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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris MullinAlastair Humphreys|title=A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999Local|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=We tend to remember where we were Alastair Humphreys has walked and how we heard cycled all over the world. And then written about the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person to the list: John Smithit. I remember sitting in my office For this book he walked and a colleague coming in cycled very close to tell mehome and then wrote about it. She added As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader now'learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. WeNature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'d many angst-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smith's death is One of the opening entry in this, joys of the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's Diaries. This book covers for me was that the first period biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'New Labourright or wrong', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tina RosenbergEdel Rodriguez|title=Join the ClubWorm: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the WorldA Cuban American Odyssey|rating=54|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=Teenagers We're in South Carolina have become involved childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the anti-smoking movementcountry, has proven himself a Communist, passing out information encouraging their peers and not done nearly enough to educate themselves about the ways big tobacco companies try to get them hookedcreate a level playing field for all. There are youngsters in South Africa who’ve refused to have sex without a condom because Well, those hours-long speeches of the danger his were kind of HIV and AIDStaking his time away. Minority students Our narrator's family weren't in Texas have challenged data going back years by succeeding at calculus where traditionally students the happiest of their race have struggled. Why? Because other people have done places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the same thingfather being watched and watched, and they want not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to fit ease some of the heat, but in.this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848313004</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lydia Ola TaiwoSarah Wilson|title=A Broken ChildhoodThis One Wild and Precious Life: A True Story of Abusethe path back to connection in a fractured world

|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to a Nigerian couple in London in 1964 do with your one wild and spent the first five years of her precious life in a foster home in Brighton?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this. '' Here she was loved, looked after I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and lived her precious life in a genuinely good familythe way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. This wasn In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't an unusual arrangement as it allowed see that she acknowledges the biological parents source) she pushes us to earn money without worrying think about childcare whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – and Ola was happythe best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. It was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her Don't care what you'homere doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she' for s effing furious about the weekend – a weekend which would stretch into seven years of abuse and neglectfact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Max Pemberton1785633457|title=The Doctor Will See You NowCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=The NHS is one Clive Wilkinson has a history of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about, and this of course includes those of us who work travelling by unconventional means with a preference for said organisation (the world's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medicslow travel. This is As he neared his third book on eightieth birthday the subject idea of life (and death) within exploring the walls edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a hospitalpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care HomesJoan, and shouldn't it's not a bad read. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirin Ebadi1529153050|title=The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One DestinyBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Dr Ebadi Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is currently living in exile, fearing for her safety, should she return coming to Iran in the foreseeable future. Her Prologue describes a violent seem more and bloody reaction to what more like an adrenaline sport, I was a peaceful situation involving wives, mothers and sisters. Boulders and large stones were thrown at elderly, defenseless women without a momentnudged towards ''Britain's hesitationBest Political Cartoons of 2022''. A taste of things to come?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0979845645</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nigel Hamilton|title=American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush|rating=5|genre=History|summary=The Premise is simple: take twelve men (and unfortunately they are all men, but Sharp eyes will have noted thatwe's re not yet through the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them. Firstly, take a look at year: the road cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private life31 August 2022. Suetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably Who can imagine what there will be to come in-depth look at twelve consecutive American presidents from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, starting with Franklin D Roosevelt and finishing with George W Bush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520419</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bob Marshall-AndrewsB0B7289HKQ|title=Off MessageConversations Across America: The Complete Antidote to Political HumbugA Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya

|genre=AutobiographyTravel|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, rather too late by the way) wanted to be spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a career politician (he good time to do it. The decision was already an established QC) and with a profound distrust made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of authorityit - in 2015. He They had no aspirations towards office, 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which was perhaps pointed this up as well for all concerned as he more of a challenge that it would become best known be for being a dissidentmost people who considered taking it on. I occasionally enquired as to which party held his allegiance Merv Loya was 75 years old 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 pilewas suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen1739593901|title=Out Of Africa22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=AutobiographyScience Fiction|summary=It's 'Our future will be more complex than a quarter we expected. Instead of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and it's one of the few that have stayed automated elderly care with me over the intervening yearsgeolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Stephen Sedley|title=Ashes and Sparks: Essays On Law and Justice|rating=4I've got a couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Some books are hard I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read, a few stories and even harder then forget to reviewreturn to the book. This is particularly true of what are essentially academic or "professional" books and you come There's got to them as be a lay readervery compelling hook to keep me engaged. This then is my starting position on Ashes Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and Sparksthe world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary Armstrong Jane Goodall and Tim GrayDouglas Abrams |title=The Authentic Tawney: A New Interpretation of the Political Thought Book of R. H. Tawney Hope |rating=45|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Authentic Tawney takes done thing is to read a fresh look at book all the political writing of R H Tawney, a left wing academic whose works were a big influence on the huge program of postwar reform engineered by the Labour Party, particularly the provision of universal secondary education. The authors assert that Tawney's ideas changed markedly way through the course of his life and that they lack the consistency that other interpreters have erroneously attributed before you sit down to themreview it. They reject the notion that his writings have I’m making an essential unityexception here, which is philosophically interesting - don't we tend because I don’t want to assume that an intellectual's life's work will contain a central 'core' lose any of ideas? Discussion the experience of an important pioneer reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in democratic socialism also seems relevant at a time when Labour has 'lost its way' and evolved into a watered down version of the Conservativestears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845402243</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Hewlett1788360737|title=Artivism: The Sarkozy PhenomenonBattle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=42|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The old saying 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 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and whether or not it's the electorate's ability ‘’Every man… contributes to pick modifying the man or whether social environment in which he was only seen as the right man in retrospect is a moot pointdevelops’’. There areTherefore, thoughall art must be political, some surprising people at even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the head Era of European countries at the moment – with Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy at the head of my personal listPostmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. My [[Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story by Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|last attempt]] recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to find out become more about Sarkozy proved to be too lightovertly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-weight for my tastes, but this time I've gone wing” donors and media elites hoping to the opposite end of the scale with create a book from Nick Hewlett, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick more globalist and published by Imprint Academicprogressive regime. I mention those points because there is no attempt to present this as populist writing: it's scholarly from beginning to endOr at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402391</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Emmerson1398508632|title=The Future History of the Arctic: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping the north, and why it matters to the worldWilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=45|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=Charles Emmerson examines It had been on the past history cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of Arctic explorationeating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, economic exploitation and development Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the policies area around her was a known habitat with a variety of governments of countries terrains. She had electricity which include Arctic territory (and others)allowed her to run a fridge, with the aim of understanding the present freezer and predicting the future betterdehydrator. He explains the apparently contradictory title in some detail in the Introduction She had a car - and fuel. While history is about the past Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'ideas about the future have changed over time'. Also, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by wild just to live off its historyproduce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire1529149800|title=Across Many MountainsThings You Can Do: Three Daughters of TibetHow to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=BiographyHome and Family|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed We begin with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenginga telling story. This was All the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents birds and animals fled when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion forest fire took hold and most of 1959. They were leaving behind all that they knew them stood and travelling watched, unable to India in the hope that think of anything they could find sanctuary in do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the country where river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the Dalai Lama fire. The animals laughed: what good was in exilethat doing. 'Across Many Mountains' is their story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dambisa Moyo|title=How I'm doing the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices Ahead|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Moyobest I can''s first book, ''Dead Aid'' was a well regarded and oft discussed title when I worked in Developmentsaid the hummingbird. In a country where it was hard to find any book at allAnd that, somehow every ex-pat household seemed to have at least one copy of thisreally, and I followed is the sheep and had a read. It was a great, insightful book only way that we could all identify withwill solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, and I was eager to read her second, if somewhat unrelated workhowever small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142350</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Michael Lewis|title=The Big Short|rating=4|genre=Business and Finance|summary=So. The subprime mortgage crisis, the worldwide financial crisis, people losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their security. Unregulated greed, that went on and on and on. And the people who caused it all got rich during and after, 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 to bets with unbelievable amounts of money. How did it all come about and how did 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 the 1980s, so does ''The Big Short'' perfectly tell the tale of Wall Street in the 2000s. In fact, given the extent of the current global clusterfuck, it makes the shocking ''LiarOne more body just wouldn's Pokert matter'' look positively mild by comparison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043539</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Xinran|title=Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Xinran first came to my notice with her 2002 book "The Good Women murder of China" which retold tales of the women she had come across through her work in Chinese radioGeorge Floyd, where for many years she had hosted the local equivalent of a cross between Woman's Hour and forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a late night phoneforty-in talk show. She has been busy bringing us other stories four-year-old police officer, in the meantime, but in this latest work she returns to those early days in radio and US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the stories she learnedworld. Many We rarely see pictures of these stories she decided were too painful to tella murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. They speak The image of children, specifically daughters, abandoned by Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their Chinese mothers one way colour or anothercreed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PolitkovskayaMatthieu Aikins|title=Nothing but The Naked Don't Fear the Truth: Selected Dispatches Water

