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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Paul B Preciado|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this It is never too late to embrace the book for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companionrevolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, I visited and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's new generation, a picture of new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a slice sign of chocolate cake on political apathy. Rather, it is the homepage. I donproportional, valid response to ''t eat cakes the epistemological and desserts - but I wanted political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that cake viscerally. (Therecharacterize our present''s a recipe in the book, which IPreciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''m avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading . The whole text is framed against the book and I was told to make a mess backdrop of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to fold down the corners of pagesemerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. You suspect that smears Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of butter would not be a problem. I weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''loveduse dysphoria as your revolutionary platform'' this book already.|isbn=1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny ValentineSamantha Harvey|title=Us in the Before and AfterOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Elk and Mab are best friendsIn 2024, or more than Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that even, their friendship is unfolds over a once single day in the lives of a lifetime connectiongroup of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. They meet as children one day on Through a trip out but unfortunately they donnarrative lens that mirrors the astronauts't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back togetherorbital perspective, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, togetherHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=14711965851529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787333175295967572X|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work HerePale Pieces|author=Benji WaterhouseG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This Our unnamed narrator is Going about to Hurt}}, begin a glorious mixture of insight into train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the workings purpose of the NHSthis journey is, humour and autobiographyis uncertain. Django found the tickets ''You Donon the floor somewhere't Have ' and has persuaded our narrator to be Madaccompany him...'' promised Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the same elements but moved from physical problems pair travel to mental illness the station by coach and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter train is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understandingsteam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Mariana Enriquez0008551324|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230}}{{FrontpageDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother OpheliaIt's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood unusual for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainanyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Now Anuri Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in her twenties prison and she he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is slowly trying to regain her confidence buried and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about who was responsible for herdeath. Anuri is battling alcoholismThis person, failing to start her PhDhe promises, undergoing therapy is someone big and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for it will be worth the police doing sowhat he wants. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the new focus remainder of Ophelia's online empirehis sentence and to get an early parole date. Can she save her sisterNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and perhaps herself she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and her relationship anyone who works with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David ChadwickJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Headload of NapalmVaim|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California'All was strange''. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are This haunting phrase encapsulates the main local employers but otherwisepervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, there's a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not much of note other than dive bars feel more real for Jatgeir and Joshua trees. Life is quietEline, until...two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tom Percival1035043092|title=The Wrong ShoesKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=WillI can's life is difficultt have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, in Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a multitude of waysnew life on Orkney. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoesIt's been seven years since we heard from him, but he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work s now living with Willow Reeves and doesn't have enough money for even their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the most basic daughter of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentformer partner. Throw into that mix the fact that Willow's also his mum and dad are separatedboss, and Willshe ''should''s life seems bleak in every direction. And yetbe on maternity leave, he still has but when the body of a tiny amount of hope. He popular islander, Archie Stout, is good at artfound, and clings to in the moments aftermath of joy when he is drawinga storm, that feel like she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a light at the end Neolithic stone - one of a long, dark tunnelpair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie CathrallThea Lenarduzzi|title=A Letter to the Luminous DeepThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary= There ''How unctuous are few greater joys than the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a book which lives up tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to a compelling premiseT. And this It is one a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of themmyth, fable and fantasy. |isbn= 03565227761804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786482126Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.
