Difference between revisions of "Newest Politics and Society Reviews"

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[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
 
[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__  <!-- Remove  -->
==Politics and society==
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alastair Humphreys
{{newreview
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|title=Local
|author=Nicholas Shaxson
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|rating=5
|title=Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World
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|genre=Travel
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|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.
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|isbn=1785633678
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Edel Rodriguez
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|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Most people think about the subject of tax havens - if they need to think about them at all - as something which is unlikely ever to concern them and that they're for the super-rich and celebritiesWhat might surprise them is that more than half of world trade as well as most international lending is routed through them and that many common items in your everyday shopping will come to you via a tax haven. And we really should be thinking about them because tax havens are ensuring that wealth in unprecedented amounts is being transferred from the poor to the rich - greatly exceeding the aid which flows in the opposite direction.
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|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba.  The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all.  Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away.  Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of 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 father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon.  The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099541726</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1474616720
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sarah Wilson
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|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world
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|rating=3.5
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|genre= Lifestyle
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|summary= 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 ''This!  Precisely this.''  I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want toSarah Wilson is equally lucky.  In 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 life we want – the best life that we could be living.  Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''.  Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.
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|isbn=1785633848
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633457
|author=Louise Foxcroft
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|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car
|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years
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|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Travel
|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with is a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution to Get Healthy. So it’s the perfect time for a new diet book to hit the shelves. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to be full of useful tips, and the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes and even a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: '''a history of dieting over 2000 years'''.
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|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|author=Dennis O'Donnell
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|title=The Locked Ward
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|author=Tim Benson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Humour
|summary=Dennis O’Donnell spent 7 years working in a Scottish hospital and this is the account of his time there. It takes a special type of person to work in Mental Health services, and though O'Donnell ultimately leaves the Locked Ward, he clearly is one of those people, made all the more remarkable by the fact that this wasn’t his life long vocation, having previously worked as a school teacher (some might say an equally challenging role).  
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|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''.  Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093606</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0B7289HKQ
|author=Denise Kiernan
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|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America
|title=Signing Their Rights Away
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|author=Kari Loya
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=History
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|genre=Travel
|summary=
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|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it.  The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015.  They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.
Many Americans believe that the Declaration of Independence is the cornerstone of the American democracy, the fountain-head of the American Way of Life and the American Dream. The 4th of July is the national holiday and often thought to be the single most important date in American history.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474520X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1739593901
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
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|rating=5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|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
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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 then forget to return to the book.  There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged.  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 the world scape are purely incidental.  So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories?  Well, I loved it.
|author=Richard Heinberg
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|title=The End of Growth
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{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
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|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
|genre=Business and Finance
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|title=The Book of Hope 
|summary=With the newspapers full of economic doom and gloom the last thing you might want is to pick up a book that reiterates it and then some. But while this book may seem at first glance to be a bit of a downer, it also provides an insight into how things might just work out ok in the end. Yes, they’ll be some big changes – there have to be because the direction we’ve been heading in is just not sustainable – but if we’re willing to adapt, we will survive was the main message I picked up as I flicked through the pages.
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|rating=5
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570333</amazonuk>
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|genre=Politics and Society
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|summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.  
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|isbn=024147857X
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1788360737
|author=David Lammy
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|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism
|title=Out of the Ashes: Britain After the Riots
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|author=Alexander Adams
|rating=4.5
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|rating=2
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=Just about everyone in the country was shocked as pictures of the 2011 riots (which began in Tottenham and spread to other major cities in the UK) unfolded on our television screens.  Everyone, that is, except David Lammy, MP for the area.  He might not have known when it would happen or what would trigger the riot, but a year before, he said that it would happen. This wasn't a lucky guess: Lammy was born in Tottenham and brought up on the Broadwater Farm Estate as one of five children raised by his single-parent mother and he knows what's happening on the ground.
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|summary= 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 social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new 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. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652674</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1398508632
|author=Luke Harding
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|title=The Wilderness Cure
|title=Mafia State
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|author=Mo Wilde
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
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|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=
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|summary=It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food.  The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains.  She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator.  She had a car - and fuel.  Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.
Luke Harding set himself a difficult task when he took up his post as the Guardian’s main man in Moscow. He had already put his name to a front page story which appeared in the Guardian in April 2007. This was an account of an interview with the arch-oligarch and Kremlin critic, Boris Berezovsky. Harding was not at the interview but added background to the article from Moscow. However, to be in any way associated with Berezovsky was sufficient to incur the wrath of the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB – the successor to the KGB. The offending account was entitled, 'I am plotting a new Russian revolution - London exile Berezovsky says force necessary to bring down President Putin'.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085265247X</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529149800
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|title=Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste
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|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
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|rating=4
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|genre=Home and Family
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|summary=We begin with a telling story.  All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do.  The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing.  ''I'm doing the best I can'', said the hummingbird.  And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1638485216
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|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
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|author=Frederick Reynolds
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
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|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific.  It has everything to do with character. Period.''
  
