'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Scott Mariani
|title=The Lost Relic
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ben Hope went to Italy to visit a former SAS comrade and offer him a job, but he's got marriage and happiness – and Ben's trade is far from the front of his mind. It's whilst he's driving away that Ben nearly runs down a small boy and unwittingly walks into a deadly heist which will see the boy and his mother – and many others – brutally murdered. It's only the beginning for Ben though as he find himself fleeing for his life and accused of murder. When the state needs to act people – even heroes – are disposable.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561977</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=K J Parker
|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, as he rests up before action. And for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his high-octane downtime.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler
|title=The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking
|rating=4.5
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=This little, black book with its gold lettering on the front cover is beautifully presented. Truly pocket-sized to make it easy to refer to at any time, any place. Divided into four neat sections dealing with ''the self'' and ''others'' (others in the main being say business partners, colleagues or like-minded people) these fifty working models are designed to give the individual both self-awareness and ammunition, if you like, in order to cope with various business/political and even social scenarios, for example.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683955</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Stevenson
|title=An Optimist's Tour of the Future
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=In 1968, the film '2001 A Space Odyssey' had an optimistic view of the future we would soon be living in. In terms of technological advancement we're not quite there yet, even though that date has a decade since passed, so maybe it's time for a revised view of what is to come. Enter Mark Stevenson, a stand up comic slash scientist. It's perhaps not the most familiar of combinations, but take the best bits of each and the result is this wonderful book that combines humour and fun with proper nitty, gritty, science stuff.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683564</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michael Frayn
|title=My Father's Fortune: A Life
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Translator, playwright and esteemed novelist Michael Frayn turns in 'My Father's Fortune' to his own family in this personal memoir; an act of remembrance and a work of preservation. Humorous in parts, laced with philosophical musings and revisited by ghosts, Frayn excels and excites in this humane portrayal of his father, Tommy. This retelling of scenes from this theatre of memory has also its tragedies and vividly portrays his family's courage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571270581</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Melissa Wareham
|title=Take Me Home: Tales of Battersea Dogs
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Melissa Wareham always wanted a dog but her parents would never allow it and she didn't get good enough exam results for her next option – becoming a vet. Not one to be deterred she joined the staff at Battersea Dogs Home, first as a kennel maid and eventually as the head of rehoming. 'Take Me Home' is the story of some of the highlights of her life at the home and some of the dogs which she met whilst she was there.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849413924</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stanley Gibbons
|title=Stamps of the World 2011
|rating=5
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=In describing reference books the word ''bible'' has been used too frequently of late. Slim booklets on a particular subject have the word emblazoned on their cover, which makes it rather difficult when you encounter a book – or in this case a set of six books – which merits the word. Stanley Gibbons 'Stamps of the World 2011' is genuinely a bible – an essential tool for a dealer and the serious collector. It's now available in six soft-bound volumes and is rightfully the company's flagship publication.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852597894</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Betty G Birney
|title=School According to Humphrey
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After six near-perfect books' worth of adventures in Room 26, the class pet Humphrey the hamster faces a nightmare at the start of term. The entire pupil population has changed, and all his friends he's got to know and love (and be loved by) have been replaced by a new intake. Here are the absurdly tall and the unfortunately short, both with the same first name; here is the girl in a wheelchair pestered by an over-attentive helper. Can Humphrey solve all their problems - as he usually does - and, is the biggest problem of all the fact that his old friends no longer have a classroom pet?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255418</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexandra Adornetto
|title=Halo
|rating=2.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When three angels – Gabriel, Ivy and Bethany – arrive in a quiet town, their mission is to bring good to a world in danger of falling into darkness. They have to conceal their true nature – hiding the glow of their skin, their wings – a task not easy for Bethany, the least experienced of the trio. She's overwhelmed by human life, fascinated by all the experiences available to her in human form. A fascination that leads to a dangerous attraction to human boy, Xavier. Falling in love was not part of the holy mission, and Gabriel and Ivy fear Bethany won't be in the position to save anybody if she continues down the path she's on.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907410759</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anna Politkovskaya
|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnya, on Putin, on state corruption and on life in Russia under his regime. She never avoided controversy and received a number of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006. She had reason to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled 'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of a Life?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleagues.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Morris Gleitzman
|title=Grace
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary='In the beginning there was me and Mum and Dad and the twins. And talk about happy families, we were bountiful. But it came to pass that I started doing sins. And lo, that's when all our problems began.'
This is exactly how Grace talks because she lives with her family as part of a separatist fundamental Christian sect. She goes to a church school. The school bus driver is a church Elder because she mustn't talk to or touch an outsider as outsiders are unclean. She can't eat outsider food without purifying it first - even ice cream must be microwaved. She wears her unruly, curly hair in a bun and woe is upon her when wisps free themselves from her hairpins.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014133603X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Edmund de Waal
|title=The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
|rating=5
|genre=Biography
|summary='The Hare with Amber Eyes' vibrates with that rush of desire to uncover family history that often follows the death of someone you love. It is also a meticulously researched book of wide ranging scope. When I first picked it up, it looked worryingly erudite, and I had visions of becoming lost in a sea of names, places and ideas. So I was amazed to find myself reading it in one sitting, completely absorbed, and losing a whole day in the process. Edmund De Waal had me hooked from the bottom of page one when he admits to kicking the gate of the Japanese language school he was attending in frustration at his lack of fluency. He then thinks sheepishly: 'what it was to be twenty-eight and kicking a school gate.' This funny, disarming comment put me on his side from the off.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539551</amazonuk>
}}
