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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
 
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''],  [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''],
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==Reviews of the Best New Books==
 
  
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]]. '''<br>
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
  
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''<!-- Remove -->
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Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
{{newreview
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|author= Shaun Smith and Andy Milligan
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==The Best New Books==
|title= On Purpose: Delivering a Branded Customer Experience People Love
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|rating= 3.5
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|genre= Business and Finance
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|summary= This is a book about business things – branding, specifically. How to communicate your purpose to customers through an identifiable marketing strategy. How to ensure your company portrays the image you want and how to get your staff, and customers, to buy into it.
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749471913</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008385068
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|title=The Midnight Feast
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|author=Lucy Foley
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor.  It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised.  It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site.  The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends.  Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel Postgate
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|author=James Baldwin
|title=Clangers: The Brilliant Surprise
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There is no such thing as nostalgia anymore as all the classic children's TV shows of the past have been pulled out of retirement, dusted off and made anew.  ''The Clangers'' are one of the latest IPs to be visited by the resurrectionists and the new show has proved very popular. It has now spawned spin off toys and books, but how do you write a book about a bunch of creatures that we cannot understand?
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|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241195985</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0141186356
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrea Camilleri
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|title=Game of Mirrors
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|title=Wild East
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Inspector Montalbano came to the aid of his new neighbour when her car wouldn't start.  It wasn't ''just'' gallantry which led him to do this: the fact that she was stunningly beautiful didn't harm her chances at allMontalbano wasn't to know where this simple, courteous act would lead, although he knew something was wrong: it wasn't that the car wouldn't start - it had been deliberately damagedHer husband, a computer salesman, seemed only to be around occasionally and obviously didn't care what Liliana got up to when he wasn't there.  And then Liliana began making advances to Montalbano, whilst she was carrying on a relationship with a young assistant in a local clothes shop. What was going on?
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolThe move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of troubleHe listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapperBut now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447249216</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241645441
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dr Kris J Sime
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=Dragon's Flight
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|rating=4
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|genre=Confident Readers
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Simon and Alice have spent the school term living with their aunt, a kindly, if somewhat vague, person. Simon's father describes Aunt Maggie as bohemian and hippy. Simon is quite dismissive of the flowing clothes and collections of gemstones and discussions of auras that being bohemian and hippy entails, but both he and Alice can agree that Aunt Maggie is a nice person.
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|genre=Lifestyle
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1512096997</amazonuk>
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|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it.  Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pages.  You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Luke Pearson
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|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Hilda and the Troll
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|title=Us in the Before and After
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Hilda, a rather delightful small, blue-haired girl, is never far from an adventureShe is confident and excitable, brave and creative, and her stories are slightly mad, and very, very readable!
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|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionThey meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time.  But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.  Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909263788</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ailsa Burrows
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|isbn=1787333175
|title=The Jar of Happiness
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|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|rating=4
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|author=Benji Waterhouse
|genre=For Sharing
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|rating=5
|summary=What would you do if you knew the recipe for happiness?  I'm sure you could make a fortune, selling it by the jar, though it's questionable of course as to whether such profiteering from the sale of emotions would make you happy! Meg, the little girl in this story, makes up her own special blend of happiness in a jar, and she takes it everywhere, using it to cheer up her friends and family. But what will happen when Meg can't find the jar?
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|genre=Popular Science
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846437288</amazonuk>
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|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography.  ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.  
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Pamela Hart
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|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=The Soldier's Wife
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|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=4
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|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''...none of it was real, until the last moment when his hand, the tips of his fingers, left the tips of hers and he was gone.''
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|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.  
 
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|isbn=1803511230
''Turned into just another soldier.''
 
 
 
Ruby and Jimmy are newly-weds full of big dreams and plans for the future, but all of that will have to wait. It is 1915 and the world is in the grip Great War, sweeping Jimmy away to fight battles in far-off Gallipoli. Ruby feels like she's in limbo; no longer an innocent child but not quite a fully-fledged married lady. Not wanting to return home, she decides to stay in Sydney, to keep herself occupied as she waits out the war, longing for the return of her beloved husband. She rents a room from a local landlady and finds a job as a bookkeeper at a Timber Merchant. Although she initially takes the job to keep herself occupied and earn a little money, she soon falls into a comfortable routine and starts to enjoy her new-found independence and responsibility.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349410186</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jim Carrington
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=Boy 23
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Boy 23 isn't in My Place any more. He can't see The Screen, he can't hear The Voice. Boy 23 is alone.''
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so.  Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire.  Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
 
