134,727
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno 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
|author=Kia AhankoobSamantha Harvey|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of SentinelsOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsGeneral Fiction|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powersIn 2024, each with its own strength and weakeness, in Samantha Harvey won the hope they would complement each other and collaborateBooker Prize for ''Orbital'', creating a dynamic and prosperous society. Each power is contained within compact yet profound work that unfolds over a magical ring belonging to one single day in the lives of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out a group of them and astronauts aboard the eight countries went to warInternational Space Station. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding the cost of war too high, Through a solution is proposed. Each of narrative lens that mirrors the eight countries will send their greatest warriors, known as sentinelsastronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all the rings and become the supreme ruler of Dunivawholly new light.|isbn=B09MMQJFPV1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alastair Chisholm and Eric Deschamps295967572X|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy Our unnamed narrator is about to work begin a train journey with his father in the blacksmith's forge, hecompanion Django. Where they's almost of the age to become a full apprentice, re going and help with what the new batch purpose of dragonswords this journey is certainly needed. Not that there are any dragons, of course – they vanished centuries agois uncertain. Except... Strange signals from within Django found the tickets ''on the forge furnace, floor somewhere'' and a peculiar invite has persuaded our narrator to become an apprentice clerk instead, accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are things for Tom to puzzle over – until it all comes out probably in the wash, that yes dragons do still exist in this world, and that Tom is rare in past as the ability pair travel to summon them, share magical attributes, the station by coach and ride with them..the train is a steam locomotive.|isbn=1839940026
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293465410008551324|title=Something to Hide: An Inspector Lynley NovelThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Elizabeth GeorgeNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's late July and Deborah St James is at a meeting with Dominique Shaw, Undersecretary unusual for the school system, a representative anyone from the NHS, Mr Oh from Barnardos, someone from Orchid House whose name she didn't catch but would later turn out Hardie family to be Zawadi and Narissa Cameron, a filmmakerapproach the police. It follows on from Neither side likes or has any respect for the success of Deborahother. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's book ''London Voices'': prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the meeting police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an exploration of open prison to serve the possibility remainder of the idea behind the book being used his sentence and to highlight get an area which early parole date. Not much to ask, is causing concern in some communities. it? DeborahThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's uncertain about quite how successful she could be as the problem seems even prepared to occur in Nigerian and Somali communities as she relies on getting do the trust of the people she speaks to other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and photographsanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09Q3P283YJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Shadebringer|author=Grayson W HooperVaim
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Clyde Robbins signs up for ''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the US Army during the Vietnam War. He's not really that invested pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in the fight against CommunismVaim, nor is he particularly interested in a career fictional fishing village in the military. If he's honest - Norway which Clyde usually is, with himself at least - he hasn't got many choices paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and this one, at leastEline, gets him out two of the rut he's protagonists caught inits melancholic current. He's good in training and is quickly put onto a non commissioned officer training course. He's chuffed with himself.|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lucy Strange and Pam Smy1035043092|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=There is no mermaid in I can't have been the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the other kidsonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners Book 8) by the London workhouse they used Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to call homestart a new life on Orkney. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in a hand-to-mouth It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, every man for himself kind the daughter of existencehis former partner. But despite herself Bess does find a bit Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a kindred spirit popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the slight little Dotaftermath of a storm, and despite everything that life has taught her she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about betrayal and how befriending people only leads to harm, there might be the head with a glimmer Neolithic stone - one of companionship in the tireda pair -out mill workerswhich had been stolen from a museum. But surely that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?|isbn=180090049X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1785633074Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Staggering Hubris|author=Josh BerryThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who How unctuous are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'prime'' movers are . In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the special advisers - identity of T, the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the governmentprotagonist of this tale. We are in Just as T's story is being told, the privileged position story of having access to a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the memoirs daughter of Rafe Hubrisa wealthy family in the 19th century, the man who was behind the skilful control died of the Covid crisis tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which was completely contained by the end she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of 2020myth, fable and fantasy. