Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Salman RushdieAriel Saramandi|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating=34.5

|summary=We read some authors because we know we're going In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to enjoy them. Othersintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, we feel somehow obliged tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to readexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. If we consider ourselves Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''readersrotting'', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the word advisedly) to being ''well-read''malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, then there are some books environmental degradation and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiargovernmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>1804271616

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carole White Gregor Hens and Sian WilliamsJen Calleja (translator)|title=Struggle or StarveThe City and the World|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girlsIn '' The City and womenthe World's lives in South Wales between ', Gregor Hens reveals how cities are as much imagined spaces as they are physical ones. With a deep affection for the urban landscapes that have shaped his life, Hens reflects on places like Cologne, Berlin, and Goch on the wars. This is Lower Rhine with a new edition blend of personal memory and thoughtful observation. His writing, at times abstract, captures not just architectural features but the emotional and mental geographies tied to each location, for example, his perspectives as a book first published in 1998 by Honno, child as opposed to as an independent publisher set up adult. From Belgium and Germany to encourage Welsh women writers. Most Berkeley and Columbus, Hens traces a map of experiences, turning cities into reflections of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty identity and economic insecuritybelonging.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>1804271691

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard Wilkinson and Kate PickettPaul B Preciado|title=The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone Dysphoria Mundi

|summary=If you asked people why it ''It is (or might be) a good idea never too late to reduce inequality in a society, many people would assume that reducing inequality works by making embrace the life revolutionary optimism of the poorest better: that the poor are the ones who benefit from reduction of inequality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141032367</amazonuk>}}childhood''

{{newreview|author=David Shields|title=Reality Hunger: A Manifesto|rating=5|genre=Politics Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and Society|summary='The Novel is Dead' brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not really what considered a novelist wants sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to read first on picking up a new book – but I persevered with Shields' manifesto 'the epistemological and Ipolitical crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''m glad I did. This The whole text is a thought-provoking wakeframed against the backdrop of the Covid-up call 19 pandemic as that any artistwhich has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, writer or book-lover will enjoymistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024114499X</amazonuk>1804271454

 {{newreview|author=Chinua Achebe|title=The Education of a British-Protected Child|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Norah VincentJacqueline Feldman|title=Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony BinPrecarious Lease

|genre=LifestyleBiography|summary=The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''Voluntary Madnessbail précaire'' is journalist Norah Vincent's account of her visits to three mental health facilities ) associated with squatters in America. The first is an urbanFrance, public hospital that houses mainly homelessaffording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, psychotic patientsbut few scant property rights. Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, many Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of whom are addicted to drugs. In this hospitalmassive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, the doctors are overworked admirers and jaded detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and medication is always the answer. Soonmarginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the author finds that her latent depression (which led her to do margins of the book in margins of the first placemargins'') is returning. The process of being institutionalised breaks her sense of self-worth down astonishingly fast. Indeed, she suggests that it is Le Bloc was subject to the lack continual threat of autonomy eviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in institutional life2012 until its eventual dissolution, even for those patients who voluntarily commit themselves, that makes it so hard for them to rebuild independent lives when they finally leave the institutionframed as a tragedy in this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099513439</amazonuk>1804271403

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gabriel WestonClaire Dederer|title=Direct RedMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=53|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Few people have Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the ability to convey audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the minutiae old aphorism of their profession separating the art from the artist in ways which engage the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The readergets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargonyet despises for his actions. Gabriel Weston is one such – and This model of ''Direct Redmonstrous men'' held me as though I was hypnotised she calls them, is consistent for several hoursthe first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. She's a surgeon Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and we're pulled into the intricacies of maintaining her world without the need to don mask own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and gowna personal, rather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>1399715070

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Hannah Edelstein Virginie Despentes|title=Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don't Get Why Men Don't Get ThemKing Kong Theory

|genre=LifestyleAutobiography |summary=Men aren't Martian and women don't hail from Venus. WeKing Kong Theory''re all Earthlings apparently; is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which seems like progress of can be seen as a call to arms for women in a sortphallocentric society broken at its core. Even so we still have trouble understanding each other because we speak different languages – Himglish and Femalese. Luckily Jean Hannah Edelstein Originally written in French, the book is fluent a collection of essays in both which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and has written this light hearted volume to define pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the problem and translatebook can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848091729</amazonuk>191309734X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chloe Hooper1009473085|title=The Tall Man: Life Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Death on Palm IslandTom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45