{{newreview
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''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
|author=Ed Vulliamy
 
|title=Amexica: War Along the Borderline
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=More than 38,000 people have been killed in the last 3 years in what Ed Vulliamy argues is an unacknowledged war, on the long border (2,100 miles) between Mexico and the United States. The war is between drug trafficking gangs over control of the lucrative drugs trade from Mexico to the US. In this compelling and disturbing work of reportage Vulliamy travels through the borderlands meeting some of the people affected.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546566</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world.  We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exceptionThe image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpectedThere was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.
|author=Jennifer Hayashi Danns and Leveque Sandrine
 
|title=Stripped: The Bare Reality of Lap Dancing
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Before I can start, I should qualify that I have never been, nor tried to be, a lapdancer.  Nor have I ever gone to a lapdancing club, nor ever tried to.  I have no opinion on the matter, save that I can't imagine, in the world of free internet porn, paying some averagely attractive woman to wiggle her semi-nudity in the general direction of my face, and thinking it erotically arousingSo I come to this academically-designed volume on the matter with no prejudiceIf only that were the case with the creators.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905570325</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Matthieu Aikins
|author=Stephen H Segal
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|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water
|title=Geek Wisdom
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=I am by no means a fully fledged geek, but on the Big Bang scale I'm probably more of a Leonard than a Penny. I was weaned on ''Star Trek '', chose ''Hitchhiker’s Guide... '' as my reading aloud piece for a Year 7 exam, and think it would be more than a little fun to take a trip to Comic Con.  At the same time, there are gaping holes in my knowledge. My first celeb crush might have been ''Blake’s 7’s'' Villa but I've never seen a ''Batman'' film, never read a comic book, never quite understood what all the ''Star Wars'' fuss was about. If Sci Fi is a religion, then this is the book that can fill me in one the stories, the parables, the rules, as it were, of geekdom. I had to have it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594745277</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Laurence Manley (editor)
 
|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The history of London is a long and storied one, and it's unsurprising that so many people have written about the capital. I've always loved the city, its history and novels and plays set within London, so was really keen to get my hands on this new volume in the Cambridge Companion series.
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|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to 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. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521722314</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B09N9157T6
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Jolyon Fenwick and Marcus Husselby
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|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=It Could Have Been Yours: The enlightened person's guide to the year's most desirable things
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|author=Josh Berry
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
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|genre=Humour
|summary=In a world of diamond-encrusted skulls, gold-leafed iPhones and luxury yachts ten a penny, of blingy shit (or should that be shitty bling?) it's a relief to know people are still spending money on unique one-offs that are more worthwhile.  The records for costliest photo, artwork, musical instrument and manuscript have all been broken in the twenty four months leading up to this book's release.  Our collators have scoured the press for those and other, similarly noteworthy auctions, and found what other people paid for what you didn't know you would have wanted given the money.
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|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the governmentWe are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, 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 watch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684900</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John L Locke
 
|title=Duels and Duets: Why Men and Women Talk So Differently
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Popular Science
 
|summary=Locke's subtitle ''Why Men and Women Talk So Differently'' might lead you to think that this is just another self-help ''Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'' tomeIt's not.  Rather than focussing upon what we all know from experience – that men and women do not communicate very well because of some fundamental difference in their respective approach to verbal expression – the New York City University Professor of Linguistics sets out to explain WHY that might be.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521887135</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1846276772
|author=Frank Furedi
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|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds
|title=On Tolerance: The Life Style Wars: A Defence of Moral Independence
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|author=Jessica Nordell
|rating=4
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Furedi is a Professor of Sociology at a UK university so he'll know his subject matter inside out.  The short preface tells us that 'tolerance has been emptied of its moral and intellectual meaning.'  This publication's aim is to argue the case for tolerance in society.  How its meaning has changed over the centuries until today's rather fuzzy and watered-down meaning.  Professor Furedi was spurred on to writing this book because he firmly believes that tolerance has been lost somehow, to be almost invisible in some areas of public and private life.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441120106</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chris Mullin
 
