Difference between revisions of "Newest Politics and Society Reviews"

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[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
 
[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove  -->
==Politics and society==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Virginie Despentes
{{newreview
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|title=King Kong Theory
|author=Marina Hyde
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|rating=4
|title=Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy
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|genre=Autobiography
|rating=3.5
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|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.
|genre=Entertainment
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|isbn=191309734X
|summary=I have what is perhaps a regular-sized interest in A and B-list celebrities. I can name the off-spring of many an actress, tell you who the spokespeople for certain brands are, write a list of celebs with publicly declared devotions to certain religions, even win the odd pub quiz thanks to knowing the birth names of various performers. I know all sorts of things about this rather small subset of society, but I know the ''what'' more than the ''why'', and that's exactly the problem, according to this book. After all, if more of us sat down to wonder about what it actually ''is'' that the likes of Geri Halliwell and Nicole Kidman bring to the UN, we might seriously question how and why they ever got involved in the first place.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532050</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1009473085
|author=Salman Rushdie
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We read some authors because we know we're going to enjoy themOthers, we feel somehow obliged to read.   If we consider ourselves ''readers'', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use the word advisedly) to being ''well-read'', then there are some books and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiar.
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|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alastair Humphreys
|author=Carole White and Sian Williams
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|title=Local
|title=Struggle or Starve
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girls' and women's lives in South Wales between the wars. This is a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
 
|title=The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=If you asked people why it is (or might be) a good idea to reduce inequality in a society, many people would assume that reducing inequality works by making the life of the poorest better: that the poor are the ones who benefit from reduction of inequality.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141032367</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Shields
 
|title=Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Travel
|summary='The Novel is Dead' is not really what a novelist wants to read first on picking up a new book – but I persevered with Shields' manifesto and I'm glad I did.  This is a thought-provoking wake-up call that any artist, writer or book-lover will enjoy.
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|summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world.  And then written about it.  For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it.  As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map.  Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…''  One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114499X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1785633678
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
|author=Chinua Achebe
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|title=The Education of a British-Protected Child
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|genre=Autobiography
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba.  The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all.  Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon.  The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family.
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|isbn=1474616720
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sarah Wilson
|author=Norah Vincent
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|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world
|title=Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Lifestyle
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|genre= Lifestyle
|summary=''Voluntary Madness'' is journalist Norah Vincent's account of her visits to three mental health facilities in America. The first is an urban, public hospital that houses mainly homeless, psychotic patients, many of whom are addicted to drugs. In this hospital, the doctors are overworked and jaded and medication is always the answer. Soon, the author finds that her latent depression (which led her to do the book in the first place) is returning. The process of being institutionalised breaks her sense of self-worth down astonishingly fast. Indeed, she suggests that it is the lack of autonomy in institutional life, even for those patients who voluntarily commit themselves, that makes it so hard for them to rebuild independent lives when they finally leave the institution.
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|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?''   I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This!  Precisely this.''  I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living.  Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513439</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1785633848
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1785633457
|author=Gabriel Weston
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|title=Direct Red
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Travel
|summary=Few people have the ability to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargon.  Gabriel Weston is one such – and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours.  She's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|author=Jean Hannah Edelstein
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|title=Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don't Get Why Men Don't Get Them
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|author=Tim Benson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
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|genre=Humour
|summary=Men aren't Martian and women don't hail from Venus. We're all Earthlings apparently; which seems like progress of a sort. Even so we still have trouble understanding each other because we speak different languages – Himglish and Femalese. Luckily Jean Hannah Edelstein is fluent in both and has written this light hearted volume to define the problem and translate.
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|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848091729</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0B7289HKQ
|author=Chloe Hooper
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|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America
|title=The Tall Man: Life and Death on Palm Island
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|author=Kari Loya
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Travel
|summary=Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm IslandQuite why he was arrested was never clearHe wasn't drunk, although he had been drinking beer – and was walking along the road singing ''Who Let the Dogs Out?''  Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that there was reason to arrest Mulrunji for creating as public nuisance and he was taken to the police stationWhat happened next was to be the subject of intense media speculation and legal proceedings over the coming years, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was dead.
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|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do itThe decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it onMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520761</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1739593901
 +
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
 +
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
 +
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected.  Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
  
{{newreview
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I've got a couple of confessions to make.  I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the bookThere's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged.  Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-buildingIt's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidentalSo, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short storiesWell, I loved it.  
|author=Dana Fowley
 
|title=How Could She?
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the sameShe was raped by her mother's partner and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and othersAt other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abusedDid her mother not know what was going on?  Did she turn a blind eyeIt was neither of those.
 
