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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie CathrallPolly Barton|title=What Am I, A Letter Deer?|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the Luminous Deepnovel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|isbn=1804272175}}{{Frontpage|isbn= Zabriskie1|title=A Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=Science Children's Non-Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than ''Across many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, each holding value within the community.'' This lovely story is a book synthesis of that tradition, which lives 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 compelling premise. And this is one whole that combines them all and to the benefit of themall.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17864821261787333175|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Elly GriffithsBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePopular Science|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site I was going tempted to hold seventy-five read 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered 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 bones workings of a child beneath a doorwaythe NHS, humour and autobiography. There was no skull''You Don't Have to be Mad.. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, ' promised the same elements but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a result of the one night they spent together some three months agopsychiatrist. Her condition will I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be obvious before long, not least because Ruth looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is prone to sudden bouts of sicknessalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joan DidionMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingDisappearing Act|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=This book is Joan DidionDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's heartbreaking autobiographical account message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the grief town of F for a literary festival she endured following is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her husband's sudden deathjourney 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. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such The train functions as a beautiful motif of transience and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pityimpermanence, denial while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and delusion and makes them utterly normala retreat into fantasy, lends them a human face to wearan impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=00072168581804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551324B0GFQ81YQK|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)How the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Neil LancasterStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's unusual for anyone from Before people came and joined the animals, there was only the Hardie family to approach sky and the policeearth. Neither side likes or has any respect for Everything was quiet until the earth and the sky began to tal to each other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell First, the earth created bodies. And then, the police where sky breathed life into them. These were the body of a missing person is buried first humans and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big they belonged to both earth and it will be worth the police doing what he wantssky. And what he wants is so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be transferred . When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence earth and their life returned to get an early parole datethe sky. Not much to ask, And that is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so why the earth and she's even prepared to do the other thing sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie is why people must pay attention to, and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happeningcare for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739526910B0GHPMNF6P|title=Where IThe Zookeeper've Not Been Losts Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Glen SibleyCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the family'One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malleys farm zoo. He's lifenot expecting much excitement, until he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with receives an unexpected housemate at unidentified egg that his former manager’s holiday homenew-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lostand suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. But as those tentative plans falterThen the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he becomes swept up in a local world , Edgar, his mother Abi, and the zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of unlikely friendshipsscales and joy, mobile discos despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and surprising romantic possibilitiesnot being able to tell anyone about it.''But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008405026Stephanie Zabriskie|title=A Stranger in How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane CaseyOral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared 'How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from her bed one summer nightthe oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. She was never found '' The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and the investigation ground this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to a haltbe so. Now, her mother, Helena, Cattle are status and her father are dead wealth in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide Maasai culture but therethis doesn's something about t tell the positioning whole story of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-especially its women, have with their cows and-shut case is now a complex double murderfor the natural world. Kerrigan is convinced that The oral tradition retelling the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's bossmany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, Una Burt) are less convinceddoes.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077745Livi Michael|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann CleevesElizabeth and Ruth|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeHistorical Fiction|summary=A man walking his dog in ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the early morning discovered the body life of a man in the park near RosebankVictorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one radical critique of the treatment of the care workers who was due to work working class published under a shift the night before but who had never turned uppseudonym. D I Vera Stanhope is called The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residentsnovel as Pasley, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe a young Irish prostitute who was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely abandoned as the girla child and finds herself in Manchester's diary makes it clear that she adored JoshNew Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. She knows that she has Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to find Chloe to discover what happened to Joshwhich the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Makenna Goodman|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=OliviaIt 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, Laura and Anjali met a disgraced professor on the first day brink of medical school losing both his career and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a centuryhis relationship, embodies this feeling. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousHowever, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonseductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. Laura The connection between Helen and the protagonist is a perfectionist and a trauma doctorindirect yet intimate. Anjali is As the free spirit former owner of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them theycountryside house he're at s considering, Helen represents a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going volta in his life, her past tied to end in tragedyhis potential fresh start. We don't know The realtor who suffered shows the tragedy or protagonist around the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an eerily similar event entity that will impact the three friendsis pure consciousness, beyond form''. This timeAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, it's their teenage children who Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are involvednot altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604B0GCB1MQ7D|title=The Trading Game: A ConfessionWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Gary StevensonAlan Kennedy|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If I have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's not often that you were to bring up an image of find a city banker in your mindbook that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie ll go back and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit reread paragraphs and his background is sentences, just for the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to pleasure the London School of Economicswords give. Stevenson ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most one of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupidthose rare exceptions. It was his ability 's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at what was, essentiallythe beginning of the Second World War, would become a card game which got him an internship with CitibankProfessor of Psychology at Dundee University. EventuallyIn fact, this turned into permanent employment as a traderhe was one of the founders of the department.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Leanne EganJeremy Cooper|title=Lover BirdsDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=When new girlDiscord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, Isabelthings, moves to Lou's hometown or ideas) The principal example of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otherdiscord within the novel, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks as with hermost instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so crossEvie Bennet, isn't it? Because Lou are as different as they come. Rebekah is straightan uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, isnwhile Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so faralways see eye to eye, their approaches different and sheEvie's never had a good kiss progressive views at odds with any of Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them? So she beyond just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=000862657X1804272264
