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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=The EconomistClaire Dederer|title=Pocket World in Figures 2015Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=ReferencePolitics and Society|summary=There are people who donDederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''t understand biography of the joy audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) - just a collection the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of figures relevant to contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a particular circumstancepunch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. If youThis model of ''monstrous men''re one as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of those people then this book will mean little to youWoody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, but if you want and a pocket (wellpersonal, certainly handbag or briefcase) work of reference then this book will be a treasurerather than collective voice. I once gave |isbn=1399715070}}{{Frontpage|author=Virginie Despentes|title=King Kong Theory|rating=4|genre=Autobiography |summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a copy to a diplomat hard-hitting memoir and he kept his wife awake until the early hours feminist manifesto, which can be seen as he came across another gem which she had a call to know without delayarms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. The 2015 edition Originally written in French, the book is the twenty fourth a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the series - complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the onslaughtbook can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781252734</amazonuk>191309734X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=Stand and Deliver: A Design for Successful GovernmentThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Ed StrawAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5

|summary=Confidence in politicians is at an allSometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 -time low14 Wasted Years?''. In fact, If you're looking for an alarming number of Britons express outright contempteasy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, not just then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for their leaders, but for the entire political class - for the politicans themselvesI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, for the civil servants standing behind them{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, even can be bettered for the Westminster bubble of commentators those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and policy wonks. We vote should be compulsory for them in ever-decreasing numbers and even those anyone who continue thinks Johnson should return to vote often do not feel representedpolitics. Worse still, ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the younger you are, impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the more likely you are to be politically disengagedmost important. We're in danger This book follows the well-established format: a series of losing an entire generation experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the political processchanges that occurred and the situation in 2024. How can this be good for a democracy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099294760X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Harry's Last StandAlastair Humphreys|authortitle=Harry Leslie SmithLocal

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=RAF veteran Harry Leslie Smith rose 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 prominence last 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 with exploring a famous Guardian article 'This yearsmall map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, I will wear a poppy for the last timefood system, rewilding…'' about One of the way in which joys of the remembrance of those who died in book for me was that the great wars has been co-opted to justify today’s military conflicts. Here, biggest thing he tackles themes learned about all of povertythese things was that there are no easy answers, political corruption, unemploymentno single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and a lack of hope felt by so many people todaythat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848317263</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her WorldEdel Rodriguez|authortitle=Stefan KorneliusWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=BiographyGraphic Novels|summary=You have to admire the ladyWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, this rather awkward and shy daughter Castro, first thought of as a staunch Lutheran pastor who saviour of the country, has proven himself had been born as a Polish Catholic. His daughter studied with such intelligence Communist, and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistrynot done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. At the age of 26 Well, she obtained her doctorate and those hours- long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in passingthe happiest of places here, it rather seems an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro- her first husbandCommunism skirmish, such as Angola) and the physicist Ulrike Merkelfather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Her rise The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to power was rapid and took place through ease some of the period heat, but in which this sultry island country, it remains the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry and dry sense kind of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment heat forcing you out of the characteristic known in German as ''fleissig'' - hardworking, sedulous, diligent and assiduous.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreview|title=An Atheist's History of BeliefFrontpage|author=Matthew KnealeSarah Wilson|rating=4.5|genretitle=Politics This One Wild and Society|summary=I’ve been an atheist since I was old enough Precious Life: the path back to take a view on the subject. (Many atheists would argue that we’re all atheists at birth, but that’s not a subject for connection in a book review). I did have to take Religious Studies at school but have entirely forgotten almost everything I learned!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584425</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Notebooks, 1922-86|author=Michael Oakeshottfractured world

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Michael Oakeshott My favourite Mary Oliver line is usually described as a conservative thinkerthe 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. According '' I'm lucky enough to Perry Anderson, his work influenced John Majorbe living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's style of politics; he named him in 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 London Review of Books in 1992 as one of four ‘outstanding European theorists of life we want – the intransigent Right’best life that we could be living. Luke O’Sullivan Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, who edited this collection of notebooks, has often said that he considers such descriptions limitingwe are not''. O’Sullivan is clearly enthusiastic about Oakeshott’s work and strove to enable these notebooks Don't care what you're doing, spanning a period of over sixty yearsshe thinks you (we, to I) could be publisheddoing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845400542</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=The Why AxisCharging Around: Hidden Motives and Exploring the Undiscovered Economics Edges of Everyday LifeEngland by Electric Car|author=Uri Gneezy and John ListClive Wilkinson

