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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Gregory1786482126|title=Dancing With The DeadJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=I wanted Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to read hold seventy-five 'luxury'Dancing 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 the DeadDCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up)one night they spent together some three months ago. I felt with all these links Her condition will be obvious before long, the novel could not fail least because Ruth is prone to interest me – but this was not the casesudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Miss Read0008551375|title=Christmas at Thrush GreenWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Set in Leanne Wilson's body was found at the rural village bottom of Thrush Greena Scottish mountain, this book is seemingly the latest in result of a series surrounding familiar characterstragic accident. There is the feisty Ella Bembridge She'd looked so happy, too, who is finally having to admit that old age is creeping up as when she posted her eyesight failsintentions on Facebook. Friends such Her friends were relieved as Dimity and Charles Henstock are concerned about hershe was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she refuses to accept any helpwas living her best life now. Albert Piggott has decided Then it's time to retire now emerged that his wifefive other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, Nelly, is a successful cafe owner properly equipped for what they were doing and can afford to take care sensible people. None of him! And relative newcomer Phil Hurst and her husband are arranging the local nativity play, despite 'what a number of set-backsstupid thing to do' explanations applied. Will everything be in place for Christmas? And will independent Ella make They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a decision about her future?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409101592</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=John E SmelcerSamantha Harvey|title=The Great DeathOrbital|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital''As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning lives of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic group of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was sparedastronauts aboard the International Space Station. In most cases, half of Through a villagenarrative lens that mirrors the astronauts's population died within orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a weekwholly new light. In some cases, there were no survivors|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. It was Where they're going and what the end purpose of an ancient way of lifethis journey is, is uncertain. Natives still refer Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the dreadful period past as the Great Deathpair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maxine Barry0008551324|title=River DeepThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Two young women both have a love of the Thames. Melisande RayIt's beloved hotel, unusual for anyone from the Ray of Sunshine is on Hardie family to approach the river bankpolice. ItNeither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's here that guests come who want prepared to be pampered and looked after in tell the way that only police where the best hotels can do wellbody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, but when Wendell James checks in to is someone big and it will be worth the hotel it's not pampering police doing what he's looking forwants. He's buying a piece of land not far from And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the Ray remainder of Sunshine his sentence and he's sussing out the competitionto get an early parole date. ThereNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means even prepared to do the other thing that the Ray of Sunshine goes under then Hardie demanded - make certain that would be an added bonus. ThereDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's just a slight doubt in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eyehappening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe GoresJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Spade and ArcherVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''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
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035043092
|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravelyI 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 set up his one-man detective agencystart a new life on Orkney. It's the 1920s in San Francisco so been seven years since we have the prohibition era heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and all that that entails. Many localstheir young son, James, of courseas well as Cassie, choose to disobey the lawdaughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, stick two fingers up, so to speak and as a result thereshe ''should''s lots be on maternity leave, but when the body of bootleg liquor. Straight awaya popular islander, Archie Stout, it's evident that Sam is a man of few words. He has found, in the mannerisms aftermath of a cat - stealthystorm, quick on his feetshe can't resist getting involved. He's also d been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a compulsive chainpair -smoker, but then again, most people were. In that era, holding which had been stolen from a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessorymuseum. How times have changed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140911323X</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=Shirley JacksonClaire-Louise Bennett|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mary Katherine BlackwoodEverything in this book, also known as Merricathowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is eighteensteeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and lives with her older sister Constance in closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the family home where narrator cries out internally, 'Blackwoods had always lived'come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. Merricat quickly draws the reader into The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her world by ex-partner, a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – ghost she conjures to test her likes include detachment.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her sister bed one summer night. She was never found and death cap mushroomsthe investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and everyone else in her family is father are deadin their bed. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the house 'steady against positioning of the world', shutting out other people, 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 they live near -shut case is now a villagecomplex double murder. Merricat believes Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie'The people of the village have always hated uss disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and tells us that she hates them tooUna Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon WestonAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Nelson to the RescueThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the Milk's milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of 'We were born from the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleepingsame body. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on MikeI's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited ve never really wanted to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our hero, Nelson, finds himself travelling down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview think about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda DownumMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Drowning CityReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyBiography|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 a nutshellthe first section of this book, youTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''re reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City write not of real life as it is good, bad or mediocrebut of what you yourself imagine it to be. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. Whom would it help to know how Isee this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?'m afraid it's not quite that simple. This is Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going subjective account, giving us access to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguinghow he saw Tolstoy, the characters laden with potential for greatness Chekhov and the backdrop is certainly evocativeAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>1804271977
