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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Ariel Saramandi|title=Portrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and societySociety|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__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=XinranGregor Hens and Jen Calleja (translator)|title=Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss The City and Love the World|rating=54
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Xinran first came to my notice with her 2002 book "In ''The Good Women of China" which retold tales of City and the women she had come across through her work in Chinese radioWorld'', where Gregor Hens reveals how cities are as much imagined spaces as they are physical ones. With a deep affection for many years she had hosted the local equivalent urban landscapes that have shaped his life, Hens reflects on places like Cologne, Berlin, and Goch on the Lower Rhine with a blend of a cross between Woman's Hour personal memory and a late night phone-in talk showthoughtful observation. She has been busy bringing us other stories in His writing, at times abstract, captures not just architectural features but the meantimeemotional and mental geographies tied to each location, for example, but in this latest work she returns his perspectives as a child as opposed to those early days in radio as an adult. From Belgium and the stories she learned. Many of these stories she decided were too painful Germany to tell. They speak Berkeley and Columbus, Hens traces a map of childrenexperiences, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or anotherturning cities into reflections of identity and belonging.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>1804271691
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PolitkovskayaPaul B Preciado|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for ''It is never too late to embrace the Russian newspaper Novaya gazetarevolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnyaconsisting of arias, on Putinletters, on state corruption essays and on life in Russia under autofiction, Preciado expresses his regime. She never avoided controversy own hybrid self, and received brings forth a number new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006political apathy. She had reason Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled 'Is Journalism Worth '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 Loss backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a Life?global scale, or as ' reports the attempted murder 'pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of one of her colleaguesweakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>1804271454
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonny SteinbergJacqueline Feldman|title=Little Liberia: An African Odyssey in New York CityPrecarious Lease|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=South African Steinberg has won awards with previous non-fiction books and after reading the praise from various sources The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (New York Times, J M Coetzee''bail précaire'') I came to the conclusion that I was associated with squatters in for a serious France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and thought-provoking readprocesses, but few scant property rights. The preface tells us that the two Liberian men - Rufus Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and the younger Jacob left Liberian soil La Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in vastly different circumstances one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for different reasons. But as they meet up years later artists and thousands marginal members of miles away from their homelandsociety (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, their ''Little LiberiaI live on the margins of the margins of the margins'' in New York City has a tall order: ), Le Bloc was subject to contain the continual threat of eviction and accommodate their big personalities and to the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as a certain extent, their big egostragedy in this book. Can it cope?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>1804271403
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tracy KidderClaire Dederer|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=4.53|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life Dederer sets out to helping the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. unveil what she calls a ''Dedicated his lifebiography of the audience'' and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful peoplein a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, but when reading exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''Mountains Beyond Mountainscancel culture'', you'll realise there. Dederer's not a shred of hyperbole about these claimswork is original and expressive. Farmer began working with tuberculosis The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and AIDS patients in Haitionto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and then worked with themexalts the director Roman Polanski, and worked an artist she personally admires for themhis art, and worked with yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, and worked is consistent for themthe first few chapters, and worked with them. In an area where treating interrogating the disease is just one part likes of the problemWoody Allen, where poverty Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is rifeacutely present throughout, he has transformed an areanever slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, saved countless livesas she holds it so dearly, and made an incredible difference to many people. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health]a personal, the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwiderather than collective voice. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>1399715070
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adrian JohnsVirginie Despentes|title=Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information AgeKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryAutobiography |summary=If you are inclined to take your cues from the weekly reviews''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen 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 of the BBC, various interpretations of liberalism and how these struggle a call to arms for expression women in Coalition Government policya phallocentric society broken at its core. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back to the Sixties battles betweenOriginally written in French, on the one hand, the unbridled self-expression book is a collection of the free market and, on the other, the virtues of self-restraint essays in such matters which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the re-examination complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing bookcan feel somewhat disjointed, Death of a Pirate, about the development reflection of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines the history of modern broadcasting with a crime story and consequent trialtheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>191309734X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual1009473085|title=Nicolas Sarkozy The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Carla Bruni: The True StoryTom Egerton (Editors)|rating=3.