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This lovely story is a synthesis of that tradition, which was carried down through generations by oral retellings. It shows that a community or society is not made up from interchangeable building blocks of human beings but by a range of people with different skills and different personalities, all contributing to a whole that combines them all and to the benefit of them all.}}{{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'Read [[Forthcoming Publicationst Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|reviews isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of books about 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 published]]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.<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->}}

|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=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 the town of F for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=15293828231804272329}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GFQ81YQK|title=The Last PassengerHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Will DeanStephanie Zabriskie

|genre=ThrillersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Caroline Riley (she prefers 'Caz') is middle-aged Before people came and joined the animals, there was only the sky and has found herself somewhat surprisingly in love with Petethe earth. They're off on a cruise Everything was quiet until the earth and the sky began to tal to New York on ''Atlantica''each other. Caz's sisterFirst, Gemmathe earth created bodies. And then, reckons that Pete is going the sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to propose but Caz hasn't spotted a ring-shaped bulge in his suit pocket both earth and she doesn't know whether she's relieved or disappointedsky. They've not been a couple for that long And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and the trip will remembered, especially how they came to be an excellent opportunity . When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to get the earth and their life returned to know him a bit betterthe sky. Meanwhile, Gemma And that is looking after Caz's cafe as well as their mother who has dementiawhy the earth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. It's going And that is why people must pay attention to be good, isn't it?and care for, both.

|authorisbn=Lex CroucherB0GHPMNF6P|title=Gwen and Art Are Not in LoveThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=TeensFantasy|summary=Who knew that what I really needed When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom? But honestlytake over the running of the family's farm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, it lifted my spirits until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a most delightful way. In this storycave in New Zealand, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tinysuddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, much to their mutual disgustbut a dragon! GwenNow he, you seeEdgar, is in love with Bridget (his mother Abi, and the kingdomzoo's only female knight) part- something that Art discovers from her private diaries. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating the subterfuge time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of falling in love with each otherscales and joy, when really they are enabling their own other romantic attachmentsdespite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and not being able to tell anyone about it. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in which ways they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?|isbn=1526651793had never before imagined…

|author=Emily CritchleyStephanie Zabriskie|title=One Puzzling AfternoonHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=45|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=84 year old Edie has lived ''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in the same small town for almost her whole lifeNgorongoro, but now she is facing Tanzania.'' The Maasai are a move as her son wants to move to another house cattle-herding people and bring Edie this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memorybe so. However, Edie is tormented by Cattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't tell the memory whole story of her childhood friendthe intimate and symbiotic connection its people, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years agoand especially its women, have with their cows and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time agonatural world. After 'seeing' Lucy in The oral tradition retelling the high streetmany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to herdoes. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250B0G9WTGY6J

|author=Jenny Lund Madsen and Megan E Turney (translator)Livi Michael|title=Thirty Days of DarknessElizabeth and Ruth

|genre=Thrillers Historical Fiction|summary=Hannah presents as an unlikeable''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, bitter womanbest known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), an author a radical critique of the treatment of failing if well-regarded literary short novelsthe working class published under a pseudonym. Sorry to leave The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her bottles of red wine behind her for an afternoon at novel as Pasley, a book fair, she flukes her way into young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a public argument with the latest hot shot child and finds herself in the world of crime fiction, saying heManchester's populist trash New Bailey Prison after a difficult and only writing what anyone could writeunjust hand at life. Cue Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the bet that she cannot live up to that accusation. Her publisher duly books her flights from Denmark to Iceland, where she is put up for a wintry month away from it all. Just on novel examines the point of despairing – about her writing, about harsh conditions endured by the people Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to which the lack of stimulus wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for her plot, more or less about everything – word comes that the landlady's nephew has been found dead…addressing these injustices.|isbn=19145856151784633682

|author=Makenna Goodman|title=Helen of Nowhere|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=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 quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=18045456001804272205}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D|title=The MonkWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Tim SullivanAlan Kennedy