 
 
Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse and organised much of it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
|author=Amy V Fetzer and Shari Aaron
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|title=The Book of Hope 
|title=Climb the Green Ladder: Make Your Company and Career More Sustainable
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|rating=5
|rating=4
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|genre=Politics and Society
|genre=Business and Finance
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|summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.  
|summary=With the abject failure of the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh in our minds, it is perhaps time to turn away from the politicians and look back toward what we can do.  
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|isbn=024147857X
 
 
The Conference may have finally got the likes of the USA, India and China to acknowledge that they have to join in if we are going to save the planet as a benevolent place for our species to live, but there is still too much posturing and not enough commitment.
 
 
 
Clearly our governments and 'leaders' are not going to do this for us; we have to do it for ourselves.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1788360737
|author=Nicholas Stern
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|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism
|title=A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How We Can Save the World and Create Prosperity
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|author=Alexander Adams
|rating=4.5
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|rating=2
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=The hardback edition of 'A Blueprint for a Safer Planet' was published early in 2009 as an update to the 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change. Now here is the paperback edition, published too early to critique Copenhagen, but nonetheless an interesting read. Stern is an expert witness who presents his evidence understandably for the layman; he is unemotional and very convincing.
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|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524058</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1398508632
|author=Alex Hesz and Bambos Neophytou
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|title=The Wilderness Cure
|title=Guilt Trip: From Fear to Guilt on the Green Bandwagon
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|author=Mo Wilde
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Did you know that Horlicks, that great sleep aid, is sold in India as a start-the-day energy boost? Not another concoction under the same brand, but the Exact Same Product.
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|summary=It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food.  The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic.  Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains.  She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator.  She had a car - and fuel.  Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074622X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529149800
|author=Frank Furedi
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|title=Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste
|title=Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating
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|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Home and Family
|summary=It seems the more problems the school-aged generation pose to society, the more responsibility schools have to take, teaching not simply English and Maths, but Personal Thinking and Learning Skills, Happiness Classes, and Emotional Education. The duty to raise a child well is taken out of the apparently 'incompetent' hands of parents, and given over to the education system, where values can be regulated and controlled.
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|summary=We begin with a telling story.  All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire.  The animals laughed: what good was that doing.  ''I'm doing the best I can'', said the hummingbird.  And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847064167</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1638485216
 +
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
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|author=Frederick Reynolds
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific.  It has everything to do with character. Period.''
  
{{newreview
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''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
|author=Bill Butterworth
 
|title=Reversing Global Warming For Profit
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=There aren't many climate change deniers left, are there? We all know it's there. We all know, too, that the world's population growth is on a collision course with the dwindling of its resources. The world's going to get hotter, its weather more extreme. Fossil fuels are going to run out. More and more people will compete for fewer and fewer of civilisation's luxuries. We're all worried.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312810</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception.  The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected.  There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.
|author=Stephen Baker
 
|title=They've Got Your Number
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like to believe that you are not a number, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. If, on the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanity' sounds like one of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Matthieu Aikins
|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur
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|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water
|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.''  Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world.  You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robert Winnett and Gordon Rayner
 
|title=No Expenses Spared
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's always struck me as strange that in a period of twelve months which saw Banks collapse, stock markets tumble and house prices slide the public have reserved most of their ire for a relatively small group of people who were not exceptionally well-paid in the first place, but many of whom took the opportunity to make the most of the generous expenses which they could claim. There are only six hundred and forty six Members of Parliament – twelve months ago they were generally respected but many are now pariahs.
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|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593065778</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B09N9157T6
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alain de Botton 
 
