134,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''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 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'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of books about weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be published]]''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->|isbn=1804271454}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178607981XSamantha Harvey|title=Bad Apples|author=Will DeanOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the side lives of a group of astronauts aboard the roadInternational Space Station. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of Through a narrative lens that mirrors the car - astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and heard what the screams from deep inside purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the forest. Determining tickets ''on the direction of a sound isnfloor somewhere''t easy when you need hearing aids and dampness has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is causing interference clear either - but Tuva made her way we are probably in the past as the pair travel to where a woman was holding her coat over the body of station by coach and the train is a man. He'd been decapitated. He was Arne Gustav Persson, a resident of Visbergsteam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdadottir0008551324|title=Cold As HellThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary= In a red suitcase as 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 bottom body of a fissure in a lava fieldmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, there is a bodysomeone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the man remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who has put her there has just discovered that he works with him is capable of killingkept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1913193888
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=FledglingVaim|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Bavaria, 1900''All was strange''. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decades, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. It's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At This haunting phrase encapsulates the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby pervading sense of taxidermyotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and sing opera loudlyEline, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all two of the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again..protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=183994188X1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18462767721035043092|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our MindsKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Jessica NordellAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Anyone I can't have been the only person who is not an ablewas sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to which they suffer from it: it's simply start a part of everyday new lifeon Orkney. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. JobsIt's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, promotionsas well as Cassie, higher salaries are the preserve daughter of the white manhis former partner. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation itWillow's rare that their views are heardalso his boss, that their concerns are acknowledged. Itand she ''should''s personally appalling and degrading for the individuals be on maternity leave, but when the receiving end body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the bias but itaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. He's not just d been battered about the individuals who are negatively impactedhead with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Teresa DriscollThea Lenarduzzi|title=Her Perfect FamilyThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=The ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the familiar horrifying realisationidentity of T, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrongprotagonist of this tale. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating 'Just as T'He s story is not who he says he is…''being told, paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the novel. In a twist daughter of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot wealthy family in the midst 19th century, who died of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then tuberculosis after being locked in a comatower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, what follows above all, an enticing story to T. It is a complex whodunit with story which she consumes avariciously, both in a list quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of suspects that continues to grow the further you readmyth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=15420287521804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=8409290103Claire-Louise Bennett|title=If Only|author=Matthew TreeBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his fatherEverything in this book, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountanthowever sweet or seemingly innocent, Mr Patrickis steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him usually a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly symbol of intimacy and a correspondence - closeness, becomes evidence of sorts - sprang up between love lost. When the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasnnarrator cries out internally, 't that Lowry senior didn't care for his soncome over here and kiss me, '' it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be is less an invitation than a danger desperate attempt to his wife and other childrenconfirm her emotional numbness. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to get the young man on his waytest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=0008405026|title=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston A Stranger in the Family (translatorMaeve Kerrigan 11)|titleauthor=The Rabbit FactorJane Casey|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet HenriIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. With She was never found and the investigation ground to a mind so much more focused on maths halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and calculations than her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it is other human beings, helooks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's perfect for his job in something about the positioning of the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-member, bodies that they'd prefer everyone makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be all an open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This shut case is when he finds his brother has died, having now a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everythingcomplex double murder. Unfortunately (or otherwise) Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at a steady money-moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and the amount vanished. Fortunately s disappearance: others (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene to explain that missing money – itsuch as Derwent's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henriboss, and the activities of these guys Una Burt) are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan..less convinced.|isbn=191319387X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471179311Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Unheard|author=Nicci FrenchOther Girl|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Tess, a teacher ''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and Jasonher tone transparent, a headmaster, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out but this raw epistolary text must be one of the family home and Jason is now married most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to Emily. The separation was amicable - they had just drifted apart. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was the family home and another in the flat she shares with sister, however, this letter will never reach her mother. It Why? Because Annie Ernaux''seemed'' to be working well until the day that Poppy came home with a menacing drawing s sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a woman falling from a tall building few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and she started swearing, using words she 2 years before the author was unlikely to have heard in either homeeven born. Her behaviour deteriorated The large and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to a therapist for helpan imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, then her doctor and finally the police but no one will take what an absence that she has to say seriouslyalways felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471196615Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Iced|author=Felix FrancisReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days Biographies are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down often seen as the threeform of life-quarter-mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourwriting which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. He was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - I think that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and against offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his better judgement he gets talked into helping with literary contemporaries. In the saddling first section of the horses. Itthis book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that he'd never go back you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it. But when he sees help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that something suspicious Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is going onit?''