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|isbn=0861546873
Before being dumped alone in the forest by The Voice, Boy 23 - or Jesper, as we shall call him - has lived in a room entirely by himself. He has never met another human being or been outside. His only experience of the world has been through a few short video clips, shown to him on his Screen by The Voice in My Place. Now, he finds himself alone with only a bag full of survival equipment and some brief words from The Voice: his life is in danger, people have been sent to kill him, he must head north west to the Low Countries, The Voice will meet him there and explain everything.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408822776</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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|author=David Chadwick
|title=Sherlock: The Essential Arthur Conan Doyle Adventures
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|title=Headload of Napalm
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=There can be few people who haven't heard of Sherlock Holmes, whether in the guise of the original stories or subsequent film and television adaptations including the most recent series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, who are pictured on the dust cover of ''Sherlock: The Essential Arthur Conan Doyle Adventures''.  It's this most recent series which has widened the fan base of the stories and many of them won't have copies of the original stories to hand. My own copy is a 1959 reprint of the 1929 edition which had four stories in one volume, but this current volume has nineteen stories in the one book.
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|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940163</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jeff Kinney
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=Old School (Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 10)
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Aah, for the modern life.  Internet, baby wipes, ease, lemonade on tapThe only problem – well, one of them – is that Greg's mother is demanding the town switch off for a weekend, so good old-fashioned standards can be returned to.  She's not the only person with ideas of old-fashioned standards – Greg's grandfather has moved in, so there're both his siblings, three adults – and a pig who thinks he's a family memberMind you, with the usual ineptitude of a Wimpy Kid, probably nothing modern could prepare Greg for what's about to come, when a trip to a character-forming camp seems like the necessary easy way out…
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of waysHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141364726</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Anne Booth and Sam Usher
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=Refuge
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A donkey tells the story of how he was led by the man whilst he carried the woman, all the way to Bethlehem, where the baby was born. Soon after, the shepherds came and then the kings.  But then the man had a dream - a dream of danger - and he knew that it was time for them all to leave.  They left some gold for the innkeeper (they were not staying in the stable because they were ''poor'') and went through the quiet streets ''hoping for the kindness of strangers'', which they found.  Finally they came to another land - to Egypt - and found refuge.
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085763741X</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Ian Mortimer
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|isbn=1786482126
|title= Human Race: 10 Centuries of Change on Earth
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|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|rating=4
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|author=Elly Griffiths
|genre= History
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|rating=4.5
|summary= We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, women's rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. Best known for his ''Time Traveller's Guide'' history books, Ian Mortimer here gives the reader a whistle-stop tour through ten centuries. ''Human Race'' contains the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no-one could have predicted. The question here is which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest change in human history?
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|genre=Crime
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593386</amazonuk>
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|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway.  There was no skull.  Was this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago.  Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Joan Didion
 +
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
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|isbn=0007216858
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0008551324
 +
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
 +
|author=Neil Lancaster
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police.  Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death.  This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alice Thompson
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|isbn=1739526910
|title=The Book Collector
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|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|rating=4
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|author=Glen Sibley
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Violet.  Swept off her feet by a disarming encounter with a landed gentleman and bookshop owner at a coffee shop, she immediately falls in love with him, and is quickly married, and almost as quickly with child. When the boy is born, however, fairly understandable doubts creep in.  Is her husband hiding anything behind his assuredness – especially when she wakes in the middle of the night alone?  What ghost is left by the fact he lost his first wife and baby in childbirth?  What should she understand from her own opinions about her new life, her new life's life, and the idea of a nanny looking after it?  Just what is going on in her new country pile?
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|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630438</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Antonia Senior
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|isbn=0008405026
|title=The Winter Isles
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|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
 +
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Scotland 1122: A son is born to a warlord on the Scottish IslandsThe warlord GilleBride, is a man who doesn't realise his glory is recedingOne day the realisation does hit him, along with a Viking raid.  In the heat of invasion his son, although only 15, must take overCan a lad actually lead a people? History will tell and legend will embellish for that boy is Somerled and this is his story.
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|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night.  She was never found and the investigation ground to a haltNow, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bedInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspiciousWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782396586</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter Goes
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|isbn=1529077745
|title=Timeline
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|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|rating=3.5
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|author=Ann Cleeves
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=''Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock.'' Once, that is, we'd got over the Big Bang, which of course was silentWe flash forwards a few billion years to the creation of the earth, have a quick look at prehistory, then it's in with the world's happenings we can be sure of and date accuratelyThis book makes an attempt at conveying it all along one river of time – albeit with many tributaries – and with a strong visual style points us to all that is important about our past along the wayFlick through it backwards and you can recreate a different Guinness advert to the one I quoted – but it's probably worth a much longer look.
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|genre=Crime
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1776570693</amazonuk>
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|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens.  The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned upD I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer.  Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1399613073
 +
|title=Moral Injuries
 +
|author=Christie Watson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century.  Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonLaura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor.  Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP.  When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy.  We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequencesTwenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friendsThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Simon Marshall
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|isbn=0241636604
|title=The Long Drawn Aisle
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|rating=3.5
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|author=Gary Stevenson
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Edward and Richard Wilson are born into a comfortable and, indeed, powerful familyTheir father is the MP Jack Wilson who is everything a Victorian father should be: severe, distant and occupied with his careerAs the 20th century arrives and advances all three will feel the labour pains of conflict, the sons while living in Austria and the Balkans and their father through the lens of Britain's Parliament.  It will be a bloody birth and its effects far reaching as two great empires prepare to fight, drawing in the rest of Europe.
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|genre=Autobiography
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899804218</amazonuk>
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|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary StevensonA hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticeThere was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics.  Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy.  He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid.  It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank.  Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Liz Pichon
+
|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Tom Gates 9: Top of the Class (Nearly)
+
|title=Lover Birds
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Tom Gates has been told not to worryWhich is not a good thing.  He's been told not to worry, but to try his best at the school test – so he does neither. His best friend has told him not to worry about having just left an incriminating portrait of one of his teachers in a library reference book, even though he has to worry about getting it back before anyone else sees it.  Especially, that is, when the biggest bully in the year above is also turning his hand to graffiti and has the power to get other people in trouble…
+
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herA misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them?  So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407143204</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=000862657X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Conn Iggulden
+
|isbn=1009473085
|title=Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses)
+
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
 +
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The Wars of the Roses continueMargaret of Anjou becomes a catalyst for what lays ahead and then rescues her husband, the debilitated Henry VI, from the forces of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and the recently executed Richard of YorkHowever York's last words weren't empty rhetoric: by killing the father Margaret has indeed unleashed the sons. Edward of March for one is out for revenge; a fact that throws the English throne and the safety of Queen's spymaster Derry Brewer into grave doubt.
+
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you.  If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years.  It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics.  ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beastIt's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071815987X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Noel Streatfeild
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=White Boots
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Many moons ago, when I was a young girl obsessed with Torvill and Dean and wishing we lived much closer to a skating rink, I discovered Noel Streatfeild's wonderful Shoe stories including this one, ''White Boots''It soon became one of my favourite re-reads, so it was interesting to come back to the story as a grown up and find that it is still funny and engaging, all these years later, and that it still has the enduring power to make me wish for my own pair of white skating boots too!
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007580460</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex Marshall
+
|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|title=A Crown for Cold Silver: Book One of the Crimson Empire
+
|title=White Nights
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Zosia seems just like any other old lady.  Indeed that's the mistake that Sir Efrain Hjort made as he presents her with her husband's head, severed to encourage her compliance.  As Zosia hears the screams coming from what used to be her village but now the site of Hjort's latest initiative Zosia makes a vow.  She'll look up some of her old acquaintances; to be more precise, the five villains she used to lead.  For Zosia isn't actually that ordinary.  Zosia is the legendary Cobalt Queen – a little creakier now than when she faked her death of course, but one thing is certain: she will avenge her people.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>035650283X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ann Cleeves
 
