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904967248</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Joan Aiken and Jan Pienkowski
|title=The Kingdom Under the Sea
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I do like a good collection of fairytales, and by that I mean the rather more menacing, edgy versions, rather than the sanitised re-tellings that we often see. Here Joan Aiken is retelling some European fairytales and they are full of dragons and mermaids and goblins and witches. It's exactly the sort of more unusual collection of stories that would have kept me happy and quiet on a dull, rainy afternoon as a child and it has the added attraction of many atmospheric and beautiful illustrations by Pienkowski.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857550098</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Thomas Bruce Wheeler
|title=The London of Sherlock Holmes - Over 400 Computer Generated Street Level Photos
|rating=3
|genre=Travel
|summary=Should I trust a book that has a typo on the FRONT cover? Would I purchase a book that practically says, as its first words, the e-book version is better than this paper thing? This, despite setting up very much the wrong impression, is a gateway into the world of Sherlock Holmes - but does, as I say, blatantly show itself up as flawed, while the electronic version could count as a very worthwhile app for the Conan Doyle buff.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780922094</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Simon Scarrow
|title=Praetorian (Roman Legion II)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Still in hock to the imperial secretary Narcissus, Praetorian opens with our heroes Cato and Macro kicking their heels at the port of Ostia. They're about to embark on one of their most challenging adventures yet - as undercover spies in the Praetorian Guard. Rome in AD50 is full of perils. Imperial authority is now absolute and the Senate really only exists as an old boys club. The real power comes from being an adviser to the Emperor and, as these advisors jostle for influence, plots and conspiracies abound. Claudius, never in the best of health, looks precarious - but which of his heirs will succeed him? Nero? Or Britannicus? And can he hold on for long enough that the choice is clear?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755353773</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Oppenheimer
|title=Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=Machiavelli, 'the first philosopher to define politics as treachery', has probably been better known as an adjective, Machiavellian being a synonym for duplicity in statecraft, than as a historical person. Interestingly, the term 'Machiavel' became common in English usage as an adjective and noun around 1570, although none of his works were translated into the language for another seventy years or so after that.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847252214</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Clarissa Dickson Wright
|title=A History of English Food
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=Writing a history of English food, and to some extent drink, must be a daunting task, but as an experienced TV presenter (as one of the ''Two Fat Ladies'' with the late Jennifer Paterson) and as one who was born in the post-war rationing world in 1947, Clarissa Dickson Wright is well placed to do so.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905211856</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Neil Griffiths and Janette Louden
|title=Hats Off!
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary='Hats Off!' is a wonderfully entertaining book that is written entirely in rhyme. It starts by asking if the reader has ever thought about how many hats they might have been bought and whether a hat actually looks good on their head or not. The author, Neil Griffiths, then goes on to suggest that there are:
''Hats too big, too tight''<br>
''and too small,''<br>
''Hats that just shouldn't''<br>
''be worn at all!''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905434839</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Guy Kennaway
|title=Bird Brain
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary='It began for Basil ''Banger'' Peyton-Crumbe the day he died in a pheasant shooting incident'.
If you were in any doubt as to the nature of the novel given the cover jacket and the author's disclaimer to the effect that any similarity between the human characters and any real person is entirely coincidental, but he feels safe from any threats of libel action on behalf of the dead animals whose characters he has mercilessly manipulated for narrative effect, then its opening sentence should put you straight.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093991</amazonuk>
}}
