'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Jeremy Clarke
|title=Low Life
|rating=3
|genre=Humour
|summary=
I'm not a Spectator reader – indeed other than seeing on the shelves I'm ashamed to say that before starting to write this article I knew absolutely nothing about the magazine, its style, ethos or readership. Having (obviously) done the obligatory websearch I know understand that being its editor is considered a reasonable a route to success in the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticket. A sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, it is quoted as being Atlanticist, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic in outlook.
This makes me utterly unsuitable as a candidate to review Clarke's book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
Although Wilkinson has placed her story in the near future, for the most part, you wouldn't necessarily be aware of that fact. Personally, I was delighted as I'm not a fan of futuristic fiction.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907335145</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Wilson
|title=Shadow of the Titanic
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Lesson one in writing non-fiction articles and journalism seems to be to find out what is topical. April 2012 is the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, and there are going to be hoards of people finding it topical to celebrate that. Lesson two seems to be to find your own unique angle on the story. Wilson approaches the Titanic disaster by sinking her at the end of chapter one, for he looks more at the lives of the people on board, and how they took the calamity and dealt with it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847377300</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jeanette Winterson
|title=Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=
I saw the BBC's 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit' a semi-autobiographical account of Winterson's childhood. This book's title is equally memorable and unique and we learn that it's a line Mrs Winterson said to the young Jeanette.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093452</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nigella Lawson
|title=Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home
|rating=4
|genre=Cookery
|summary=Nigella Lawson's latest offering is subtitled 'recipes from the heart of home', which is a very vague title whose significance (undoubtedly clear to those who watch the TV versions) I fail to decode. All cooking is done in the kitchen after all. But I suppose coming up with interesting titles for general collections of recipes is not that easy, so I'll leave it at that.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184604</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Leith
|title=You Talkin' To Me?: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Over the years I've trained myself (fairly successfully) not to judge a book by its cover. I've added 'not judging a book by its title' to the training, but what do you do when your first impressions of a book - the title ''and'' the cover - scream 'trivia'? Well, I put this one to one side on the basis that it really wasn't likely to be a book which would interest me. Picking it up and looking at the contents was almost accidental - and then I discovered that this book is a gold mine.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683157</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cat Clarke
|title=Torn
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=
A week in the Scottish Wilderness doesn't exactly sound fun, not to Alice King, but that's what she's about to embark on. Her and her classmates are off on an activity holiday together – walking, climbing, caving. Alice is fortunately put in a cabin with her best friend Cass, so things can't be too bad. But, then Tara Chambers, the popular girl, gets put in their cabin too - things definitely just got worse. Tara, though beautiful is powerful, mean and likes nothing more than putting people down.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382055</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Graham Holderness
|title=Nine Lives of William Shakespeare
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=There is a subtle irony in the fact that the world’s best-known playwright, and possibly the most famous author of all time, is a character about whom so little is known for certain. Nevertheless, as we are looking at someone who died nearly 400 years ago, the indisputable documentary evidence is bound to be lacking.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441151850</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Angie Beasley
|title=The Frog Princess
|rating=3
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I expected a tabloid expose of the beauty queen industry, or a spirited defence against feminist ethical attacks of the past few years from one of its successful 'victims'. Best of all, I enjoy an ordinary person telling an authentic emotional tale, whatever their circumstances or personal history. Sadly I'm afraid that this book fell rather short on these attractions. At first I felt that Angie Beasley deserved a lot more editorial help in developing her manuscript. Then I realised that the story was ghost written, which explains the lack of authentic voice fairly neatly.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718158318</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gordon Grice
|title=The Book of Deadly Animals
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=Animals and humans have long mixed, even though the one has almost always proven capable of being lethal to the other. Many scientists in the past decided animals killing humans were aberrant, and that the real animal knew it was second best to humans, having been saved in the Ark, and respected our dominion over them. Even now, it seems, there are opinions that creatures attacking mankind are somehow rogue and need destroying. But where is the wrong in an animal behaving as its nature compels it? Similarly, the human wandering around the wilderness, or even the idiot woman feeding a black bear her own toddler's honey-dripping hand (true story - what the bear thought of the taste of honeyed fingers we don't know) is just the same in reverse - humans behaving as only humans can.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919675</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marie Louise Fitzpatrick
|title=Dark Warning
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=
Taney Tyrell lives in a room in Missus Kenny's boarding house in Dublin. She shares it with her father, her step-mother Mary Kate and her little brother Jon Jon. Life is hard but both Da and Mary Kate are working and they get by. But Taney is lonely. Ever since she was a tiny thing she has known she can see things before they happen. She has the gift of second sight. But Da and Mary Kate don't see it as a gift. They see it as a curse and worse, the curse that killed Taney's mother. But whatever they say, Taney's gift won't be denied. It's as much a part of her as her beautiful red hair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556789</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne Isba
|title=Dickens's Women: His Life and Loves
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=
The subject of the several women in the life of Charles Dickens might at first glance seem an unusual theme to build a biography around, but this fairly brief but penetrating book serves its purpose well. The author’s foreword begins by telling us that Dickens was a man who 'craved a love so unconditional that the yearning was unlikely to be satisfied in this world, a man in thrall to a vision of a womanhood so idealized that it was incompatible with everyday domesticity'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441107207</amazonuk>
}}