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson1529077745|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and KaminskiAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=After reviewing several long booksA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'care home for troubled teens. In it, Sebastian Zollner, The dead man was Josh - one of the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt care workers who was due to research work a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticshift the night before but who had never turned up. Kaminski, D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, murder - but nowher only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivionfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. So Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the second-rate writer death but Vera thinks this is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details 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 hook the art world and general publicJosh.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis BarfeB0FK5LHKD9|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story Colour of British Light EntertainmentMemory|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=EntertainmentGeneral Fiction|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if itIt's been three years since we last reviewed a bit naffbook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, tepid and ignorableso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. WhatLike all Bowden's often forgotten is that itstories, there's hugely popular, enjoyable and much a mystery at the heart of it is ''The Colour of the highest qualityMoney''. Louis BarfeWe like this running theme in an author's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainmentwork - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Olga Tokarczuk
|title=House 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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jim Helmore and Karen WallhenleyA|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust GrowEx-OffDCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, but just like himand he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his tomatoes arendaughter't growing very bigs defence against a murder charge drained his savings. His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's what 'ordinary people do','' He takes 's not been entirely up front about the only sensible course state of action: their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the thought of the money he sings his tomatoes could make that convinces him that this is a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his graspmiscarriage of justice that he really should put right.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</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!
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa UngerSally Rooney|title=Die For YouIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction |summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is married to successful video game designer Marcus Rainesomething of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something Her dialogue is wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked gripping and ends up in hospitalso brilliantly frustrating, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for as her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using a false identitycharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. Infuriated by Among the betrayalmany relationships woven into this story, and the realisation that she's been living a lie central one for readers to unravel is the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so longPeter Koubek. Ignoring police warningsIvan, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworldsocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, and finds a tale which has its roots successful lawyer living in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelsDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa McMann1036916375|title=WakeJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Janie ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is seventeen a collection of memories and studying hard for collegereflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. She's also working lots Some are factual, such as the family history of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is sea-going to provide much in family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the way of resourceswhat-might-have-been. College is Janie It's only chance at a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life better than seemed less constrained, despite the one sheblitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's lived so far and so you canearly years. I't blame her for being so singled never heard of parachute mines before -minded in but they were almost soundless and could appear after the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way..all-clear was sounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|authorisbn=F G Cottam1836285493|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort Double Life of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWheelchair User|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start with Will is a word keen player of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus mastervideo games, and a magicianconscientious student, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in slightly annoying brother and a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain supportive friend. But most of your teddy bearall, and your best friend - a fallen angel - he is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyan aspiring writer. Still - never mindEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, the angelMarlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn's efforts will involve you entering t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a dream world couple of flight and cloud citiesafternoons a week at a different school, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backStation Road, and friends new and old will where his ability might be on board to helpbetter extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1009473085|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. ItSometimes it's not quite how life was supposed simpler to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like applies to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy KyleThe Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to re looking for an easy read which will deliver the toilet is inside story about what ''really the last thing he needs. And yet'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the worst is still to comebook for you. Think a crumbling economy If that's what you're looking for, redundancyI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, affairs, death{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a family member challenging him 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 novel writing stakes 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 query over series of experts from various fields review the state of the big C – it's going to be a tough year for nation when the Molescoalition took over in 2010, and there's little the changes that ol' Adrian can do except sit back occurred and watch his life spin out of control around himthe situation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren KateJenny Valentine|title=FallenUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious Elk and impossibly good-looking boyMab are best friends, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to hermore than that even, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn togethertheir friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. This isn They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't Stephenie Meyerget each other's ''Twilight''contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, but it certainly and they are inseparable. Something has striking similaritieshappened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>1471196585
