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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Local|rating=Politics and society5|genre=Travel |summary=Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.__NOTOC__|isbn=1785633678}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael LewisEdel Rodriguez|title=The Big ShortWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Business and FinanceGraphic Novels|summary=SoWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The subprime mortgage crisisrevolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the worldwide financial crisiscountry, people losing their jobshas proven himself a Communist, their moneyand not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, their housesthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, their security. Unregulated greedan uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, that went on such as Angola) and on and on. And the people who caused it all got rich during father being watched and afterwatched, very few felt any sort of consequencesand not liked for his successful photography business, and millions of other people worldwide suffered greatlysuccess being frowned upon. Strip away all The mother gets the couple jobs with the intentionally confusing terminology and it all amounts party to bets with unbelievable amounts ease some of money. How did the heat, but in this sultry island country, it all come about and how did it play remains the kind of heat forcing you out? Michael Lewis explains of the mess as only he can. Just as his earlier excellent work kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{amazonurlFrontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=Liar's PokerThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=3.5|genre= Lifestyle|isbnsummary=0340839961}} encapsulated My favourite Mary Oliver line is the excesses of Wall Street one in the 1980s, which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so does much because my answer is ''The Big ShortThis! Precisely this.'' I' perfectly tell m lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the tale of Wall Street in the 2000sway I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In fact, given her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the extent of life we want – the current global clusterfuckbest life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, it makes the shocking we are not''Liar. Don's Pokert care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she' look positively mild by comparisons effing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043539</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Xinran1785633457|title=Message from an Unknown Chinese MotherCharging Around: Stories Exploring the Edges of Loss and Love England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Xinran first came to my notice Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with her 2002 book "The Good Women of China" which retold tales of the women she had come across through her work in Chinese radio, where a preference for many years she had hosted slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the local equivalent idea of a cross between Woman's Hour and a late night phone-in talk show. She has been busy bringing us other stories in exploring the meantime, but edges of England in this latest work she returns to those early days in radio and the stories she learnedan electric car was not totally outrageous. Many of these stories she decided were too painful to tell. They speak of childrenIn fact, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or another.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anna Politkovskaya|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches |rating=4.5|genre=Politics it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and Society|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnyahis wife, on PutinJoan, on state corruption and on life in Russia under his regime. She never avoided controversy and received a number of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006. She had reason to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled shouldn'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of a Lifet it?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonny Steinberg1529153050|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York CityBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and after reading the praise from various sources (New York Timesmore like an adrenaline sport, J M Coetzee) I came to the conclusion that I was in for a serious and thought-provoking readnudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. The preface tells us Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the two Liberian men - Rufus and year: the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and for different reasons. But as they meet up years later and thousands of miles away cartoons run from their homeland, their ''Little Liberia'' in New York City has a tall order: to contain and accommodate their big personalities and 4 September 2021 to a certain extent, their big egos31 August 2022. Can it copeWho can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy KidderB0B7289HKQ|title=Mountains Beyond Mountains|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. ''Dedicated his life'' Conversations Across America: A Father and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful peopleSon, but when reading ''Mountains Beyond Mountains'', you'll realise thereAlzheimer's not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the disease is just one part Soul of the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAmerica|author=Adrian Johns|title=Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information AgeKari Loya

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=If you are inclined to take your cues from the weekly reviewsKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, as by the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline of the BBC, various interpretations of liberalism and how these struggle for expression in Coalition Government policyperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back The decision was made to ride the Sixties battles betweenTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, on the one handVirginia to Astoria, the unbridled selfOregon -expression all 4250 miles of the free market and, on the other, it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the virtues of selfrecommended time -restraint in such matters but there were factors which pointed this up as the re-examination of the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing book, Death more of a Pirate, about the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines the history of modern broadcasting with a crime story Merv Loya was 75 years old and consequent trialhe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Valerie Benaim I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and Yves Azeroual|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=In November 2007 then forget to return to the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonelybook. He accepted an invitation There's got to be a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Brunivery compelling hook to keep me engaged. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with nuclear power the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and he was smitten by the attentions world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a beautifulbook of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were marriedI loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beate Teresa HanikaJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Learning to ScreamThe Book of Hope

