|summary=Locke's subtitle ''Why Men and Women Talk So Differently'' might lead you to think that this is just another self-help ''Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'' tome. It's not. Rather than focussing upon what we all know from experience – that men and women do not communicate very well because of some fundamental difference in their respective approach to verbal expression – the New York City University Professor of Linguistics sets out to explain WHY that might be.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521887135</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frank Furedi
|title=On Tolerance: The Life Style Wars: A Defence of Moral Independence
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Furedi is a Professor of Sociology at a UK university so he'll know his subject matter inside out. The short preface tells us that 'tolerance has been emptied of its moral and intellectual meaning.' This publication's aim is to argue the case for tolerance in society. How its meaning has changed over the centuries until today's rather fuzzy and watered-down meaning. Professor Furedi was spurred on to writing this book because he firmly believes that tolerance has been lost somehow, to be almost invisible in some areas of public and private life.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441120106</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Mullin
|title=A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We tend to remember where we were and how we heard about the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person to the list: John Smith. I remember sitting in my office and a colleague coming in to tell me. She added 'I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader now'. We'd many angst-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smith's death is the opening entry in this, the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's Diaries. This book covers the first period of 'New Labour', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tina Rosenberg
|title=Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Teenagers in South Carolina have become involved in the anti-smoking movement, passing out information encouraging their peers to educate themselves about the ways big tobacco companies try to get them hooked. There are youngsters in South Africa who’ve refused to have sex without a condom because of the danger of HIV and AIDS. Minority students in Texas have challenged data going back years by succeeding at calculus where traditionally students of their race have struggled. Why? Because other people have done the same thing, and they want to fit in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848313004</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lydia Ola Taiwo
|title=A Broken Childhood: A True Story of Abuse
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born to a Nigerian couple in London in 1964 and spent the first five years of her life in a foster home in Brighton. Here she was loved, looked after and lived her life in a genuinely good family. This wasn't an unusual arrangement as it allowed the biological parents to earn money without worrying about childcare – and Ola was happy. It was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her 'home' for the weekend – a weekend which would stretch into seven years of abuse and neglect.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Max Pemberton
|title=The Doctor Will See You Now
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about, and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation (the world's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shirin Ebadi
|title=The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Dr Ebadi is currently living in exile, fearing for her safety, should she return to Iran in the foreseeable future. Her Prologue describes a violent and bloody reaction to what was a peaceful situation involving wives, mothers and sisters. Boulders and large stones were thrown at elderly, defenseless women without a moment's hesitation. A taste of things to come?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0979845645</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nigel Hamilton
|title=American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush
|rating=5
|genre=History
|summary=The Premise is simple: take twelve men (and unfortunately they are all men, but that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them. Firstly, take a look at the road to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private life. Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bush.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bob Marshall-Andrews
|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political Humbug
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997, rather too late to be a career politician (he was already an established QC) and with a profound distrust of authority. He had no aspirations towards office, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he would become best known for being a dissident. I occasionally enquired as to which party held his allegiance and eventually concluded that he went with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – and I did wonder if this would be just one more to add to the pile.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karen Blixen
|title=Out Of Africa
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stephen Sedley
|title=Ashes and Sparks: Essays On Law and Justice
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Some books are hard to read, and even harder to review. This is particularly true of what are essentially academic or "professional" books and you come to them as a lay reader. This then is my starting position on Ashes and Sparks.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>
}}