|summary=Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm IslandSometimes 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?''. Quite why he was arrested was never clearIf 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. He wasnIf that's what you're looking for, I don't drunkthink Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, although he had been drinking beer – can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and was walking along the road singing should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''Who Let the Dogs Out?The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that there was reason to arrest Mulrunji for creating 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 public nuisance and he was taken to the police stationmost important. What happened next was to be This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the subject state of intense media speculation the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and legal proceedings over the coming years, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was deadsituation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520761</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dana FowleyAlastair Humphreys|title=How Could She?Local|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyTravel |summary=From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse Alastair Humphreys has walked and before long her sister would be subjected to more of cycled all over the sameworld. She was raped by her mother's partner And then written about it. For this book he walked and taken cycled very close to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them home and othersthen wrote about it. At other times she was forced As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know share what was going on? Did she turn I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a blind eye? small map. It Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was neither that the biggest thing he learned about all of those. Her mother these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a willing participant in the abuse downside for somebody and organised much of itthat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009952225X</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy V Fetzer and Shari AaronEdel Rodriguez|title=Climb the Green LadderWorm: Make Your Company and Career More SustainableA Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Business and FinanceGraphic Novels|summary=With the abject failure of the Denmark Climate Change Conference fresh We're in our mindschildhood, it is perhaps time to turn away from the politicians and look back toward what we can do're in Cuba.   The Conference may have finally got the likes revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the USAcountry, has proven himself a Communist, India and China not done nearly enough to acknowledge that they have to join create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in if we are going the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to save be the good soldier the planet country demanded (especially as a benevolent place for our species he would probably be shipped off to livesome minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, but there is still too much posturing and not enough commitmentliked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon.  Clearly our governments and 'leaders' are not going The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to do ease some of the heat, but in this for us; we have to do sultry island country, it for ourselves.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>047074801X</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicholas SternSarah Wilson|title=A Blueprint for a Safer PlanetThis One Wild and Precious Life: How We Can Save the World and Create Prosperity|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The hardback edition of 'A Blueprint for a Safer Planet' was published early in 2009 as an update to the 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change. Now here is the paperback edition, published too early to critique Copenhagen, but nonetheless an interesting read. Stern is an expert witness who presents his evidence understandably for the layman; he is unemotional and very convincing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524058</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alex Hesz and Bambos Neophytou |title=Guilt Trip: From Fear path back to Guilt on the Green Bandwagon|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Did you know that Horlicks, that great sleep aid, is sold connection in India as a start-the-day energy boost? Not another concoction under the same brand, but the Exact Same Product.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>047074622X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frank Furedi|title=Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educatingfractured world

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=It seems My favourite Mary Oliver line is the more problems one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the school-aged generation pose way I want to society, . Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the more responsibility schools have source) she pushes us to takethink about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, teaching we are not simply English and Maths, but Personal Thinking and Learning Skills, Happiness Classes, and Emotional Education''. The duty to raise a child well is taken out of the apparently Don'incompetentt care what you' hands of parentsre doing, and given over to the education systemshe thinks you (we, where values can I) could be regulated and controlleddoing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847064167</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bill Butterworth1785633457|title=Reversing Global Warming For Profit Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=There aren't many climate change deniers left, are there? We all know it's thereClive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. We all know, too, that As he neared his eightieth birthday the world's population growth is on a collision course with idea of exploring the dwindling edges of its resourcesEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. The world's going to get hotterIn fact, its weather more extreme. Fossil fuels are going to run out. More and more people will compete it should be a pleasant holiday for fewer Clive and fewer of civilisationhis wife, Joan, shouldn's luxuries. We're all worried. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312810</amazonuk>t it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Baker1529153050|title=They've Got Your Number|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=If you are in the slightest bit paranoid, worry that ''Big Brother'' is always watching or like to believe that you are not a number, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for you, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. If, on the other hand, you think 'the mathematical modelling of humanityBritain' sounds like one of the sexiest things ever, and are chomping at the bit to learn more about it, then you might well be interested in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>}} {{newreviews Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryTim Benson|rating=34

|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022'' . Surely Sharp eyes will have noted that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for we're not yet through the credit crunch and all it has done for year: the worldcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they Who can imagine what there will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all be to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on come in the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Winnett and Gordon RaynerB0B7289HKQ|title=No Expenses Spared|rating=4.5|genre=Politics Conversations Across America: A Father and Society|summary=ItSon, Alzheimer's always struck me as strange that in a period of twelve months which saw Banks collapse, stock markets tumble and house prices slide 300 Conversations Along the public have reserved most of their ire for a relatively small group of people who were not exceptionally well-paid in TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the first place, but many Soul of whom took the opportunity to make the most of the generous expenses which they could claim. There are only six hundred and forty six Members of Parliament – twelve months ago they were generally respected but many are now pariahs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593065778</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAmerica|author=Alain de Botton |title=A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow DiaryKari Loya

