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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Onyi Nwabineli1786482126|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the world, thanks site was going to her stephold seventy-mother Opheliafive 's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gaina child beneath a doorway. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about herThere was no skull. Anuri is battling alcoholismWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Most importantlyIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is desperately worried about her little sisterpregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, who not least because Ruth is the new focus prone to sudden bouts of Ophelia's online empiresickness. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873
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|authorisbn=David Chadwick0008551375|title=Headload of NapalmWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ItLeanne Wilson's September 1973 in Hicksbody was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town seemingly the result of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive awayan unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Not much happens Then it emerged that five other women had died in Hickssimilar circumstances in the last year. A silver mine All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, untila killer on the loose....|isbn= B0D321VJ76
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tom PercivalPaul B Preciado|title=The Wrong ShoesDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Will's life 'It is difficult, in a multitude never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of ways. He is bullied because he has childhood'the wrong shoes' Through this hybrid text, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic consisting of things like foodarias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his dad can't work because he lost his job at the collegeown hybrid self, was working a cash-in-hand job on and brings forth a building site and had new sensorium as an accident. Throw into that mix offering to the fact that his mum and dad are separatednew generation, and Will's life seems bleak a new feeling mechanism in every direction. And yet, he still has which detachment is not considered a tiny amount sign of hopepolitical apathy. He Rather, it is good at artthe proportional, and clings valid response to ''the moments of joy when he is drawingepistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that feel like a light at characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the end backdrop of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book Covid-19 pandemic as that which lives up has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a compelling premiseglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. And Rather than taking this is one extreme dysphoria as a sign of themweakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn= 03565227761804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786482126Samantha Harvey|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the site was going to hold seventy-five Booker Prize for '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, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. ItOrbital's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, a compact yet profound work that she is pregnant with his child as unfolds over a single day in the lives of a result group of astronauts aboard the one night they spent together some three months agoInternational Space Station. Her condition will be obvious before longThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, not least because Ruth is prone Harvey invites readers to sudden bouts of sicknesssee our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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|authorisbn=Joan Didion295967572X|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=This book Our unnamed narrator is Joan Didionabout to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they's heartbreaking autobiographical account re going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the grief she endured following her husbandtickets ''s sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful the floor somewhere'' and necessary resource has persuaded our narrator to help people feel less aloneaccompany him. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like selfWhy not? Not much else is clear either -pity, denial but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them the train is a human face to wearsteam locomotive.|isbn=0007216858
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|isbnauthor=0241678412Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Proof of My Innocence|author=Jonathan CoeVaim
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Life after university hasn''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035043092|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=I can't worked out quite have been the way that Phyl anticipatedonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. SheIt's back homebeen seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with her parents Willow Reeves and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of Heathrow Airporthis former partner. All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing. The situation improves when Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughterbe on maternity leave, Rashida. Christopher Swann (described by some as but when the body of a lefty blogger) popular islander, Archie Stout, is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University found, in the 1980saftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. It plans to push He'd been battered about the government in head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a more extreme direction and is ready to actmuseum.
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{{Frontpage
|titleauthor=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?Thea Lenarduzzi|authortitle=Claire DedererThe Tower|rating=35|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography How unctuous are the fats of the audienceanother's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'' in a deconstructed. In this compelling novel, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the old aphorism identity of separating the art from the artist in T, the context protagonist of contemporary ''cancel culture''this tale. DedererJust as T's work story is original and expressive. The reader gets being told, the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particularstory of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the prologue packs daughter of a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts wealthy family in the director Roman Polanski19th century, an artist she personally admires for his artwho died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, and yet despises for his actionscaptures T's imagination. This model of Annie''monstrous men'' as she calls them, s fate is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allenabove all, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picassoan enticing story to T. Her critical voice It is acutely present throughouta story which she consumes avariciously, never slipping into anonymity both in a quest for truth and maintaining her own subjectivityknowledge, as she holds it so dearlyand in service of myth, fable and a personal, rather than collective voicefantasy. |isbn=13997150701804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739526910Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen SibleyBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's lifeEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, he arrives is steeped in an unfamiliar Devon town to recoveranguish and distortion. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday homeEven a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, he dreams becomes evidence of reconnecting with everything he has love lost. But as those tentative plans falterWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me, he becomes swept up in '' it is less an invitation than a local world desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of unlikely friendshipsthis plea is Xavier, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilitiesher ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.''|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies 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 is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)
|title=The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
Ernaux's work is always very candid and her 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's sister 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. 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 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 often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a 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, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.
