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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maisie ChanPaul B Preciado|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Danny ''It is eleven years old, and what he really, really loves never too late to do is draw. He creates fantastical comics, whilst his best friend Ravi adds embrace the words. Dannyrevolutionary optimism of childhood''s dad Through this hybrid text, howeverconsisting of arias, wants Danny to concentrate on his mathsletters, essays and forget about the drawingautofiction, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! At least Danny has Preciado expresses his own roomhybrid self, where he can draw in secret and in peace. But then one day his parents tell him they have brings forth a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out new sensorium as an offering to be his grandmother who has come over from China to live with themthe new generation, and who will a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not only be sharing Danny's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk considered a sign of his bunk bed! Danny political apathy. Rather, it is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no Englishthe proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitterpolitical crack we are living through, and showing her around the towntension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. Poor DannyThe whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, stuck when dysphoria began to emerge on a maths projectglobal scale, frustrated with or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravireaders to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''...how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Terry MilesSamantha Harvey|title=RabbitsOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=Welcome to In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, Booker Prize for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits'Orbital'', although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the game lives of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe group of people – astronauts aboard the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of websInternational Space Station. People like our hero, K, named like Through a narrative lens that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in mirrors the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time itastronauts's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for Korbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed..wholly new light.|isbn=15290169321529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=C J Carey295967572X|title=WidowlandPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming Our unnamed narrator is about to London, parading around begin a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII train journey with his wife, Queen Walliscompanion Django. For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didnWhere they't happen as we know it, re going and we are now a protectorate – wellwhat the purpose of this journey is, we share enough of the same blood as is uncertain. Django found the Germanic peoples on tickets ''on the mainlandfloor somewhere''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs persuaded our narrator to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widowsaccompany him. Female literacy Why not? Not much else is actively discouraged. And clear either - but we are probably in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature past as the pair travel to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, the station by coach and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That train is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visita steam locomotive.|isbn=152941198X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louise Beech0008551324|title=This Is How We Are HumanThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Veronica It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a devoted single mother to missing person is buried and who was responsible for her sondeath. This person, he promises, Sebastian - but she can't give him everything is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wantsis to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Sebastian has decided that Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's time for him even prepared to have sex. But as an autistic 20 yeardo the other thing that Hardie demanded -old, make certain thatDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's easier said than done. And it's starting to cause them both problemshappening. |isbn=1913193713
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickVaim
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Bosner, or, to give him his full title, Petty Officer Third Class Bosner. We never really find out if he has a first name: there's merely a hint that he had the nickname 'SecretaryAll was strange'' at one point. He's simply Bosner to one and all. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories . This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helosotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, as they were called) at a naval establishment. The hours fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could be long not feel more real for Jatgeir and he was often working nights but at Eline, two of the age of twenty-one, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his dayprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Whitten1035043092|title=For the WolfThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=In RedI can's family, t have been the first daughter becomes queenonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, and the second daughter becomes Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a sacrificenew life on Orkney. To Red It's misfortunebeen seven years since we heard from him, she is the second daughter. Sent alone into the woods but he's now living with nothing but the cape on her backWillow Reeves and their young son, James, Red knows what to expect: within the woods is a wolfas well as Cassie, and he is the one who will decide the fate daughter of their kingdomhis former partner. If Willow's also his boss, and she is not a worthy sacrifice, the monsters he keeps contained to the woods will ''should'' be releasedon maternity leave, and the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories go. But but when Red enters the woodsbody of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, expecting nothing more than to be killed within in the houraftermath of a storm, she finds that can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the legends are lies. The wolf is not head with a Neolithic stone - one of a monster—he's pair - which had been stolen from a manmuseum.|isbn=0356516369
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{{Frontpage