|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=The body in the woods near Bristol was a nasty shock - a monk strapped I have often wondered how prominent people came to a chair and dumped in a ditchhold their positions. HeWith 'celebrities', there'd been savagely beatens frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you find a while before D S George Cross book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the Major Crime Unit establish telling is so perfect that this is Father Dominicyou'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. He'd been missing for a few days and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbeyWhy My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. As It's the team gradually unpick story of how a boy from the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment bankerMidlands, brotherborn at the beginning of the Second World War, neighbour and friendwould become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faithIn fact, he was one of the founders of the department. Why would someone savagely murder him?

|author=Lauren BravoJeremy Cooper|title=PrelovedDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary= Gwen Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is pressing her middlean uptight, traditional and no-aged bosom on nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a big number that starts precocious saxophonist, oozing with a four talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and ends Evie's progressive views at odds with an oh-my-God-IRebekah'm-nearly-fortys conservative leaning. Having been made unexpectedly redundant - any HR officer worth However, something connects them beyond just their salt would argue the toss - Gwen finds herself having musical project: a bit sort of a mid-life crisisfragile alliance formed within the clamour. Catharsis is key and Gwen has decided now is the time to take back her life'|isbn=13985106291804272264

|author=Cath HoweTom Percival|title=My Life on FireThe Wrong Shoes

|summary=RenWill's family home life is destroyed difficult, in a firemultitude of ways. She, her parentsHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any enough money for even the most basic of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboardthings like food, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they his dad can't touch anythingwork because he lost his job at the college, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eatwas working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. When she goes back to school she discovers Throw into that mix the class fact that his mum and dad are doing a special art projectseparated, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a personWill's life seems bleak in every direction. But Ren And yet, he still has nothing to put in a boxtiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and so she finds herself starting clings to steal things. Small thingsthe moments of joy when he is drawing, things that people might not really missfeel like a light at the end of a long, not when they have so much alreadydark tunnel. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=18399428351398527122

|isbnauthor=0008517010Edward W Said|title=Death Under a Little Sky|author=Stig AbellRepresentations of the Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=The marriage had run its course. It might have been different if Edward Said's ''Representations of the pregnancies hadnIntellectual't ended in miscarriages but no one else was involved - certainly not on Jake's side is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and he didn't think there was more a passionate argument for Faye eitherwhat they should be. They were still polite Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to each other and wished each other well - but didn't wish to remain marriedspecialists. The perfect solution arrived in Instead, he insists on the form of a legacy from Jake's Uncle Arthur. He'd been left intellectual as a secluded property in the hamlet of Caelum Parvum - Little Sky - public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and enough money to live there without the need unpopular, who speaks truth to workpower even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248

|author=Jennifer SaintSylvie Cathrall|title=AtalantaA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather There are few greater joys than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – book which lives up to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in historycompelling premise. What follows And this is a whirlwind one of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoingthem.|isbn=14722921540356522776

|isbn=152915118X1786482126|title=Pineapple StreetThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Jenny JacksonElly Griffiths

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'Pineapple Street'' is apartments - when they discovered the story bones of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgianaa child beneath a doorway. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother CordThere was no skull. They're StocktonsWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribeDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. The problemIt's exacerbated when the clan matriarchdifficult as Ruth knows, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if theybut Nelson doesn'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another propertyt, that she is pregnant with his child as a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any result of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight inone night they spent together some three months ago. NominallyHer condition will be obvious before long, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start not least because Ruth is prone to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'sudden bouts of sickness.