|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008405026
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventyIt's sixteen years since nine-five 'luxury' apartments year- when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorwayold Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. There She was no skullnever found and the investigation ground to a halt. Was this a ritual killing or murder? InevitablyNow, her mother, Helena, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelsonand her father are dead in their bed. It's difficult as Ruth knowsInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but Nelson doesnthere't, s something about the positioning of the bodies that she makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is pregnant with his child as now a result of the one night they spent together some three months agocomplex double murder. Her condition will be obvious before longKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sicknessUna Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Joan DidionAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingOther Girl|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=This book is Joan Didion''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's heartbreaking autobiographical account work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the grief she endured following most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her husband. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sudden deathsister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. Books The 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 shed light on taboo topics like death she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845}}{{Frontpage|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=Biographies are such a beautiful often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and necessary resource to help people feel less alonepersonal. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pityI think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normaloffers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''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 sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, lends them Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a human face subjective account, giving us access to wearhow he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=00072168581804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085513241529077745|title=The Devil You Know Dark Wives (D S Max CraigieI Vera Stanhope)|author=Neil LancasterAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling A man walking his dog in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where early morning discovered the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for her deathtroubled teens. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the police doing what he wantsnight before but who had never turned up. And what he wants D I Vera Stanhope is called in to be transferred to an open prison to serve investigate the murder - but her only clue is the remainder disappearance of his sentence and to get an early parole dateone of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Not much to ask, Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and sheunlikely as the girl's even prepared to do the other thing diary makes it clear that Hardie demanded - make certain she adored Josh. She knows that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from she has to find Chloe to discover what's happeninghappened to Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739526910B0FK5LHKD9|title=Where I've Not Been LostThe Colour of Memory|author=Glen SibleyChristopher Bowden|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It''One year after s been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malleynew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's lifestories, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate there's a mystery at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams the heart of ''The Colour of reconnecting with everything he has lostMoney''. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up We like this running theme in an author's work - take a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos mystery but give it different flavour and surprising romantic possibilitiesatmosphere each time.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008405026Olga Tokarczuk|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane CaseyHouse of Day, House of Night
|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=It's sixteen years since nineEx-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer nightDCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. She was never found and the investigation ground to Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a haltmurder charge drained his savings. NowHis wife, her motherLaura, Helenahas been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do', and her father are dead in '' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their bedsavings. InitiallyWhen Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning thought of the bodies money he could make that convinces him that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case this is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced miscarriage of justice that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convincedhe really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290777451836284683|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)Big Happy|author=Ann CleevesDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a man in the park near Rosebankbook, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a care home for troubled teenswild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due Big Happy''. I don't want to work ruin a shift the night before similar experience for any of you reading but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in 'll have to investigate at least set the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencerscene. Some people believe Once that Chloe was responsible for the death 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 Joshdone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Sally Rooney|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on Sally Rooney has studied the first day chessboard of medical school life and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter is something of a centurygrandmaster at putting it into words. Olivia Her dialogue is ruthlessly ambitiousgripping and so brilliantly frustrating, which is a bonus when you aim as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura unravel is a perfectionist the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and a trauma doctorPeter Koubek. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes Ivan, a GP. When we first meet them they're at socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end successful lawyer living in tragedyDublin. We donFollowing their father't know who suffered the tragedy or s passing after a long battle with cancer, the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, itbrothers's their teenage children who are involvedalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02416366041036916375|title=The Trading Game: A ConfessionJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Gary StevensonPeter McArdle|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of ''Just a city banker in your mind, youLiverpool Lad ''re unlikely to think is a collection of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie memories and jeans replaces reflections from the pin-stripe suit years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and his background is around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the East Endfamily history of a sea-going family, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injusticethe docks dominating lives. There was no posh public school on his CV Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have- but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - It's a book to settle into and he has a facility with numbers which most allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of us can only envy. He also realised simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibankconstant factor in McArdle's early years. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a traderI'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Leanne Egan1836285493|title=Lover BirdsThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=When new girlWill is a keen player of video games, Isabela conscientious student, moves to Lou's hometown a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herall, he is an aspiring writer. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otherEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with herMarlowe Park, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isnone at which he excels. This hasn't it? Because Lou is straightgone unnoticed by his headteacher, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so farMrs Howarth, and she's never had has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a good kiss with any couple of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is funafternoons a week at a different school, and she definitely just hates IsabelStation Road, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657Xwhere his ability might be better extended.