|title=A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=A writer-in-residence at an airport is not as daft an idea as it might first seem. After all, TV programmes, and whole series, have entertained millions with what goes on in front of, and behind the scenes at such places. So this book, which is the fruit of such a residency, could be expected to produce few surprises.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683599</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Anita Thompson (Editor)
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|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S Thompson
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|author=Josh Berry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
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|genre=Humour
|summary=It is almost 40 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' first graced the shelves. His gonzo style, putting himself at the centre of the story, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event he is describing. If that's the case then what is to be learned from a selection of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer is plenty.
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|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1846276772
|author=Ian Jack
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|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds
|title=The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain
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|author=Jessica Nordell
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=I think I've now managed to master the maxim about not judging books by their coversI still struggle with the one about not judging them by their titles and I very nearly cam unstuck and missed 'The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain'Being just about of an age with the author I worried that it might be a treatise about the fact that 'things weren't like this when I was a lad'.  I was even more worried that I might agree with him.
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|summary=Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of everyday life.  White men will always come firstThe able will come before the disabledJobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man.  Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledgedIt's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087355</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529148251
|author=The Economist
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|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|title=Pocket World in Figures 2010
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|author=Michaela Coel
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's just about a year since I reviewed [[Pocket World In Figures 2009 by The Economist|Pocket World in Figures 2009]] and at the time – September 2008 – we were watching in horror as the world financial crisis unfolded before our eyes. Looking back now the surprise is that for most people what happened came out of the blue.  The clues were plain to see and all here in this handy little book.  There was the worrying state of the Iceland economy and different levels of mortgage lending in various parts of the world.  Best of all it was presented as verified figures, without any accompanying narrative and it's consequently free of political spin.  Bliss.
+
|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise?  It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681367</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book.  You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival.  You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatreThe disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.
|author=Scott Kilman and Roger Thurow
 
|title=Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=If you have ever wondered why famine is still widespread, so many years after Oxfam started nudging middle-class Britain into consciousness, then read ''Enough''.  As a young woman, I donated to Oxfam at the end of the 1960s in the belief that concerted international action through governments plus charities would eliminate hunger within a decade or soFour decades later, it's impossible to comprehend why children are still dying at much the same rate: one every five seconds.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485113</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008350388
|author=Arundhati Roy
+
|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|title=Listening to Grasshoppers
+
|author=Otegha Uwagba
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Stories can provoke many different reactions in the reader: pleasure, pain, delight, horror. The whole range of emotion is available to the fiction writer to ply and probeReactions to non-fiction works can be equally wide-ranging and can sometimes take the reader by surprise.
+
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
  
Like most people I came to Roy via the Booker-prize-winning novel, ''The God of Small Things'', which it transpires, is her only novel to date. In the intervening twelve years Roy has concentrated her undoubted literary abilities in the political arena, engaging with the less attractive side of her native India.
+
''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.''  ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144620</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine.  It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later.  The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible.  There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car.  For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
|author=Rupert Wright
 
|title=Take Me to the Source: In Search of Water
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Whatever you expect from a book about water, ''Take Me to the Source'' probably won't provide it. Neither a whimsical aquatic travelogue, nor a polemic about the economics of water, it still manages to produce unexpected insights into the element which is so vital, yet so often taken for granted.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512289</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Maria Tatar
+
|author=Richard Brook
|title=Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood
+
|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
|rating=3
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Home and Family
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Like most avid readers, I don't remember the time before there were books.  We were brought up with books.  There are family tales of my father as a child eating his breakfast with one hand, while trying to tie his shoelaces with the other and still contriving to read at the same time. They were a poor family, and books weren't just expensive, they were valuable.  They were dear, in every sense of the word. Likewise my mother remembers her early school-years when every day ended with a chapter from one of the classics.  
+
|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose usIn my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now.  I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066010</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800461682
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1787332098
|author=Lucy Wadham
+
|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World
|title=The Secret Life of France
+
|author=Henry Mance
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=I'm rather at a loss to describe this book for you, and I'm still uncertain how to categorise it.  It's part personal memoir and part analytical.  Whether you regard this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is down, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Peter Hitchens
 