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=In November 2007 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 French Presidentinside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife andI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, despite his position and busy life{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, feeling rather lonelycan be bettered for those tumultuous years. He accepted an invitation to It's a dinner party from a friend compelling read and met supermodel and recording artist, Carla Brunishould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The attraction between them was instant – she had already said that she wanted Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a man with nuclear power government has made and he was smitten by 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 attentions state of a beautifulthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, famous the changes that occurred and intelligent woman. Within months they were marriedthe situation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beate Teresa HanikaAlastair Humphreys|title=Learning to ScreamLocal
|rating=5
|genre=TeensTravel |summary=Malvina is thirteen years old, Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the youngest of three children in a dysfunctional familyworld. And then written about it. Her father is a For this book he walked and cycled very grumpy teacherclose to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, with little understanding of children, whilst her mother seems the book is an attempt ''to suffer permanently share what I have learnt about some big issues from migrainea year exploring a small map. She has a good friendNature loss, Lizzypollution, land use and they play together as much as they canaccess, united in their dislike agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the 'boys from book for me was that the estate'. Her grandmother died last yearbiggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, leaving her granddad on his own and itno single 's Malvinaright or wrong's job , that every upside is likely to go and visit him and take him his meals. The family think this is have a great arrangement because they know how much Granddad loves Malvina downside for somebody and looks forward to her visits. There's a problem though. Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her own. Granddad kisses her on the mouththat there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kwame Anthony AppiahEdel Rodriguez|title=The Honor CodeWorm: How Moral Revolutions HappenA Cuban American Odyssey|rating=3.54|genre=HistoryGraphic Novels|summary=In the PrefaceWe're in childhood, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as and we live them today're in Cuba. He goes on by saying that it's all very well thinking about morality - our morals - our own code The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matterscountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, I would certainly agree with thatthose hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subject, he tells his readers that he was struck by similarities between, for example, Our narrator's family weren't in the collapse happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the duelgood soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the abandonment of footbindingfather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, the end of Atlantic slaverysuccess being frowned upon.'' In The mother gets the following chapters he debates couple jobs with the issues party to ease some of those three major areas of morality. They werethe heat, but in shortthis sultry island country, moral issues on a very large scale.it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel JohnsonSarah Wilson|title=A Diary of The LadyThis One Wild and Precious Life: My First Year as Editorthe path back to connection in a fractured world
|rating=3.5
|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Along My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with most of your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my contemporaries Ianswer is ''This! Precisely this.'ve never read 'The Lady I' except once when looking for an au pair job in m lucky enough to be living my student days, one wild and that, it turns out, precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is the problemequally lucky. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed in June 2009 In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the average age of source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the readership was 75, life we want – the circulation was dropping and the magazine was haemorrhaging moneybest life that we could be living. The Budworth family Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, proprietors of we are not'The '. LadyDon't care what you' since it was founded 125 years agore doing, she thinks you (we, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn the magazineI) could be doing more…And she's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editoreffing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>1785633848
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Rawnsley1785633457|title=The End of Charging Around: Exploring the Party: The Rise and Fall Edges of New LabourEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=After decades Clive Wilkinson has a history of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the New Labour administration. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in idea of exploring the public domain, but never before had I had quite such a feeling edges of really England in an electric car was not understanding what was going ontotally outrageous. In fact, of being party to only half it should be a story. The age of spin told us little that we really wanted to knowpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, but left unsaid all the important things. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that I'd missed Andrew Rawnsley's 'The End of the Partyshouldn' but now I'm rather glad that I did as t it's been republished in paperback with two additional chapters which include the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Penman1529153050|title=School Daze: Searching for a Decent State EducationBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=3.54|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=As a teacher myselfSeeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, Iwas nudged towards ''Britain'm naturally well aware of most s Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the aspects of education that Andrew Penman discusses here and some of year: the stories he repeats are well-known cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to me but may be of news to some readers31 August 2022. Yes, people Who can imagine what there will really do just about anything be to try and get their children into the school of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this book work as an insight into come in the type of measures some people will go to for those readers unaware of the desperation thatcan set in at this time in a child’s life2023 edition? It’s a good question…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Geert MakB0B7289HKQ|title=An Island in TimeConversations Across America: The Biography A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of