}}
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{{Frontpage
|author=Max BoucheratJenny Valentine|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=We Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet Lori as children one day on the first evening shea trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's got contact details at the house to herself – no neighbour to pop intime. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, babysitter poorlysomething terrible and tragic, mother at and now they must workthrough their grief, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year oldand their friendship, on her lonesometogether. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that |isbn=1471196585}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to log on to VoxminerHurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the world-buildingworkings of the NHS, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldhumour and autobiography. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn''You Don't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyHave to be Mad... For '' promised the server she same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs the work of tamperinga psychiatrist. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the game has been doctored – well, where laughter is directed at a situation rather than a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fyodor DostoyevskyMariana Enriquez|title=White NightsA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=As always in DostoyevskyMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable claritysimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=02416197851803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083850681529934753|title=The Midnight FeastProtest|author=Lucy FoleyRob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=ItFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's midsummer on most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the Dorset coast and guests gather opening of his retrospective at The Manorthe Royal Academy. It's their opening weekend Still, he arrived in the nick of time, complete with his two wives and splendid celebrations are promisedsix children, one of whom filmed what happened. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into Being an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husbandinfluencer, Owenyou tend to do things like that, but it was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts fortunate that there was a record of the siteprotest. The heat is oppressive Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and amongst proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the guests are enemies as well as friendsWar''. Old scores are going It seemed to be settled part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and it won't be long before a body is foundSir Max Bruce was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|author=James BaldwinAriel Saramandi|title=Giovanni's RoomPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Politics and Society|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''Giovannirotting's Room'' follows , a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the narrator Davidmalignant forces of racism, an American man living patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in Paris, this collection serves as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hellakind of diagnostic, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in charting the novel arises not from his infidelity but from various diseases afflicting the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanniisland state.|isbn=01411863561804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0DGDJRHYDPekka Harju-Autti|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah StoneLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=In It's the eighteenth century, a quiet suburban house, Patrick time of discovery and Britain is making his final plansexpanding its foreign trade. A meticulous manCaptain Julius Hawthorne, he makes sure of every preparationan experienced Scottish sea captain, down is sent to the last detailAndaman Islands in his endeavour. Some last reflectionsAlong with his son, Peter, and then he says goodbye to his wifetheir cat, the worldMichi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and his life. Itstunning in their scenery and the islanders's horribly sad. At work in her shopleader, Aarav, 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 donekeen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Virginie DespentesHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=King Kong TheoryLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography Literary Fiction|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women First published in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written 1953 in French, the book this novel is a collection of essays in timeless text which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through wrenches the complex prism hearts of her varied life: its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from rape to sex work their proper position on the page and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwinedpositions them elsewhere, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection truncated. Like the lives of their original form as independent essaysher characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=191309734X1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=James BaldwinTom Percival|title=Giovanni's RoomThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction Confident Readers|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'Giovannithe wrong shoes's Room, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn' follows t have enough money for even the narrator Davidmost basic of things like food, an American man living in Paris, as and his dad can't work because he navigates lost his torturous affair with Giovannijob at the college, an Italian bartender he meets was working a cash-in -hand job on a gay barbuilding site and had an accident. While David is engaged to Hella Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, who is travelling and Will's life seems bleak in Spainevery direction. And yet, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himselfhe still has a tiny amount of hope. It He is David's crippling shame good at art, and denial clings to the moments of his sexuality joy when he is drawing, that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovannifeel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=01411863561398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ashley Hickson-LovenceSylvie Cathrall|title=Wild EastA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, There are few greater joys than a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has book which lives up to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolcompelling premise. The move And this is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power one of creativity and crafting your wordsthem.|isbn=02416454410356522776
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|authorisbn=Alba de Cespedes 1786482126|title=Forbidden NotebookThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds Builders were demolishing an air old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonista child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Valeria CossatiDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, purchases her forbidden notebookbut Nelson doesn't, and learns about herself in that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the most intimate and revealing waysone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1782278222
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|author=Ottessa MoshfeghGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=My Year of Rest and RelaxationThe Accidentals|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=At bestThis collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, this novel is a scathing critique magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of modern society nature and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable . Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroineprecisely, her stories structured by a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=17847074221804271470
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jo Callaghan0008551375|title=Leave No TraceWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is Leanne Wilson's body was found crucified on at the top bottom of a hill in NuneatonScottish mountain, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to seemingly the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lockresult of a tragic accident. ItShe's their first live case togetherd looked so happy, too, having previously been very successful with several cold caseswhen she posted her intentions on Facebook. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days laterHer friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectfive other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. Will All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case were doing and, potentially, out sensible people. None of the 'what a career?|isbn=139851120X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0DB64PYV5|title=The White Rose|author=Dave Baines|rating=4|genre=Dystopian Fiction|summary=In 2033, a superstorm known as the White Rose devastates the Northern Hemispherestupid thing to do' explanations applied. And it They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's not a storm that gathers, wreaks havoc, then dissipates. Instead, it hovers across half killer on the Earth with its octopus-like tentacles, not giving up and never going awayloose.
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