Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Bob Marshall <!-Andrews|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political Humbug|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997, rather too late to be a career politician (he was already an established QC) and with a profound distrust of authority. Remove He had no aspirations towards office, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he would become best known for being a dissident. I occasionally enquired as to which party held his allegiance and eventually concluded that he went with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs than any other – and I did wonder if this would be just one more to add to the pile.|amazonuk=<amazonuk-->1846684412</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen BlixenAlastair Humphreys|title=Out Of AfricaLocal
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyTravel |summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the film ''Out of Africa'' 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 's one of the few that 'to share what I have stayed with me over the intervening yearslearnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. It wasn't just Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the storyfood system, but rewilding…'' One of the personality joys of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of book for me was that the Ngong Hills, south biggest thing he learned about all of Nairobithese things was that there are no easy answers, in Kenyano single 'right or wrong's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable that every upside is likely to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to misshave a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
 {{newreview|author=Stephen Sedley|title=Ashes and Sparks: Essays On Law and Justice|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Some books are hard to read, and even harder to review. This is particularly true of what are essentially academic or "professional" books and you come to them as a lay reader. This then is my starting position on Ashes and Sparks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary Armstrong and Tim GrayEdel Rodriguez|title=The Authentic TawneyWorm: A New Interpretation of the Political Thought of R. H. Tawney Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The Authentic Tawney takes revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a fresh look at saviour of the political writing of R H Tawneycountry, has proven himself a left wing academic whose works were Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a big influence on the huge program level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of postwar reform engineered by the Labour Party, particularly the provision his were kind of universal secondary educationtaking his time away. The authors assert that Tawney Our narrator's ideas changed markedly through family weren't in the course happiest of his life and that they lack places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the consistency that other interpreters have erroneously attributed country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to them. They reject some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the notion that father being watched and watched, and not liked for his writings have an essential unitysuccessful photography business, which is philosophically interesting - don't we tend success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to assume that an intellectual's life's work will contain a central 'core' ease some of ideas? Discussion the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of an important pioneer in democratic socialism also seems relevant at a time when Labour has 'lost its way' and evolved into a watered down version heat forcing you out of the Conservatives.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845402243</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HewlettSarah Wilson|title=The Sarkozy PhenomenonThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=The old saying My favourite Mary Oliver line is the 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 ''cometh the hour, cometh the manThis! Precisely this.' and whether or not it's the electorate I's ability m lucky enough to pick be living my one wild and precious life the man or whether he was only seen as the right man in retrospect way I want to. Sarah Wilson is a moot pointequally lucky. There are, In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though, some surprising people at I can't see that she acknowledges the head of European countries at source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the moment life we want with Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy at the head of my personal listbest life that we could be living. My [[Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story by Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|last attempt]] to find out more about Sarkozy proved to be too light-weight for my tastesHer answer is an unequivocal ''no, but this time Iwe are not''ve gone to the opposite end of the scale with a book from Nick Hewlett, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and published by Imprint Academic. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I mention those points because there is no attempt to present this as populist writing: it) could be doing more…And she's scholarly from beginning to endeffing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845402391</amazonuk>1785633848
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Emmerson1785633457|title=The Future History of the ArcticCharging Around: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping Exploring the north, and why it matters to the worldEdges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Charles Emmerson examines the past Clive Wilkinson has a history of Arctic exploration, economic exploitation and development and travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the policies of governments idea of countries which include Arctic territory (and others), with exploring the aim edges of understanding the present and predicting the future better. He explains the apparently contradictory title England in some detail in the Introductionan electric car was not totally outrageous. While history is about the pastIn fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn'ideas about the future have changed over time'. Also, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by its history.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>t it?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire1529153050|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of TibetBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and stuffed with haymore like an adrenaline sport, and your route is over the worldI was nudged towards ''Britain's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challengingBest Political Cartoons of 2022''. This was the journey Sharp eyes will have noted that Yangzom Brauenwe's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after re not yet through the year: the Chinese invasion of 1959cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. They were leaving behind all that they knew and travelling Who can imagine what there will be to India come in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' is their story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>2023 edition?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dambisa MoyoB0B7289HKQ|title=How Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the West was Lost: Fifty Years TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices AheadAmerica|author=Kari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Moyo's first bookKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, ''Dead Aid'' was by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a well regarded and oft discussed title when I worked in Developmentgood time to do it. In a country where it The decision was hard made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to find any book at Astoria, Oregon - all, somehow every ex4250 miles of it -pat household seemed in 2015. They had 73 days to have at least one copy do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of this, and I followed the sheep and had a readchallenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. It Merv Loya was a great, insightful book that we could all identify with, 75 years old and I he was eager to read her second, if somewhat unrelated worksuffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142350</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