|author=M G LeonardThea Lenarduzzi|title=TwitchThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birds''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. He keeps pigeons at home In this compelling novel, and chickensThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that the protagonist of his time in schoolthis tale. But things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects Just as T's story is being told, the story of his life as there a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a dangerous bank robber on wealthy family in the run19th century, and itwho died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's possible that the missing bank haul fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is hidden somewhere a story which she consumes avariciously, both in Aves Wooda quest for truth and knowledge, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back in service of his hand! Can Twitch solve the mysterymyth, fable and find the missing millions?fantasy. |isbn=14063893741804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838853804Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Cursed Girls|author=Caro RamsayBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pond, only to find that he'd hanged himself. Twenty years later she's back home again steeped in anguish and this time the occasion is no less saddistortion. She's there to say her final farewells to her sisterEven a kiss, Melissausually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, who is dying becomes evidence of anorexialove lost. As she diesWhen the narrator cries out internally, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor come over here and major crueltieskiss me, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was '' it even is less an invitation than a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant imagined recipient of the County and money was never in short supply this plea is Xavier, her ex- but there did seem to be partner, a curse. In addition ghost she conjures to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years beforetest her detachment. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral?|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414001200008405026|title=The Girl Who DiedA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbJane Casey|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacherbed one summer night. She was thirty years old never found and money was tightthe investigation ground to a halt. Her friendNow, her mother, SaraHelena, showed and her an advert for father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a job in Skalar on straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the Langanes Peninsulabodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. There were only ten people in the village but a teacher What looked as though it was required for two children: a salary would going to be paid an open-and accommodation provided-shut case is now a complex double murder. Una was Kerrigan is convinced that the only applicant and the job meant that she could let her flat explanation lies in Reykjavik andRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract coveredUna Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846975719Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=For Any The Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)|author=Denzil MeyrickGirl|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=''We learn that MI5 is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to awkward placesthink about this. But that's London, isn't it? What's happening in Kinloch?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard BrookMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to LifeReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=LifestyleBiography|summary= Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I am a firm believer think that sometimes we choose booksGorky completely rejects this perspective, and sometimes books choose usoffers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In my case, this is one the first section of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''d have skimmed it, found some you write not of real life as it interestingis, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. help to know how I believe see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it came to me not just because I was likely to give interest anyone? Of what use is it a favourable review [ ?''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomlyWell, so there is Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a predisposition towards expecting subjective account, giving us access to like the bookhow he saw Tolstoy, even if it doesn't always turn out Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that way'' ] – but also because one almost feels unworthy of it is a book I needed to read, right now.|isbn=18004616821804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B095CY7NBN1529077745|title=Autumn CampThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Barry FowlerAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It was to be Brian's last camp. He'd founded A man walking his dog in the organisation some four years ago and had done all early morning discovered the organisation since but he was leaving school and body of a man in the time had come to hand the reins to someone elsepark near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The obvious person dead man was Gary, Josh - one of the care workers who'd always been was due to work a shift the fun element of the camps and Brian night before but who had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there to observenever turned up. The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you like. He was D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the entertainer, murder - but her only clue is the person who basked in disappearance of one of the spotlight and made things fun residents, fourteen-year- so Brian stepped in and did the organisingold Chloe Spencer. He handed Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the camp over - and then took death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it backclear that she adored Josh. And Gary determined She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' campJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=194812467XB0FK5LHKD9|title=The Farm ShopColour of Memory|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema TepicChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Kirelle and her best friend Sam the cat decide It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to go for see a walknew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Kirelle is dressed for Like all weathers in her bright yellow wellies and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coat. As they walk to Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the top heart of ''The Colour of the hill, they see a big barn with a sign outsideMoney''. ItWe like this running theme in an author's work - take a farm shop! But this is a farm shop with a difference: all the stallholders and customers are farmyard animals. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle mystery but give it different flavour and Sam go shoppingatmosphere each time. What will they buy?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008404925Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Killing Kind|author=Jane CaseyHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.