|genre=TeensPolitics and Society |summary=Malvina The done thing is thirteen years old, to read a book all the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional familyway through before you sit down to review it. Her father is a very grumpy teacherI’m making an exception here, with little understanding because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of childrenreading this amazing book, whilst her mother seems I want to suffer permanently from migraine. She has a good friend, Lizzy, and they play together capture it as much as they can, united in their dislike of the 'boys from the estate'it hits me. Her grandmother died last year, leaving her granddad on his own and And it's Malvina's job to go and visit him and take him his meals. The family think this is a great arrangement because they know how much Granddad loves Malvina and looks forward to her visitshitting me. There's a problem though. Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her own. Granddad kisses her on the mouthThis beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kwame Anthony Appiah1788360737|title=Artivism: The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions HappenBattle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=3.52|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=In the Preface, Appiah believes that morality Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them todaynot made in a vacuum. He goes on It is made by saying people. Antonio Gramsci stated that it's all very well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the ultimate action social environment in which truly mattershe develops’’. WellTherefore, I would certainly agree with thatall art must be political, even implicitly. And as Appiah digs deeper into Alexander Adams in his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for example, ''Museum in the collapse Era of the duel, the abandonment of footbinding, the end of Atlantic slaveryPostmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake.'' In the following chapters he debates the issues The recent trend of those three major areas of moralityso-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). They were, in short, moral issues on Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a very large scalemore globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Johnson1398508632|title=A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as EditorWilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=3.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Along with most of my contemporaries I've never read 'The Lady' except once when looking It had been on the cards for an au pair job in my student days, and that, a while but it turns out, is was the problemweek-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. Before Rachel Johnson The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was appointed perhaps not the best time to start, in June 2009 a world where the average age of the readership was 75normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, the circulation was dropping Brexit and the magazine was haemorrhaging moneya pandemic. The Budworth family, proprietors of 'The Lady' since it was founded 125 years ago, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn Wilde had a few advantages: the magazine's fortunes area around before it foldedher was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. He asked Rachel Johnson She had electricity which allowed her to be editor.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Rawnsley|title=The End of the Party: The Rise run a fridge, freezer and Fall of New Labour|rating=4dehydrator.5|genre=Politics She had a car - and Society|summary=After decades of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised by the New Labour administrationfuel. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in the public domainMost importantly, but never before she had I had quite such a feeling of really shelter: this was not understanding what was going on, of being party to only half a story. The age of spin told us little that we really wanted plan to know, but left unsaid all the important things. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that I'd missed Andrew Rawnsley's 'The End of the Partylive' but now I'm rather glad that I did as it's been republished in paperback with two additional chapters which include the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Penman|title=School Daze: Searching for a Decent State Education|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=As a teacher myself, I'm naturally well aware of most of the aspects of education that Andrew Penman discusses here and some of the stories he repeats are well-known to me but may be of news wild just to some readerslive off its produce. Yes, people will really do just about anything to try and get their children into the school of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this book work as an insight into the type of measures some people will go to for those readers unaware of the desperation thatcan set in at this time in a child’s life? It’s a good question…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Geert Mak1529149800|title=An Island in TimeThings You Can Do: The Biography of a VillageHow to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=HistoryHome and Family|summary=In We begin with a telling story. All the mid 1990s journalist birds and author Geert Mak returned animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to his native Friesland and took up residence in the village think of Jorwertanything they could do. His aim was The tiny hummingbird flew to investigate the quiet revolution going on in the agrarian communities not just of Holland but river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the whole of Europefire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing.  This wasn ''I'm doing the best I can't going to be an outsider's view, said the hummingbird. Mak grew up in And that, really, is the northern Dutch province; he spoke only way that we will solve the language; he knew the games and understood the people. In a very real sense Mak was going home… and finding problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that it scarcely existed any moremight be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546868</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Oaten1638485216|title=Screwing UpBlack, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=4.5

