'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
{{newreview
|author=Paul Strathern
|title=The Spirit of Venice: From Marco Polo to Casanova
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=There are several ways of telling the history of the republic of Venice, which is generally regarded as the first great economic and naval power of the western world. Strathern has chosen to do so largely through the lives of various famous (and also infamous) people from Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century to what he calls its destruction, 'both political and symbolic', at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. On the whole, the major events such as its wars are covered fairly briefly. An exception, fittingly enough, is made in the case of a chapter on the war which began its decline in the fifteenth century, when it tried to hold Thessalonica against the Ottomans, and sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the Turkish army but found itself heavily defeated in the subsequent lengthy war, as a result of which it lost most of its possessions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951921</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=It is a coincidence that the year 1928 saw the first appearance of two English novels which were denounced and initially suppressed on the grounds of obscenity and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – D.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness'. Lawrence's many novels, stories and poems are widely read today, but Hall and her works are hardly remembered except by a minority. Diana Souhami has done her a service in this generous yet deeply probing life of a literary trailblazer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878788</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Diana Souhami
|title=Greta and Cecil
|rating=4
|genre=Biography
|summary=The story of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden and the noted British photographer is a curious one. Neither ever married, both were androgynous and bisexual, plucked their eyebrows, and had numerous short-term relationships. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant to pick up a pen even to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help it. It is significant that the one picture of them together in the book, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like a handbag.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780878869</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Brian Kimberling
|title=Snapper
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There's little doubt that Brian Kimberling's debut novel, ''Snapper'' is a slightly unusual book. The publishers describe it as a coming of age story, and it is after a fashion, but it's more in the vein of an adult looking back on his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at things. The narrator, Nathan, shares many of the traits of his creator. Like Kimberling, he is brought up in Indiana and is involved in research of songbirds in that state; effectively a paid bird watcher. The title of the book though comes not from any type of bird, but from the snapping turtle that lives in the state. It's a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosiers'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0307908054</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Oliver Jeffers
|title=Lost and Found
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=I can only describe Lost and Found as a work of art. The story is beautiful in its simplicity, and the illustrations also have a magical quality to them. I have read criticism of some of Jeffers' early works for his style of drawing, especially the thin stick like legs of the ''The Boy''. The critics seem to have fallen silent on this book though and there is nothing but praise for it. The boy is not the most realistic drawing of a child I have seen, but there is something special about it, some unique presence that sets this book apart from other books. It is not a crude drawing, but a very individualised, artistic expression of Jeffers' style, which is rapidly becoming a personal trademark. The rest of his illustrations are simple and uncluttered as well. Many depict only the main characters, a single prop on a white background. Another picture shows only a few house with a darkened sky, a full moon and stars.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000730434X</amazonuk>
}}