|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Russian newspaper Novaya gazetaWater isn't actually fiction, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnyabecause it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, on Putin, on state corruption but 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 on life in Russia under his regimeat times painful journey. She never avoided controversy There are tense moments and received a number gripping accounts of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. She had reason to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled But it'Is Journalism Worth s written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the Loss of a Life?' reports reader to perfectly envisage the attempted murder of one of her colleaguesenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonny Steinberg1785633074|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York CityStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous nonMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister -fiction books and after reading the praise from various sources ''primus inter pares'' (New York Times, J M Coetzeethat's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) I came to but the conclusion reality is that I was in for a serious and thoughtthe ''prime'' movers are the special advisers -provoking read. The preface tells us that the two Liberian men SPADS - Rufus and who are the driving force behind the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and for different reasonsgovernment. But as they meet up years later and thousands We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of miles away from their homelandRafe Hubris, their ''Little Liberia'' in New York City has a tall order: the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to contain and accommodate their big personalities and to a certain extent, their big egoswatch. Can it cope?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Kidder1846276772|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsThe End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell

|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly extent to help people less fortunate than him. which they suffer from it: it''Dedicated his s simply a part of everyday life'' and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful people. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, but higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when reading ''Mountains Beyond Mountainsthose who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, you'll realise therethat their concerns are acknowledged. It's not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, personally appalling and worked degrading for them, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating the disease is just one part individuals on the receiving end 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], bias but it's not just the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwideindividuals who are negatively impacted. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Adrian Johns|title=Death of Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a Pirate: British Radio and the Making certain frame of the Information Age|rating=4|genre=History|summary=If you are inclined mind. You're not going to take your cues from the weekly reviews, as the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed the matter, you will doubtless find currently articles as varied as; Russell Brand predicting the imminent decline read a book of the BBC, various interpretations of liberalism and how these struggle for expression in Coalition Government policyessays or a self-help book. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the Sixties battles between, on television industry at the one hand, Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the unbridled self-expression of book but you need to ''listen'' to the free market and, on the other, the virtues of self-restraint in such matters words as the though you're-examination of in the Lady Chatterley trial, now lecture theatre. fifty years ago. An unusual The disjointedness will fade away and quite intriguing book, Death of a Pirate, about the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches you'll be carried on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines the history cloud of modern broadcasting with a crime story and consequent trialexquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual0008350388|title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story|rating=3.5|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 We Need 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>}} {{newreviewTalk About Money|author=Beate Teresa Hanika|title=Learning to ScreamOtegha Uwagba

|summary=After decades of watching politics more or ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less assiduously I was surprised by the New Labour administration. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in the public domaindesirable, but never before had I had quite such a feeling of really not understanding what was going onless hireable, of being party to only half a storyless intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts.. The age of spin told us little that we really wanted 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 Party' but now IWe Need to Talk About Money'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>}}by Otegha Uwagba

{{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 to some readers'0. Yes, people will really do just about anything to try and get their children into the school 7% of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this English Literature GCSE students in England study a book work as an insight into the type by a writer of measures some people will go to for those readers unaware of the desperation thatcan set in at this time in colour while only 7% study a child’s life? It’s book by a good question…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>}}woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Geert Mak|title=An Island in Time: The Biography of a Village|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In Otegha Uwagba came to the mid 1990s journalist UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and author Geert Mak returned to his native Friesland nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and took up residence in determined that their children would have the village of Jorwertbest education possible. His aim There was to investigate the quiet revolution going on in the agrarian communities always a painful awareness of money although this did not just translate into a shortage of Holland but of the whole of Europe.  This wasn't going to be an outsider's viewanything: it was simply carefully harvested. Mak grew up in When Otegha was ten the northern Dutch province; he spoke the language; he knew the games and understood the peoplefamily acquired a car. In For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a very real sense Mak was going home… 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

|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

|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

|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

|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

|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]]