a VillageAmerica|author=Kari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=In Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the mid 1990s journalist and author Geert Mak returned way) wanted to spend some time with his native Friesland father and took up residence in the village of Jorwertperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. His aim The decision was made to investigate ride the quiet revolution going on 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 agrarian communities not just of Holland recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of the whole 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739593901|title=22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of Europeflying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma. ''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark OatenJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Screwing UpThe Book of Hope |rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society |summary=Like John Profumo and othersThe 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, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360737|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the wrong reasonsEra of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=2|genre= Politics and Society|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It was is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the episode social environment in which made him for a while the country's Nohe develops’’. 1 paparazzi targetTherefore, all art must be political, and which as he recounts even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his Prologue, new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when his 'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detailis art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Yet when all is said Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and done, this is media elites hoping to create a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with the Blair more globalist and Brown yearsprogressive regime. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pityOr at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Pennac1398508632|title=School BluesThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Daniel Pennac's book discusses It had been on the cards for a while but it was the issue week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of children who struggle at schoolNovember, 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 offers some ideas on how teachers can and should help thema pandemic. It is not Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a dry textbook on educational theoryvariety of terrains. He writes from personal experience She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, as freezer and dehydrator. She had a teacher car - and novelist who fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was once not a plan to ''live'un cancre', translated here as a dunce or a bad studentwild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Lewis1529149800|title=The KidThings You Can Do: A True StoryHow to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyHome and Family|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on We begin with a poverty-stricken London council estate in telling story. All the sort of home that birds and animals fled when the neighbours complain about. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than forest fire took hold and most of her six children them stood and he was beaten and starved by both watched, unable to think of his parentsanything they could do. You might think that Social Services would have stepped in The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and removed him, but any relief was flying back to be short-liveddrop them into the fire. Eventually he The animals laughed: what good was put into care but even then that doing. ''I'm doing the support was inadequate and Kevin found himself caught up in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as best I can'The Kid', 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1638485216|title=Decline Black, White, and FallGray All Over: Diaries 2005 to 2010A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|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'Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. He was never to get a definitive answer It has everything to this, but was later told that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweets, do with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sackedcharacter. In Decline and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills of politics and return to the backbenchesPeriod. He might no longer be in a position of power, but he's still in the thick of it. Perhaps though, 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>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam PhillipsMatthieu Aikins|title=On BalanceThe Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Essential for 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 tightrope walkercriticism, prized as an intellectual objective, balance is generally considered something but rather a testament to which we can aspire. We praise someone how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who makes decided to accompany his friend as a balanced decision, we envy people who have refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a 'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion 'vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on balanceedge the whole way through. But it' s written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments perfectly envisage the environments and optionspeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241143888</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Robertson1785633074|title=And The Land Lay StillStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHumour|summary=The novel starts ... at 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 endgovernment. We see are in the privileged position of having access to the fictional charactermemoirs of Rafe Hubris, photographer Mike Pendreich collating many, many photographs which his late father took with his trusty camera. His father is generally acknowledged as the better man who was behind the skilful control of the two at Covid crisis which was completely contained by the craft; he simply had the knack. And what his son is now in charge end of are black and white photographs charting a social history at that time2020. And we all You might not know that a picture is worth a thousand wordsthe name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114356X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Green1846276772|title=Murder in the High HimalayaThe End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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 life. White men will always come first. The Himalayan mountains mean many things to different peopleable will come before the disabled. To Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the people preserve of Tibet, trapped under the atheist occupiers from China, white man. Even when those who ran wouldn't pass the Dalai Lama out in the 1950s in medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their consuming urge for lebensraum and mineral mining, they views are a near-impenetrable barrierheard, protecting that their country from historyconcerns are acknowledged. It's prior ravages, but keeping people who want out, very much in. To rich Westerners, they are a sparkling challenge - a task of personally appalling and degrading for the highest order, a box to tick individuals on the way to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because theyreceiving end of the bias but it're theres not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529148251
