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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787333175|title=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 a 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=Dave Letterfly KnoderervMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Speedy: Hurled Through HavocThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=How Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to summarise the life town of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in F for a pithy sentence literary festival she is to kick off be a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can. Dave is an author and an artistguest speaker at. An inspirational speaker Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a professional horsemantraveling circus. And Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a recovering alcoholiccircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The son train functions as a motif of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling fathertransience and impermanence, run away to join while the circus (not embodies the reshaping of identity and a metaphor)retreat into fantasy, trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when an impulse that lies at the very heart of the bottle took overnovel form itself.|isbn=B0965V3LLN1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tade ThompsonB0GFQ81YQK|title=Far How the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Light Oral Stories of HeavenMalagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard Before people came and joined the sleeper ship Ragtimeanimals, bound for there was only the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for sky and the ship's AI captainearth. However, when she wakes up at Everything was quiet until the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered earth and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins sky began to tal to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it wouldeach other. Down on BloodrootFirst, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtimeearth created bodies. MeanwhileAnd then, former astronaut the sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle they belonged to Bloodrootboth earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, half-alien daughter in towespecially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind earth and their life returned to the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagossky. What And that is why the five of them discover on earth and the Ragtime has ramifications not just sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to, and care for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=0356514323both.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob KeeleyB0GHPMNF6P|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!The Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating= 4.5|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetablesWhen Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family's farm zoo. She likes carrotsHe's not expecting much excitement, broccoliuntil he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, cabbage and aubergines. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily suddenly life is keen to explain how good they are for you and how nice to eatno longer quite what it seems. One dayThen the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordanbut a dragon! Now he, who tells her that carrots grow on trees. InfuriatedEdgar, Lily checks with the teacherhis mother Abi, who explains that fruits grow on trees and vegetables, like carrots, grow in the ground. Jordan sayszoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of scales and joy, "I did try despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and not being able to tell her, Miss!" anyone about it. But this tiny little dragon may show them love and everyone laughs at poor Lily.|isbn= B09HHN541Vconnection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178607981XStephanie Zabriskie|title=Bad Apples|author=Will DeanHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side of the road. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of the car - and heard the screams from deep inside the forest. Determining the direction of a sound isn't easy when you need hearing aids and dampness 'How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where a woman was holding her coat over children’s nonfiction book drawn from the body oral traditions of a manMaasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. He'd been decapitated. He was Arne Gustav Persson, a resident of Visberg.}}'
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeLivi Michael|title=FledglingElizabeth and Ruth|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersHistorical Fiction|summary=Bavaria, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decades, ''Elizabeth and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. ItRuth'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 work of historical fiction wrought from the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby life of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroineVictorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, Cassiebest known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a young lass who has to do all radical critique of the maintenance treatment of this bizarre machine-like abodethe working class published under a pseudonym. Oh but itThe ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's also going to house someone or something elsetitle appears in her novel as Pasley, when crashing through Cassiea young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and finds herself in Manchester's bedroom window one stormy day is New Bailey Prison after a cherubdifficult and unjust hand at life. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great Set in Manchester between 1839 and wonderful thing1842, think again..the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=183994188X1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Makenna Goodman|title=The End Helen of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellNowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Anyone who It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not an ablequite right. The protagonist, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise a disgraced professor on the extent to brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which they suffer from itis seductive, radical and unnerving: it's simply a part of everyday lifeHelen. White men will always come first. The able will come before connection between Helen and the disabledprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are As the preserve former owner of the white mancountryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. Even when those The realtor who wouldnshows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''t pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare entity that their views are heardis pure consciousness, that their concerns are acknowledgedbeyond form''. It's personally appalling and degrading for Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the individuals on reader gets the receiving end of the bias but it's sense are not just the individuals who are negatively impactedaltogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Teresa DriscollB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Her Perfect FamilyWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=The novel begins by introducing you I have often wondered how prominent people came to Gemmahold their positions. With 'celebrities', who at first instance appears to be your average studentthere's frequently a book they might or might not have written, faced with which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the familiar horrifying realisationfull backstory, at and rarely do you discover a memoir where the eleventh hourtelling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, that her graduation outfit is all wrongjust for the pleasure the words give. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''Why My Mother Went Away''He is not who he says he is…'one of those rare exceptions. It', paving s the way for story of how a boy from the sinister tone that remains throughout Midlands, born at the novel. In a twist beginning of eventsthe Second World War, and after would become a change Professor of outfitPsychology at Dundee University. In fact, Gemma is shot in he was one of the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list founders of suspects that continues to grow the further you readdepartment.|isbn=1542028752
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=8409290103Jeremy Cooper|title=If Only|author=Matthew TreeDiscord|rating=43.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO LowryDiscord: he asked his accountanta lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, Mr Patrickthings, to ensure that or ideas) The principal example of discord within the young man got on board novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the boat novel, Rebekah Rosen and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowanceEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. Patrick sent the money regularly Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a correspondence - force of sorts - sprang up between nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didnpredictably, don't care always see eye to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife eye, their approaches different and other childrenEvie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the young man on his wayclamour.|isbn=1804272264
