134,842
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren Kate1806344777|title=FallenArthur and the Land of Nimbostratus: Arthur's Able Adventures|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensFor Sharing|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn toArthur dreams of adventures. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to herlooks out of his window each day and thinks of all the escapades he could have, until the places he saves her life, could go and the two of them end up drawn togetherthings he could see. This isn't Stephenie MeyerHis favourite day is Saturday because that's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similaritiesthe day his friend Maxine - she of the booming laugh and silver bangles - comes to visit. Maxine is a great believer in the power of imagination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds1035043092|title=King LearThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=35|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Hound me out of town in I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a most appropriate mannernew life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but I do not like King Learhe's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. For meWillow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, even as but when the body of a trained actorpopular islander, Archie Stout, the language is too dense and richfound, in the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy itaftermath of a storm, she can's thought to bet resist getting involved. To my mind He'd been battered about the acclaim and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own overhead with a Neolithic stone -long, overone of a pair -blown blusteringwhich had been stolen from a museum.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxPolly Barton|title=What Am I, A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaDeer?|rating=3.54|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Set in IndiaPolly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, familiar territory for Therouxnewly relocated from London to Berlin, ''A Dead Hand'' tells works translating video games into Japanese through the story process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known new audience. Barton treats this as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-patparadoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, the mysterious Mrs Ungerlanguage is endlessly repackaged, relating a story its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the novel opens out into a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him wider, resonant question: to release his creativity what extent do we translate ourselves in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more order to hide than she's letting onbe understood, accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>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=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur 1787333175|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide You Don't Have to be Mad to Unremitting Global MiseryWork Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=35|genre=HumourPopular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'after enjoying Adam Kay' Surely that s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the wackiestworkings of the NHS, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch humour and all it has done for the worldautobiography. ''You wonDon't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from these authors, instead with quite physical problems to mental illness and the work of a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting be looking for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on humour in this setting but the expenses train, laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and back up the rich listsunderstanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy Stanton|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, Maria Stepanova and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the place. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out of fashion, and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Loose WomenSasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Here Come the GirlsThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyLiterary Fiction|summary=This is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriesDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova''Loose Women''s message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. Just as promised on A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the cover, this book town of F for a literary festival she is an entertaining night with the girlsto be a guest speaker at. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar Detoured by erratic train schedules and even if you don't know them yetnudged by forces beyond her control, with nine contributorsher journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, you'll soon find M eventually offers to step in for a like-minded woman behind one of circus performer who has unexpectedly left the celebrity facesshow. The women are universally warm-hearted train functions as a motif of transience and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and feels as if she sat down with a group retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of friends for the eveningnovel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean UreB0GFQ81YQK|title=Fortune CookieHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Fudge Cassidy Before people came and joined the animals, there was only the sky and the earth. Everything was quiet until the earth and the Cupcake kid are best friendssky began to tal to each other. If First, the names remind you of a certain film earth created bodies. And then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got , the sky breathed life into them. These were the idea fromfirst humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. They're actually chalk And so people lived between sky and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed soil and opinionated they planted and Cupcake is quiet learned and thoughtful – but the combination worksremembered, especially how they came to be. They've just started at secondary school When they grew old and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy died, their bodies returned to the earth and his problems are becoming more obvioustheir life returned to the sky. Add to this And that her father couldn't cope with is why the problems earth and he now has another familythe sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. It's just CupcakeAnd that is why people must pay attention to, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of moneycare for, both.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer RobertsB0GHPMNF6P|title=The Madness of Queen MariaZookeeper's Dragon: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalA Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyFantasy|summary=Born in 1734 in LisbonWhen Phil's father unexpectedly dies, at that time he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become running of the first female monarch in Portuguese historyfamily's farm zoo. Married to her He's not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), and became Queen Edgar found in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born a cave in during the 'age of reason'New Zealand, when church and state were vying for supremacysuddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Instinctively Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a supporter of the old religionbird, with but a humanitarian approach to state affairsdragon! Now he, Edgar, she was no Queen Elizabethhis mother Abi, no Catherine and the Greatzoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and wore her crown rather reluctantlynot being able to tell anyone about it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|title=How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersLivi Michael|title=The Wild Things|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, Elizabeth and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy Strong|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog |rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, Streaker, has had three puppies. They were fathered, according to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like to keep them, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled to half of the money from the sale of the puppies, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Beth Durst|title=IceRuth
|rating=3.5
|genre=TeensHistorical Fiction|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in Alaska. She loves the ice ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the wilderness life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her remote home and shefirst novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a pseudonym. The ''Ruth'd definitely prefer to spend her time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosy. Cassiefrom Livi Michael's mother died when she title appears in her novel as Pasley, a young Irish prostitute who was just abandoned as a baby child and she canfinds herself in Manchester't help feeling s New Bailey Prison after a huge hole difficult and unjust hand at life. Set in her heart. Her scientist father is remote Manchester between 1839 and unloving 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and her grandmother left interrogates the extent to which the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngwealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>1784633682
