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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joan Didion1035043092|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=This book is Joan DidionI can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's heartbreaking autobiographical account also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the grief aftermath of a storm, she endured following her husbandcan's sudden deatht resist getting involved. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like selfpair -pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them which had been stolen from a human face to wearmuseum.|isbn=0007216858
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008551324Polly Barton|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil LancasterWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=ItPolly Barton'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 debut novel is struggling in prison an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and he's prepared governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to tell Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the police where the body process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her deathnew audience. This personBarton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, he promisesin striving for universality, language is someone big and it will be worth endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the police doing novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what he wants. And what he wants is extent do we translate ourselves in order to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to askunderstood, accepted, is itor loved? 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.|isbn=1804272175
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739526910Zabriskie1|title=A Village Where I've Not Been LostMany Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom|author=Glen SibleyStephanie Zabriskie|rating=4.5|genre=General Children's Non-Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's lifeAcross many African and Indigenous systems, he arrives differences in an unfamiliar Devon town how children learn, sense , or process the world were not treated as disorders to recoverbe corrected. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday homeThey were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, he dreams each holding value within the community.'' This lovely story is a synthesis of reconnecting with everything he has lostthat tradition, which was carried down through generations by oral retellings. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept It shows that a community or society is not made up in from interchangeable building blocks of human beings but by a local world range of unlikely friendshipspeople with different skills and different personalities, mobile discos all contributing to a whole that combines them all and surprising romantic possibilitiesto the benefit of them all.''
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084050261787333175|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Jane CaseyBenji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=CrimePopular Science|summary=ItI was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a halt. Now, her mother, Helenaglorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and her father are dead in their bedautobiography. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but there's something about moved from physical problems to mental illness and the positioning work of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspiciousa psychiatrist. What looked as though I did wonder whether it was going acceptable to be an open-and-shut case looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is now directed at a complex double murder. Kerrigan situation rather than a person and it is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convincedalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077745Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann CleevesDisappearing Act|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A man walking his dog in novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the early morning discovered the body town of F for a literary festival she is to be a man in the park near Rosebankguest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a care home for troubled teenstraveling circus. The dead man was Josh - one Swept up in this series of the care workers who was due events, M eventually offers to work step in for a shift circus performer who has unexpectedly left the night before but who had never turned upshow. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the murder - but her only clue is circus embodies the disappearance reshaping of one of the residentsidentity and a retreat into fantasy, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe an impulse that Chloe was responsible for lies at the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as very heart of the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Joshnovel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1399613073B0GFQ81YQK|title=Moral InjuriesHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Christie WatsonStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=OliviaBefore people came and joined the animals, Laura there was only the sky and Anjali met on the first day of medical school earth. Everything was quiet until the earth and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a centurythe sky began to tal to each other. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousFirst, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonthe earth created bodies. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctorAnd then, the sky breathed life into them. Anjali is These were the free spirit of the group first humans and they belonged to both earth and she becomes a GPsky. When we first meet them And so people lived between sky and soil and they're at a drug planted and alcohol-fuelled party learned and it's going remembered, especially how they came to end in tragedybe. We don't know who suffered When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to the tragedy or earth and their life returned to the consequencessky. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event And that will impact is why the three friendsearth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. This timeAnd that is why people must pay attention to, it's their teenage children who are involvedand care for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604B0GHPMNF6P|title=The Trading GameZookeeper's Dragon: A ConfessionMagical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Gary StevensonCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyFantasy|summary=If you were When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to bring up take over the running of the family's farm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, until he receives an image of unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a city banker cave in your mindNew Zealand, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the East Endegg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, where but a dragon! Now he was familiar with violence, poverty Edgar, his mother Abi, and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV the zoo's part- but he had been time café waitress Pearl have to the London School raise this little bundle of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people not being able to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibanktell anyone about it. Eventually, But this turned into permanent employment as a trader.tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|author=Leanne EganStephanie Zabriskie|title=Lover BirdsHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=4.5|genre=TeensChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=When new girl''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Isabel, moves to LouTanzania.'s hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, Cattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture 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, isnthis doesn't she? Even though none tell the whole story of her relationships with boys have gone very well so farthe intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and she's never had a good kiss especially its women, have with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, their cows and wanting to hang out with her because fighting for the natural world. The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with her is funtheir cows, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?does.|isbn=000862657XB0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1009473085Livi Michael|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon Elizabeth and Tom Egerton (Editors)Ruth|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHistorical Fiction|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' Elizabeth and that applies to Ruth''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for an easy read which will deliver her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't treatment of the book for youworking class published under a pseudonym. If thatThe ''s what youRuth're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldonfrom Livi Michael's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}appears in her novel as Pasley, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. Ita young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and finds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a compelling read difficult and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beastunjust hand at life. It's the seventh book Set in a series which looks at the impact a government has made Manchester between 1839 and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as 1842, the most important. This book follows novel examines the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review harsh conditions endured by the state of Victorian working poor and interrogates the nation when extent to which the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=Max BoucheratMakenna Goodman|title=The Last Life Helen of Lori MillsNowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=We meet Lori on It could be argued that the first evening she's got the house pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to herself – no neighbour to pop -place feeling that something inyour life is not quite right. The protagonist, babysitter poorlya disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, mother at workembodies this feeling. However, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year oldGoodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, on her lonesomeradical and unnerving: Helen. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, The connection between Helen and that the protagonist is to log on to Voxminer, indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the world-buildingcountryside house he's considering, critter-collecting game that is Helen represents a hit volta in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her ownhis life, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able past tied to enter his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screenthe protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her safe place as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=00086664821804272205