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09MYXSRV4Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Otter's Coat: The Real Reason Turtle Raced Rabbit: A Cherolachian Tortoise and Hare|author=Cordellya SmithBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=When the world was madeEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, the animals were given giftsis steeped in anguish and distortion. Bear was given strength so that he could become Even a protector. Water Spider received kiss, usually a strong web that even fire could not burnsymbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. Owl had excellent sight so that he could see When the present narrator cries out internally, ''come over here andkiss me,'' the future. Rabbit developed intelligence - but, unfortunately, not the ability to use it well. He liked is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to trick other animalsconfirm her emotional numbness. He was also jealous which was how he came to be in a race with Turtle. You might think that's not a fair contest but wait and see. Things are not always as they seem. I'll tell you how it came about.}}{{Frontpage|author=Giovanna Fletcher|title=Walking on Sunshine|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Mike's wife, Pia, who he was with for seventeen years, has died. And whilst he The imagined recipient of this plea is dealing with his griefXavier, so are their best friendsher ex-partner, Vicky and Zaza. But Pia left them all some 'rules' to follow, knowing that a ghost she was dying and that they would need help conjures to carry on living. Whilst some of the rules are around practicalities such as clearing out test her wardrobe, another one that Mike discovers one day encourages him to take one of their trips away, and Vicky and Zaza, struggling with their grief and their own life troubles, decide to drop everything in their own lives, and go along with himdetachment.|isbn=140593560X1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293939300008405026|title=Making a Living: How to Craft Your BusinessA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Sophie RochesterJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=It''Starting s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a creative business has never been easierhalt.'' ''If not now Now, her mother, Helena, when?'' I know that I'm not alone and her father are dead in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a businesstheir bed. ThereInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's a lot something about the positioning of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as giftsher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Selling would offset the costs, which can What looked as though it was going to be quite considerable an open-and it could be fun to do, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Well, the first thing anyone who -shut case is considering turning now a crafting hobby into a business should do complex double murder. Kerrigan is to read ''Making a Livingconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Freya MarskeAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=A Marvellous LightThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary=Robin Blyth is nudged into a job in ''We were born from the Civil Service, much same body. I've never really wanted to his chagrinthink about this. There he meets Edwin Courcey '' Ernaux's work is always very candid and learns that her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the streets of London are threaded with magicmost intimate accounts I've read. Desperate Ernaux writes in direct address to remove her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a curse that threatens to swallow him, Robin follows Edwin to few months before the countrysidevaccine was made compulsory in France, where the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and 2 years before the people shimmer with powerauthor was even born. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens The large and instant void created by the lives jarring concept of all magicians writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in the British Islesher life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied. |isbn=15290808861804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241480442Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Healthy Vegan The Cookbook: Vegan Cooking Meets Nutrition Science|author=Niko Rittenau Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Sebastian CopienAndreyev|rating=43.5|genre=CookeryBiography|summary=Emotionally, I am a vegan. Mentally, I am a vegan. I read [[How to Love Animals in a HumanBiographies are often seen as the form of life-Shaped World by Henry Mance]] writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and was appalled by the way in which we treat animals in our search for (preferably cheap) foodless personal. PracticallyI think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, I am not and offers a veganvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. It worked for a while apart from In the odd blip with regard first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to cheese his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but then a perfect storm of those events which what you hope don't occur too often in your lifetime tempted me back yourself imagine it to animal-based proteinbe. It wasn't the taste - Whom would it help to know how I know see this tower, that I can get plant-based food sea, or that tastes just as good as anything plundered from the animal kingdom Tartar - why should it was the ease of being able interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to get sufficient protein when meals were often snatched how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in a few spare momentssuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=suppl_stafl1529077745|title=Supply Chain 20/20: A Clear View on the Local Multiplier Effect for Book LoversThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Kim StaflundAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=ReferenceCrime|summary=So, you've finished writing your book and you think A man walking his dog in the hard work is all done? You're convinced that all you need to do now is get it published and early morning discovered the money will start rolling body of a man in? Wrong and wrong againthe park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. You presumably wrote The dead man was Josh - one of the book because you wanted care workers who was due to - and you had work a talent for delivering shift the written wordnight before but who had never turned up. You knew your subject back D I Vera Stanhope is called in to front. Now you're going to have to get to grips with investigate the murder - but her only clue is the book supply chain, which even parts disappearance of one of the publishing industry residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe to be