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth Hinds1787333175|title=King LearYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=35|genre=Graphic NovelsPopular Science|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but I do not like King Lear. For mewas 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 Hurt}}, even as a trained actorglorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, the language is too dense humour and rich, autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the set-up too archly unfeasible same elements but moved from physical problems to create mental illness and the great tragedy work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it's thought was acceptable to be. To my mind looking for humour in this setting but the acclaim laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blusteringalways delivered with empathy and understanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxMariana Enriquez|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaSunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Set in IndiaMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from disused refrigerators due to an American ex-paturban planning mishap, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating an overcrowded homeless shelter and a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected wayscrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmssupernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1803511230
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester1529934753|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest MapProtest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=In 2003 For a map was bought for $10 millionlittle while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the highest price ever paid publicly country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for a historical document, by the Library opening of Congress, where it is now on permanent public displayhis retrospective at the Royal Academy. No ordinary mapStill, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is he arrived in the sole survivor nick of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th centurytime, complete with his two wives and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901six children, one of whom filmed what happened. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover moreBeing an influencer, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide you tend to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over do things like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all but it has done for was fortunate that there was a record of the worldprotest. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from these authors, instead with quite under a potty mouth on them they will lambast chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the modern worldface, whilst shouting ''Stop the entire banking system, all those who failed War''. It seemed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to highbe part of an ongoing series of 'blue-interestface' attacks, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they but this was different. The can get back on the expenses trainhad been laced with cyanide, and back up the rich listsSir Max Bruce was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonAriel Saramandi|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Portrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her backIn this powerful collection of essays, and leaves Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the town sociopolitical fabric of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seasideMauritius, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over tunneling deep into the placewounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Meat is getting thrown around like itSaramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting''s going out of fashion, and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the power malignant forces of love racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and put things to rightsgovernmental dysfunction. Especially Each essay in this collection serves as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabethkind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>1804271616
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Loose WomenPekka Harju-Autti|title=Here Come LoveVortex and the GirlsDrakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Home and FamilyFantasy|summary=This is It's the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV serieseighteenth century, ''Loose Women''a time of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Just as promised on the coverCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, this book is an entertaining night with sent to the girlsAndaman Islands in his endeavour. It turns out that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar Along with his son, Peter, and even if you don't know them yettheir cat, with nine contributorsMichi, you'll soon find they set off on a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity facesperilous voyage to these faraway lands. The women islands are universally warm-hearted beautiful and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book stunning in their scenery and feels as if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningislanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>B0DS1VGHH3
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Fortune CookieLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=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=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friendsWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. If He is bullied because he has 'the names remind you of a certain film then youwrong shoes'd be spot on as that, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can's where Fudget work and doesn's father got t have enough money for even the idea from. They're actually chalk most basic of things like food, and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works. Theyhis dad can've just started t work because he lost his job at secondary school and Cupcake has rather the college, was working a lot cash-in-hand job on her platea building site and had an accident. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and his problems dad are becoming more obviousseparated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with the problems and And yet, he now still has another familya tiny amount of hope. It's just CupcakeHe is good at art, Joey and her mother – and not clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a lot light at the end of moneya long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenifer RobertsSylvie Cathrall|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyScience Fiction|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to become the first female monarch in Portuguese historya compelling premise. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but And this is one of them), and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born in during the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HughesGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsShort Stories|summary=Well, This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with a title like thatits fantastical, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's magical elements and charming in the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array its gentle portrayal of animals (a batnature and human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, wisdom that appears to want to teach us something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|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, and ends up installed as their kingworld.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>1804271470
}}