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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787333175
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.
|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529934753
|title=The Protest
|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ariel Saramandi
|title=Portrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting'', a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.
|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Pekka Harju-Autti
|title=LoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the islanders' leader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.
|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)
|title=Lili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.
|isbn=1804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Gregor Hens and Jen Calleja (translator)
|title=The City and the World
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In ''The City and the World'', Gregor Hens reveals how cities are as much imagined spaces as they are physical ones. With a deep affection for the urban landscapes that have shaped his life, Hens reflects on places like Cologne, Berlin, and Goch on the Lower Rhine with a blend of personal memory and thoughtful observation. His writing, at times abstract, captures not just architectural features but the emotional and mental geographies tied to each location, for example, his perspectives as a child as opposed to as an adult. From Belgium and Germany to Berkeley and Columbus, Hens traces a map of experiences, turning cities into reflections of identity and belonging.
|isbn=1804271691
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)
|title=Hunchback
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was in the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and turned to the back inside cover. There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.
|isbn=0241700787
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Penman
|title=Erik Satie Three Piece Suite
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. It is divided into three sections: the first, an essay, the second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, his muse.
|isbn=1804271535
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1786482126
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)
|title=The Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world.
|isbn=1804271470
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551375
|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008643660
|title=The Burial Place
|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=A group of archaeologists are uncovering a Roman site close to Little Sky: it's idyllic and some of the excavations are being televised. There's even a hoard of Roman gold worth millions which will be split between the finders and the landowner. It's perfect until the group begin receiving threatening letters. Jake Jackson, a former police detective, is trying to lead a simpler life at Little Sky but he's inevitably drawn in to investigate. Reading the letters, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that there will be violence and even the local police are keen that Jake should be involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.
|isbn=1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Samantha Harvey
|title=Orbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.
|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551324
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008405026
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Mary McCarthy
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|isbn=000862657X
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|isbn=0008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|isbn=1471196585
}}