|title=A Walk-on Part: Diaries 1994 - 1999
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We tend to remember where we were and how we heard about the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person to the list: John Smith.  I remember sitting in my office and a colleague coming in to tell meShe added 'I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader now'We'd many angst-ridden miles to go before that came about but Smith's death is the opening entry in this, the third volume (but first chronologically) of Chris Mullin's DiariesThis book covers the first period of 'New Labour', from Smith's death until Mullin's assumption into government in July 1999.
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|summary=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 everyday lifeWhite men will always come firstThe able will come before the disabled.  Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white manEven when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged.  It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529148251
|author=Tina Rosenberg
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|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|title=Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World
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|author=Michaela Coel
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Teenagers in South Carolina have become involved in the anti-smoking movement, passing out information encouraging their peers to educate themselves about the ways big tobacco companies try to get them hooked. There are youngsters in South Africa who’ve refused to have sex without a condom because of the danger of HIV and AIDS. Minority students in Texas have challenged data going back years by succeeding at calculus where traditionally students of their race have struggled. Why? Because other people have done the same thing, and they want to fit in.
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|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.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848313004</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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 bookYou'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 FestivalYou 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.
|author=Lydia Ola Taiwo
 
|title=A Broken Childhood: A True Story of Abuse
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Mojisola – known to everyone as Ola – was born to a Nigerian couple in London in 1964 and spent the first five years of her life in a foster home in BrightonHere she was loved, looked after and lived her life in a genuinely good family. This wasn't an unusual arrangement as it allowed the biological parents to earn money without worrying about childcare – and Ola was happyIt was all the more cruel when her biological father arrived to take her 'home' for the weekend – a weekend which would stretch into seven years of abuse and neglect.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846245907</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008350388
|author=Max Pemberton
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|title=We Need to Talk About Money
|title=The Doctor Will See You Now
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|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The NHS is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about, and this of course includes those of us who work 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 medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion to rather misnamed Care Homes, and it's not a bad read.
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|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...''  ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
|author=Shirin Ebadi
 
|title=The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Dr Ebadi is currently living in exile, fearing for her safety, should she return to Iran in the foreseeable future.  Her Prologue describes a violent and bloody reaction to what was a peaceful situation involving wives, mothers and sistersBoulders and large stones were thrown at elderly, defenseless women without a moment's hesitation.  A taste of things to come?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0979845645</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Otegha Uwagba came to the 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 laterThe family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possibleThere 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 family acquired a car.  For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
|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 that's not the author's fault) who have achieved high office and look at each of them.  Firstly, take a look at the road to the high office, then how they performed once they reached their goal and finally a look at their private lifeSuetonius did it first when he wrote ''The Twelve Caesars'' and now Nigel Hamilton has taken the same journey with ''American Caesars'', a remarkably 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>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Bob Marshall-Andrews
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|author=Richard Brook
|title=Off Message: The Complete Antidote to Political Humbug
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|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|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. 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.
+
|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes 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, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now.   I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1800461682
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1787332098
|author=Karen Blixen
+
|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World
|title=Out Of Africa
+
|author=Henry Mance
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years.  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=4.5
 
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|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.
+
|summary=''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
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 wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices.  I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.
|author=Gary Armstrong and Tim Gray
 
|title=The Authentic Tawney: A New Interpretation of the Political Thought of R. H. Tawney
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=The Authentic Tawney takes a fresh look at 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 through the course of his life and that they lack the consistency that other interpreters have erroneously attributed to them. They reject the notion that his writings have an essential unity, which is philosophically interesting - don't we tend to assume that an intellectual's life's work will contain a central 'core' of ideas? Discussion 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 of the Conservatives.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402243</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1523092734
|author=Nick Hewlett
+
|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space
|title=The Sarkozy Phenomenon
+
|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The old saying is that 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and whether or not it's the electorate's ability to pick the man or whether he was only seen as the right man in retrospect is a moot point. There are, though, some surprising people at the head of European countries at the moment – with Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy at the head of my personal list. 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 tastes, but this time I'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.  I mention those points because there is no attempt to present this as populist writing: it's scholarly from beginning to end.
+
|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402391</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to live the life you've always wanted.''
|author=Charles Emmerson
 
|title=The Future History of the Arctic: How climate, resources and geopolitics are reshaping the north, and why it matters to the world
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Charles Emmerson examines the past history of Arctic exploration, economic exploitation and development and the policies of governments of countries which include Arctic territory (and others), with the aim of understanding the present and predicting the future better. He explains the apparently contradictory title in some detail in the Introduction. While history is about the past, 'ideas about the future have changed over time'. Also, the future of the Arctic will be shaped by its history.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523531</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk.  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 moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''.  I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own spaceIf all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.
|author=Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire
 
|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of Tibet
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challengingThis was the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion of 1959They were leaving behind all that they knew and travelling to India 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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Polly Barton
|author=Dambisa Moyo
+
|title=Fifty Sounds
|title=How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices Ahead
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Moyo's first book, ''Dead Aid'' was a well regarded and oft discussed title when I worked in Development. In a country where it was hard to find any book at all, somehow every ex-pat household seemed to have at least one copy of this, and I followed the sheep and had a read. It was a great, insightful book that we could all identify with, and I was eager to read her second, if somewhat unrelated work.
+
|summary= 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 while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142350</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1913097501
}}
 