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Wow! This is Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a most surprising economics bookpreference for slow travel.  Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse As he neared his eightieth birthday the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour and consuming patterns. I guess we know about that already because supermarkets here lull us into buying three for idea of exploring the price edges of twoEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, to come back next week it should be a pleasant holiday for £10 off a £100Clive and his wife, Joan, or to garner extra points on a loyalty card (Oh why can’t they just go for a cheaper price at shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Seeking some light relief from the point of sale? Why do profits have current political turmoil which is coming to be in double percentage point increases year on year?). A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives is already part seem more and parcel more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of our lives2022''. If you’d asked me before I read this book, I would Sharp eyes will have lined up noted that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteering. However … these guys are differentwe're not yet through the year: they really do seem to care about the plight of the underprivileged, and they come cartoons run from an academic setting, rather than a commercial one4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk> Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alain de BottonB0B7289HKQ|title=The NewsConversations Across America: A UserFather and Son, Alzheimer's Manual, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Alain de Botton maintains Kari (that 'rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the news' has assumed way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the position in our lives which period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was once occupied by religionmade to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, with some consumers viewing Oregon - all 4250 miles of it as often as every fifteen minutes (slight blush there - let's say about every hour...)in 2015. Furthermore, we They had 73 days to do it completely unprotected against every political scandal or celebrity story- 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. The subMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-title 'A Userstage Alzheimer's Manual' sets out to remedy this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HYGYIGA</amazonuk>

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. }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert A CaroJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means Book of AscentHope

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society |summary=It's only The done thing is to read a matter of days since book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I finished listening to [[The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path don’t want to Power by Robert A Caro|The Years lose any of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power]], the first part experience of Robert A Caro's definitive work on the President and despite having just spent over forty hours on the reading this amazing book , I wanted want to learn morecapture it as it hits me. I was torn though - the second book in a series And it is not often as good as the first and it struck hitting me that these might not be the most exciting years in Johnson's life. Was this This beautiful book going to be the link which took us on to the more exciting times? Not a bit of ithas me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00GSHD0U6</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=A Good African StoryArtivism: How a Small Company Built a Global Coffee BrandThe Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Andrew RugasiraAlexander Adams|rating=32|genre=Politics and Society|summary=There are few billionaire black African entrepreneursCan art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. As Andrew Rugasira points out It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in ''A Good African Story''which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the people who make money from African exports are virtually always white WesternersEra 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). Even Fair Trade participants remain skewed Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by the status quo of trade barriers which discriminate against Third World countrieslarge “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>0099571927</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=Play It Again: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleWilderness Cure|author=Alan RusbridgerMo Wilde|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=I’ve maintained It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long time that I’ll read anythingconsumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, if it’s well-enough written. So it particularly in Central Scotland was with this fascinating memoirperhaps not the best time to start, even though it’s in a year in world where the life of an amateur pianistnormal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and I don’t play a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the piano – or indeed area around her was a note known habitat with a variety of musicterrains. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in his professional role before I read the book She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. A quick browse through the first couple of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell She had a clear story: it is his stockcar -in-trade as Editor of the Guardianand fuel. And the book duly held me through Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a messy, interrupted week of bedtime readingplan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=WinterThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Adam GopnikEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=ReferenceHome and Family|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering We begin with a unique telling story. All the birds and fascinating perspective on animals fled when the season forest fire took hold and most of winterthem stood and watched, Adam Gopnik takes unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art river and began taking tiny amounts of water and society, through flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''Romantic WinterI'', ''Radical Winterm doing the best I can'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''said the hummingbird. In each essay And that, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themesreally, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetryis the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this booksmall that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>