wrong that Chloe was responsible for the death but itVera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's too difficult to change and no one wants to be the first to trydiary makes it clear that she adored Josh. Then, when you ''finally'' have a copy of the book in your hands, you're going She knows that she has to have to work out how to sell it - because it ''is'' going find Chloe to be down discover what happened to youJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398706906B0FK5LHKD9|title=The LostColour of Memory|author=Simon BeckettChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=The disappearance of Metropolitan police firearms officer, Jonah ColleyIt's young sonbeen three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, Theo, just about finished him, particularly as he blamed himself for what had happenedso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. HeLike all Bowden'd fallen asleep in the park whilst Theo was playing and when he wokes stories, Theo had gone. It cost him his marriage and his home. Ten years later hethere's largely come through it and hea mystery at the heart of ''s out with his team when he gets a phone call from DS Gavin McKinney. Gavin used to be his best friend but itThe Colour of Money's a long time since they've spoken. HeWe like this running theme in an author's obviously in some difficulty now work - Jonah can hear take a mystery but give it in his voice - different flavour and he asks Jonah to meet him at Slaughter Quay. ''There's no one else I can trust'', he saysatmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda MasonOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Hiding Place|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=Needing an escape from their turbulent lifeHouse of Day, Nell Galilee takes her husband and stepdaughter to Whitby, where they rent a cliffside holiday cottage by the name House of Elder House. She hopes that it will be the perfect place to sort things out. But there's something not quite right about Elder House. The atmosphere is unsettling and off – and before long Nell starts to suspect that she and her family aren't alone there…|isbn=1838771964}} {{Frontpage|author=Paul Cleave|title=The Quiet PeopleNight
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.
|isbn=1804271918
}}{{Frontpage
|isbn=henleyA
|title=Ultimate Obsession
|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary= I am not Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a fan of "the Prologue". Most books are the worse Private Investigator for themsome time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. In this case I might make an exception. We start with Luca Pittman who is in Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a hurrymurder charge drained his savings. He His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to hurry because he has children that he should retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not have, and when he hurries, when he bundles things into been entirely up front about the back state of his car and their savings. When Jack Durban tries to run and then hears sirens behind persuade himto take his case, which it's the thought of the money he should not hear because could make that convinces him that this is New Zealand and a miscarriage of justice that is not how they do things there, he takes a risk. It ends badlyreally should put right.|isbn=1913193942
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Carver1836284683|title=Psychopaths AnonymousThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=Maeve Well! This is a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing and critiquing the AA steps she is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encountersbook, targets to feed her desire to hear of peopleit's misery, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems nothing like I expected it to be searching for others who think as she does, and when sheit takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don's unable t want to find like-minded people in ruin a similar experience for any of the groups she decides you reading but I'll have to at least set up her ownthe scene. Once that's done, hoping to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous is bornI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.|isbn=1913193756
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529418100Sally Rooney|title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin WalkerIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction |summary=I'm not usually Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a fan of short stories - I find grandmaster at putting it all too easy to put the book down between stories into words. Her dialogue is gripping and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the temptation central one for readers to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and I'm rather glad that I didn't even tryPeter Koubek. For those new to the seriesIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, therea successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about whopassing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers's who and the background to why Bruno is in St Denisalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GJW49GF1036916375|title=Buried Lies (Gaby Darin Book 5)Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Jenny O'BrienPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Hannah Thomas was having her first night away ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from her sonthe years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Hunter had diabetes and this was controlled by Some are factual, such as the family history of a pump attached to his stomachsea-going family, so her overwith the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-protectiveness was understandable, but her fiance, Ian, was pestering her been. It's a book to get married settle into and she thought it would be a good idea for him allow your mind to find out what parenting was ''really'' like. Her friend, Millyroam across your childhood memories, had arranged to take her boyfriendthink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, Liam, for despite the blitz that was a night constant factor in a posh hotel but then he dumped her and she couldnMcArdle't get the money back, so Hannah was offered the opportunity to go in his places early years. She would return home to find Ian dead I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and fivecould appear after the all-year-old Hunter missingclear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GV3WS1Q1836285493|title=Without The Double Life of a TraceWheelchair User|author=Jane BettanyRob Keeley|rating=45|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Life hadn't been easy for Ruth Prendergast: she'd just come through Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a