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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H1787333175|title=The Mystery You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=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 Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of Healinga psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|author=A P McGrathMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century Despite her anonymisation of the common era place names and hepeople, Stepanova's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement message in this short work of the populaceautofiction is unmistakable. The remuneration isn't high but A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the work gives the doctor town of F for a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors literary festival she is to livebe a guest speaker at. It's quite Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see themtraveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, they're sprinkling gold dust onto M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the lions' manes to make them look more impressiveshow. The sagitarii are the archers train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the beastiarii are circus embodies the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the wild animals. Today, it's very heart of the crocodilesnovel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=B0GFQ81YQK|title=Kate DiCamillo How the Sky and Sophie Blackallthe Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|titleauthor=The Beatryce ProphecyStephanie Zabriskie|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=''Stories have joy Before people came and surprises in them'', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous storyjoined the animals, which feels an instant classic with there was only the freshness sky and the agelessness it has in equal proportionearth. We start with a group of monks, Everything was quiet until the Order of earth and the Chronicles of Sorrowingsky began to tal to each other. First, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingearth created bodies. And then, trampling on and biting the poor Brotherssky breathed life into them. Things change drastically when These were the beast takes a totally maternal approach first humans and they belonged to a homeless girlboth earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memoryespecially how they came to be. Elsewhere sits a King in his castleWhen they grew old and died, desperate their bodies returned to find the girl, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat earth and their life returned to the throne and cause great changesky. Who foretold And that revolution but is why the Order of earth and the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how sky are both revered. Only together can a simplethey create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893and care for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FFJF8YSB0GHPMNF6P|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery and Kate Zhoidik|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.'' And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girlThe Zookeeper's final goodbye to nappies and pull-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear superDragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boy's certainly can't. She's a big girl now and she wants everyone to know it!}} {{FrontpageUps|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett|title=Locked Out LilyCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Lily isWhen Phil's father unexpectedly dies, or was, or has been, very ill, and he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to give her parents relief shetake over the running of the family's been told to stay with her grandma for a few daysfarm zoo. The parents need the relief as LilyHe's baby sibling is just about to be born – not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a child Lily swears she hates already cave in New Zealand, and wants nothing to do withsuddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stonythe zoo's part-eyed simulacra time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of her parents, scales and the babe-in-armsjoy, already installed. These devilish interlopers need despite having no idea how to be ousted actually raise dragons and not being able to get the family back intact, even if tell anyone about it's not the family Lily wants – . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and all she has to help her connection in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.|isbn=1471194833ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithStephanie Zabriskie|title=The Great Dream RobberyHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''Babies seem How Maasai Women Spoke to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the womb, being aware oral traditions of quantities at seven hours old, assessing probability at six months oldMaasai elders in Ngorongoro, and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months oldTanzania.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529379385Livi Michael|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyElizabeth and Ruth|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeHistorical Fiction|summary=In ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the Canadian village life of Three Pinesthe Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), we're post-pandemic: a radical critique of the treatment of the scars are still there but life is starting to get back to normalworking class published under a pseudonym. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the Auberge. They're visiting each other'Ruth'' from Livi Michael's homes title appears in her novel as Pasley, a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and having friends finds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a difficult and relatives to stayunjust hand at life. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor Victorian working poor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people interrogates the extent to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in which the village as the Asshole Saintwealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09F4CTKJRMakenna Goodman|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven BurgauerHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=It's could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the later stages brink of World War I losing both his career and the United States has just entered the conflicthis relationship, embodies this feeling. Petrol Petronus However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is a young American who has signed up seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and joined the 17 Aero Squadronprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. This company was As the former owner of the first US Aero Squadron to be trained countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in Canadahis life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the first to be attached to protagonist around the RAF house shares stories about Helen, and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in active combat. But before that can happenan assisted living facility now, Petrol Helen has to master flying powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camelsense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410XB0GCB1MQ7D|title=The Dark RemainsWhy My Mother Went Away|author=William McIlvanney and Ian RankinAlan Kennedy|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Bobby Carter was I have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a lawyer book that gives the full backstory, and consigliere to one of rarely do you discover a memoir where the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow. DC Jack Laidlaw telling is on so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the CID team charged with pleasure the investigationwords give. I say ''on the teamWhy My Mother Went Away'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be a part is one of itthose rare exceptions. He does his own thingIt's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers born at the beginning of the truth Second World War, would become a Professor of why Bobby Carter's body Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubsthe founders of the department.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1942410255Jeremy Cooper|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)|author=Michael PronkoDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=''ZangyoDiscord: overtime worka lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, often unpaid''things, or ideas)