|title=The Glass Room (D I Vera Stanhope)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Inspector Vera Stanhope isn't big on friends but the hippy neighbours are good to her in terms of home-brew beer and conversation and when one of them goes missing she feels obliged to investigate.  She knows that she'd be furious if one of the team was playing at private investigator and it leaves her in the embarrassing position of being first on the scene after a murder has been discovered. One of the tutors has been brutally murdered at The Writers' House and the other residents have made an easy assumption about who wielded the knife, but Vera  must act professionally even though she knows that's she's hardly impartial.
+
|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B007I5O6LE</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title= She Who Was No More
+
|title=Nowhere Man
|rating= 4
+
|author=Deborah Stone
|genre= Thrillers
+
|rating=4
|summary= Everyone knows that unsettling sensation you get when you've done something bad: that clutching, unpleasant, constant feeling that every odd look or leading question thrown your way means the other person has figured out precisely what you've done. In this dark and mind-bending novella, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac capture perfectly the unease and gradual desperation felt by Ferdinand Ravinel, a travelling salesman who enacts a plot to murder his wife Mireille with the aid of his lover, Lucienne. The tension rackets up with every paragraph, and had me scrambling to the final page.
+
|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782270817</amazonuk>
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Adam Sisman
+
|author=Virginie Despentes
|title= John le Carre: The Biography
+
|title=King Kong Theory
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Biography
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Some twenty years ago David Cornwell, better known as novelist John le Carré, told a couple of would-be writers about him that he did not believe in 'authorised' biographies or critiques. Adam Sisman, who has since then been granted exclusive access to the man and his private archive, can therefore consider himself a lucky man.
+
|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408827921</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=191309734X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin
+
|author=Alba de Cespedes
|title=1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless
+
|title=Forbidden Notebook
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''No US President has ever died in May.''  ''There are fewer women on corporate boards in America than there are men named John.''  ''Dogs investigate bad smells with their right nostril and good smells with their left.''  ''Apollo 11's fuel consumption was seven inches to the gallon.''  ''The first occupational disease ever recorded in medical literature was 'chimney sweep's scrotum'.''  ''The song 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' was written by Leon Trotsky's nephew.''  ''In the 18th Century, King George I declared all pigeon droppings to be property of the Crown''.  I hardly think I need say any more.  Review over.
+
|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571326684</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1782278222
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Diana Melly
+
|author=Ottessa Moshfegh
|title=Strictly Ballroom: Tales from the Dancefloor
+
|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Crosswords and Sudoku will help but the best way to avoid dementia is to take up ballroom dancing.''
+
|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.
 