|isbn=1804271918
}}{{Frontpage
|isbn=henleyA
|title=Ultimate Obsession
|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a surprisemurder charge drained his savings. After allHis wife, Laura, it was her crosshas been trying to persuade him to retire -examination of the 'victim' which saved him from a lengthy prison sentencemaybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He'd s not been accused entirely up front about the state of stalking the woman but their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it didn't take long to establish that - if anything - it was s the other way around. Soon Ingrid never seemed to be free thought of John Webster and then she came to see the money he could make that convinces him as a threat and was forced to remember that the police officer at his trial had told her that this was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away for is a long time: miscarriage of justice that he was a very dangerous manreally should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083955941836284683|title=Both of YouThe Big Happy|author=Adele ParksDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adores. Thenwhen I open a book, one Mondayit's nothing like I expected it to be, she went to work and never came homeit takes me on a wild ride. Mark, Oli and Seb are shatteredAnd that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. Well, Mark and Seb are I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but OliI's sixteen and ll have to at least set the stage where he thinks boredom is his best lookscene. HeOnce that's been a bit off with Leigh done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a while but she put grandmaster at putting it down to him growing up into words. Her dialogue is gripping and starting so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to become independent. Seb's only twelve unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Leigh's absence hits him hardPeter Koubek. Then Daan JanssenIvan, a wealthy Dutch businessmansocially awkward chess prodigy, reports contrasts sharply with his wifeolder brother Peter, Kai missinga successful lawyer living in Dublin. She too has vanished without traceFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14736857451036916375|title=Unbreak Your HeartJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Katie MarshPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=When Beth Carlyle ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and Simon Withers first met they were on opposite ends around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of an angry exchange a sea- wellgoing family, Simon was angry and Beth was doing her best to apologise for having knocked Simon's son, Jake, off his bikewith the docks dominating lives. He wasn't hurt but Jake has historyOther stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. He has HLHS - thatIt's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those of you who are not ''au fait'' with a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your medical acronyms. When he was bornchildhood memories, the left side to think of his heart hadn't developed properly and he needed open-heart surgery simpler times when he life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a few days oldconstant factor in McArdle's early years. So, Simon has every right to be overI'd never heard of parachute mines before -protective particularly when someone isn't looking where but they're drivingwere almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell1836285493|title=OtherlandThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Myra and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra Will is louda keen player of video games, a conscientious student, bright a slightly annoying brother and hates rulesa supportive friend. But most of all, while Rohan he is very politean aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, serious and worries about the tiniest things. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying at the same time one at the same hospital on Midsummer's daywhich he excels. And so, every year their families get together to celebrate the two's birthday/deathday. But when RohanThis hasn's little sister Shilpa is taken t gone unnoticed by the fairy queenhis headteacher, they must journey Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to the Otherland, Will and his mum that he spends a magical realm full couple of fairiesafternoons a week at a different school, vampiresStation Road, dragons, and Gods. It's going to where his ability might be the worst night of their livesbetter extended.|isbn=1788000463
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=walker141009473085|title=The Coldest Case (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Martin WalkerAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth DaynesSometimes 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' work in t the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies book for you. If that chief of police Bruno Courreges had the idea which he thought might help his boss's what you're looking for, chief of detectives JalipeauI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, known as J-J{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, to solve a case that had haunted him can be bettered for thirty those tumultuous years. The body of It's a young male was found in the woods but he was never identified compelling read and his killer never brought should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to justicepolitics. What if ''The Conservative Effect'' is an artist could recreate entirely different beast. It's the face from seventh book in a series which looks at the skull impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the resulting publicity be used to identify most important. This book follows the young man? Jwell-J calls established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the skull 'Oscar' changes that occurred and has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesn't want to forget Oscar until his killer has been brought to justicethe situation in 2024.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Martha LeighJenny Valentine|title= Invisible Ink: A Family MemoirUs in the Before and After|rating= 5|genre= BiographyTeens|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a childhood spent once in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English familylifetime connection. Her father is They meet as children one day on a Cambridge trip out but unfortunately they don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits the complete correspondence of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his life't get each other's workcontact details at the time. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Neither parent is hugely interested in the practicalities of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=18004603841471196585
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1787333175|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPopular Science|summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to the Forgotten CryptHurt}}, from which a glorious mixture of insight into the Departed communicate with workings of the MergeNHS, Archie now has humour and autobiography. ''grop'You Don' t Have to think aboutbe Mad.. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of those isa psychiatrist. But he manages I did wonder whether it was acceptable to come through be looking for humour in this setting but the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this seriesempathy and understanding. |isbn=B093J9TF73
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{{Frontpage