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain Smyth and Michael TerryMakenna Goodman|title=The Wide-Mouthed FrogHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Do you know It could be argued that the joke about the widepervading theme of this book is malaise -mouthed frog? You must have heard it. It's a classic. It's one hard-to-place feeling that you really need to tell something in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memorylife is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number brink of animals until he finally comes across losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogsforce which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the frog does protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his best life, her past tied to disguise his potential fresh start. The realtor who he is whilst saying shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''Oohan entity that is pure consciousness, you donbeyond form't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. AnywayAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, this is a book of that jokeHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel VreemanB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Don't Swallow Your GumWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleAutobiography|summary=I have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there'BANG'''s frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. ThatIt's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the sound of copious urban myths being shot downtelling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. '''BANG'Why My Mother Went Away''is one of those rare exceptions. ThatIt's the sound story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the old wives slamming beginning of the doorSecond World War, as their tales get revealed as baselesswould become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. '''CLICK'''. That's In fact, he was one of the noise lots founders of ill-informed websites make as they get closed downthe department. All noises come due to this brilliant book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Cooper
|title=Discord
|rating= 3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas)
The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while 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 always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorTom Percival|title=VioletThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet Will's life is difficult, in a very special hippomultitude of ways. She He is extremely small but 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 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 accident. Throw into that does not make her adoptive parents Albert mix the fact that his mum and Mavis love her any the lessdad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. However And yet, they are slightly worried that Violet he still has a very unusual habit tiny amount of turning pink without warning hope. He is good at art, and for no explicable reasonclings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonEdward W Said|title=When Rooks Speak Representations of Lovethe Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Arthur Transcombe Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a middle-agedstrict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they should be. Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, grey-haired, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - he insists on the outside. He hasintellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, howeverand unpopular, managed who speaks truth to achieve some success with his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival power even when it is no mean feat)inconvenient or risky. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>1804272248
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J HealySylvie Cathrall|title=Tommy Storm and A Letter to the Galactic KnightsLuminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. He's one of five teenagers snapped There are few greater joys than a book which lives up from around the universe to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHINGcompelling premise. Nobody seems to know what's going to cause And this destruction, or when, but he and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day. So it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill is one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1786482126|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=When I was Builders were demolishing an old house in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if TerryNorwich -Thomas the site was one of going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the stars bones of almost every other five-star British comedy film arounda child beneath a doorway. He There was certainly one of the most recognizable characters of all no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with his gap-toothed grin, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn'Hard cheese!'t, and best that she is pregnant with his child as a result of all, the angryone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jay Parker0008551375|title=Stop MeWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoyingLeanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a 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 an unpleasant relationship, but most of us will have it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had to deal with themdied in similar circumstances in the last year. FortunatelyAll were experienced climbers, we can hit the delete button properly equipped for what they were doing and forget about them as quickly as they camesensible people. I certainly prefer not None of the 'what a stupid thing to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I dondo'texplanations applied. But I wonder how many of us would react if They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a spam E-Mail actually was a matter of life and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>killer on the loose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreSamantha Harvey|title=Love and KissesOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. TheyIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''d been best friends since forever and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, a compact yet profound work that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universityInternational Space Station. All Through a narrative lens that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say mirrors the astronauts'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into herorbital perspective, from the building site where he workedHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>1529922933
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Mintzberg295967572X|title=ManagingPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Business and FinanceLiterary 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 'Study after study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'on the floor somewhere' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, there's such a market for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this onehas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find the time to do soWhy not? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books in one, and it Not much else is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book clear either - but we are probably in one of two ways. Option one is the past as the pair travel to read every word, chapter the station by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because coach and the book train is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provokinga steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox0008551324|title=Blood BornThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=To give support to a vulnerable gang-rape victim, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the courthouse on police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the day she other. But Davie Hardie is due struggling in prison and he's prepared to testify against tell the notorious Harbourn brothers. But when Anya arrives at police where the house she finds Giverny close to death body of a missing person is buried and faces a battle against time to save who was responsible for herdeath. In This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the panic, Anya fails police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse still, in trying open prison to save serve the girl's life, Anya has interfered with a crime scene remainder of his sentence and the case falls apartto get an early parole date. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers being allowed Not much to walk free and only hours later there ask, is news of another attack. A pair of sisters have been stabbed it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and raped resulting in the death of one, while she's even prepared to do the other clings to lifething that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>
}}