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{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston (translator)Tom Percival|title=The Rabbit FactorWrong Shoes|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Meet HenriWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it He is other human beingsbullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', hehas the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn's perfect t have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job in at the insurance company – until they decide he's not college, was working a teamcash-member, that they'd prefer everyone to be all openin-plan, holistic hand job on a building site and keen on stupid-as workshoppinghad an accident. This is when he finds Throw into that mix the fact that his brother has diedmum and dad are separated, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvoand Will's radio channellife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, and he still has left Henri everythinga tiny amount of hope. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' He is just an adventure parkgood at art, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants clings to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little the moments of joy when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at a steady money-moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideasis drawing, but loans have been made out and the amount vanished. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene to explain that missing money – it's been turned into feel like a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and light at the activities end of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan..long, dark tunnel.|isbn=191319387X1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471179311Edward W Said|title=The Unheard|author=Nicci FrenchRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Tess, Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a teacher strict theory of what intellectuals are and Jason, more a headmaster, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out of the family home and Jason is now married to Emily. The separation was amicable - passionate argument for what they had just drifted apartshould be. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was Said clearly rejects the family home and another in comfortable image of the flat she shares with her motherintellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. It ''seemed'' to be working well until Instead, he insists on the day that Poppy came home with intellectual as a menacing drawing of a woman falling from a tall building public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and she started swearingunpopular, using words she was unlikely who speaks truth to have heard in either homepower even when it is inconvenient or risky. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns |isbn=1804272248}}{{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 therapist for help, then her doctor and finally the police but no compelling premise. And this is one will take what she has to say seriouslyof them.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711966151786482126|title=IcedThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Felix FrancisElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling headBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich -first down the threesite was going to hold seventy-quarterfive 'luxury' apartments -mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourwhen they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. He There was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with the saddling of the horsesDCI Harry Nelson. It's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that he'd never go back to itshe is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. But when he sees that something suspicious Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is going on, Miles can't help but look for answers, even when it puts him in dangerprone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=147228612X0008551375|title=The Late Train to Gipsy HillWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Alan JohnsonNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=We all know people like Gary NelsonLeanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, although we probably havenseemingly the result of a tragic accident. She't taken much notice of themd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. They live quietHer friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, uneventful lives and stay mostly under but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the radarlast year. In a city like LondonAll were experienced climbers, that's quite easy - properly equipped for what they were doing and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himsensible people. The highlight None of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on the train each morning: he'd love what a stupid thing to ask her for a date but he doesndo't have the courage. Then, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks to him and asks for his helpexplanations applied. Before long he finds himself They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policeloose.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire McGowanPaul B Preciado|title=I Know YouDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=''Then:It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Casey returns from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken down.
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 ''Now:dysphoria mundi'' Rachel . The whole text is out for 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''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a walk with her dogsign of weakness, Brandyor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, when she comes across a body in the woodsPreciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=15420199741804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529148251Samantha Harvey|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela CoelOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rapeIn 2024, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling Samantha Harvey won the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.Booker Prize for '' Before you start reading Orbital''Misfits'' you need to be , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in a certain frame the lives of mind. You're not going to read a book group of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at astronauts aboard the Edinburgh TV FestivalInternational Space Station. You might be ''reading'' Through a narrative lens that mirrors the book but you need to ''listen'astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to the words as though you're see our planet in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writingwholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008433631295967572X|title=Next of KinPale Pieces|author=Kia AbdullahG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=It was Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the sort purpose of thing that happened every daythis journey is, although not to Leila Syedis uncertain. SheDjango found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere''d never driven her nephew, Max, and has persuaded our narrator to school before accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her we are probably in a panic. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work and the delay in getting there could lead past as the pair travel to financial losses. As the school was only five minutes out of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could station by coach and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took train is a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risksteam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova0008551324|title=Everybody Toots! The Devil You Know (Everybody Potties!D S Max Craigie)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma CurtisNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Martin CurranIt's wife, Eliza knew that she had unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to be home to make his lunch approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for one othe other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he'clock on s prepared to tell the dot, despite police where the fact that she body of a missing person is buried and who was actually painting one of their properties prior to it being letresponsible for her death. If she didn't get homeThis person, he promises, there would is someone big and it will be troubleworth the police doing what he wants. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined And what he wants is to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick transferred to be understandingan open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn''you're good at being a disappointment''. All this was in Elizat think so and she's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at the flat just as Eliza was about even prepared to leave: he wanted do the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being availableanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427751035043092|title=A Change of Circumstance The Killing Stones (Simon SerraillerJimmy Perez)|author=Susan HillAnn Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Drugs hadnI can't really have been that much of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of time. They still werethe only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a great extentnew life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as young well as nine were being recruited to transport Cassie, the drugs daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the operation running body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the county lines was tightaftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldn He't be d been battered about the correct head with a Neolithic stone - one) of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the person who was running him but he certainly wouldnfats of another't know anything about those higher up s life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the organisationprotagonist of this tale. The police might catch Just as T's story is being told, the story of a few second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the runners but they19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie'd never get anywhere near those higher ups fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=34.5|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She was just going into the final year Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of her veterinary degree intimacy and - three years later - was still working at BB's dinercloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. Bob - When the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriendnarrator cries out internally, Marcus: her mother thought he was great ''come over here and he was doing well in his career. Hollie wasnkiss me,''t quite so certain though: Marcus wanted it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to control confirm her and most emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of all he wanted this plea is Xavier, her to leave her job at the diner. Then there was the fact that he would be violentex-partner, both a ghost she conjures to test her and to other peopledetachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Gwynne0008405026|title=The Shadow Of The GodsA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the first installment of the Bloodsworn Sagainvestigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, set and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the era positioning of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and their bones lie scattered for all her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to seebe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. This story Kerrigan is convinced that the ultimate explanation lies in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick bookRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that Una Burt) are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battleless convinced.|isbn=0356514218