|isbn=00085512780008551375|title=Blood Runs Cold When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)

|summary=Affi Smith Leanne Wilson's body was snatched from found at the bottom of Fyrisha Scottish mountain, where sheseemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd been doing looked so happy, too, when she posted her trainingintentions on Facebook. She'd been a bit Her friends were relieved as she was just out of a wayward teenager until an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she discovered athletics - and was living her best life now. Then it now looks as though she could be heading for emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the national squadlast year. That's quite an achievement All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for someone with her background: you see, Affo came to Scotland from Albania as Afrodita Dushku at the age of twelvewhat they were doing and sensible people. She was rescued when she was carrying None of the 'what a kilo of drugs and three years later shestupid thing to do's happy with her foster familyexplanations applied. There's just one cloud on her horizonThey were all alone when they died: her little sister, Melodi DS Max Craigie is in a childrencertain there's home in Tirana - and anyone could get to hera killer on the loose.

|author=Emily TeshPaul B Preciado|title=Some Desperate GloryDysphoria Mundi

|genre=Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary=''While Earth's children live, It is never too late to embrace the enemy shall fear usrevolutionary optimism of childhood''

Following the destruction 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 Earthnew generation, amongst a rare number new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of survivorspolitical apathy. Rather, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – it is the home of proportional, valid response to ''the last scraps of humanity – epistemological and trained relentlessly to avenge her people political crack we are living through, and the world tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that should have been herscharacterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. All her lifeThe whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, she has been conditioned when dysphoria began to fall in lineemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to fulfil her duty and ensure that humanity perseveres''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=03565218341804271454

|isbnauthor=0861544056Samantha Harvey|title=Twin Truths|author=Jacqueline SutherlandOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Belle and DavidIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''s twin daughters are just coming to the end of their first term at university. KitOrbital's been at Bristol and Jess's , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in Exeter. It's not only the first time they've been away from their parents for any length lives of a group of time - but they've also been apart from each otherastronauts aboard the International Space Station. Belle can't wait to have them all to herself for Through a while. Then Kit rings up - can she bring her boyfriend home with her? Belle would prefer narrative lens that he didnmirrors the astronauts't come but doesn't want orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to upset Kit. Ivo's apparently 'older': he's twenty-four to Kit's eighteen but Belle figures that she can cope with that. And they'll be sharing see our planet in a bedroomwholly new light.|isbn=1529922933

|isbn=1785633457295967572X|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric CarPale Pieces|author=Clive WilkinsonG M Stevens

|genre=TravelLiterary Fiction|summary=Clive Wilkinson has Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a history of travelling by unconventional means train journey with a preference for slow travelhis companion Django. As he neared his eightieth birthday Where they're going and what the idea purpose of exploring this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the edges of England tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in an electric car was not totally outrageousthe past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?

|authorisbn=Frederic Seager0008551324|title= Jesus, the Man and the Myth: A Jewish Reading of the New TestamentThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster

|genre= Spirituality and ReligionCrime|summary= It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. I was brought up in a family where religion played little Neither side likes or no parthas any respect for the other. Culturally Irish Catholic on one side But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and Welsh Methodist on he's prepared to tell the police where the otherbody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, nobody really discussed religion is someone big and it will be worth the adults around me ranged from lapsed police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to agnostic serve the remainder of his sentence and to atheistget an early parole date. Other than the odd church wedding or baptism or the school nativity play Not much to ask, I didnis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think too much about faith or so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what people did or didn't believes happening.|isbn=B092BWWG9Y

|isbn=05713709771035043092|title=The Lock-UpKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=John BanvilleAnn Cleeves|rating=45|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=ItI can's six months since t have been the dramatic events which we read about in only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[April in Spain Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by John BanvilleAnn Cleeves|April in Spainleft Shetland]] and Dr Quirke is to start a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his daughter, Phoebeformer partner. The worst of Willow's also his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened boss, and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult. Theyshe ''should''re brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett be on maternity leave, but when the body of a youngpopular islander, Jewish scholar, Rosa JacobsArchie Stout, is found , in the aftermath of a lock-up. At firststorm, it looked as though shecan't resist getting involved. He'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicidebeen battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.

