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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Paul B Preciado1806344777|title=Dysphoria MundiArthur and the Land of Nimbostratus: Arthur's Able Adventures|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyFor Sharing|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism Arthur dreams of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting adventures. He looks out of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, window each day 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 thinks of political apathy. Rather, it is all the proportionalescapades he could have, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, places he could go and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances things he could see. His favourite day is Saturday because that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against s the backdrop day his friend Maxine - she of the Covidbooming laugh and silver bangles -19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began comes to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''visit. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as Maxine is a sign great believer in the power of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''imagination. |isbn=1804271454
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Samantha Harvey1035043092|title=OrbitalThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In 2024I 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, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''Orbitalshould''be on maternity leave, but when the body of a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the lives aftermath of a group storm, she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one 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 pair - which had been stolen from a wholly new lightmuseum.|isbn=1529922933
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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=0008405026Zabriskie1|title=A Stranger Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)Indigenous Wisdom|author=Jane CaseyStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found 'Across many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the investigation ground world were not treated as disorders to a haltbe corrected. NowThey were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, her mothereach holding value within the community.'' This lovely story is a synthesis of that tradition, Helena, and her father are dead in their bedwhich was carried down through generations by oral retellings. Initially, it looks like It shows that a straightforward murder/suicide community or society is not made up from interchangeable building blocks of human beings but there's something about the positioning by a range of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan people with different skills and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going different personalities, all contributing to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced whole that combines them all and to the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convincedbenefit of them all.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Mary McCarthy1787333175|title=Memories of a Catholic GirlhoodYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPopular Science|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an I was tempted to read ''amateur architectYou 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}}, obsessively digging a glorious mixture of insight into the past to piece together workings of the broken mosaic of her lifeNHS, humour and autobiography. She attributes her ''burning interest in the pastYou Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in mental illness and the 1918 flu epidemicwork of a psychiatrist. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under this setting but the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live it is always delivered with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish empathy and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringingunderstanding.|isbn=1804271659
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan BuckleyMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=One BoatThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm Despite her anonymisation of philosophical musings place names and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek townpeople, Stepanova's message in this short work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason town of F for a literary festival she has visited it after the death of both her parentsis to be a guest speaker at. Prompted Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her mourningcontrol, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-awarejourney slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, inviting M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the reader into her labyrinthine cogitationsshow. It is The train functions as a book that not only requires but inspires depth motif of thoughttransience and impermanence, since its narrative structure is fragmentary while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsiona retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=18042717641804272329
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jen BeaginB0GFQ81YQK|title=Big SwissHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I found Before people came and joined the premise of this book totally original animals, there was only the sky and addictivethe earth. Greta possesses Everything was quiet until the earth and the power sky began to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job is tal to transcribe their sex therapy sessionseach other. SureFirst, there's a confidentiality agreementthe earth created bodies. And then, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more excitingsky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in lifeAnd so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a fly on the wallespecially how they came to be. That isWhen they grew old and died, until Greta decides their bodies returned to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall earth and buzz far too close their life returned to the sunsky. The sun in this analogy And that is why the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', earth and who, like the sun, sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is brightwhy people must pay attention to, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Omcare for, fly out of the windowboth. She's in too deep.|isbn=0571378579
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529077745B0GHPMNF6P|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Ann CleevesCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=A man walking When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his dog in Canary Wharf finance job to take over the early morning discovered running of the body of family's farm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a man cave in New Zealand, and suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the park near Rosebankegg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh dragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, and the zoo's part- one time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of the care workers who was due scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and not being able to work a shift the night before but who tell anyone about it. But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in before imagined…}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephanie Zabriskie|title=How Maasai Women Spoke to investigate Cows: From the murder Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=5|genre=Children's Non- but her only clue Fiction|summary=''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the disappearance oral traditions of one of the residentsMaasai elders in Ngorongoro, fourteenTanzania.'' The Maasai are a cattle-year-old Chloe Spencerherding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. Some Cattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't tell the whole story of the intimate and symbiotic connection its people believe that Chloe was responsible , and especially its women, have with their cows and for the death but Vera thinks this natural world. The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, does.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J}}{{Frontpage|author=Livi Michael|title=Elizabeth and Ruth|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is unlikely a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a pseudonym. The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her novel as the girlPasley, a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and finds herself in Manchester's diary makes it clear that she adored JoshNew Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. She knows that she has Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to find Chloe to discover what happened to Joshwhich the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Makenna Goodman|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=OliviaIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, Laura and Anjali met a disgraced professor on the first day brink of medical school losing both his career and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a centuryhis relationship, embodies this feeling. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousHowever, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonseductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. Laura The connection between Helen and the protagonist is a perfectionist and a trauma doctorindirect yet intimate. Anjali is As the free spirit former owner of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them theycountryside house he're at s considering, Helen represents a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going volta in his life, her past tied to end in tragedyhis potential fresh start. We don't know The realtor who suffered shows the tragedy or protagonist around the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an eerily similar event entity that will impact the three friendsis pure consciousness, beyond form''. This timeAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, it's their teenage children who Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are involvednot altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604B0GCB1MQ7D|title=The Trading Game: A ConfessionWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Gary StevensonAlan Kennedy|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If I 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 true story. It's not often that you were to bring up an image of find a city banker in your mindbook that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you're unlikely to think ll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of someone like Gary Stevensonthose rare exceptions. A hoodie and jeans replaces It's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the pin-stripe suit and his background is beginning of the East EndSecond World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, where he was familiar one of the founders of the department.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jeremy Cooper|title=Discord|rating= 3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with violencemost instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, poverty Rebekah Rosen and injusticeEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. There was Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no posh public school on his CV - but he had been 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 progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the London School clamour.|isbn=1804272264}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of Economicsways. Stevenson He is bright - extremely bright - and bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has a facility with numbers which the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of us things like food, and his dad can only envy'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. He also realised Throw into that mix the fact that most rich people expect poor people to be stupidhis mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. It was his ability at what was, essentiallyAnd yet, he still has a card game which got him an internship with Citibanktiny amount of hope. EventuallyHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, this turned into permanent employment as that feel like a light at the end of a traderlong, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Leanne EganEdward W Said|title=Lover BirdsRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensPolitics and Society|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to LouEdward Said's hometown ''Representations of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabelthe Intellectual's disdain ' is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for everything around herwhat they should be. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to otherspecialists. Instead, 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 crosshe insists on the intellectual as a public figure, isn't it? Because Lou is straightoften awkward, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so farabrasive, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabelunpopular, and wanting who speaks truth to hang out with her because fighting with her power even when it is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?inconvenient or risky.|isbn=000862657X1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jacqueline RoseSylvie Cathrall|title=Women in Dark TimesA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=BiographyScience Fiction|summary=''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'' Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to courageous women throughout history, particularly women of the 21st, 20th and 19th centuriesa compelling premise. Her historical and political backdrop And this is, thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, and not its failures: ''the ongoing force one of feminism''them.|isbn=18042717130356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sally Rooney1786482126|title=IntermezzoThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction Crime|summary=Sally Rooney has studied Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the chessboard of life and is something bones of a grandmaster at putting it into wordschild beneath a doorway. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel There was no skull. Among the many relationships woven into Was this storya ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter KoubekDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Ivan It's difficult as Ruth knows, a socially awkward chess prodigybut Nelson doesn't, contrasts sharply that she is pregnant with his older brother Peter, child as a successful lawyer living in Dublinresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Following their father's passing after a Her condition will be obvious before long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trialsnot least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=10094730850008551375|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Sometimes itLeanne Wilson's simpler to explain body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?'tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. If you're looking for Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasionsunpleasant relationship, then this isn't 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 book for youlast year. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's bookAll were experienced climbers, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered properly equipped for those tumultuous yearswhat they were doing and sensible people. ItNone of the 's what a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return stupid thing to politicsdo' explanations applied. ''The Conservative Effect'' They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is an entirely different beast. Itcertain there's the seventh book in a series which looks at killer on 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 2024loose.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mark LinganePaul B Preciado|title=ChimeraDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary=''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in It is never too late to embrace the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.revolutionary optimism of childhood''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784745758Samantha Harvey|title=Three Days in June|author=Anne TylerOrbital|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The day before your daughter's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. FirstIn 2024, it was her job as assistant head at Samantha Harvey won the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject of Booker Prize for ''Orbital'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the middle lives of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying and that Gail will be adopting group of astronauts aboard the catInternational Space Station. And that's before Gail discovers Through a narrative lens that mirrors the groom hasnastronauts't been entirely honest about his personal lifeorbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Eowyn Ivey295967572X|title=Black Woods Blue SkyPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells re going and what the story purpose of Birdiethis journey is, is uncertain. Django found the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a tickets ''wild cardon the floor somewhere'', she feels stuck in her day-and has persuaded our narrator toaccompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -day life, and yearns to cross but we are probably in the Wolverine river and live on past as the North Fork pair travel to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded the station by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn coach and solitary man, who says he has the train is a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives foreversteam locomotive.|isbn=1472279042
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Max Boucherat0008551324|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening sheIt's got unusual for anyone from the house Hardie family to herself – no neighbour 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 pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her lonesomedeath. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fortThis person, she has one main intentionhe promises, is someone big and that it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to log on be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to Voxminerget 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 worldother thing that Hardie demanded -building, critter-collecting game make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is a hit in Lorikept well away from what's worldhappening. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another't find herself entirely on her owns life, and then she finds something even more spookyhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. For In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs protagonist of tamperingthis tale. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screenJust as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, and her safe place the daughter of a wealthy family in the game has been doctored – well19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, where an enticing story to T. It is a girl to turn?story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=00086664821804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008385068Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and guests gather at The Manordistortion. It's their opening weekend Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and splendid celebrations are promisedcloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. ItWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''s all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home come over here and shekiss me,''s converted it into is less an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famousinvitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. Her husbandThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, Owenher ex-partner, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going a ghost she conjures to be settled and it won't be long before a body is foundtest her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ashley Hickson-Lovence0008405026|title=Wild EastA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Written in verse, this is RonnyIt's story, a young black fourteen sixteen years since nine-year -old boy Rosalie Marshall disappeared from Hackney who suddenly has her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white schoolhalt. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic eventNow, her mother, Helena, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle her father are dead in a new towntheir bed. Initially, it looks like a new school, straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and keep himself out of troubleher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. He listens What looked as though it was going to music constantly, be an open-and has always dreamed of being -shut case is now a rappercomplex double murder. But now, Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group andRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your wordsUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=0241645441