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=A writer-in-residence at an airport is not as daft an idea as Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it might first seem. After all The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, TV programmesVirginia to Astoria, and whole series, have entertained millions with what goes on Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in front of, and behind 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the scenes at such places. So recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this book, which is the fruit up as more of such a residency, could challenge that it would be expected to produce few surprises.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683599</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anita Thompson (Editor)|title=Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S Thompson|rating=4for most people who considered taking it on.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It is almost 40 Merv Loya was 75 years since Dr Hunter S Thompson's seminal work ''Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas'' first graced the shelves. His gonzo style, putting himself at the centre of the story, should tell readers as much about the person doing the writing as the event old and he is describing. If thatwas suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's the case then what is to be learned from a selection of interviews with the main man himself then? The answer is plenty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510711</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Ian Jack|title=The Country Formerly Known As Great Britain|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=I think I've now managed got a couple of confessions to master the maxim about not judging books by their coversmake. I still struggle with the one about 'm not judging them by their titles and keen on short stories as I very nearly cam unstuck find it easy to read a few stories and missed 'The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain'then forget to return to the book. Being just about of an age with the author I worried that it might There's got to be a treatise about the fact that very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there'things werens science fiction: far too often it't like this when I was a lads the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I was even more worried that think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I might agree with himloved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087355</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=The EconomistJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Pocket World in Figures 2010The Book of Hope

|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It's just about The done thing is to read a year since I reviewed [[Pocket World In Figures 2009 by The Economist|Pocket World in Figures 2009]] and at the time – September 2008 – we were watching in horror as book all the world financial crisis unfolded way through before our eyesyou sit down to review it. Looking back now I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the surprise is that for most people what happened came out experience of the blue. The clues were plain to see and all here in reading this handy little amazing book. There was the worrying state of the Iceland economy and different levels of mortgage lending in various parts of the world. Best of all , I want to capture it was presented as verified figures, without any accompanying narrative and it's consequently free of political spinhits me. And it is hitting me. BlissThis beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846681367</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Kilman and Roger Thurow1788360737|title=EnoughArtivism: Why The Battle for Museums in the World's Poorest Starve in an Age Era of PlentyPostmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=4.52|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If you have Can art ever wondered why famine be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is still widespreadmade by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, so many years after Oxfam started nudging middle-class Britain into consciousnessall art must be political, then read ''Enough''even implicitly. As a young woman, I donated to Oxfam at Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the end Era of the 1960s in the belief Postmodernism’ is adamant that concerted international action through governments plus charities would eliminate hunger within a decade or art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Four decades later, it's impossible Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to comprehend why children are still dying create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at much the same rate: one every five secondsleast that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485113</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Arundhati Roy 1398508632|title=Listening to GrasshoppersThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Stories can provoke many different reactions It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the reader: pleasurebest time to start, painin a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, delight, horrorBrexit and a pandemic. The whole range Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of emotion is available terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to the fiction writer to ply run a fridge, freezer and probedehydrator. Reactions to non-fiction works can be equally wideShe had a car -ranging and can sometimes take the reader by surprisefuel. Like most people I came Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to Roy via the Booker-prize-winning novel, ''The God of Small Thingslive'', which it transpires, is her only novel wild just to datelive off its produce. In the intervening twelve years Roy has concentrated her undoubted literary abilities in the political arena, engaging with the less attractive side of her native India.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144620</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rupert Wright 1529149800|title=Take Me Things You Can Do: How to the Source: In Search of Water|rating=3.5|genre=Politics Fight Climate Change and Society|summary=Whatever you expect from a book about water, ''Take Me to the Source'' probably won't provide it. Neither a whimsical aquatic travelogue, nor a polemic about the economics of water, it still manages to produce unexpected insights into the element which is so vital, yet so often taken for granted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512289</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewReduce Waste|author=Maria Tatar |title=Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in ChildhoodEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=34