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1009473085Tom Percival|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes itWill's simpler to explain life is difficult, in a book by describing what it multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'isn, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't'' work and that applies to doesn''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking t have enough money for an easy read which will deliver even the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasionsmost basic of things like food, then this isnand his dad can't work because he lost his job at the book for youcollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. If Throw into that mix the fact that's what you're looking forhis mum and dad are separated, I don't think Anthony Seldonand Will's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous yearslife seems bleak in every direction. It's And yet, he still has a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politicstiny amount of hope. ''The Conservative Effect'' He is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks good at the impact a government has made art, and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as clings to the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series moments of experts from various fields review the state of the nation joy when the coalition took over in 2010he is drawing, the changes that occurred and feel like a light at the situation in 2024end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Max BoucheratEdward W Said|title=The Last Life Representations of Lori Millsthe Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening sheEdward Said's got ''Representations of the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that Intellectual'' is less a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, strict theory of what intellectuals are and then she finds something even more spookya passionate argument for what they should be. For Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to enter shows signs of tamperingother specialists. When malevolent eyes spark up Instead, he insists on her phone screenthe intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – wellunpopular, where who speaks truth to power even when it is a girl to turn?inconvenient or risky.|isbn=00086664821804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fyodor DostoyevskySylvie Cathrall|title=White NightsA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=As always There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in DostoyevskyNorwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the character work is sublimeDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. One It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is never left wondering what pregnant with his child as a character result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarityprone to sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=0241619785
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083850680008551375|title=The Midnight FeastWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Lucy FoleyNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=ItLeanne Wilson's midsummer on body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manorresult of a tragic accident. ItShe's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promisedd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her ancestral home and she's converted best life now. Then it into an impressive retreat for emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the wealthy and famouslast year. Her husbandAll were experienced climbers, Owen, was the architect properly equipped for what they were doing and work is still ongoing on parts sensible people. None of the site'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. The heat They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it woncertain there't be long before s a body is foundkiller on the loose.
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{{Frontpage
|author=James BaldwinPaul B Preciado|title=Giovanni's RoomDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Politics and Society|summary=''GiovanniIt is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood's Room'' follows the narrator David Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, an American man living in Parisessays and autofiction, as he navigates Preciado expresses his torturous affair with Giovanniown hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an Italian bartender he meets offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a gay barsign of political apathy. While David Rather, it is engaged the proportional, valid response to Hella, who is travelling in Spain''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the real tension in between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the novel arises not from his infidelity but from backdrop of the deeper conflict within himselfCovid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. It is David's crippling shame and denial Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovannireaders to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=01411863561804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0DGDJRHYDSamantha Harvey|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah StoneOrbital|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a quiet suburban house2024, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous manSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', he makes sure a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of every preparation, down to astronauts aboard the last detailInternational Space Station. Some last reflectionsThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, and then he says goodbye Harvey invites readers to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work see our planet in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has donewholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Virginie Despentes295967572X|title=King Kong TheoryPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=Autobiography Literary Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''King Kong Theoryon the floor somewhere'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call has persuaded our narrator to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its coreaccompany him. Originally written Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences past as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape pair travel to sex work the station by coach and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, train is a reflection of their original form as independent essayssteam locomotive.|isbn=191309734X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Baldwin0008551324|title=Giovanni's RoomThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Crime|summary=It''Giovannis unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's Room'' follows prepared to tell the police where the narrator Davidbody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovannipromises, an Italian bartender is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he meets in a gay barwants. While David And what he wants is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, be transferred to an open prison to serve the real tension in the novel arises not from remainder of his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himselfsentence and to get an early parole date. It Not much to ask, is Davidit? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's crippling shame even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship anyone who works with Giovannihim is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=0141186356
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ashley Hickson-Lovence1035043092|title=Wild EastThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Written in verse, this is RonnyI can's storyt have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolnew life on Orkney. The move is initiated by RonnyIt's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's mum who is worried for Ronnynow living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's safety after also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a tragic eventpopular islander, Archie Stout, is found, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in the aftermath of a new townstorm, she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a new schoolmuseum.