|author=Julia BartzThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Writing RetreatTower|rating=45|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= Roza Vallo''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. Anyone in  In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the world identity of publishing knows T, the nameprotagonist of this tale. Writers want to be her, agents want to represent her. SheJust as T's something story is being told, the story of a legend with an impressivesecond protagonist is unveiled: Annie, if compactthe daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, back catalogue who died of works that started with her breakthrough noveltuberculosis after being locked in a tower, published when she was barely out of childhoodcaptures T's imagination. AlexAnnie's fate is, a writer-slash-editorabove all, an enticing story to T. It is more than a little obsessed with Rozastory which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and is stunned whenknowledge, following a series and in service of unexpected eventsmyth, she is invited to be part of her month-long writers' retreatfable and fantasy. |isbn=08615444391804271799

|author=Patrick Ness and Tea BendixClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Different for BoysBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|genre=Teens Literary Fiction|summary=Ant is Everything in Year Eleven at quite a standard schoolthis book, and is surprised to find his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructuredhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, so his desk is one of four with both his best buddy from the football team, steeped in anguish and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days togetherdistortion. As they're all fired upEven a kiss, straining at the leash only usually a single-sex school can formsymbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the talk in class and narrator cries out often turns to sex. Which is confusing for Antinternally, as he doesn't know what his score is, where his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, come over here and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced'kiss me, but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sureit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. And that's mostly because The imagined recipient of who he's been having the relationship and the sex withthis plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=15295094911804271934

|authorisbn=M R Carey0008405026|title=Infinity GateA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey

|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= IIt'm annoyingly picky when it comes 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 science fiction. Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the sorthalt. My standards Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are high precisely because dead in their bed. Initially, it's looks like a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, itstraightforward murder/suicide but there's often terrible. But something about the premise positioning of Infinity Gate had me hookedthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if What looked as though it was done well, it'd going to be fantastican open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. So this Kerrigan is where I sum up convinced that premisethe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=0356518043

|isbnauthor=1398509582Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Favour|author=Nicci FrenchOther Girl

|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It was 2 am, not long after A levels, when ''We were born from the car crash happenedsame body. It would cause problems for Liam Birch but then no one could I've never really understand why he and Jude Winter were together. She was utterly driven by her determination to go wanted to medical schoolthink about this. Liam was the reverse. He just acted ''as if life just rolled him over  Ernaux's work is always very candid and carried him alongher tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux'. A bit s sister died of weed herediphtheria at 6 years old, a few drinks there: months before the legal effects of vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the car crash really didn't worry him at allauthor was even born. The relationship broke up soon after large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that - or rather, Liam simply didn't see Jude any moreshe has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845

|isbnauthor=0857051741Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Sins Reminiscences of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigation|author= Asa Larsson Tolstoy, Chekhov and Frank Perry (Translator)Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeBiography|summary=Lars Pohjanen has only a few weeks to live but he's determined that Rebecka Martinsson is going to investigate Biographies are often seen as the case 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 body found in a freezer at the home vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of a deceased alcoholic. The problem is that the case has long passed the statute three of limitationshis literary contemporaries. Raimo Koskela disappeared without a trace in 1962. He was In the father first section of Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom. Rebecka wants nothing this book, Tolstoy complains to do with a fifty-year-old case on which she can take no actionhis friend Gorky that: the problem ''you write not of real life as it is , but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that this sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is a dying manit?''s wish. The situation changes when Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a post-mortem establishes that Henry Pekkarisubjective account, the dead alcoholicgiving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, was also murderedChekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it. Is there a connection between the two deaths?|isbn=1804271977

|authorisbn=Robert Dugoni1529077745|title=Her Deadly GameThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5