divorce slightly annoying brother and right now it was raining harda supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. All she wanted was to get back to her new home English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and settle down for a quiet eveningone at which he excels. It wasnThis hasn't going gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to be though: when she went into her bedroom she found Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a dead man on her bed with week at a knife in different school, Station Road, where his chest. She'd no idea who he wasability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387748231009473085|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: A Three Dog ProblemThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=S J BennettAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=ItSometimes it's 2016 simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the Queeninside story about what ''s Private Secretaryreally'' happened on certain occasions, Sir Simon Holcroft has decided that too much good claret and too little exercise is putting a strain on his waistbandthen this isn't the book for you. SwimmingIf that's what you're looking for, he decidesI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, is the way to go and he can use the Buckingham Palace pool which is how he came to be there early one morning bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and discovered should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the body of Cynthia Harris seventh book in a series which looks at the side of impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the poolmost important. There was broken glass This book follows the well- established format: a crystal tumbler, by series of experts from various fields review the look at it - probably one state of the young royals being careless - nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and it looked as though Mrs Harris had slipped and cut herself so badly that she had bled out. Still, it was a shock for Sir Simonthe situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=057136358XJenny Valentine|title=April Us in Spain|author=John Banvillethe Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Teens|summary=Terry Tice was Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a hitman, although he didn't think of himself once in those termsa lifetime connection. He saw what he did They meet as ''children one day on a matter of making things tidytrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie KondoBut then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. He enjoyed his job Something has happened though, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and had a fine old time''. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spaintheir friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dave Letterfly Knoderer1787333175|title=Speedy: Hurled Through HavocYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary=How I was tempted to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence 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 kick off Hurt}}, a review glorious mixture of his memoir? Do you knowinsight into the workings of the NHS, I really donhumour and autobiography. ''You Don't think I canHave to be Mad.. Dave is an author and an artist. An inspirational speaker '' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a professional horsemanpsychiatrist. And a recovering alcoholic. The son of a Lutheran minister, he's struggled with a controlling father, run away I did wonder whether it was acceptable to join be looking for humour in this setting but the circus (not laughter is directed at a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed situation rather than a person and painted theatre sets, it is always delivered with empathy and hit rock bottom when the bottle took overunderstanding.|isbn=B0965V3LLN
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tade ThompsonMariana Enriquez|title=Far From the Light of HeavenA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionShort Stories|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is fulfilling disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her lifelong dream settings include an abandoned field full of going disused refrigerators due to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtimean urban planning mishap, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be an overcrowded homeless shelter and a babysitter for the ship's AI captaincrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. However, when she wakes up at the end The circumstances of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise characters are so plausible that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagossimilarly tangible texture. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=03565143231803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob Keeley1529934753|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!The Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating= 4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetablesFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. She likes carrotsStill, broccolihe arrived in the nick of time, cabbage complete with his two wives and auberginessix children, one of whom filmed what happened. When her friends at school turn up their noses Being an influencer, Lily is keen to explain how good they are for you and how nice tend to eat. One day, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordando things like that, who tells her but it was fortunate that carrots grow on treesthere was a record of the protest. Infuriated Lexi Williams, Lily checks with an intern at the teacherRA, who explains that fruits grow on trees grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and vegetablesproceeded to spray Bruce in the face, like carrots, grow in whilst shouting ''Stop the groundWar''. Jordan says It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, "I did try to tell herbut this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, Miss!" and everyone laughs at poor LilySir Max Bruce was dead.|isbn= B09HHN541V