. Well, Miles Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can't help but look for answersbe gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, even when Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it puts him in danger.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=147228612X1529077745|title=The Late Train to Gipsy HillDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Alan JohnsonAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably haven't taken much notice A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of them. They live quieta man in the park near Rosebank, uneventful lives and stay mostly under the radar. In a city like London, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himcare home for troubled teens. The highlight dead man was Josh - one of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes the care workers who was due to work on a shift the train each morning: he'd love night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to ask investigate the murder - but her for a date but he doesn't have only clue is the disappearance of one of the courage. Thenresidents, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks to him and asks for his helpfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Before long he finds himself on Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents and death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the Metropolitan policegirl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire McGowanB0FK5LHKD9|title=I Know YouThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money'Then:'. We like this running theme in an author' Casey returns from s work - take a walk with the baby, Carson, mystery but give it different flavour and comes across three bodiesatmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, almost House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a whole family taken down.world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''Now:House of Day, House of Night'' Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandysomewhat 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, when she comes across a body the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the woodsancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=15420199741804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=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 murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291482511836284683|title=Misfits: A Personal ManifestoThe Big Happy|author=Michaela CoelDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyDystopian Fiction|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Sally Rooney|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=It was Sally Rooney has studied the sort chessboard of thing that happened every day, although not to Leila Syedlife and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. She'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his father, Andrew HansonHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, had rung as her in a paniccharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called Among the many relationships woven into work and this story, the delay in getting there could lead central one for readers to financial losses. As unravel is the school was only five minutes out of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her carPeter Koubek. On the way Leila took Ivan, a phone call - there was panic at her work toosocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a problem which could put successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a multi-million-pound contract at risklong battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1036916375|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary= Toots''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, trumpssuch as the family history of a sea-going family, fartswith the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. Whatever It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your word for themchildhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, find us despite the blitz that was a child that doesnconstant factor in McArdle's early years. I't find them irresistibly funnyd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded. Funny to talk about }} {{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and joke abouta supportive friend. But most of all, that he isan aspiring writer. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go English is his favourite lesson at the wrong time. In classhis school, sayMarlowe Park, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laughone at which he excels. At you. Justine AveryThis hasn's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and gently she has suggested to Will and calmlyhis mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, with the familiar humour attachedStation Road, explains that tooting is perfectly normalwhere his ability might be better extended. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17841652631009473085|title=Invite Me InThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Emma CurtisAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Martin CurranSometimes it's wife, Eliza knew simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that she had applies to be home to make his lunch ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for one oan easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''clock really'' happened on the dotcertain occasions, despite then this isn't the fact that she was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being letbook for you. If she didnthat's what you're looking for, I don't get homethink Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, there would can be troublebettered for those tumultuous years. There was some excuse: Martin was It's a paraplegic compelling read and confined to a wheelchair, but don't should be too quick compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to be understandingpolitics. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointmentThe Conservative Effect''is an entirely different beast. All this was in ElizaIt's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, the seventh book in a series which looks at the flat just impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as Eliza was about to leavethe most important. This book follows the well-established format: he wanted a series of experts from various fields review the lease state of flat 2the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, 42 Linden Road the changes that occurred and he was desperate to get the situation in before it was advertised as being available2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742775Jenny Valentine|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan HillUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=Drugs hadn't really been Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that much of even, their friendship is a problem once in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of timelifetime connection. They still were, to meet as children one day on a great extent, trip out but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldnunfortunately they don't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldnget each other't know anything about those higher up in s contact details at the organisationtime. The police might catch a few of the runners but But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they'd never get anywhere near those higher upmust work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FS89KX91787333175|title=Fall On MeYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Penelope PottsBenji Waterhouse|rating=3.5|genre=Women's FictionPopular Science|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She I was just going 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 final year workings of her veterinary degree and - three years later - was still working at BB's diner. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriendNHS, Marcus: her mother thought he was great humour and he was doing well in his careerautobiography. Hollie wasn''You Don't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to control her mental illness and most the work of all he wanted her to leave her job at the dinera psychiatrist. Then there I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the fact that he would be violent, both to her laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and to other peopleunderstanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=John GwynneMariana Enriquez|title=The Shadow Of The GodsA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyShort Stories|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Sagadisturbingly real, set in the era achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarokdisused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, when the Gods have battled an overcrowded homeless shelter and their bones lie scattered for a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all to seewithin Argentina. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that are woven together to create the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlesimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=03565142181803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09HTWX47X1529934753|title=Endless ObsessionThe Protest|author=Dai HenleyRob Rinder|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's some years since we last caught most famous living artist, was not going to show up with Andy Floodfor the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, formerly a DCI he arrived in the Met but now a well-respected private investigatornick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. He's married Being an influencer, you tend to Laurado things like that, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in it was fortunate that there was a forensics laboratoryrecord of the protest. Flood's daughtersLexi Williams, Gemma and Pippa, have flown an intern at the nestRA, Pippa grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to Australiaspray Bruce in the face, from where she has very little contact with whilst shouting ''Stop the family, and Gemma to married lifeWar''. SheIt seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 's had mental problems since she blue-face' attacks, but this was abducted many years ago but Andy and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needsdifferent. Flood's business is going well The can had been laced with cyanide, and that Sir Max Bruce was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Blackdead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouAriel Saramandi|title=The StoningPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=In a town sleazy enough this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolleyintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and she's been taped slavery to a tree and she's had rocks bowled expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at her one stage as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and itrotting''s only fair, is the general opinion, a blunt yet apt metaphor for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue systemic decay brought about by the arrival malignant forces of George Manolisracism, a higher rank from the citypatriarchy, to sort everything outenvironmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Because such an aggrievedEach essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down charting the various diseases afflicting the law..island state.|isbn=15294169731804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08Z8BMZ7HPekka Harju-Autti|title=The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrathLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)Fantasy|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in It's the second eighteenth century , a time of the common era discovery and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populaceBritain is expanding its foreign trade. The remuneration isn't high but Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones Andaman Islands in his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to liveendeavour. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands Along with his son, Peter, and when we first see themtheir cat, Michi, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes set off on a perilous voyage to make them look more impressivethese faraway lands. The sagitarii islands are the archers beautiful and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for stunning in their lives with scenery and the wild animals. Todayislanders' leader, Aarav, it's the crocodilesis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall|title=The Beatryce Prophecy|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises in them'', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09FFJF8YS|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery Helene Bessette 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 Briggs (the big-girl kind!translator) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.'' And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girl'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 super-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!}} {{Frontpage|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett|title=Locked Out LilyLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Lily First published in 1953 in French, this novel is, or was, or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need timeless text which wrenches the relief hearts of its readers just as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already Bessette wrenches words and wants nothing to do with. But sentences from their proper position on tracking back home for word of her parents (the page and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parentspositions them elsewhere, and the babe-in-armsdisjointed, already installedtruncated. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get Like the family back intactlives of her characters, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task they are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakeoften left tragically incomplete.|isbn=14711948331804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithTom Percival|title=The Great Dream RobberyWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=MayaWill's father life is difficult, in a professor who invented an amazing dream machinemultitude of ways. But something went He is bullied because he has 'the wrongshoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and now he doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't wake up. Or work because he lost his job at leastthe college, that's what Maya has been told. In was working a rather strange dream one night Maya makes cash-in-hand job on a new friend, building site and discovers had an accident. Throw into that mix the only way to save her fact that his mum and dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really...are separated, and thereWill's everything from llamas and bananaslife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offshe still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a talking cat called Bin Bag!light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=024147051X1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800464495Sylvie Cathrall|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days A Letter to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of Maths|author=Emma Smiththe Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Science Fiction|summary=''Babies seem There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in the womb, being aware of quantities at seven hours old, assessing probability at six months old, and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months olda compelling premise.'' Did you know And this? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability on entry to school is a strong predictor one of later achievement, double that of literacy skillsthem.'' I didn't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading stories, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when they start school. But do we think the same way about maths, beyond counting? I don't think we do, in part because so many of us are afraid of maths. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising and it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficial.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793851786482126|title=The Madness of Crowds Janus Stone (Chief Inspector GamacheDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Louise PennyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the Canadian village of Three Pines, wesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury're postapartments -pandemic: when they discovered the scars are still there but life is starting to get back to normalbones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the AubergeWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. TheyIt're visiting each others difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn's homes and having friends and relatives to stayt, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people prone to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as the Asshole Saintsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09F4CTKJRGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven BurgauerThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionShort Stories|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canadaword: spellbinding with its fantastical, the first to be attached to the RAF magical elements and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans charming in active combatits gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. But before Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that can happen, Petrol has appears to want to master flying teach us something about the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camelworld.|isbn=1804271470
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410X0008551375|title=The Dark Remains|author=William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgow. DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the investigation. I say ''on the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be a part of it. He does his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubs.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1942410255|title=Tokyo Zangyo When Shadows Fall (Detective HiroshiD S Max Craigie)|author=Michael PronkoNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaid'' ItLeanne Wilson's body was found at the culturebottom of a Scottish mountain, isn't it? The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of seemingly the minimum you'll be required to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction result of bullies like Shigeru Onizukaa tragic accident. When he was found dead in front of Senden CentralShe's headquarters in Tokyo there d looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was nothing in the way just out of regret or grief, even from his familyan unpleasant relationship, but there it looked like she was a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the roof of living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the building or been assisted in his descentlast year. Gossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employeeAll were experienced climbers, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlierproperly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. SheNone of the 'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her what a stupid thing to work an unreasonable amount of overtimedo' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.
}}