''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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthieu Aikins|title=Outraged The Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|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 Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle Englandborder 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.|isbn= B09N9157T6}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Staggering Hubris|author=Nigel CawthorneJosh Berry|rating=4.5

|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fastMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they havenheaded by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares''t rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk… It(that's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind the 'disgusted for those of Tunbridge Wells' tag, you who are Eton and as a book to be shelved alongside those with Oxbridge educated) but the wackier letters sent to reality is that the ''Daily Telegraphprime'', these selections from movers are the special advisers - the Royal town's press itself make a great eyeSPADS -opener who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the complaints and complainants memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of Kent2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=The End of Bias: How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?: A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050We Change Our Minds|author=Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)Jessica Nordell

|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 first. The authors are leading researchers in their fields, and their papers have been critiqued by peer-reviewersable will come before the disabled. Each Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the chapters reports white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the results of medical become a modelling exercise, examining progress or decline in one part of ten key areasan organisation it's rare that their views are heard, including armed conflict, trade barriers, malnutrition, air pollution, ecosystem and biodiversity, health, water and sanitationthat their concerns are acknowledged. Key economic, growth It's personally appalling and other variables from credible sources provided a common set degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of data and assumptions, used in each studythe bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107679338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Benn1529148251|title=The Last DiariesMisfits: A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situation. He's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=What Should We Tell Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up FemalePersonal Manifesto|author=Melissa BennMichaela Coel|rating=35

|summary='I 'How am shocked when I read young feminists today blithely admitting that they donable to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It't know what second-wave feminists wrotes as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''

As Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a twentycertain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-something year old feminist, it pains me to admit how much this quote applied help book. You're going to me. Having grown up knowing that college and university were paths I could definitely take, never being told that settling down and finding a husband read writing which was an important goal inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to have, and always getting professionals within the same opportunities as my male peers in television industry at the workplace, IEdinburgh TV Festival. You might be 'd never seen – or, at least, 'reading'thought'the book but you need to ' I'd seen – listen'' to the inequalities, misogyny and chauvinism that were still apparently abundant words as though you're in today's societythe lecture theatre. The feminist movement had always seemed like an amazing wave of new ideas that had happened forty or fifty years ago. It was the reason my mother disjointedness will fade away and I were now able to work and find you'll be carried on a role outside cloud of the homeexquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546270</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Sandi ToksvigOtegha Uwagba

|summary=Dear Sandi ''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

You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and one ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes). For this alone, I had to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining colour while only 7% study a book on manners previously, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious and well worth by a read. I was not wrongwoman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|title=Global Modernity Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and Other Essays|author=Tom Rubens|rating=4|genre=Politics nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and Society|summary=It’s been difficult to write determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this reviewdid not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. The book’s eclectic nature, with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche to When Otegha was ten the English Police Forcefamily acquired a car. For Otegha, makes it difficult education meant a scholarship to summarise a private school in London and secondlythen a place at New College, I’m no academic and philosophy is just HARD|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>Oxford.

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativeRichard Brook|authortitle=Peter MortimoreUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life

|summary=Peter Mortimore's thoroughgoing analysis of the absurdities of current educational practice 'When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and prescriptions for finding a far better alternative deserves a wide readershipso on. It is not just an organisation which is under siege but as his personal anecdotes indicateAnd we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, more vigorously than his rigorously argued statisticsdogs on sofas, people are suffering. Parents are anxiousfoxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, teachers badly led and burdened with confused policies and worst millions of all pupils are pressurised from early infancy. Reading his book you might be forgiven for wondering a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress and b) as Cicero might have askedwild animals stay out there, ''Cui bonosomewhere,'', to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines hopefully on the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methodsnext David Attenborough series. He argues that their procedures are more effective, that support students and produce a fairer, harmonious society.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|title=Inventing 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 Enemy: Essays on Everything|author=Umberto Eco|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milansake of it. Next Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to you a gentleman talks animals - and eats with furious energyI consider myself an animal lover. He tells If I had to choose between the company of Dante, Cicero, humans and St Augustine and quotes a multitude the company of obscure troubadours from the Middle Ages. He repeats himselfanimals, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in I would probably choose the ribs, belches and even breaks windanimals. His conversation contains nuggets of information I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but in the flow of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiterationI was initially reluctant. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches the I eat cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informed, intrigued eggs, chicken and prodded to examine his discourse again fish and again, even if only I needed to challenge what you have heardeither do so without guilt or change my choices. Such are I suspected that making the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy''decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Brock1523092734|title=Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital AgeA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=3.5