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciOther Girl|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleAutobiography|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is We were born from the book for yousame body. Before I started reading 've never really wanted to think about this.'The Lavender Companion' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I visited the author's [https://wwwve read.pinelavenderfarmErnaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her.com/ website] and thereWhy? Because Annie Ernaux's a picture sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a slice of chocolate cake on few months before the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe vaccine was made compulsory in the bookFrance, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading and 2 years before the book and I author was told to make a mess of iteven born. Notes in The large and instant void created by the margins are sanctioned. You get jarring concept of writing to fold down the corners an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of pages. You suspect reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadyshe has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845
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|author=Jenny ValentineMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Us in the Before Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and AfterAndreyev|rating=3.5|genre=TeensBiography|summary=Elk and Mab Biographies are best friends, or often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more than objective and less personal. I think that evenGorky completely rejects this perspective, their friendship is and offers a once in a lifetime connectionvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. They meet In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as children one day on a trip out it is, but unfortunately they donof what you yourself imagine it to be. 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?'t get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back togetherWell, and they are inseparable. Something has happened thoughMaxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, something terrible and tragicgiving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, togetherAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=14711965851804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294259051529077745|title=A Voice in the Night The Dark Wives (A D I Wilkins MysteryVera Stanhope)|author=Simon MasonAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=There's A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a new Superintendent man in Thames Valley — DCS Wainwright—and she's youngthe park near Rosebank, ambitious, and ruthlessa care home for troubled teens. She talks The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a good talk about work/life balance and family values, shift the night before but as far as she's concerned, she has two main problems, and they're both called DI Wilkinswho had never turned up. Ray Wilkins D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of Nigerian descentone of the residents, Baliol educated and always immaculately dressedfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. He's married to Diane and has twin sons. Management's opinion of him is Some people believe that he Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks too highly of himself and his last boss felt that he needed more experience at what he called 'this is unlikely as the wet end'. Ryan Wilkins comes from a trailer park - in fact, it could be said that hegirl's never really left diary makes it. He lives in shell suits and tracksuits, always in vivid colours. Previous management was adamant clear that he should ''never'' be given responsibilityshe adored Josh. Wainwright feels She knows that she would be best shut of both of themhas to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787333175Olga Tokarczuk|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji WaterhouseHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceLiterary Fiction|summary=I was tempted to read ''You DonWhat't Have to be Mad to Work Heres the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636| The title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHSthis spellbinding work, humour and autobiography. ''You DonHouse of Day, House of Night't Have to be Mad...'' promised , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the same elements but moved shift from physical problems day to mental illness and night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour constant in this setting but that image is the house, stoic against the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is always delivered with empathy and understandingperceived. |isbn=1804271918
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Mariana Enriquez1836284683|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}}{{FrontpageBig Happy|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce MyselfDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the worldWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, thanks to her step-mother Opheliait's increasingly popular presence on social medianothing like I expected it to be, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainit takes me on a wild ride. Now Anuri And that is in her twenties and she is slowly trying just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to regain her confidence and ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down at least set the content about herscene. Anuri is battling alcoholismOnce that's done, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for doing soyourself. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873
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{{Frontpage
|author=David ChadwickSally Rooney|title=Headload of NapalmIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary= It's September 1973 in HicksSally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, Californiaas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Hicks Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both his older brother Peter, a significant drive away. Not much happens successful lawyer living in HicksDublin. A silver mine and Following their father's passing after a defence contractor are long battle with cancer, the main local employers but otherwise, therebrothers's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until...already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn= B0D321VJ760571365469
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tom Percival1836285493|title=The Wrong ShoesDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Will's life is difficulta keen player of video games, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'conscientious student, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work a slightly annoying brother and doesn't have enough money for even the a supportive friend. But most basic of things like foodall, and his dad can't work because he lost is an aspiring writer. English is his job favourite lesson at the collegehis school, Marlowe Park, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentone at which he excels. Throw into that mix the fact that This hasn't gone unnoticed by his mum and dad are separatedheadteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, and his mum that he still has spends a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments couple of joy when he is drawing, that feel like afternoons a light week at the end of a longdifferent school, Station Road, dark tunnelwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1398527122
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|authorisbn=Sylvie Cathrall1009473085|title=A Letter to the Luminous DeepThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary= There are few greater joys than 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 lives up to 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 premiseread and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. And 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 is one as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of themthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786482126Jenny Valentine|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don'luxuryt get each other' apartments - when they discovered s contact details at the bones of a child beneath a doorwaytime. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? InevitablyBut then chance brings them back together, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelsonand they are inseparable. It's difficult as Ruth knows Something has happened though, but Nelson doesn'tsomething terrible and tragic, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night and now they spent must work through their grief, and their friendship, together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1471196585
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