|summary=Like John Profumo and others, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for the wrong reasons. It was the episode which made him for a while the country's No. 1 paparazzi target'Corruption is not department, and which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his 'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detailgender or race specific. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended It has everything to do with the Blair and Brown yearscharacter. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pityPeriod.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Daniel Pennac|title=School Blues|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Daniel Pennac's book discusses the issue of children who struggle at school, and offers some ideas on how teachers can and should help them. It is not a dry textbook on educational theory. He writes from personal experience, as a teacher and novelist who was once 'un cancreOne more body just wouldn't matter'', translated here as a dunce or a bad student.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Kevin Lewis|title=The Kid: A True Story|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a povertyforty-four-year-stricken London council estate old police officer, in the sort US city of home that Minneapolis sent shock waves around the neighbours complain aboutworld. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most We rarely see pictures of her six children and he a murder taking place but Floyd's death was beaten and starved by both of his parentsan exception. You might think that Social Services would The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have stepped in and removed him, but any relief was to be short-livedbeen unexpected. Eventually he There was put into care but even then a backlash against the support was inadequate police - and Kevin found himself caught up not just in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'The Kid'tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris MullinMatthieu Aikins|title=Decline and Fall: Diaries 2005 to 2010The Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5

|summary=At the end of [[A View from the Foothills by Chris Mullin|A View from the Foothills]] we left Chris Mullin wondering why he was no longer Tony BlairIt's Africa minister easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Foreign OfficeWater isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. He was never to get This is not by any means a definitive answer to thiscriticism, but was later told that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweets, with few worries about a testament to how people would feel if they were missed out or sackedwell Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. In Decline There are tense moments and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills gripping accounts of politics and return to border crossings which had me on edge the backbencheswhole way through. He might no longer be in a position of power, but heBut it's still in written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the thick of it. Perhaps though, some of reader to perfectly envisage the enjoyment is draining away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very importantenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683998</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malalai Joya1785633074|title=Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak OutStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry

|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Forget entertainment – this is a book Members of Parliament like us to read if you have any interest in believe that the war in Afghanistan. My particular view has developed from a British armchaircountry is run by politicians, comprising part emotional reaction, a smidgeon headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of history you who are Eton and an overOxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS -reliance on British media sourceswho are the driving force behind the government. In a war zone where truth has been a casualty throughout We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, this book gives the general reader an authentic view man who was behind the skilful control of conditions in Afghanistan over the past twenty five years Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of continual warfare2020. Written by a young and hot-headed, wildly patriotic 'ordinary' woman, this is no more reliable than any other partisan view, You might not know the name now but its value is he will certainly be the man to help put official news sources into their proper context. I found it educative in several senseswatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041503</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patricia Nicol1846276772|title=Sucking EggsThe End of Bias: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift and Going GreenHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=24.5

|summary=In the current economyAnyone who is not an able, lots of people are trying to make ends meet white man understands bias in their own ways. Not since that they may no longer even recognise the days of Brownie badges has the word ''thrift'' been bandied around so much, but now extent to which they suffer from it: it's not so much about saving money as it is about survivingsimply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Actually Jobs, maybe it always waspromotions, but higher salaries are the Guiding Association thought a jolly piggy bank was a more appropriate badge emblem than a depressed family collapsed in front preserve of their Sky TV with their supermarket-own curry struggling to fill the void left by a regular take awaywhite man. What we all need is a return to the good old days, Even when life was simpler and people happier, the days when you didnthose who wouldn't need to clear half an hour in your diary to navigate pass the olive aisle medical become a part of the supermarketan organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and when you ate what was fresh and local, not because it was cheap or you were in degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the mood, bias but because it was all they had's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521121</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Phillips1529148251|title=On BalanceMisfits: A Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel|rating=45