{{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Big Short|rating=4|genre=Business and Finance|summary=SoI've got a couple of confessions to make. The subprime mortgage crisis, the worldwide financial crisis, people losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their security. Unregulated greed, that went I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and on and onthen forget to return to the book. And the people who caused it all There's got rich during and after, to be a very few felt any sort of consequences, and millions of other people worldwide suffered greatly. Strip away all the intentionally confusing terminology and it all amounts compelling hook to bets with unbelievable amounts of moneykeep me engaged. How did it all come about and how did Then there's science fiction: far too often it play out? Michael Lewis explains the mess as only he can. Just as his earlier excellent work {{amazonurl|title=Liar's Poker|isbn=0340839961}} encapsulated the excesses of Wall Street in technology which takes centre stage along with the 1980s, so does world-building. It''The Big Short'' perfectly tell s human beings who fascinate me: the tale of Wall Street in technology and the 2000sworld scape are purely incidental. In fact So, given the extent what did I think of a book of the current global clusterfucktwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it makes the shocking ''Liar's Poker'' look positively mild by comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043539</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=XinranJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories The Book of Loss and Love Hope
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Xinran first came The done thing is to my notice with her 2002 read a book "The Good Women of China" which retold tales of all the women she had come across way through her work in Chinese radiobefore you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, where for many years she had hosted because I don’t want to lose any of the local equivalent experience of a cross between Woman's Hour and a late night phone-in talk show. She has been busy bringing us other stories in the meantimereading this amazing book, but in this latest work she returns I want to those early days in radio and the stories she learnedcapture it as it hits me. Many of these stories she decided were too painful to tellAnd it is hitting me. They speak of children, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or anotherThis beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>024147857X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Politkovskaya1788360737|title=Nothing but Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Truth: Selected Dispatches Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=4.52|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars social environment in Chechnyawhich he develops’’. Therefore, on Putinall art must be political, on state corruption and on life even implicitly. Alexander Adams in Russia under his regimenew book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. She never avoided controversy and received a number The recent trend of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). She had reason Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled 'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of create a Life?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleaguesmore globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonny Steinberg1398508632|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York CityThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=45|genre=BiographyLifestyle|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books and after reading the praise from various sources (New York Times, J M Coetzee) I came to It had been on the conclusion that I was in cards for a serious and thoughtwhile but it was the week-provoking readlong consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The preface tells us that end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the two Liberian men - Rufus and best time to start, in a world where the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and for different reasonsa pandemic. But as they meet up years later and thousands of miles away from their homeland, their ''Little Liberia'' in New York City has Wilde had a tall orderfew advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to contain and accommodate their big personalities and to run a certain extentfridge, their big egosfreezer and dehydrator. Can it cope?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tracy Kidder|title=Mountains Beyond Mountains|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping the poorest She had a car - and neediest in societyfuel. He works tirelessly Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to help people less fortunate than him. ''Dedicated his life'' and ''works tirelesslylive'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful people, but when reading ''Mountains Beyond Mountains'', you'll realise there'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 the disease is wild just one part of the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference to many peoplelive off its produce. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Johns1529149800|title=Death of a PirateThings You Can Do: British Radio How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and the Making of the Information AgeSara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryHome and Family|summary=If you are inclined to take your cues from We begin with a telling story. All the weekly reviews, as birds and animals fled when the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline forest fire took hold and most of the BBCthem stood and watched, various interpretations unable to think of liberalism and how these struggle for expression in Coalition Government policyanything they could do. There are concerns too about The tiny hummingbird flew to the legislation governing the internet river and began taking tiny amounts of water and references flying back to drop them into the Sixties battles between, on the one hand, fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the unbridled self-expression of the free market andbest I can'', on said the other, hummingbird. the virtues of self-restraint in such matters as the re-examination of the Lady Chatterley trialAnd that, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing bookreally, Death of a Pirate, about is the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic only way. It combines that we will solve the history problem of modern broadcasting with a crime story and consequent trialclimate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
{{newreview|author=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story|rating=3''One more body just wouldn't matter''.5|genre=Biography|summary=In November 2007 the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife and, despite his position and busy life, feeling rather lonely. He accepted an invitation to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Bruni. The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted a man with nuclear power and he was smitten by the attentions of a beautiful, famous and intelligent woman. Within months they were married.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Beate Teresa Hanika|title=Learning to Scream|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Malvina is thirteen years oldThe murder of George Floyd, the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional family. Her father is a very grumpy teacherforty-six-year-old black man, with little understanding of childrenon 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, whilst her mother seems to suffer permanently from migraine. She has a good friend, Lizzy, and they play together as much as they canforty-four-year-old police officer, united in their dislike the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd'boys from the estate's death was an exception. Her grandmother died last year, leaving her granddad The image of Chauvin kneeling on his own and itGeorge's Malvinaneck is not one which I's job to go ll ever forget and visit him and take him his mealsthe protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. The family think this is There was a great arrangement because backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they know how much Granddad loves Malvina and looks forward to her visits. Therewere ''all's a problem though. Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her own. Granddad kisses her on tarred by the mouthChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kwame Anthony AppiahMatthieu Aikins|title=The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions HappenNaked Don't Fear the Water|rating=34.5|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=In It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the PrefaceWater isn't actually fiction, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them today. He goes on by saying that because it's all reads very much like a well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matterspaced thriller at times. WellThis is not by any means a criticism, I would certainly agree with thatbut rather a testament to how well 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. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, for example, ''the collapse There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the duel, the abandonment of footbinding, the end of Atlantic slaverywhole way through.But it'' In s written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the following chapters he debates reader to perfectly envisage the issues of those three major areas of morality. They were, in short, moral issues on a very large scaleenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Johnson1785633074|title=A Diary of The Lady: My First Year as EditorStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=34.5|genre=AutobiographyHumour|summary=Along with most Members of my contemporaries IParliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares've never read 'The Lady(that' except once when looking s for an au pair job in my student days, those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that, it turns out, is the problem''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed We are in June 2009 the average age privileged position of having access to the readership was 75memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the circulation man who was dropping and behind the magazine was haemorrhaging money. The Budworth family, proprietors skilful control of 'The Lady' since it the Covid crisis which was founded 125 years ago, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn completely contained by the magazine's fortunes around before it foldedend of 2020. He asked Rachel Johnson You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to be editorwatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Rawnsley1846276772|title=The End of the PartyBias: The Rise and Fall of New LabourHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=After decades Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised by the New Labour administrationeveryday life. White men will always come first. Never The able will come before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in the public domaindisabled. Jobs, but never before had I had quite such a feeling of really not understanding what was going onpromotions, higher salaries are the preserve of being party to only half a storythe white man. The age Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of spin told us little an organisation it's rare that we really wanted to knowtheir views are heard, but left unsaid all the important thingsthat their concerns are acknowledged. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that I'd missed Andrew RawnsleyIt's 'The End personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the Party' bias 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 not just the 2010 General Electionindividuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529148251
|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''
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 Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Penman0008350388|title=School Daze: Searching for a Decent State EducationWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=As ''To be 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 welldark-known skinned Black woman is to me but may be of news to some readers. Yesseen as less desirable, less hireable, people will really do just about anything to try less intelligent 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 ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need 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>}}Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
{{newreview|author=Geert Mak|title=An Island ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in Time: The Biography England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a Village|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In the mid 1990s journalist and author Geert Mak returned to his native Friesland and took up residence in the village of Jorwertbook by a woman. '' His aim was to investigate the quiet revolution going on in the agrarian communities not just of Holland but of the whole of Europe. ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
This wasn't going Otegha Uwagba came to be an outsider's viewthe UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. Mak grew up in the northern Dutch province; he spoke the language; he knew the games The family was hard-working, principled and understood determined that their children would have the peoplebest education possible. In There was always a very real sense Mak painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was going home… ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and finding that it scarcely existed any morethen a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546868</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark OatenRichard Brook|title=Screwing UpUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Like John Profumo I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and otherssometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the wrong reasonsway that it does now. It I believe it came to me not just because I was the episode which made him for likely to give it a while the countryfavourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's Nou.s. 1 paparazzi targetp. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, and which as he recounts in his Prologueso there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, when his even if it doesn't always turn out that way'world was crashing down' and ] – but also because it hardly needs recounting in detail. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readablebook I needed to read, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with the Blair and Brown years. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pityright now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>1800461682
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Pennac1787332098|title=School BluesHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry Mance|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Daniel Pennac's book discusses the issue of children who struggle at school'When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and offers some ideas so on how teachers can and should help . And we assign them. It is not a dry textbook places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on educational theory. He writes from personal experiencesofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, as a teacher and novelist who was once millions of wild animals stay out there, 'un cancre'somewhere, translated here as a dunce or a bad student'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Kevin Lewis|title=The Kid: A True Story|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on a poverty-stricken London council estate I was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the sort wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of home it. Essentially that the neighbours complain aboutquote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most If I had to choose between the company of her six children humans and he was beaten and starved by both the company of his parentsanimals, I would probably choose the animals. You might think I insisted that Social Services would have stepped in and removed him, I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but any relief I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to be short-livedeither do so without guilt or change my choices. Eventually he was put into care but even then I suspected that making the support was inadequate and Kevin found himself caught up in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as 'The Kid'decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1523092734|title=Decline and Fall: Diaries 2005 A Women's Guide to 2010Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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 Blair's Africa minister at the Foreign Office. He was never to get 'She brings a definitive answer to this, but was later told hug-kick-thunderclap that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweets, with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sackedevery woman needs in her life. In Decline Again and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills of politics again and return to the backbenchesagain. He might no longer be in a position of power'' (Alma Derricks, but he's still in the thick of it. Perhaps thoughformer CMO, some of the enjoyment is draining away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very important.