|title=The Broken Compass: How British Politics lost its way
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=I've long held that there is no difference between the major political parties such that could command you to vote for one or the other.  The new Labour party now seems to stand somewhere to the right of what I though of as the old Conservative party and the Lib Dems appear to be a coalition of those who don't fit comfortably into either of the other main parties. My voting patterns have changed radically from supporting a party because of its views to voting against another because of its actions.  I was hoping that ''The Broken Compass'' might clarify my thoughts.
+
|summary=''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847064051</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
I was going to argue.  I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it.  Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover.  If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals.  I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant.  I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices.  I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.
|author=Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein
 
|title=Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Choices are inevitable: from the lunch sandwich to the credit card and internet provider, to the house and car and pension plan, modern humans, particularly those living in technologically developed democracies are blessed (or cursed) with the freedom (and necessity) to choose all the time.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141040017</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1523092734
|author=Nick Davies
+
|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space
|title=Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
+
|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Do you remember a Y2K bug? When the world's computer systems were to melt down in an Armageddon of vital services failure and possible nuclear accidents?
+
|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
  
The Y2K panic is a great example of flat-Earth news: something that gets passed on in the media chain from those unsure to those who might have a vested interest in maintaining it as fact to those who are completely ignorant, and in the process gets bigger and bigger and – almost accidentally – assumes a status of orthodox, accepted truth.
+
''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely.  It is to live the life you've always wanted.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512688</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk.  Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''.  I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space.  If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.
|author=Jennifer Worth
 
|title=Farewell To The East End
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=I am interested in social history and, as a mother, the job of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell to the East End'' is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nurse, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House in the East End of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Polly Barton
|author=Rania Al-Baz
+
|title=Fifty Sounds
|title=Disfigured: A Saudi Woman's Story of Triumph over Violence
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Throughout her life Rania Al-Baz has been an unusual woman.  She was married off by her father when she was still at school to a man she hardly knew and was the only married pupil, forced to conform to the Saudi Arabian traditions of putting her husband first in all things but still expected to keep up with her school work.  Pregnancy forced her to give up on her schooling but the marriage failed and Rania returned to her father.  It might have been expected that she would fade quietly into the home, but in a most unusual step she became the smiling face on a Saudi television programme.  No woman had ever been a news anchor before and it was only to be expected that there would be plenty of men wanting to marry her.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844370755</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Brian Dunning
 
|title=Skeptoid 2: More Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=Brian Dunning is the author responsible for a series of weekly podcasts debunking and analysing a variety of dubious, pseudo-scientific, un-scientific and downright loony ideas, claims and myths common or persistent in the pop (and not so pop) culture. ''Skeptoid 2'' is essentially a written version of those podcasts, a collection of fifty pieces of which many can be also read or listened to at his [http://skeptoid.com/ website].
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1440422850</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dan Gardner
 
|title=Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
+
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Picture a world terrorised by just two words. A civilised, healthy, wealthy world no less, in thrall to and under threat from two words.  Not what those two words represent even, just the actual small phrase.  It sounds ridiculous, but when I say those two words – ''bird flu'' – and you've stopped laughing, you may well remember how the panic started, the non-existent worry was the biggest concern of the western media for some time, and then it went away again.
+
|summary= Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753515539</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1913097501
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Stephen Fabes
|author=Katherine Ashenburg
+
|title=Signs of Life
|title=Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
+
|genre=Travel
|summary=Although maybe not the first book you'd be drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent book, you would have missed out on an enjoyable and informative book, full of fascinating facts and a jolly good read.
+
|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'.  In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.
 
+
|isbn=1788161211
Attitudes towards and rituals of cleanliness have certainly changed over the last two thousand years and this book chronicles many of them, largely in Europe and the US. Cultural differences with regard to cleanliness and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention here, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed at length, from the Greeks and Romans to the present day.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jean Hatzfeld
 
|title=The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the Genocide
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=''Life offers me smiles, and I owe it my gratitude for not having abandoned me in the marshes.''
 