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241425425Edward W Said|title=The Man Who Died Twice|author=Richard OsmanRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received Edward Said's ''Representations of the letter. It came from Intellectual'' is less a man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames strict theory of what intellectuals are and who had never existed but then this is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on more a regular basispassionate argument for what they should be. When she visits Said clearly rejects the sender comfortable image of the letter (he's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes intellectual as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used detached expert speaking only to be her husbandother specialists. He's made a bad mistake - something to do with a mask being removed within Instead, he insists on the range of intellectual as a CCTV camera on a raidpublic figure, often awkward, abrasive, a missing twenty-million pounds in diamonds and a few death threats. He's now in hiding with a young woman called Pollyunpopular, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitressspeaks truth to power even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew SharpSylvie Cathrall|title=The Chef, A Letter to the Bird and the BlessingLuminous Deep|rating=45|genre=General Science Fiction|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, the head chef of There are few greater joys than a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated book which lives up to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American citycompelling premise. Even to win a Michelin star. He And this is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing one of bush animals into the housethem.|isbn=B09926MK8H0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Foulkes1786482126|title=Rules for VampiresThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'Leoluxury' for short) is apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a Vampiredoorway. There was no skull. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into Was this a flock of bats to travel aroundritual killing or murder? Inevitably, although not all of them remember to come back)Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Pretty cool stuff. Now It's difficult as Ruth knows, on the night of her hundredth birthnightbut Nelson doesn't, that she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worse, is pregnant with his child as a result of the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt hernight they spent together some three months ago. So Her condition will be obvious before long, not only does Leo have least because Ruth is prone to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost sudden bouts of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has to do it all while hiding it from her familysickness. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tori Bovalino0008551375|title=The Devil Makes ThreeWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Working all summer in her boarding schoolLeanne Wilson's library is body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the last thing Tess Matheson wants to do — especially result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she gets a request for over a hundred books that posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she has to deliver herselfwas living her best life now. What makes Then it worse is emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the man who requested the books: Mr Birchlast year. The boarding school's headmaster All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and a man Tess hatessensible people. As a petty act of revenge for making her find and deliver such a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each None of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant what a stupid thing to reach him, of coursedo' explanations applied. Her plan They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is to get her anger out like this, and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadncertain there't delivered them for hers a killer on the loose.|isbn=1789098130
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09BG8V3Q6Paul B Preciado|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingPolitics and Society|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the latest release in proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present''Everybody Potties!which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi'' series from Justine Avery. This series The whole text is framed against the backdrop of fun picture books aims the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to take the pain out of potty training children and replace it with some funemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. It's Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a worthy aimsign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as any frustrated parent will tell you. your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=1804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B098FFFBH9Samantha Harvey|title=Snowcub|author=Graham FulbrightOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her schoolIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''s animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a competition entry to highlight the way single day in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets lives of a great deal group of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs narrative lens that mirrors the family businessastronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toyswholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angharad Walker295967572X|title= The Ash HousePale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 5|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he Our unnamed narrator is used about to the system, used to different places and different facesbegin a train journey with his companion Django. He meets Dom who names him Sol Where they're going and sets out to teach him what the rules purpose of The Ash Housethis journey is, is uncertain. These rules centre Django found the tickets ''on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness floor somewhere'' and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash Househas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. But soon their easy peace Why not? Not much else is shattered by clear either - but we are probably in the arrival of past as the Doctor. By pair travel to the end of the story, lives will be changed forever station by coach and The Ash House will never be the same againtrain is a steam locomotive.|isbn=1912626977
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Yancey Williams0008551324|title=Crosshairs of the The DevilYou Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski 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 getting on struggling in years prison and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddiehe's point of view - in room 315 of prepared to tell the police where the Garden body of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aidemissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, Jenkinshe promises, for palatable companyis someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. Nothing And what he wants is going to keep Eddie from be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his stock-in-trade of writing thoughsentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his lifeand she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's workhappening.|isbn=0986031658}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Philip Reeve1035043092|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the DeepThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=In I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a word, richnew life on Orkney. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea It's been seven years since we heard from him, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands he's now living with Willow Reeves and their monster approaching from even further westyoung son, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the WatcherJames, Andreweas well as Cassie, who has to keep notes the daughter of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in former partner. Willow's also his head to worry about such local yokel superstitionsboss, and Andreweshe ''should's foundling daughter' be on maternity leave, who washed up out but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the sea one day eleven years agoaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into He'd been battered about the world head with a Neolithic stone - one of protecting their island, like it or nota pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1788452372
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{{Frontpage
|author=Erling KaggeThea Lenarduzzi|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre= LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to ''How unctuous are the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader fats of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – Ianother'll allow creased cornerss life, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy how dizzying their sugars in our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why)bloodstream''.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet JackEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quickEven a kiss, for he's usually a slight boysymbol of intimacy and closeness, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out becomes evidence of his sightlove lost. ThatWhen the narrator cries out internally, 's because Jack's mother knew all about monsterscome over here and kiss me, and look what happened '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her – she diedemotional numbness. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point The imagined recipient of viewthis plea is Xavier, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizardher ex-type will make him an apprentice monster hunterpartner, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs ghost she conjures to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..test her detachment.|isbn=07555019421804271934
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|authorisbn=Keith Gray0008405026|title=The ClimbersA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Sully is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the best tree climber investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in the villagetheir bed. He has what Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's known amongst something about the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some positioning of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is worried that his status now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is being threatened, and not only convinced that, that his chance to name the final, unnamed big tree explanation lies in the park by being the first to conquer itRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, might be snatched from his handsUna Burt) are less convinced. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do so?|isbn=1781129991