+
|isbn=1784707422
Diana Melly heard these words at a conference organized by the Alzheimer's Society. It was a subject close to her heart, as she had recently lost her dear husband George to lung cancer and vascular dementia. The reason that ballroom dancing is so effective at warning off the ageing process is because it requires a form of coordination that effectively rewires the brain; activating the cerebral cortex and hippocampus. The lecture piqued Diana's interest and soon she was signing up for lessons at a local dance class. Little did she know that this would open up a whole new world to her; a world of sequins, heels, glitterballs and lifelong friends.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722540</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Various Artists
+
|author=Jo Callaghan
|title=Doctor Who: The Colouring Book
+
|title=Leave No Trace
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=In my youth colouring books were popular for children: they helped to teach some valuable skills. But teachers, 'experts', thought that they stifled creativity and once you'd mastered being able to stick within the lines they were whisked away as being 'childish' and you were restricted to artistic completion of maps in geography or illustrations of experiments in science.  The fact that colouring could be relaxing and fun had been forgotten.  Fortunately times have changed: adults are encouraged to relax with one of the hundreds of colouring books now available and I'm delighted to see a resurgence of the idea for not just the youngest children but for those who're a bit older too.
+
|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock.  It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project.  Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141367385</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=139851120X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jill Leovy
+
|isbn=B0DB64PYV5
|title=Ghettoside
+
|title=The White Rose
|rating=3.5
+
|author=Dave Baines
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|rating=4
|summary=There are enough LA rappers around to attest that living as a black man in South Central is no easy task.  Dismiss these urban lyricists at your peril, as crude they may be, but ''Ghettoside'' will soon inform the disbeliever that life on the streets of LA is hard.  With a 40 times higher chance of being murdered than a white person in America, what made the LA of the 80s through to the late 2000s such a dangerous place to live for young black men?
+
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700762</amazonuk>
+
|summary=In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away.
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Jennifer Wallace
 
|title= Digging Up Milton
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Digging Up Milton appealed to me because from the description it sounded like something a little bit different. I like that it is dark but yet not entirely serious, and I always appreciate it when an author tries to write in a different way, or give a book an individual voice.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909776106</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Catherine Hewitt
 
|title= The Mistress of Paris
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Biography
 
|summary= Born into poverty, no-one could have guessed that the girl who would one day be known as Valtesse de la Bigne would have achieved greatness. This is the tale of her rise to wealth and power – starting in a dress shop as a thirteen year old, but fast becoming a courtesan who would be fought over by some of the greatest men of her time. A woman who kept an air of mystery about many details of her life, Catherine Hewitt nevertheless paints an incredible story around the gaps, and this proves to be both a full and intriguing biography, and a fascinating portrait of the time period.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848319266</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:14, 30 October 2024

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!

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0008385068.jpg

Review of

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found. Full Review

0141186356.jpg

Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

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Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

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Review of

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse

5star.jpg Popular Science

I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book This is Going to Hurt, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. You Don't Have to be Mad... promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. Full Review

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Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. Full Review

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until.... Full Review

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

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Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

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Review of

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

Where I've Not Been Lost by Glen Sibley

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Full Review

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Review of

The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. Full Review

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Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved. Full Review

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

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Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

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Review of

The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024 by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

5star.jpg Politics and Society

Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it isn't and that applies to The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what really happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, Johnson at 10, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. The Conservative Effect is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024. Full Review

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

0241619785.jpg

Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. Full Review

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Review of

Nowhere Man by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. Full Review

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Review of

King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes

4star.jpg Autobiography

King Kong Theory is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays. Full Review

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Review of

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways. Full Review

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Review of

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

3star.jpg Literary Fiction

At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. Full Review

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Review of

Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

4star.jpg Crime

When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career? Full Review

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Review of

The White Rose by Dave Baines

4star.jpg Dystopian Fiction

In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemisphere. And it's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going away. Full Review