 
 
''I've known the defilement of a bestial existence.''
 
 
 
''Who's going to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.''
 
 
 
So say some of the survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when 800,000 Tutsis were murdered by their fellow Hutu citizens. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis and Hutus then, publishing two award-winning books. In The Strategy of Antelopes, he returns to Rwanda to talk to the same people and explore life after genocide.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686865</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1504321383
|author=Emmanuel Jal
+
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|title=War Child: A Boy Soldier's Story
+
|author=Louisa Pateman
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Emmanuel Jal, internationally successful rap artist, spent his childhood as a solider in his native SudanHe has written his story in order to help those children who are still fighting, and those who have managed to get awayThere are a number of books about the Sudan by western aid workers and journalists, who do, I am sure, write fluently and passionately about the horror of DarfurThis is the first book that I have read which tells the story of war from the point of view of a small boy carrying an AK-47, a gun taller than he is himself.
+
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own.  You are not complete until you find a man''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700050</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believeIt wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for herIt was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever afterFew girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children.  It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move to [[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]
|author=Ash Amin and Michael O'Neill
 
|title=Thinking About Almost Everything
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=A wonderful digest of ideas spawned by ongoing work at Durham University. The cross discplinary broad brush strokes give insight into the past, the present, and the future, and inspire personal and critical thinking.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668188X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 09:49, 29 September 2024

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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

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

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Review of

Local by Alastair Humphreys

5star.jpg Travel

Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding… One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead. Full Review

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world by Sarah Wilson

3.5star.jpg Lifestyle

My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? I get to love that line so much because my answer is This! Precisely this. I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really are living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal no, we are not. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not. Full Review

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022 by Tim Benson

4star.jpg Humour

Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition? Full Review

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Review of

Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America by Kari Loya

4star.jpg Travel

Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's. Full Review

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Review of

22 Ideas About The Future by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.

I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. Full Review

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Review of

The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams

5star.jpg Politics and Society

The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. Full Review

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Review of

Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism by Alexander Adams

2star.jpg Politics and Society

Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. Full Review

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Review of

The Wilderness Cure by Mo Wilde

5star.jpg Lifestyle

It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to live wild just to live off its produce. Full Review

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Review of

Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste by Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

4star.jpg Home and Family

We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. I'm doing the best I can, said the hummingbird. And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be. Full Review

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Review of

Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement by Frederick Reynolds

5star.jpg Autobiography

Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.

One more body just wouldn't matter.

The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were all tarred by the Chauvin brush. Full Review

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Review of

The Naked Don't Fear the Water by Matthieu Aikins

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described. Full Review

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Review of

Staggering Hubris by Josh Berry

4.5star.jpg Humour

Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the primus inter pares (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the prime movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch. Full Review

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Review of

The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds by Jessica Nordell

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted. Full Review

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Review of

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel

5star.jpg Politics and Society

How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.

Before you start reading Misfits you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be reading the book but you need to listen to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing. Full Review

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Review of

We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

5star.jpg Politics and Society

To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman. The Bookseller 29 June 2021

Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford. Full Review

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Review of

Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life by Richard Brook

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now. Full Review

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Review of

How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance

5star.jpg Politics and Society

When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, somewhere, hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.

I was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable. Full Review

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Review of

A Women's Guide to Claiming Space by Eliza Van Cort

5star.jpg Politics and Society

She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again. (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)

To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to live the life you've always wanted.

Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, A Women's Guide to Claiming Space by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be protected. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men. Full Review

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Review of

Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question Why Japan? Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question why Japan? She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound giro' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of every party where you have to introduce yourself. Full Review

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Review of

Signs of Life by Stephen Fabes

5star.jpg Travel

I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that. Full Review

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Review of

Single, Again, and Again, and Again by Louisa Pateman

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man.

This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up without the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that a belief is a choice. Full Review

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