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09HTWX47XAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Endless Obsession|author=Dai HenleyThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly a DCI in 'We were born from the Met but now a well-respected private investigatorsame body. HeI's married ve never really wanted to Laura, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratorythink about this. Flood'' Ernaux's daughters, Gemma work is always very candid and Pippaher tone transparent, have flown but this raw epistolary text must be one of the nest, Pippa most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to Australiaher sister, from where she has very little contact with the familyhowever, and Gemma to married lifethis letter will never reach her. SheWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's had mental problems since she sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was abducted many made compulsory in France, and 2 years ago but Andy before the author was even born. The large and Laura hope that married life will provide instant void created by the support she needs. Floodjarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's business is going well and process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that was why he she has always felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Blackbut often denied.|isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The StoningReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=In 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 think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparisonvibrant, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolleysubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, and sheTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her you write not of real life as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumpsit is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyoneWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, including the local copsthat sea, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it?''s only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George ManolisWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a higher rank from the citysubjective account, giving us access to sort everything out. Because how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law..privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=15294169731804271977
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|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H1529077745|title=The Mystery of HealingDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=A P McGrathAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon A man walking his dog in the second century early morning discovered the body of a man in the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on park near Rosebank, a care home for the amusement of the populacetroubled teens. The remuneration isn't high but dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' shift the warriors to livenight before but who had never turned up. It's quite a spectacle: D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the magistri are disappearance of one of the charge hands and when we first see themresidents, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressivefourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. The sagitarii are Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the archers and death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, itgirl's the crocodilesdiary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Beatryce ProphecyHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in themit?'' The title of this spellbinding work, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story''House of Day, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group House of monksNight'', the Order somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the Chronicles of Sorrowingsmall, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingsubtle changes which govern our lives, trampling on and biting like the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach shift from day to a homeless girlnight, however quotidian, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memorycausing chaos. Elsewhere sits a King But, the constant in his castlethat image is the house, desperate to find stoic against the girl, for ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changeperceived. 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=15295008931804271918
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|isbn=B09FFJF8YS1836284683|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)The Big Happy|author=Justine Avery and Kate ZhoidikDavid Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=For SharingDystopian Fiction|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear PantiesWell!" This is a cry (the big-girl kindmurder mystery unlike any other!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.''
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettSally Rooney|title=Locked Out LilyIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction |summary=Lily is, or was, or Sally Rooney has been, very ill, studied the chessboard of life and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for is something of a few daysgrandmaster at putting it into words. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling Her dialogue is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already gripping and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of brilliantly frustrating, as her parentscharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need central one for readers to be ousted to get unravel is the family back intactfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, even if ita socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's not passing after a long battle with cancer, the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=14711948330571365469
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith1836285493|title=The Great Dream RobberyDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Maya's father Will is a professor who invented an amazing dream machinekeen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But something went wrongmost of all, and now he can't wake upis an aspiring writer. Or English is his favourite lesson at leasthis school, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friendMarlowe Park, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really..at which he excels.and thereThis hasn's everything from llamas and bananast gone unnoticed by his headteacher, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offsMrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051Xcouple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
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|isbn=18004644951009473085|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Emma SmithAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't''Babies seem and that applies to be born with an amazing number sense''The Conservative Effect: 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 old.2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?'' Did . If you know this? I didn't! How re looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about: what ''really''Maths ability happened on entry to school is a strong predictor of later achievementcertain occasions, double then this isn't the book for you. If that of literacy skills.'s what you' re looking for, I didndon't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading storiesAnthony Seldon's book, teaching pen grips{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, singing rhymes - gives children can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a solid foundation when they start schoolcompelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. But do we think It's the same way about maths, beyond counting? I don't think we do, seventh book in part because so many a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of us are afraid experts from various fields review the state of maths. But why are we? Most of us use maths the nation when the coalition took over in daily life without realising 2010, the changes that occurred and it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficialthe situation in 2024.
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|isbnauthor=1529379385Jenny Valentine|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=In the Canadian village of Three PinesElk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, we're post-pandemic: the scars are still there but life their friendship is starting to get back to normal. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the Aubergea once in a lifetime connection. Theymeet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don're visiting t get each other's homes contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and having friends and relatives to staythey are inseparable. A young Sudanese woman who Something has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilberttheir friendship, known in the village as the Asshole Sainttogether.|isbn=1471196585
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