 
 
{{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 ''Liar's Poker'' look positively mild by comparison.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043539</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Stephen Fabes
|author=Xinran
+
|title=Signs of Life
|title=Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|genre=Travel
|summary=Xinran first came to my notice 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 for many years she had hosted the local equivalent 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 meantime, but in this latest work she returns to those early days in radio and the stories she learnedMany of these stories she decided were too painful to tellThey speak of children, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or another.
+
|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity.  Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of 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 requisite 'bottle'In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six yearsFabes did precisely that.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788161211
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1504321383
|author=Anna Politkovskaya
+
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches
+
|author=Louisa Pateman
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnya, on Putin, 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 'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of a Life?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleagues.
+
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
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 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 afterFew girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have childrenIt was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
|author=Jonny Steinberg
 
|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York City
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Biography
 
|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 the conclusion that I was in for a serious and thought-provoking read.
 
   
 
The preface tells us that the two Liberian men - Rufus and the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances and for different reasonsBut as they meet up years later and thousands of miles away from their homeland, their ''Little Liberia'' in New York City has a tall order:  to contain and accommodate their big personalities and to a certain extent, their big egos. Can it cope?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move to [[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]
|author=Tracy Kidder
 
|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'' and ''works tirelessly'' - 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 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 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>
 
}}
 

Revision as of 12:00, 26 December 2023

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Review of

Local by Alastair Humphreys

5star.jpg Travel

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. Full Review

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Review of

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

4star.jpg Graphic Novels

We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of 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 father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen… Full Review

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Review of

This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world by Sarah Wilson

3.5star.jpg Lifestyle

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 This! Precisely this. I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really are living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal no, we are not. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not. Full Review

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Review of

Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car by Clive Wilkinson

5star.jpg Travel

Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it? Full Review

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Review of

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022 by Tim Benson

4star.jpg Humour

Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition? Full Review

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Review of

Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America by Kari Loya

4star.jpg Travel

Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's. Full Review

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Review of

22 Ideas About The Future by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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.

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 then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. 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 the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. Full Review

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Review of

The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams

5star.jpg Politics and Society

The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. Full Review

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Review of

Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism by Alexander Adams

2star.jpg Politics and Society

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 social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new 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. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. Full Review

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Review of

The Wilderness Cure by Mo Wilde

5star.jpg Lifestyle

It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to live wild just to live off its produce. Full Review

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Review of

Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste by Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

4star.jpg Home and Family

We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. I'm doing the best I can, said the hummingbird. And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be. Full Review

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Review of

Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement by Frederick Reynolds

5star.jpg Autobiography

Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.

One more body just wouldn't matter.

The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of 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 colour or creed they were all tarred by the Chauvin brush. Full Review

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Review of

The Naked Don't Fear the Water by Matthieu Aikins

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to 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. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described. Full Review

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Review of

Staggering Hubris by Josh Berry

4.5star.jpg Humour

Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the primus inter pares (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the prime movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, 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 watch. Full Review

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Review of

The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds by Jessica Nordell

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

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 everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted. Full Review

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Review of

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela Coel

5star.jpg Politics and Society

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. Full Review

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Review of

We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

5star.jpg Politics and Society

To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... We Need to Talk About Money by Otegha Uwagba

0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman. The Bookseller 29 June 2021

Otegha Uwagba came to the 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. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. 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 family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford. Full Review

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Review of

Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life by Richard Brook

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes 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, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now. Full Review

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Review of

How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance

5star.jpg Politics and Society

When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, somewhere, hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.

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 wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable. Full Review

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Review of

A Women's Guide to Claiming Space by Eliza Van Cort

5star.jpg Politics and Society

She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again. (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)

To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to live the life you've always wanted.

Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, A Women's Guide to Claiming Space by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. 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 moment seems to be about how women can be protected. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men. Full Review

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Review of

Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton

4.5star.jpg Politics and Society

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 while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question why Japan? She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is on the sound giro' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of every party where you have to introduce yourself. Full Review

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Review of

Signs of Life by Stephen Fabes

5star.jpg Travel

I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of 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 requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that. Full Review

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Review of

Single, Again, and Again, and Again by Louisa Pateman

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man.

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 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 be brought up without the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that a belief is a choice. Full Review

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