|summary=Essential for a tightrope walker''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, prized as an intellectual objectivemalpractice and poverty, balance is generally considered something to which we can aspire. yet still compartmentalise? We praise someone who makes a balanced decision, we envy people who have a It'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion s as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.'on balance' to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments and options.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143888</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=James Robertson|title=And The Land Lay Still|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The novel starts .Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind.You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the endEdinburgh TV Festival. We see You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the fictional character, photographer Mike Pendreich collating many, many photographs which his late father took with his trusty camera. His father is generally acknowledged words as though you're in the better of the two at the craft; he simply had the knacklecture theatre. And what his son is now in charge of are black The disjointedness will fade away and white photographs charting you'll be carried on a social history at that time. And we all know that a picture is worth a thousand wordscloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114356X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Green0008350388|title=Murder in the High HimalayaWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=4.5

|summary=The Himalayan mountains mean many things ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to different people. To the people of Tibetbe seen as less desirable, trapped under the atheist occupiers from Chinaless hireable, who ran the Dalai Lama out in the 1950s in their consuming urge for lebensraum less intelligent and mineral mining, they are a nearultimately less valuable than my light-impenetrable barrier, protecting their country from historyskinned counterparts...''s prior ravages, but keeping people who want out, very much in. To rich Westerners, they are a sparkling challenge - a task of the highest order, a box ''We Need to tick on the way to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because theyTalk About Money''re there.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|author=Frances Woodsford|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic Friendship|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends to get him by, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and more'0. Meet, too, Frances Woodsford. She's reaching middle-age, living with her brother and mum 7% of English Literature GCSE students in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey and more. I suggest you do meet them, although neither ever met the other. Despite this they kept up England study a book by a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning writer of the 60s. And as colour while only 7% study a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up by a world of social history and entertaining diary-style commentwoman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Rebecca Skloot|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|rating=4|genre=Politics Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and Society|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a nine. It was her mother of five childrenwho came first, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31with her father joining them later. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on The family was hard-working, grew principled and reproduced. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with determined that their origins in children would have the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years onbest education possible. Many There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitablefamily acquired a car. But her children have spent their lives For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in low waged jobs London and on welfare, unable to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel then a lot of anger place at this injusticeNew College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garrett KeizerRichard Brook|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We WantUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=What I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is noise? Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noise? And one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if soI had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, what different term but it would we use not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to describe give it a jet aircraft taking off? Why do we respond favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so differently there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the two? Even more intriguinglybook, would our response change even if the birdsong woke us from an exhausted sleep it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but the aircraft was taking off also because it is a book I needed to jet us on a long awaited holiday?read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rushkoff1787332098|title=Life Inc: How the to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back|author=Henry Mance|rating=3.5

|summary=The author of this book was mugged outside his apartment one Christmas Eve. He posted a note online to warn his neighbours to be extra careful''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and was promptly berated for doing something so public that could potentially damage property values on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in his local area. This is a thought-provoking snippetzoos, and if the whole book was like thismillions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere, I'm sure I would have been gripped' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516691</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Peter Beaumont|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The ObserverI was going to argue. He joined the paper in 1989 I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and has spent I much of prefer my elephants in the intervening time dealing with wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the kind sake of 'foreign affairs' it. Essentially that is better described as 'war reporting'quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. 'The Secret Life If I had to choose between the company of War' is a distillation humans and the company of his years in animals, I would probably choose the fieldanimals. It is a I insisted that I read this book ill-served by both its title and its cover: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto the bookshelves of those who really need to read iteggs, but probably wouldn't choose chicken and fish and I needed to either do so were it more accurately wrappedwithout guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge1523092734|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort

|summary=Consider, if you will, guilt. You might have it tainting you, as 'beyond the perpetrators, every person who stands in solidarity with them and maintains solidarity after the fact becomes entangled'. The link might not strictly be She brings a legal one, but concern 'norms of religion and morals, etiquette and custom as well as dayhug-to-day communications and interactions'. Hence a collective guilt like no other kick- thunderclap that witnessed every woman needs in Germanyher life. Again and again and again. 'The assumption that membership to a people engenders solidarity is something Germans of my generation do not easily like to accept'(Alma Derricks, we read. However difficult it might have been back then in its dayformer CMO, Germany had to physically renounce anything to do with Nazism, to actively 'opt-out' of connections to avoid the solidarity seen connecting the whole nation like a toxic spider web. And since then it's linked in all the children, in a ''bequeathal'' of guilt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636776</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)

{{newreview|author=Michael Wolff|title=The Man Who Owns ''To claim space is to live the News: Inside the Secret World life of Rupert Murdoch|rating=3.5|genre=Politics choosing unapologetically and Society|summary=There can be few people who are unaware of the name of Rupert Murdochbravely. Over four decades he's built News International into a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in It is to live the UK media is such that helife you's courted by politicians and has what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizenve always wanted. He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Neil MacFarquhar|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a Happy Birthday|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women'What are the chances of change in the Middle East?s Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the question central moment seems to this bookbe about how women can be ''protected''. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length and breadth of the Islamic stronghold of the Middle East, I feel inclined 've always thought that women need to believe his in-depth assessment. In descriptive and reasoned termsrise above this, he identifies conservative forces which predominate in the regionto be people who don't need protection, primarily the religious and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernizationpeople who claim their own space. This discussion of attempts If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or the media, is strengthened in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations with particular reference be used to their readiness and motivation for changeprove that they are big men. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David AaronovitchPolly Barton|title=Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped The WorldFifty Sounds

|summary=What shape is a conspiracy theoryWhere do I start? Unusual question, I knowcould start with where Barton herself starts, but I think with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on this evidence it is round. A conspiracy theory is lumpen, ragged, full of holes, and has my radar for a huge circular gap where the obvious while and sensible has dropped through, leaving if the believer or theorist with the implausible skeleton of what they choose to think instead. They certainly have a habit of coming round in circles world hadn't gone into melt- if down I mentioned a heinous crime caused would have visited by a western leader that killed hundreds or more peoplenow. I may get there later this year, purely to get their way and get a war startedbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I could be referring don't know the answer to Roosevelt and Pearl Harborthe question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, Maggie Thatcher and which is on the General Belgranosound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, or Bush etc and 9/11among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009947896X</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RogersStephen Fabes|title=The Last ResortSigns of Life

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far awayfrom places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the country many years ago, but has never been able guts to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn simply go out and Roz – to follow him out oftheir homeland, despite do it. I also didn't inherit the resettlement policies kind of Robert Mugabe,the hyper-inflationsteady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the corruption in the countryrequisite 'bottle'. Instead, In order words I'm not thepair just wanted to stay sort of person who will get on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodgea bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>1788161211

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Archie Brown1504321383|title=The Rise Single, Again, and Again, and Fall of CommunismAgain|author=Louisa Pateman

|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary='A source of hope for 'You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a radiant future or…the greatest threat on the face of the earthman''.

Whichever of these descriptions you This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would apply be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to Communism you be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will find Archie Brown's detailed marry and largely objective study enlightening and engrossinghave children. On one level, this is It was a chronological description of how belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a political force grew to dominate belief is a third of the worldchoice''s population then virtually disappeared within a period of less than a century.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845950674</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|title=Zeitoun|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Flicking through the channels on the TV the other night I stumbled across an interview with George Bush's former Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. After witnessing an especially cringe making hip hop turn at the Washington Correspondents' Dinner (if you haven't seen it take a look at Move to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln5RD9BhcCo here[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]. It really is jaw droppingly awful) attention turned to weightier matters, most notably Guantanamo Bay and the war on terror and the Bush administrations response to Hurricane Katrina.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144841</amazonuk>}}