==Politics and society==
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{{newreview
|author=Louise Foxcroft
|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with is a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution to Get Healthy. So it’s the perfect time for a new diet book to hit the shelves. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to be full of useful tips, and the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes and even a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: '''a history of dieting over 2000 years'''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dennis O'Donnell
|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. ''Dedicated his life'' and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful people, but when reading ''Mountains Beyond Mountains'', you'll realise there's not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating the disease is just one part of the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwide.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adrian Johns
|title=Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=If you are inclined to take your cues from the weekly reviews, as the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline of the BBC, various interpretations of liberalism and how these struggle for expression in Coalition Government policy. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back to the Sixties battles between, on the one hand, the unbridled self-expression of the free market and, on the other, the virtues of self-restraint in such matters as the re-examination of the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing book, Death of a Pirate, about the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines the history of modern broadcasting with a crime story and consequent trial.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual
|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In November 2007 the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonely. He accepted an invitation to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Bruni. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by the attentions of a beautiful, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were married.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Beate Teresa Hanika
|title=Learning to Scream
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Malvina is thirteen years old, the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional family. Her father is a very grumpy teacher, with little understanding of children, whilst her mother seems to suffer permanently from migraine. She has a good friend, Lizzy, and they play together as much as they can, united in their dislike of the 'boys from the estate'. Her grandmother died last year, leaving her granddad on his own and it's Malvina's job to go and visit him and take him his meals. The family think this is a great arrangement because they know how much Granddad loves Malvina and looks forward to her visits. There's a problem though. Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her own. Granddad kisses her on the mouth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kwame Anthony Appiah
|title=The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
|rating=3.5
|genre=History
|summary=In the Preface, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them today. He goes on by saying that it's all very well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matters. Well, I would certainly agree with that. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, for example, ''the collapse of the duel, the abandonment of footbinding, the end of Atlantic slavery.'' In the following chapters he debates the issues of those three major areas of morality. They were, in short, moral issues on a very large scale.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rachel Johnson
|title=A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as Editor
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Along with most of my contemporaries I've never read 'The Lady' except once when looking for an au pair job in my student days, and that, it turns out, is the problem. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed in June 2009 the average age of the readership was 75, the circulation was dropping and the magazine was haemorrhaging money. The Budworth family, proprietors of 'The Lady' since it was founded 125 years ago, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn the magazine's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editor.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490674</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=Andrew Penman
|title=School Daze: Searching for a Decent State Education
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=As a teacher myself, I'm naturally well aware of most of the aspects of education that Andrew Penman discusses here and some of the stories he repeats are well-known to me but may be of news to some readers. Yes, people will really do just about anything to try and get their children into the school of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this book work as an insight into the type of measures some people will go to for those readers unaware of the desperation that
can set in at this time in a child’s life? It’s a good question…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Geert Mak
|title=An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=In the mid 1990s journalist and author Geert Mak returned to his native Friesland and took up residence in the village of Jorwert. His aim was to investigate the quiet revolution going on in the agrarian communities not just of Holland but of the whole of Europe.
This wasn't going to be an outsider's view. Mak grew up in the northern Dutch province; he spoke the language; he knew the games and understood the people. In a very real sense Mak was going home… and finding that it scarcely existed any more.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546868</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Oaten
|title=Screwing Up
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Like John Profumo and others, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for the wrong reasons. It was the episode which made him for a while the country's No. 1 paparazzi target, and which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his 'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detail. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with the Blair and Brown years. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Pennac
|title=School Blues
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Daniel Pennac's book discusses the issue of children who struggle at school, and offers some ideas on how teachers can and should help them. It is not a dry textbook on educational theory. He writes from personal experience, as a teacher and novelist who was once 'un cancre', translated here as a dunce or a bad student.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>
}}