|summary=Like most avid readers, I don't remember the time before there were books. We were brought up begin with booksa telling story. There are family tales All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of my father as a child eating his breakfast with one handthem stood and watched, while trying unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to tie his shoelaces with the other river and began taking tiny amounts of water and still contriving flying back to read at drop them into the same timefire. They were a poor family, and books werenThe animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can''t just expensive, they were valuablesaid the hummingbird. They were dearAnd that, in every sense really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of the word. Likewise my mother remembers her early school-years when every day ended with a chapter from one climate change – by each of the classicsus doing what we can, however small that might be. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393066010</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Lucy Wadham |title=The Secret Life of France|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=I'm rather at a loss to describe this book for you, and I'm still uncertain how to categorise it. ItOne more body just wouldn't matter''s part personal memoir and part analytical. Whether you regard this particular mix as brilliant or irritating is down, I suppose, to personal taste and intellectual curiosity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236111</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Peter Hitchens |title=The Broken Compass: How British Politics lost its way|rating=3murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=I We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd've long held that there is no difference between the major political parties such that could command you to vote for one or the others death was an exception. The new Labour party now seems to stand somewhere to the right image of what Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I though of as the old Conservative party 'll ever forget and the Lib Dems appear to be a coalition of those who don't fit comfortably into either of the other main partiesprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. My voting patterns have changed radically from supporting There was a party because of its views to voting backlash against another because of its actions. I was hoping that the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''The Broken Compassall'' might clarify my thoughtstarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847064051</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein Matthieu Aikins|title=Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and HappinessThe Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5

|summary=Choices are inevitable: from the lunch sandwich It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the credit card and internet providerWater isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to the house how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and car at times painful journey. There are tense moments and pension plan, modern humans, particularly those living in technologically developed democracies are blessed (or cursed) gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the freedom (and necessity) reader to choose all perfectly envisage the timeenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141040017</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Davies1785633074|title=Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global MediaStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Do you remember a Y2K bug? When Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the world''primus inter pares'' (that's computer systems were to melt down in an Armageddon for those of vital services failure you who are Eton and possible nuclear accidents? The Y2K panic Oxbridge educated) but the reality is a great example of flatthat the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers -Earth news: something that gets passed on in the media chain from those unsure to those who might have a vested interest in maintaining it as fact to those SPADS - who are completely ignorant, and in the process gets bigger and bigger and – almost accidentally – assumes a status of orthodox, accepted truthdriving force behind the government.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512688</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Worth|title=Farewell To The East End|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=I am interested We are in social history and, as a mother, the job privileged position of midwives fascinates me. Combining these two subjects, ''Farewell having access to the East End'' is a riveting read. The author Jennifer Worth was a midwife and nursememoirs of Rafe Hubris, working with the nuns at Nonnatus House in man who was behind the East End skilful control of London and this volume (her third book on this topic) covers the 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297844652</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rania Al-Baz|title=Disfigured: A Saudi Woman's Story of Triumph over Violence|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout her life Rania Al-Baz has been an unusual woman. She Covid crisis which was married off completely contained by her father when she was still at school to a man she hardly knew and was the only married pupil, forced to conform to the Saudi Arabian traditions end of putting her husband first in all things but still expected to keep up with her school work2020. Pregnancy forced her to give up on her schooling but the marriage failed and Rania returned to her father. It You might have been expected that she would fade quietly into not know the home, name now but in a most unusual step she became the smiling face on a Saudi television programme. No woman had ever been a news anchor before and it was only to be expected that there would he will certainly be plenty of men wanting to marry her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844370755</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brian Dunning|title=Skeptoid 2: More Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena |rating=3.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Brian Dunning is the author responsible for a series of weekly podcasts debunking and analysing a variety of dubious, pseudo-scientific, un-scientific and downright loony ideas, claims and myths common or persistent in the pop (and not so pop) culture. ''Skeptoid 2'' is essentially a written version of those podcasts, a collection of fifty pieces of which many can be also read or listened man to at his [http://skeptoid.com/ website]watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1440422850</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dan Gardner1846276772|title=Risk: The Science and Politics End of FearBias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell

|genre=Popular SciencePolitics and Society|summary=Picture a world terrorised by just two words. A civilisedAnyone who is not an able, healthy, wealthy world white man understands bias in that they may no less, in thrall longer even recognise the extent to and under threat which they suffer from two wordsit: it's simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Not what those two words represent evenJobs, promotions, just higher salaries are the preserve of the actual small phrasewhite man. It sounds ridiculous, but Even when I say those two words – who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it'bird flus rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It'' – s personally appalling and you've stopped laughing, you may well remember how the panic started, degrading for the non-existent worry was individuals on the biggest concern receiving end of the western media for some time, and then bias but it went away again's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0753515539</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Ashenburg1529148251|title=CleanMisfits: An Unsanitised History of WashingA Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Although maybe not the first book you'd 'How am I able to be drawn to – a history of personal hygiene perhaps doesn't seem that appealing – but if you had overlooked this excellent bookso transparent on paper about rape, you would have missed out on an enjoyable malpractice and informative bookpoverty, full of fascinating facts and a jolly good readyet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''

Attitudes towards and rituals Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of cleanliness have certainly changed over the last two thousand years and this mind. You're not going to read a book chronicles many of them, largely in Europe and the USessays or a self-help book. Cultural differences with regard You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to cleanliness and body odour (and yes, Napoleon and Josephine do get a mention here, although it transpires that they both took daily baths) are discussed professionals within the television industry at length, from the Greeks and Romans Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the present daywords as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681014</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Hatzfeld0008350388|title=The Strategy Of Antelopes: Rwanda After the GenocideWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|summary=''Life offers me smilesTo be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and I owe it ultimately less valuable than my gratitude for not having abandoned me in the marsheslight-skinned counterparts...''  ''I've known the defilement of a bestial existence.We Need to Talk About Money''by Otegha Uwagba

''Who0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' 's going to say that word, forgiveness? It's outside of human nature.The Bookseller''29 June 2021

So say some of the survivors of Otegha Uwagba came to the Rwandan genocide of 1994, UK from Kenya when 800,000 Tutsis she was five years old. Her sisters were murdered by their fellow Hutu citizensseven and nine. Jean Hatzfeld talked to both Tutsis and Hutus then It was her mother who came first, publishing two awardwith her father joining them later. The family was hard-winning booksworking, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. In The Strategy There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of Antelopesanything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, he returns to Rwanda education meant a scholarship to talk to the same people a private school in London and explore life after genocidethen a place at New College, Oxford. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686865</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emmanuel JalRichard Brook|title=War ChildUnderstanding Human Nature: A Boy SoldierUser's StoryGuide to Life

|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Emmanuel Jal, internationally successful rap artist, spent his childhood as I am a solider in his native Sudan. He has written his story in order to help those children who are still fightingfirm believer that sometimes we choose books, and those who have managed to get awaysometimes books choose us. There are a number In my case, this is one of books about the Sudan by western aid workers and journalistslatter. Not so very long ago, who doif I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, I am surefound some of it interesting, write fluently and passionately about but it would not have 'hit home' in the horror of Darfurway that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. This is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the first book , even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I have needed to read which tells the story of war from the point of view of a small boy carrying an AK-47, a gun taller than he is himselfright now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408700050</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreview|author=Ash Amin and Michael O'Neill|title=Thinking About Almost EverythingFrontpage|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A wonderful digest of ideas spawned by ongoing work at Durham University. The cross discplinary broad brush strokes give insight into the past, the present, and the future, and inspire personal and critical thinking. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668188X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1787332098|title=A View from the Foothills|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Chris Mullin's diaries cover the period from July 1999 How to May 2005 during which time he was Parliamentary UnderLove Animals in a Human-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, for the Department for International Development and after a period on the back benches also at the Foreign Office. As he says, there will be no shortage of memoirs from those who have occupied the Olympian Heights. In A View from the Foothills he offers a refreshingly different perspective – that of a man at the lowest levels of government who's party to what's happening further up the hillside and down on the plains.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682231</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewShaped World|author=Iain Sinclair|title=Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report Henry Mance