|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Skloot0008350388|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, ''To be a mother of five childrendark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. Howeverless hireable, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew less intelligent and reproducedultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitable. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs and on welfare, unable '' ''We Need to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>}}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
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RushkoffRichard Brook|title=Life IncUnderstanding Human Nature: How the World Became a Corporation and How A User's Guide to Take it BackLife|rating=34.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=The author 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 was mugged outside his apartment one Christmas EveI'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. He posted a note online I believe it came to warn his neighbours me not just because I was likely to be extra carefulgive it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, and was promptly berated for doing something so public that could potentially damage property values in his local area. This there is a thought-provoking snippet, and if predisposition towards expecting to like the whole book was like this, Ieven if it doesn't always turn out that way''m sure ] – but also because it is a book I would have been grippedneeded to read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516691</amazonuk>1800461682
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Beaumont1787332098|title=The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Peter Beaumont is the Foreign Affairs editor at The Observer''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. He joined the paper And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in 1989 zoos, and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind millions of wild animals stay out there, 'foreign affairs' that is better described as somewhere,'war reporting'hopefully on the next David Attenborough series. 'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years 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 fieldwild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. It is a book illEssentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals -served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to sneak it onto choose between the company of humans and the bookshelves company of those who really need to read itanimals, but I would probably wouldn't 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 were it more accurately wrappedwithout guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge1523092734|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Consider, if you will, guilt. You might have it tainting you, as 'beyond the perpetrators, every person who stands in solidarity with them and maintains solidarity after the fact becomes entangled'. The link might not strictly be She brings a legal one, but concern 'norms of religion and morals, etiquette and custom as well as dayhug-to-day communications and interactions'. Hence a collective guilt like no other kick- thunderclap that witnessed every woman needs in Germanyher life. Again and again and again. 'The assumption that membership to a people engenders solidarity is something Germans of my generation do not easily like to accept'(Alma Derricks, we read. However difficult it might have been back then in its dayformer CMO, Germany had to physically renounce anything to do with Nazism, to actively 'opt-out' of connections to avoid the solidarity seen connecting the whole nation like a toxic spider web. And since then it's linked in all the children, in a ''bequeathal'' of guilt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636776</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David AaronovitchPolly Barton|title=Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped The WorldFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=What shape is a conspiracy theoryWhere do I start? Unusual question, I knowcould start with where Barton herself starts, but I think with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on this evidence it is round. A conspiracy theory is lumpen, ragged, full of holes, and has my radar for a huge circular gap where the obvious while and sensible has dropped through, leaving if the believer or theorist with the implausible skeleton of what they choose to think instead. They certainly have a habit of coming round in circles world hadn't gone into melt- if down I mentioned a heinous crime caused would have visited by a western leader that killed hundreds or more peoplenow. I may get there later this year, purely to get their way and get a war startedbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I could be referring don't know the answer to Roosevelt and Pearl Harborthe question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, Maggie Thatcher and which is on the General Belgranosound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, or Bush etc and 9/11among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009947896X</amazonuk>1913097501
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Douglas RogersStephen Fabes|title=The Last ResortSigns of Life
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Author Douglas Rogers is a Zimbabwean who moved awayfrom the country many years ago, but has never been able to persuadehis parents – two white farmers, Lyn I was brought up on maps and Roz – to follow him out first-person narratives oftheir homeland, despite the resettlement policies tales of Robert Mugabe,the hyperfar away places. I was birth-inflation, righted wanderlust and the corruption in the countrycuriosity. Instead Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was thepair just wanted guts to stay on the farm welcoming people to Drifters,their backpackers' lodge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021910</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Archie Brown|title=The Rise simply go out and Fall of Communism|rating=4do it.5|genre=History|summary= I also didn'A source of hope for a radiant future or…the greatest threat on t inherit the face 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 earthrequisite 'bottle'. Whichever In order words I'm not the sort of these descriptions you would apply to Communism you person who will find Archie Brown's detailed get on a bike outside a London hospital and largely objective study enlightening and engrossingnot come home for six years. On one level, this is a chronological description of how a political force grew to dominate a third of the world's population then virtually disappeared within a period of less than a century Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845950674</amazonuk>1788161211
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