|isbn=1804271977
}}
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|isbn=1399613073B0FK5LHKD9|title=Moral InjuriesThe Colour of Memory|author=Christie WatsonChristopher Bowden|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of It's been three years since we last reviewed a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousbook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, which is a bonus when you aim so we were very glad to be see a cardiothoracic surgeonnew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Laura is Like all Bowden's stories, there's a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is mystery at the free spirit heart of ''The Colour of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them theyMoney're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We donlike this running theme in an author't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twentys work -five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=If you were to bring up an image ''What's the good of a city banker world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in your mindit?'' The title of this spellbinding work, you're unlikely to think 'House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of someone shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like Gary Stevensonthe shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. A hoodie and jeans replaces But, the pin-stripe suit and his background constant in that image is the East Endhouse, where he was familiar with violencestoic 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=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, poverty and injusticehe should be doing quite well financially. There was no posh public school on Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a murder charge drained his CV - but he had savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to the London School of Economicspersuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most That's what 'ordinary people do','' He's not been entirely up front about the state of us can only envytheir savings. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to be stupid. It was take his ability at what wascase, essentially, a card game which got it's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, that this turned into permanent employment as is a tradermiscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Leanne Egan1836284683|title=Lover BirdsThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensDystopian Fiction|summary=When new girlWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, Isabel, moves to Louit's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with hernothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And thatis just what happened with ''The Big Happy's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn. I don't she? Even though none want to ruin a similar experience for any of her relationships with boys you reading but I'll have gone very well so far, and sheto at least set the scene. Once that's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabeldone, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657XI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|isbn=0571365469
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|isbn=1036916375
|title=Just a Liverpool Lad
|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1836285493
|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User
|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can 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. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD1529934753|title=Nowhere ManThe Protest|author=Deborah StoneRob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In For a quiet suburban houselittle while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, Patrick is making was not going to show up for the opening of his final plansretrospective at the Royal Academy. A meticulous manStill, he makes sure arrived in the nick of every preparationtime, down complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the last detailprotest. Some last reflections Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and then he says goodbye proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to his wifebe part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.}}{{Frontpage|author=Ariel Saramandi|title=Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the worldsociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and his slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. ItSaramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off a blunt yet another phone call apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about her ageing by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accidentgovernmental dysfunction. It will be Each essay in this collection serves as a while before Diana realises what Patrick has donekind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|author=Virginie DespentesPekka Harju-Autti|title=King Kong TheoryLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography Fantasy|summary=It''King Kong Theory'' is s the eighteenth century, a hard-hitting memoir time of discovery and feminist manifestoBritain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, which can be seen as a call is sent to arms for women the Andaman Islands in a phallocentric society broken at its corehis endeavour. Originally written in FrenchAlong with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as they set off on a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape perilous voyage to sex work and pornographythese faraway lands. Though these discussions The islands are intertwined, beautiful and stunning in their placement within scenery and the book can feel somewhat disjointedislanders' leader, Aarav, a reflection of their original form as independent essaysis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=191309734XB0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alba de Cespedes Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Forbidden NotebookLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This Italian First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of feminist fiction holds 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 air accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of suspense hope. He is good at art, and tension from clings to the moment our protagonistmoments of joy when he is drawing, Valeria Cossatithat feel like a light at the end of a long, purchases her forbidden notebookdark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|author=Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and learns human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about herself in the most intimate and revealing waysworld.|isbn=17822782221804271470
}}