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emma CarrollAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Week at World's EndOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=First, ''We were born from the titlesame body. WeI've never really wanted to think about this.''re in World Ernaux's End Closework is always very candid and her tone transparent, a mediocre set but this raw epistolary text must be one of housesthe most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, where Stevie (Vie to this letter will never reach her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at WorldWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's Endsister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, because something taking a great chunk of few months before the fun away is vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offauthor was even born. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce large and instant void created by the risk jarring concept of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able writing to make the news. That said, Vie has news an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her own – Annalife, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna an absence that she has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her life was at riskalways felt but often denied. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=05713644381804271845
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave Maxim Gorky and Tom de FrestonBryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Julia Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and the SharkAndreyev|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersBiography|summary=Julia, our preBiographies are often seen as the form of life-teen heroinewriting which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for offers a summervibrant, in subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the far NE first section of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikingsthis book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that kind : ''you write not of Scottish island. Dad real life as it is going , but of what you yourself imagine it to be automating the lantern. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, which or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is his specialist thingit?''. Well, while mum will Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be leaving her career in algae behind gained from a subjective account, giving us access to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Juliahow he saw Tolstoy, well, she will be homesick Chekhov and alone – until she suddenly finds company Andreyev in such privileged detail that one nightalmost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=15101077891804271977
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|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1529077745|title=The Last LibraryDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a library, since I am a librarian. I always grit my teeth slightly at A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the thought body of a man in the incoming cardigan-wearingpark near Rosebank, hair in a bun, catcare home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh -owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn't immediately throw the book out one of the window, because I found I care workers who was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used due to be work a librarian at shift the village library, night before but when she got sick, June gave who had never turned up on going to University and stayed at home . D I Vera Stanhope is called in to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at investigate the local library. And even though murder - but her mum sadly died some years ago, she only clue is still working therethe disappearance of one of the residents, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's fourteen-year-old booksChloe Spencer. June is stuck, Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but little does she know, everything in her life Vera thinks this is about unlikely as the changegirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=183877369X
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|isbnauthor=0008370982Olga Tokarczuk|title=Rock Paper Scissors|author=Alice FeeneyHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was ''What's the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home good of a world that gave her a weekend away keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isnit?''t so keen on the idea. Like Amelia The title of this spellbinding work, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy House of Day, House of making it clear to Amelia that heNight'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - and working with the dogssmall, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, many of whom have been abusedhowever quotidian, is never easycausing chaos. Still - she's won But, the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her constant in that image is the passenger seat - and then doing house, stoic against the same thing to come back a couple of days laterancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918
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|authorisbn=Doug Johnstone1836284683|title=The Great SilenceBig Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I'll risk open a quick synopsis of whobook, it's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though nothing like I expected it ought to be, and it is merely the surname of takes me on a family of undertakerswild ride. Undertakers and private investigatorsAnd that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, she married I don't want to ruin a scot and ended up helping similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to run at least set the Edinburgh undertaking firm scene. Once that had been in the family 's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next termyourself.|isbn=1913193837
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|isbnauthor=1901514978Sally Rooney|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction|summary=Life Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is different for George Lovelace something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and he can't really understand whyso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. He's always done everything he ought to: steady workerAmong the many relationships woven into this story, husband and father - and a father who was always there the central one for school plays readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and sports daysPeter Koubek. So why is he never quite in tune Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such his older brother Peter, a ''good'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? Itsuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's almost become passing after a cliche these days to suggest that someone who is a little different is 'on the spectrum'long battle with cancer, but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Aspergerbrothers's Syndrome: high-functioning autismalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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|authorisbn=Louise Candlish1836285493|title=The HeightsDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on siteWill is a keen player of video games, visiting a client for conscientious student, a lighting consultation when she spies him in slightly annoying brother and a building across the waysupportive friend. There are lots But most of thingsall, lots of peoplehe is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, you might see when you look out across LondonMarlowe Park, but this isnand one at which he excels. This hasn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has been dead for over two years, suggested to Will and Ellen knows this for his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a factdifferent school, because she had a hand in Station Road, where his murderability might be better extended.|isbn=1471183483
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|isbn=00084217141009473085|title=Mrs MarchThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Virginia FeitoAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George MarchSometimes it's most successful novel simpler to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to either be reading it or had already done so''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. Every day Mrs March went to If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the local patisserie to buy olive bread but inside story about what ''really'' happened on that particular morningcertain occasions, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but then this isn't this the first time hebook for you. If that's based a character on what you?'re looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon' s book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms'The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. Perhaps It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this would not have mattered, except for as the fact that Johanna is most important. This book follows the whore of Nantes well- ''established format: a weakseries of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchthe changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.''
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|author=John BoyneJenny Valentine|title=The Echo ChamberUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book once in a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her withlifetime connection. They have three meet as children, who are one day on a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the worldtrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's homeless with out-of-date foodcontact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thingthey are inseparable. Add in a few other characters – therapists Something has happened though, lawyerssomething terrible and tragic, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his lifeand now they must work through their grief, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even moretheir friendship, however, is the fact this is bloody funnytogether.|isbn=08575262191471196585
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