|author= Adrian TchaikovskyMariana Enriquez|title= Shards of EarthA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating= 45|genre= Science FictionShort Stories|summary= Eighty years agoMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape achieving this uncanny familiarity by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, just when they had the human race basing her paranormal plots on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of the war fadesdisused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture an overcrowded homeless shelter and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be rememberedcrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. But, when he and the crew The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into the spotlightthese spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…|isbn=15290518861803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584281529934753|title=Local Woman MissingThe Protest|author=Mary KubicaRob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Eleven years agoFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, a man regularly came home the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his wife retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the nick of time, complete with lipstick marks on his collar two wives and lame excuses as to why he was late - again. His wife was in the habit six children, one of going out for a run late at nightwhom filmed what happened. It was the only time she had for herself when she didn't have Being an influencer, you tend to look after her baby - do things like that, but when she it was fortunate that there was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for record of the unquestioning affection he gave herprotest. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappearedLexi Williams, an intern at the RA, seemingly without grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a trace, leaving her husband chair and proceeded to look after her disabled baby. Ten days laterspray Bruce in the face, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappearedwhilst shouting ''Stop the War''. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula and she'd It seemed to be under some strain for the last couple part of an ongoing series of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel 'blue- it appeared that sheface'd committed suicideattacks, but this was different. She left a note saying that her daughter, DelilahThe can had been laced with cyanide, was safe and there Sir Max Bruce was no point in looking for herdead.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nicolas BouvierAriel Saramandi|title=The Japanese ChroniclesPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=TravelPolitics and Society|summary= It never does In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to start a review intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of a book with a quote from Mauritius, tunneling deep into the blurb, but sometimes it's unavoidablewounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Le Monde reviewed this book, Saramandi describes the country at some point, with the words one stage as ''what the old master craftsmen would call a masterpiece.rotting'' It is precisely that. A masterpiece in , a blunt yet apt metaphor for the sense of systemic decay brought about by the craft as well as the art malignant forces of writingracism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. I'm going to hesitate to call it 'travel writing' because Each essay in this is collection serves as much a history kind of Japandiagnostic, a mythology-primer for charting the Japanese culture as it is a personal response to living and travelling in various diseases afflicting the countryisland state. |isbn=19060110441804271616
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{{Frontpage
|author=Genevieve GornichecPekka Harju-Autti|title=The WitchLoveVortex and the Drakor's HeartCurse
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary= A modern and approachable reimagining of It's the Norse myths that centres around a witch named Angrboda. She hides in eighteenth century, a forest at the edge time of the nine worlds, remembering nothing of her past life but that fact that she was survived burnt at the stake three times because of Odin's wrathdiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Her attempts to live in peaceCaptain Julius Hawthorne, howeveran experienced Scottish sea captain, are quickly thwarted when Loki shows up with her literal heart—the one that was cut from her chest before she was tied is sent to the stake—and refuses to leave her aloneAndaman Islands in his endeavour. After an initial period of mistrustAlong with his son, Angrboda begins to fall for Loki's charmsPeter, and the two start an unusual family made of up a half-dead daughtertheir cat, Michi, they set off on a son thatperilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the islanders's a wolfleader, Aarav, and another son that's a snakeis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=1789097061B0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1788549759Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Distant Dead|author=Lesley ThomsonLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was December 1940 First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and twenty-four-year-old Maple Greenhill had gone out for positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the evening 'with lives of her friend Idacharacters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will' leaving her three-year-old sons life is difficult, William, at home with her parentsin a multitude of ways. The boy thought that Maple was He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his sister - it was better dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the family than the shame most basic of illegitimacythings like food, but Maple had high hopes of putting her life (and Williamhis dad can's) t work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a better footingbuilding site and had an accident. She was going to meet her well-to-do fiancéThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, hoping to persuade him to come and meet her family the following weekWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. LaterHe is good at art, her body would be found in and clings to the bombed-out home where moments of joy when he had taken heris drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294072491786482126|title=The Perfect LieJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Jo SpainElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was July 2019 and Erin was happy. She and Danny Ryan were planning a few days away: thatgoing to hold seventy-five 'luxury's always apartments - when they discovered the bones of a dangerous thing to do when you're married to child beneath a cop but she doorway. There was hopefulno skull. They'd been married for six months and life was good with Was this a decent apartment by the sea in Newportritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Long IslandDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The knock on the door was insistent and when it was openedIt's difficult as Ruth knows, Dannybut Nelson doesn's partnert, Ben Mitchell was there that she is pregnant with his child as a couple result of other officers. Danny took the one look, turned, walked to the open window and jumped to his death from the fourth floornight they spent together some three months ago. Eighteen months laterHer condition will be obvious before long, Erin would be on trial for her husband's murdernot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1523092734Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van CortThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyShort Stories|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs This collection was truly enchanting in her life. Again all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and again charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and againhuman relationships.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD) ''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently 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 newsprecisely, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' her stories structured by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - a wisdom that appears to be clear - this book is not a 'how want to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's teach us something far more effective, but discussion at about 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 menworld.|isbn=1804271470
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan0008551375|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The second trilogy in ShanLeanne Wilson's ''Merge'' saga opens with our herobody was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, Archie, back in London in seemingly the world result of the Borna tragic accident. It She's not been easyd looked so happy, explaining to his foster parents where he's beentoo, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and his other when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends in the Mergewere relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but Archie has done his it looked like she was living her bestlife now.Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awaya killer on the loose.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
}}