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Fyodor DostoyevskyB0GCB1MQ7D|title=White NightsWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=As always in DostoyevskyI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the character work true story. It's not often that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is sublimeso perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. One ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is never left wondering what one of those rare exceptions. It's the story of how a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarityboy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was one of the founders of the department.|isbn=0241619785
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008385068Jeremy Cooper|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ItDiscord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather progressive views at The Manor. Itodds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promisedmusical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour. It|isbn=1804272264}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's all headed up by Francesca Meadowslife is difficult, in a multitude of ways. The Manor was her ancestral home He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and shedoesn's converted it into an impressive retreat 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 wealthy college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and famoushad an accident. Her husbandThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, Owenand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, was the architect and work is he still ongoing on parts has a tiny amount of the sitehope. The heat He is oppressive good at art, and amongst clings to the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long before a body is found, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=James BaldwinEdward W Said|title=Giovanni's RoomRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Politics and Society|summary=Edward Said's 'Giovanni's RoomRepresentations of the Intellectual'' follows is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they should be. Said clearly rejects the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, comfortable image of the intellectual as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovannia detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, an Italian bartender he meets in insists on the intellectual as a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hellapublic figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who speaks truth to power even when it is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanniinconvenient or risky.|isbn=01411863561804272248
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0DGDJRHYDSylvie Cathrall|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah StoneA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=In There are few greater joys than a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down book which lives up to the last detaila compelling premise. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana And this is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has doneone of them.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Virginie Despentes1786482126|title=King Kong TheoryThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography Crime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'King Kong Theory'' is apartments - when they discovered the bones of a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as child beneath a call to arms for women in doorway. There was no skull. Was this a phallocentric society broken at its coreritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Originally written in French It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, the book that she is pregnant with his child as a collection result of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornographyone night they spent together some three months ago. Though these discussions are intertwined Her condition will be obvious before long, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of their original form as independent essayssickness.|isbn=191309734X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Baldwin0008551375|title=Giovanni's RoomWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction Crime|summary=''GiovanniLeanne Wilson's Room'body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She' follows the narrator Davidd looked so happy, an American man living in Paristoo, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovannishe was just out of an unpleasant relationship, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay barbut it looked like she was living her best life now. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling Then it emerged that five other women had died in Spain, the real tension similar circumstances in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the deeper conflict within himself'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. It They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is Davidcertain there's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovannia killer on the loose.|isbn=0141186356
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ashley Hickson-LovencePaul B Preciado|title=Wild EastDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensPolitics and Society|summary=Written in verse, this ''It is Ronnynever too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''s story Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich essays and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic eventautofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and so Ronny finds himself trying brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to settle in a the new towngeneration, a new school, and keep himself out feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of troublepolitical apathy. He listens Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to music constantly''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 always dreamed of being catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a rapperglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. But now, in Rather than taking this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part extreme dysphoria as a sign of a poetry writing workshop group andweakness, slowlyor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Ronny begins Preciado urges his readers to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting ''use dysphoria as your wordsrevolutionary platform''.|isbn=02416454411804271454
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Samantha Harvey|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleGeneral Fiction|summary=It's strangeIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book Booker Prize for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender CompanionOrbital'', I visited a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture lives of a slice group of chocolate cake on astronauts aboard the homepageInternational Space Station. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted Through a narrative lens that cake viscerally. (Theremirrors the astronauts's a recipe in the bookorbital perspective, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told Harvey invites readers to make a mess of it. Notes see our planet in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadywholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jenny Valentine295967572X|title=Us in the Before and AfterPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Elk Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and Mab are best friendswhat the purpose of this journey is, or more than that even, their friendship is a once uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a lifetime connectionsteam locomotive.}}{{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. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's contact details at prepared to tell the timepolice where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. But then chance brings them back togetherThis person, he promises, is someone big and they are inseparableit will be worth the police doing what he wants. Something has happened though, something terrible And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and tragicto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and now they must work through their grief, she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and their friendship, togetheranyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787333175Thea Lenarduzzi|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji WaterhouseThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=I was tempted to read ''You DonHow unctuous are the fats of another't Have to be Mad to Work Heres life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'' after enjoying Adam Kay. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This story is Going to Hurt}}being told, the story of a glorious mixture second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of insight into a wealthy family in the workings 19th century, who died of the NHStuberculosis after being locked in a tower, humour and autobiography. captures T''You Don't Have to be Mad..s imagination.Annie'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems s fate is, above all, an enticing story to mental illness and the work of a psychiatristT. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter It is directed at a situation rather than story which she consumes avariciously, both in a person quest for truth and it is always delivered with empathy knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and understandingfantasy. |isbn=1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|author=Onyi NwabineliClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the worldEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social mediais steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, where she posted every step usually a symbol of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals intimacy andcloseness, basicallybecomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties ''come over here and she kiss me,'' it is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother less an invitation than a desperate attempt to take down the content about confirm heremotional numbness. Anuri The imagined recipient of this plea is battling alcoholismXavier, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantlyex-partner, a ghost she is desperately worried about conjures to test her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empiredetachment. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=08615468731804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Chadwick0008405026|title=Headload of NapalmA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, Californiasixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA She was never found and Las Vegas both the investigation ground to a significant drive awayhalt. Not much happens Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in Hickstheir bed. A silver mine and Initially, it looks like a defence contractor are the main local employers straightforward murder/suicide but otherwise, there's not much something about the positioning of note other than dive bars the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and Joshua treesher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Life What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is quietconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, until..Una Burt) are less convinced..|isbn= B0D321VJ76
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tom PercivalAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Wrong ShoesOther Girl|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways'We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can Ernaux't s work is always very candid and doesn't have enough money for even her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most basic of things like foodintimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, and his dad canthis letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux't work because he lost his job s sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the college, vaccine was working a cash-made compulsory in-hand job on a building site France, and had an accident2 years before the author was even born. Throw into that mix The large and instant void created by the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Willjarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still an absence that she 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 tunnelalways felt but often denied.|isbn=13985271221804271845
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|author=Sylvie CathrallMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=A Letter to the Luminous DeepReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=3.5|genre=Science FictionBiography|summary= There Biographies are few greater joys than often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book which lives up , Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to a compelling premisebe. And Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of themit.|isbn= 03565227761804271977
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|isbn=17864821261529077745|title=The Janus Stone Dark Wives (Dr Ruth GallowayD I Vera Stanhope)|author=Elly GriffithsAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house A man walking his dog in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they early morning discovered the bones body of a child beneath man in the park near Rosebank, a doorwaycare home for troubled teens. There The dead man was no skullJosh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. Was this a ritual killing or D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder? Inevitably- but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelsonfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. ItSome people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's difficult as Ruth diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She 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 has to find Chloe to discover what happened to sudden bouts of sicknessJosh.
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|author=Alba de Cespedes Olga Tokarczuk|title=Forbidden NotebookHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This Italian ''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work , ''House of feminist fiction holds an air Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of suspense and tension from shifting realities - the moment small, subtle changes which govern our protagonistlives, Valeria Cossatilike the shift from day to night, however quotidian, purchases her forbidden notebookcausing chaos. But, and learns about herself the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the most intimate and revealing waysancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=17822782221804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1836284683|title=The Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
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|author=Ottessa MoshfeghSally Rooney|title=My Year of Rest and RelaxationIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=At best, this novel Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a scathing critique of modern society grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and reveals so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the fragility of human many relationships; at worstwoven into this story, it the central one for readers to unravel is the cynical, predictable fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonistPeter Koubek. This unlikely heroineIvan, a slimsocially awkward chess prodigy, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned contrasts sharply with the worldhis older brother Peter, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: a successful lawyer living in factDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, her solution lies in her hibernationthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=17847074220571365469
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|authorisbn=Jo Callaghan1836285493|title=Leave No TraceThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=45|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When Will is a man is found crucified on the top keen player of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case togethervideo games, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days laterconscientious student, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer slightly annoying brother and a very high profile case that draws a lot supportive friend. But most of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectall, he is an aspiring writer. Will they be able to solve the case in timeEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, or will Kat find herself taken off the case andone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, potentiallyMrs Howarth, out and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a career?|isbn=139851120Xdifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.
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|isbn=B0DB64PYV51009473085|title=The White RoseConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Dave BainesAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Dystopian FictionPolitics and Society|summary=In 2033, Sometimes it's simpler to explain a superstorm known as 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 White Rose devastates inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the Northern Hemispherebook for you. And it If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's not a storm that gathersbook, wreaks havoc{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, then dissipatescan 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. Instead, it hovers across half This book follows the Earth with its octopuswell-like tentaclesestablished format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, not giving up the changes that occurred and never going awaythe situation in 2024.
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|author=Jenny LecoatValentine|title=Beyond SummerlandUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=Jean lives 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 Jersey with her mother where a trip out but unfortunately they are celebrating the end of don't get each other's contact details at the occupationtime. During the warBut then chance brings them back together, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one nightthey are inseparable. Something has happened though, leaving Jean something terrible and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazistragic, and the war is finally overnow they must work through their grief, and their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of himfriendship, together. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=18469765371471196585
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