|summary=At about the turn of the century most people on the street where I live had ''She brings a morning paper delivered hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and a good number also got an evening paperagain and again. The queue at the newsagent in the village would be out of the door each morning as people picked up a paper on their way to work. I can't remember when I last saw a newspaper boy ' (or girlAlma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD) on their rounds and we only buy the weekend papers as an indulgence with a more leisurely breakfast. Times have changed - and there's no sign that the situation is likely to settle in the near future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749466510</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=Against Their Will: The Secret History ''To claim space is to live the life of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman choosing unapologetically and Gregory J Dober|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had done things like tie toddlers to beds bravely. It is to insert live pathogens into their eyes, injected children with radiation, sterilised those thought to be subhuman and even castrated a child just to get a supply of tissue for a lab experiment, the life you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germany. I am not've always wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|title=Across Sometimes the Pond|author=Terry Eagleton|rating=3reviewing 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.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Terry Eagleton Now - to be clear - this book is not a Brit (Manchester born, no less) who now lives in Dublin 'how to disable your attacker with his American wife and childrentwo simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, so he but discussion at the moment seems well placed to write a book be about the difference between us and them, there Yankshow women can be ''protected''. Mid way through the pages, he even stops to tell us I've always thought that in a way he had women need to write rise above this, because when he wishes to read a bookbe people who don't need protection, he writes itpeople who claim their own space. To read someone else’s If all women did this, he suggests, is ‘an unwarranted invasion of their personal space’. That’s how so very British he isthose 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill StarkPolly Barton|title=High Sobriety: My Year Without BoozeFifty Sounds

|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary=On the first of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the hangover from Hell. She was no stranger to them: at thirty five shequestion ''Why Japan?''d Japan has been binge drinking on my radar for more than twenty years a while and was in if the dubious position of being the health reporter who wrote herself off at weekendsworld 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 by like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'wrote herself off' I mean being seriously drunk on a very regular basis, having consumed vast quantities She explains her feelings in respect of alcohol and having regularly put herself the question in danger of serious illnessthe first essay, unwanted pregnancy and assault. But which is on that first day in January Stark decided that she was going to do something about it and the initial decision was that sound ''giro' '' – which she would spend three months on describes as being, among other things, the wagonsound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaStephen Fabes|authortitle=A T WilliamsSigns of Life

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Almost ten years ago I was brought up on a Sunday morning back in September 2003maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, British Troops raided a hotel in BasraI didn't inherit what Dr. It Stephen Fabes clearly had which was a difficult period in the occupation, six months on from the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigradeguts to simply go out and do it. Members of the Queen I also didn's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from a hotel in t inherit the vicinity kind of insurgent weaponry. The Iraqis were hoodedsteady nerve, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions and subjected ability to talk to karate chops strangers and kidney punches by basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the Britishrequisite 'bottle'. Other men and officers watched, walked by or wondered at In order words I'm not the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours sort of torture, person who will get on a bike outside a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiationLondon hospital and not come home for six years. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guards Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=Ryu Murakami|title=From The Fatherland, With Love|rating=4This 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.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=From The Fatherland, With Love It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is a 2005 Japanese novel set in rescued by the handsome prince who then-near future of 2011marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Fatherland (as I Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will abbreviate marry and have children. It was a belief and it) explores the social and political ramifications of one speculative scenario: what if North Korea invaded Japan?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968451</amazonuk>would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.

{{newreview|author=Polly Morland|title=The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How Move to be Brave|rating=3.5|genre=Reference|summary='I see no reason why the shy and timid in any community couldn’t get together and help each other.' The above words were uttered in 1943 by a gentleman called Bernard Gabriel. Mr Gabriel was a piano player who founded a unique club, ''The Society of Timid Souls'' that encouraged timid performers and fear-wracked musicians to come in out of the cold 'to play, to criticise and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey of stage fright.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed to be cured by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably in the years that followed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]