{{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''.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in earlier volumesanguish and distortion. Even a kiss, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar usually a symbol of intimacy and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods closeness, becomes evidence of Difficult Sumslove lost. They're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during When the holidays toonarrator cries out internally, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation 'come over here andkiss me, frankly, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other ' it is less an invitation than no Difficult Sumsa 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. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb0008405026|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her horse Prettybed one summer night. She's very politewas never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, friendlyHelena, and kind-heartedher father are dead in their bed. Initially, but she feels it looks like something is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, straightforward murder/suicide but there's always 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 feeling complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that shethe explanation lies in Rosalie's not quite as good disappearance: others (such as them because she isnDerwent't the princess of anywheres boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly Annie Ernaux and Louise NisbetAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=Mouse doesn't like anyone and keeps herself to herself. Her things are her things and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day, an old man moves in to Mouse's house. He used to be We were born from the happiest man in the world, but now he's sadsame body. HeI's fed up of having given, given, given all his life and ve never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides really wanted to cheer him up by giving him a clementinethink about this...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray Maxim Gorky and Lee WildishBryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Mum Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dad GlueAndreyev|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingBiography|summary=A young boy's parents Biographies are splitting upoften seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. He's going through the usual emotions I think that children of divorce go through: worryGorky completely rejects this perspective, feeling unsureand offers a vibrant, blaming himselfsubjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, angerTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, denial, and then trying but of what you yourself imagine it to get them be. Whom would it help to stay together. His method for know how I see this isntower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''t the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum and dad together. ThankfullyWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he finds some wise saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and kindly advice Andreyev in the processsuch privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>1804271977
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy1529077745|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=It's Pearl's bedtimeA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but she says she's really busy and isn't going to sleepwho had never turned up. She just wants D I Vera Stanhope is called in to play and play and play. When investigate the murder - but her only clue is the bear with sticky paws rings disappearance of one of the doorbellresidents, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure fourteen-year- although old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as you might expect, the bear girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyto find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen MackeyOlga Tokarczuk|title=Miki|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=It's cold, dark and icy, and Miki and Penguin are trudging through the snow. But it's Midwinter Eve, when wishes come true. They wish for a tree, lights, someone strong to power the lights, and finally a star that will shine brightly forever. Miki is taken deep below the ice to find the starHouse of Day, whilst up top Penguin and new friend Polar Bear start to worry about her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034095065X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kristin Cashore|title=FireHouse of Night
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Possessed ''What's the good of great beauty, the kind a world that drives men mad, Fire is used to people trying to kill her. She isn't used to them doing it by accident. When a poacher in the woods outside her home accidentally shoots her, Fire is hard pressed to keep the temperamental Lord Archer from killing him. But as sure as Fire is the man did not mean to cause her harm, she is made unsure by the strange fog keeps changing like that exists ? How can one go on calmly living in the manit?''s mind.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1836284683
|title=The Big Happy
|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentGeneral Fiction |summary=John Peel was without doubt one of Sally Rooney has studied the most important disc jockeys chessboard of all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home to join Radio London life and then become one is something of the original Radio 1 team, where he stayed until his death 37 years latera grandmaster at putting it into words. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) Her dialogue is gripping and his readiness to so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what he thoughtthey feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted central one for readers to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns in unravel is the music weeklies fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and later Radio TimesPeter Koubek. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the endIvan, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind)a socially awkward chess prodigy, and thought contrasts sharply with his build-'em-upolder brother Peter, knock-a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father'em-down stance rather irritating s passing after a while. So I approached this book long battle with an open mind as a fancancer, but not an uncritical onethe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez 1836285493|title=Perfumes: The A - Z GuideDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=WonderfulWill is a keen player of video games, wonderfula conscientious student, wonderfula slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. The only thing that could be conceivably better than reading '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'Perfumes'' would be to read it while sampling the scents it reviewst gone unnoticed by his headteacher, but even without the olfactory componentMrs Howarth, ''Perfumes'' is and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a delight: Turin (couple of afternoons a lyrical scientist) and Sanchez (an analytically enthusiastic collector) not only treat perfume creation as high art, but turn perfume criticism into an art form (or week at least a sophisticated genre of writing) toodifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681278</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Malouf 1009473085|title=RansomThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Taking his theme from Sometimes it's simpler to explain a small part of Homerbook by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you's Iliad, Malouf tells re looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story of the king of Troyabout what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, Priamthen this isn's grief-stricken voyage into t the Greek camp to ransom Troybook for you. If that's wealth what you're looking for the body of his fallen son, HectorI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, killed by 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 equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed seventh book in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells a series which looks at the story in sparse, yet lyrical impact a government has made and poetic fashion suggesting co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the personal stories behind most important. This book follows the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as -established format: a great piece series of story tellingexperts 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven M GillonJenny Valentine|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours Us in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryTeens|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came at a pivotal moment in my life Elk and for Mab are best friends, or more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the eventthat even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. ItThey meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's been of variable quality, but contact details at the books fed the curiosity of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publiclytime. I'd come to the point of wondering if there was anything new to be saidBut then chance brings them back together, but Stephen Gillom and they are inseparable. Something has looked at what happened from an unusual though, something terrible and largely overlooked angle – the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson's Presidencytragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>1471196585
}}