|summary= Patrick Duggan & Associates has been A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the life's work body of Patsy Duggan – rather charmingly nicknamed 'The Irish Brawler' due to his reputation for no holds barred courtroom performances a man in defence of his clients. Along with an indisputable talent for the lawpark near Rosebank, Patsy also has a gift care home for drinking himself to oblivion and inevitably troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the latter care workers who was beginning due to overshadow work a shift the formernight before but who had never turned up. Enter Keera Duggan, former competitive chess prodigy and proven Seattle Prosecutor who finds herself D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the hideous position disappearance of asking her father one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for a job at the family firm because a romantic entanglement with a senior colleague, Miller Ambrose, had gone, rather spectacularly, southdeath but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=1662500181

|author= Rob KeeleyOlga Tokarczuk|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other StoriesHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with ''What's the good of a return 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 short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new talesconstant in that image is the house, each as fun to read as his previous offeringsstoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn= B0BVW69N1G1804271918

|authorisbn= Michael Grothaus1836284683|title=Beautiful Shining PeopleThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!

I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy'Beautiful Shining People'. I don' revolves around the question t want to ruin a similar experience for any of identity and acceptance. Of what it means you reading but I'll have to be humanat least set the scene. Of what is real and what is artificialOnce that's done, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frighteningI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.|isbn=191458564X

|isbnauthor=B09BLBP3P8Sally Rooney|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic SeagerIntermezzo

|genre=HistoryGeneral Fiction |summary=Received wisdom Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and simplified narrative often lead to misconceptions about historyis something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. One such Her dialogue is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, known as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the ''Phoney War''. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitlermany relationships woven into this story, war breaking out, and Churchill coming in the central one for readers to save unravel is the dayfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Very little time is spent on this period in cultural reflections and yetIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, as Frederic Seager argues a successful lawyer living in this bookDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, it was of vital significance in how the war played outbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469

|isbn=07603781341836285493|title=The First-Time Gardener: Container Food GardeningDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Pamela FarleyRob Keeley

|genre=Home and FamilyConfident Readers|summary=If you've ever thought how good it would be to be able to pop out into the garden and pick some fruit Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and vegetables for a meal – but realised that you wouldn't know where to startsupportive friend. But most of all, this he is the book you needan aspiring writer. It's comprehensive: you'll cover everything from why you should grow your own foodEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, what you're going to growMarlowe Park, what youand one at which he excels. This hasn'll grow it in (both containers and soil)t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, where you'll put these containersMrs Howarth, how you'll water and fertilise them she has suggested to Will and you finish the main part his mum that he spends a couple of the book with afternoons a handy section on troubleshooting. There's also week at a good glossarydifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended. So, is it any good?

{{frontpageFrontpage|isbn=18033630021009473085|authortitle= Eric LaRoccaThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|titleauthor= The Trees Grew Because I Bled ThereAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= HorrorPolitics and Society|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as Sometimes it's simpler to explain a way book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. Most horror fiction feature a If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''Big Badreally''happened on certain occasions, whether then this isn't the book for you. If that is a home invader's what you're looking for, a monster or a ghostI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, it usually something tangible and{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, by the end of the story, beatablecan be bettered for those tumultuous years. Eric LaRocca It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled ThereConservative Effect'' is not like thatan entirely different beast. It is 's the seventh book in 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 collection series of short stories more interested in experts from various fields review the horrors state of illnessthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, grief and humiliation. Horrors the changes that linger occurred and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''the situation in 2024.

|author=Amelia Estelle DellosJenny Valentine|title=Delilah RecoveredUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=FantasyTeens|summary= We Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet Dee at as children one day on a point when her life isntrip out but unfortunately they don't going as planned but things might, just might, be about to look up. Out of work, about to lose her flat, Dee is up for an accountantget each other's jobcontact details at the time. But it's not to be. Dee is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunters. She survives the attack but not unscathedthen chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Witch hunters? What on earth Something has that to do with Dee? She's just an ordinary womanhappened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, living an ordinary life. Slivers of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her and things will never be the same...their friendship, together.|isbn=B0BKYFDLLV1471196585