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683998</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)
{{newreview|author=Malalai Joya|title=Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Forget entertainment – this ''To claim space is a book to read if you have any interest in live the war in Afghanistan. My particular view has developed from a British armchair, comprising part emotional reaction, a smidgeon life of history choosing unapologetically and an over-reliance on British media sourcesbravely. In a war zone where truth has been a casualty throughout, this book gives It is to live the general reader an authentic view of conditions in Afghanistan over the past twenty five years of continual warfarelife you've always wanted. Written by a young and hot-headed, wildly patriotic 'ordinary' woman, this is no more reliable than any other partisan view, but its value is to help put official news sources into their proper context. I found it educative in several senses.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041503</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Patricia Nicol|title=Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift and Going Green|rating=2.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In Sometimes the current economy, lots of people reviewing gods are trying to make ends meet generous: at a time when violence against women is much in their own ways. Not since the days of Brownie badges has the word news, ''thriftA Women's Guide to Claiming Space' been bandied around so much, but now ' 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 not so much about saving money as it is about surviving. Actually, maybe it always wassomething far more effective, but discussion at the Guiding Association thought a jolly piggy bank was a more appropriate badge emblem than a depressed family collapsed in front of their Sky TV with their supermarket-own curry struggling moment seems to fill the void left by a regular take awaybe about how women can be ''protected''. What we all I've always thought that women need is a return to the good old daysrise above this, when life was simpler and to be people happier, the days when you didnwho don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to clear half women would realise that we are not just an hour in your diary easy target to be used to navigate the olive aisle of the supermarket, and when you ate what was fresh and local, not because it was cheap or you were in the mood, but because it was all prove that they hadare big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521121</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam PhillipsPolly Barton|title=On BalanceFifty Sounds|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Essential 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 tightrope walkerwhile 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, prized as an intellectual objectiveI don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, balance which is generally considered something to on the sound ''giro' '' – which we can aspire. We praise someone who makes a balanced decisionshe describes as being, among other things, we envy people who have a the sound of 'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion every party where you have to introduce yourself'on balance' to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments and options.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241143888</amazonuk>1913097501
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James RobertsonStephen Fabes|title=And The Land Lay StillSigns of Life|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionTravel|summary=The novel starts I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places... at the endI was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. We see the fictional characterUnfortunately, photographer Mike Pendreich collating many, many photographs I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which his late father took with his trusty camerawas the guts to simply go out and do it. His father is generally acknowledged as I also didn't inherit the better kind of the two at the craft; he simply steady 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 knackrequisite 'bottle'. And what his son is now in charge In order words I'm not the sort of are black person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and white photographs charting a social history at that timenot come home for six years. And we all know Fabes did precisely that a picture is worth a thousand words.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024114356X</amazonuk>1788161211
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Green1504321383|title=Murder in the High HimalayaSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The Himalayan mountains mean many things to different people. To the people of Tibet, trapped under the atheist occupiers from China, who ran the Dalai Lama out in the 1950s in their consuming urge for lebensraum and mineral mining, they are a near-impenetrable barrier, protecting their country from history'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 to tick on the way to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because they're there.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{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. Meet, too, Frances Woodsford. She's reaching middle-age, living with her brother You can't be happy and mum in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser of events, office lackey and morefulfilled on your own. I suggest You are not complete until you do meet them, although neither ever met the other. Despite this they kept up find a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects of life, from the late 1940s until his death at the beginning of the 60s. And as a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style commentman''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Rebecca Skloot|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the age of 31. However, a sample of handsome prince who then marries her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew and reproducedso that they can live happily ever after. Often referred Few girls are lucky enough to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in be brought up ''without'' the original sample are still being used in medical expectation that they will marry and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitablechildren. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs It was a belief and on welfare, unable to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a lot of anger at this injusticechoice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=Garrett Keizer|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=What is noise? Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noise? And if so, what different term would we use Move to describe a jet aircraft taking off? Why do we respond so differently to the two? Even more intriguingly, would our response change if the birdsong woke us from an exhausted sleep but the aircraft was taking off to jet us on a long awaited holiday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]

Navigation menu