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=178607981XAriel Saramandi|title=Bad Apples|author=Will DeanPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the road. Wondering if someone needed help she got out sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the car - wounds left by colonialism and heard the screams from deep inside the forestslavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Determining Saramandi describes the direction of a sound isncountry at one stage as ''rotting''t easy when you need hearing aids and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where , a woman was holding her coat over blunt yet apt metaphor for the body systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of a man. He'd been decapitatedracism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. He was Arne Gustav Persson, Each essay in this collection serves as a resident kind of Visbergdiagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja SigurdadottirPekka Harju-Autti|title=Cold As HellLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary= In It's the eighteenth century, a red suitcase as time of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the bottom of a fissure Andaman Islands in a lava fieldhis endeavour. Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, there is they set off on a bodyperilous voyage to these faraway lands. And The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the man who has put her there has just discovered that he islanders' leader, Aarav, is capable of killingkeen to establish good relations.|isbn=1913193888B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=FledglingLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=BavariaFirst published in 1953 in French, 1900. Our scene this novel is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over timeless text which wrenches the decades, hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and now looking imperiously down sentences from their proper position on the village page 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-poweredpositions them elsewhere, hand-operated lift system cut through itdisjointed, and so ontruncated. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for Like the long-standing family hobby lives of taxidermyher characters, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all 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..they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=183994188X1804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Tom Percival|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellWrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary=Anyone who Will's life is not an abledifficult, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part multitude of everyday lifeways. White men will always come first. The able will come before He is bullied because he has 'the disabled. Jobswrong shoes', promotions, higher salaries are he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the preserve most basic of the white man. Even when those who wouldnthings like food, and his dad can't pass work because he lost his job at the medical become college, was working a part of cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an organisation itaccident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's rare that their views are heardlife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, that their concerns are acknowledgedhe still has a tiny amount of hope. It's personally appalling He is good at art, and degrading for clings to the individuals on moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacteda long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Teresa DriscollSylvie Cathrall|title=Her Perfect FamilyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'', paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremonycompelling premise. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows And this is a complex whodunit with a list one of suspects that continues to grow the further you readthem.|isbn=15420287520356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=84092901031786482126|title=If OnlyThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Matthew TreeElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Twenty-one-year-Builders were demolishing an old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cottonhouse in Norwich -broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick site was going to send him hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a monthly allowancechild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Patrick sent the money regularly and Was this a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrickritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It wasn't that Lowry senior didns difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be she is pregnant with his child as a danger to his wife and other childrenresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. The alcohol problem was Her condition will be obvious even before Patrick managed long, not least because Ruth is prone to get the young man on his waysudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen Guadalupe Nettel and David Hackston Rosalind Harvey (translatorTranslator)|title=The Rabbit FactorAccidentals|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, he's perfect for his job This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-memberword: spellbinding with its fantastical, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-plan, holistic magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and keen on stupid-as workshoppinghuman relationships. This is when he finds his brother has diedGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, having her stories structured by a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) wisdom that 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants appears 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 (or otherwise) some people are quickly on the scene want to explain that missing money – it's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and teach us something about the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan..world.|isbn=191319387X1804271470
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711793110008551375|title=The UnheardWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Nicci FrenchNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=TessLeanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a teacher and Jasontragic accident. She'd looked so happy, a headmastertoo, have split up: when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she and Poppy have moved was just out of the family home and Jason is an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now married to Emily. The separation was amicable - they Then it emerged that five other women had just drifted apartdied in similar circumstances in the last year. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what was the family home they were doing and another in the flat she shares with her mothersensible people. It None of the ''seemed'' to be working well until the day that Poppy came home with a menacing drawing of what a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearing, using words she was unlikely stupid thing to have heard in either homedo' explanations applied. Her behaviour deteriorated and They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns to 's a therapist for help, then her doctor and finally killer on the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslyloose.
}}