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, and keep himself out the protagonist of troublethis tale. He listens to music constantlyJust as T's story is being told, and has always dreamed the story of being a rapper. But nowsecond protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in this new schoolthe 19th century, his teacher encourages him to be part who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a poetry writing workshop group andtower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, slowlyabove all, Ronny begins an enticing story to see the connections between rap T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and poetryknowledge, and the power in service of creativity myth, fable and crafting your wordsfantasy. |isbn=02416454411804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that Everything in this is the book for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://wwwhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's Even a picture of kiss, usually a slice symbol of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes intimacy and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerallycloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. (There's a recipe in When the booknarrator cries out internally, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book 'come over here and I was told to make kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get desperate attempt to fold down the corners of pagesconfirm her emotional numbness. You suspect that smears The imagined recipient of butter would not be this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadyghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine0008405026|title=Us A Stranger in the Before and AfterFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Elk It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Mab are best friendsthe investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, or more than that evenHelena, and her father are dead in their friendship is a once in a lifetime connectionbed. They meet as children one day on Initially, it looks like a trip out straightforward murder/suicide but unfortunately they don't get each otherthere's contact details at something about the positioning of the timebodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened What looked as though, something terrible and tragic, it was going to be an open-and -shut case is now they must work through their griefa complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and their friendship, togetherUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787333175Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji WaterhouseThe Other Girl|rating=54|genre=Popular ScienceAutobiography|summary=I was tempted to read ''You DonWe were born from the same body. I't Have ve never really wanted to be Mad to Work Herethink about this.'' after enjoying Adam Kay Ernaux's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This work is Going to Hurt}}always very candid and her tone transparent, a glorious mixture but this raw epistolary text must be one of insight into the workings 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's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the NHSvaccine was made compulsory in France, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad.2 years before the author was even born..'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness The large and instant void created by the work jarring concept of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable writing to be looking for humour an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in this setting her life, an absence that she has always felt but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understandingoften denied. |isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|author=Onyi NwabineliMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionBiography|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to Biographies are often seen as the world, thanks to her stepform of life-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social mediawriting which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals andoffers a vibrant, basicallysubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying Tolstoy complains to regain her confidence and to get her his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life backas it is, suing her step-mother but of what you yourself imagine it to take down the content about herbe. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing Whom would it help to start her PhDknow how I see this tower, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantlythat sea, she or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Opheliait?''s online empire. Can she save her sisterWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=08615468731804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Chadwick1529077745|title=Headload of NapalmThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= It's September 1973 A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in Hicksthe park near Rosebank, Californiaa care home for troubled teens. Hicks is a Mojave desert town The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive awayshift the night before but who had never turned up. Not much happens D I Vera Stanhope is called in Hicksto investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. A silver mine and a defence contractor are Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the main local employers death but otherwise, thereVera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until.diary makes it clear that she adored Josh.She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh..|isbn= B0D321VJ76
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|author=Tom PercivalOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Wrong ShoesHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Will''What's life is difficult, the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has it?'the wrong shoes' The title of this spellbinding work, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic House of things like foodDay, and his dad canHouse of Night''t work because he lost his job at , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the collegesmall, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix subtle changes which govern our lives, like the fact that his mum and dad are separatedshift from day to night, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yethowever quotidian, he still has a tiny amount of hopecausing chaos. He is good at artBut, and clings to the moments of joy when he constant in that image is drawingthe house, that feel like a light at stoic against the end of a long, dark tunnelancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=13985271221804271918
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|authorisbn=Alba de Cespedes 1836284683|title=Forbidden NotebookThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonistis a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebookit's nothing like I expected it to be, and learns about herself in it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the most intimate and revealing waysscene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.|isbn=1782278222
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|author=Ottessa MoshfeghSally Rooney|title=My Year of Rest and RelaxationIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=At best, this novel Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a scathing critique of modern society grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and reveals so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the fragility of human many relationships; at worstwoven into this story, it the central one for readers to unravel is the cynical, predictable fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonistPeter Koubek. This unlikely heroineIvan, a slimsocially awkward chess prodigy, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned contrasts sharply with the worldhis older brother Peter, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: a successful lawyer living in factDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, her solution lies in her hibernationthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=17847074220571365469
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|authorisbn=Jo Callaghan1836285493|title=Leave No TraceThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=45|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When Will is a man is found crucified on the top keen player of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case togethervideo games, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days laterconscientious student, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer slightly annoying brother and a very high profile case that draws a lot supportive friend. But most of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectall, he is an aspiring writer. Will they be able to solve the case in timeEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, or will Kat find herself taken off the case andone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, potentiallyMrs Howarth, out and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a career?|isbn=139851120Xdifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
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|isbn=B0DB64PYV51009473085|title=The White RoseConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Dave BainesAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Dystopian FictionPolitics and Society|summary=In 2033, Sometimes it's simpler to explain a superstorm known as 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 White Rose devastates inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the Northern Hemispherebook for you. And it If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's not a storm that gathersbook, wreaks havoc{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, then dissipatescan be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Instead, it hovers across half This book follows the Earth with its octopuswell-like tentaclesestablished format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, not giving up the changes that occurred and never going awaythe situation in 2024.
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|author=Jenny LecoatValentine|title=Beyond SummerlandUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=Jean lives Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on Jersey with her mother where a trip out but unfortunately they are celebrating the end of don't get each other's contact details at the occupationtime. During the warBut then chance brings them back together, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one nightthey are inseparable. Something has happened though, leaving Jean something terrible and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazistragic, and the war is finally overnow they must work through their grief, and their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of himfriendship, together. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=18469765371471196585
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