|summary=''Documentary fiction'' is what Iain Sinclair oxymoronically calls this book. It's a lot of other things tooWhen we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: autobiographycows, historydogs, psychogeography to name but threefoxes, elephants and so on. His ''Hackney book'' as he self-referentially calls it throughoutAnd we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, is a dense collage of reportage and ''inaccurate and inventive'' transcriptions of interviewsdogs on sofas, peopled by film-makersfoxes in rubbish bins, novelistselephants in zoos, politicians and paintersmillions of wild animals stay out there, not to mention booksellers''somewhere, barbers and bus drivers'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142164</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=John Kay|title=The Long and the Short of it: A Guide I was going to Finance and Investment argue. I mean, cows are for Normally Intelligent People Who Arencheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the Industry|rating=4wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it.5|genre=Politics Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and Society|summary=Sometimes I wonder if authors set out to stop people reading their books, strange as this might seem. John Kay is consider myself an excellent exampleanimal lover. He tells us that he expects his readers If I had to be erudite choose between the company of humans and to be readers the company of popular scienceanimals, I would probably choose the animals. They'll never knowingly have dealt with Goldman Sachs and will pay tax at the 40% rateI insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. At the other end of the scale they'll not be bad credit risks I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and just I needed to cut out anyone hoping for a quick buck, they'll not be tempted to make a living from Stock Market speculationeither do so without guilt or change my choices. If you don't qualify on all points there's I suspected that making the decision would not even a hint of a pass mark which might allow you to sneak into the checkout queuebe comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954809327</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sudhir Venkatesh1523092734|title=Gang Leader For A DayWomen's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort

|summary=If you've ever wondered why young people join gangs, and what it's like to bring up She brings a family surrounded by armed drug dealers, you'll find ''Gang Leader For The Day'' fascinating. Sociology student Sudhir Venkatesh wanted to learn by observing the poor, baulking at the abstract, mathematical research methods used by his professors hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in the University of Chicagoher life. In 1989, armed with a clipboard Again and again and a questionnaire, he visited the Robert Taylor Homes, a notorious housing projectagain. Instead of neatly answering his carefully-prepared questions - ''How does it feel to be black and poor?'' by selecting from ''very bad(Alma Derricks, somewhat badformer CMO, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good'', he finds himself held hostage overnight by members of the Black Kings, a crack-dealing gang, at the behest of its charismatic local leader, J.T.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141030917</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)

{{newreview|author=Alex Perry|title=Falling Off The Edge: Globalization, World Peace and Other Lies|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=From Russia ''To claim space is to a devastated sub-Saharan Africa, economic collapse and consequent protest in reaction threaten the established order. Globalisation, is putting live the survival life of populations in the world's poorest countries at risk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230706886</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor|title=On Kindness |rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=As a title, ''On Kindness'' doesn't pack quite the same punch as Adam Phillip's earlier: 'On Kissing, Tickling choosing unapologetically and Being Bored'bravely. It put me in mind of an eighteenth century treatise, and, give or take a couple of centuries, that is exactly what to live the book provides: a thought-provoking exposition on a currently unfashionable virtuelife you've always wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144337</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Quentin Letts |title=50 People Who Buggered Up Britain|rating=3Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk.5|genre=History|summary=In Now - to be clear - this book is not a rather less permissive age'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, 20 or 30 years ago, I suspect that the author might have been but discussion at the top of some peoplemoment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''s list of culprits for using that naughty b-word. Good griefI've always thought that women need to rise above this, man, you canto be people who don't possibly have need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that in a book title, what!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845298551</amazonuk>they are big men.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola Sly Polly Barton|title=Dorset Murders (True Crime History)Fifty Sounds

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Having examined Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a number while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of true crime cases from Bristol the question in her [[Bristol Murders by Nicola Sly|last book]]the first essay, which is on the author now does the same for largely rural yet not always idyllic Dorset. Twenty two murderssound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, committed between 1818 and 1946among other things, come under the microscope in these pagessound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0750951079</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam RobertsStephen Fabes|title=The Wonga CoupSigns of Life|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=The chances are that you've never heard I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of Macias Nguemafar away places. You probably donI was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't know his nephew, Obiang Nguema eitherinherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. They I also didn're certainly up there in t inherit the Premier League kind of killing steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and disappearance, alongside basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the likes sort of Pol Pot person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and modern day tyrants like Robert Mugabenot come home for six years. The fact Fabes did precisely that the Nguemas are dictators from the tiny west African state of Equatorial Guinea meant they largely slipped off the radar of western consciousness.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682347</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=Simon Schama|title=The American Future: A History|rating=4|genre=History|summary=After 9/11 America had the sympathy of most people. Whether or not you agreed with what the country stood for was immaterial – the horror of what happened left few unmoved. How then has the country descended into being vilified around much of the world and suspected even where it is not guilty? Simon Sharma has lived half his life in the States and he looks at four areas – War, Religion, the American identity and Economics in an attempt Move to understand how the country has reached this point when it seemed, at least until the 2008 election, that many Americans did not even like themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847920004</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]