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Newest Politics and Society Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Karen Blixen|title=Out Of Africa|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It's more than a quarter of a century since I first saw the film ''Out of Africa'' and it's one of the few that have stayed with me over the intervening years. It wasn't just the story, but the personality of Karen Blixen and the wonderful landscape of the Ngong Hills, south of Nairobi, in Kenya's Rift Valley. <!-- Remove I remember looking for this book at the time, but being unable to find it, so the opportunity to read it now was too good to miss.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951437</amazonuk-->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen SedleyAriel Saramandi|title=Ashes and Sparks: Essays On Law and JusticePortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Some books are hard In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to readintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and even harder slavery to reviewexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. This is particularly true 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 what are essentially academic or "professional" books racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and you come to them governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a lay reader. This then is my starting position on Ashes and Sparkskind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>1804271616
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary Armstrong Gregor Hens and Tim GrayJen Calleja (translator)|title=The Authentic Tawney: A New Interpretation of City and the Political Thought of R. H. Tawney World
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In ''The Authentic Tawney takes City and the World'', Gregor Hens reveals how cities are as much imagined spaces as they are physical ones. With a fresh look at deep affection for the political writing of R H Tawneyurban landscapes that have shaped his life, a left wing academic whose works were a big influence Hens reflects on the huge program of postwar reform engineered by the Labour Partyplaces like Cologne, Berlin, particularly and Goch on the provision Lower Rhine with a blend of universal secondary educationpersonal memory and thoughtful observation. The authors assert that Tawney's ideas changed markedly through His writing, at times abstract, captures not just architectural features but the course of his life emotional and that they lack the consistency that other interpreters have erroneously attributed mental geographies tied to them. They reject the notion that each location, for example, his writings have perspectives as a child as opposed to as an essential unityadult. From Belgium and Germany to Berkeley and Columbus, which is philosophically interesting - don't we tend to assume that an intellectual's life's work will contain Hens traces a central 'core' map of ideas? Discussion experiences, turning cities into reflections of an important pioneer in democratic socialism also seems relevant at a time when Labour has 'lost its way' identity and evolved into a watered down version of the Conservativesbelonging.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845402243</amazonuk>1804271691
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HewlettPaul B Preciado|title=The Sarkozy PhenomenonDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The old saying is that 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and whether or not it's the electorate's ability to pick the man or whether he was only seen as the right man in retrospect It is a moot point. There are, though, some surprising people at the head of European countries at the moment – with Silvio Berlusconi and Nicholas Sarkozy at the head of my personal list. My [[Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story by Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|last attempt]] to find out more about Sarkozy proved to be never too light-weight for my tastes, but this time I've gone late to embrace the opposite end revolutionary optimism of the scale with a book from Nick Hewlett, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and published by Imprint Academic. I mention those points because there is no attempt to present this as populist writing: itchildhood''s scholarly from beginning to end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402391</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yangzom Brauen and Katy DarbyshireJacqueline Feldman|title=Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of TibetPrecarious Lease|rating=43.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Fleeing your home can never be easy The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, but when you are sixfew scant property rights. Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and stuffed with haymarginal members of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, and your route is over ''I live on the margins of the margins of the worldmargins''s highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging. This ), Le Bloc was subject to the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion continual threat of 1959. They were leaving behind all that they knew eviction and travelling to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in the country where the Dalai Lama was 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as a tragedy in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' is their storythis book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655344X</amazonuk>1804271403
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dambisa MoyoClaire Dederer|title=How the West was LostMonsters: Fifty Years of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices AheadWhat Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=43
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=MoyoDederer sets out to unveil what she calls a 's first book'biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture'Dead Aid'. Dederer' was a well regarded s work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and oft discussed title when I worked in Developmentonto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a country where it was hard to find any book at allpunch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, somehow every ex-pat household seemed to have at least one copy and yet despises for his actions. This model of this''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, and I followed interrogating the sheep likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and had a readPablo Picasso. It was a greatHer critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, insightful book that we could all identify withas she holds it so dearly, and I was eager to read her seconda personal, if somewhat unrelated workrather than collective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846142350</amazonuk>1399715070
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael LewisVirginie Despentes|title=The Big ShortKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceAutobiography |summary=So. The subprime mortgage crisis, the worldwide financial crisis, people losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their security. Unregulated greed, that went on and on ''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and on. And the people who caused it all got rich during and afterfeminist manifesto, very few felt any sort of consequences, and millions of other people worldwide suffered greatly. Strip away all the intentionally confusing terminology and it all amounts which can be seen as a call to bets with unbelievable amounts of money. How did it all come about and how did it play out? Michael Lewis explains the mess as only he canarms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Just as his earlier excellent work {{amazonurl|title=Liar's Poker|isbn=0340839961}} encapsulated the excesses of Wall Street Originally written in the 1980sFrench, so does ''The Big Short'' perfectly tell the tale book is a collection of Wall Street essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the 2000scomplex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. In factThough these discussions are intertwined, given their placement within the extent book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of the current global clusterfuck, it makes the shocking ''Liar's Poker'' look positively mild by comparisontheir original form as independent essays.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043539</amazonuk>191309734X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Xinran1009473085|title=Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Love Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Xinran first came Sometimes it's simpler to my notice with her 2002 explain a book "by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Good Women of China" Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which retold tales of will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the women she had come across through her work in Chinese radiobook 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}}, where can be bettered for many those tumultuous years she had hosted the local equivalent of a cross between Woman. It's Hour a compelling read and a late night phone-in talk showshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. She has been busy bringing us other stories It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the meantime, but in impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this latest work she returns to those early days in radio and as the stories she learnedmost important. Many This book follows the well-established format: a series of these stories she decided were too painful to tell. They speak experts from various fields review the state of childrenthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or anotherthe changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PolitkovskayaAlastair Humphreys|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches Local|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the Russian newspaper Novaya gazetaworld. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnyabook is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, on Putinpollution, on state corruption land use and on life in Russia under his regime. She never avoided controversy and received a number access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of death threats before she the book for me was murdered in October 2006. She had reason to know that the biggest thing he learned about all of these were things was that there are no easy answers, no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled single 'right or wrong'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of , that every upside is likely to have a Life?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleaguesdownside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonny SteinbergEdel Rodriguez|title=Little LiberiaWorm: An African A Cuban American Odyssey in New York City
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyGraphic Novels|summary=South African Steinberg We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has won awards with previous non-fiction books happened, and after reading Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the praise from various sources (New York Timescountry, has proven himself a Communist, J M Coetzee) I came and not done nearly enough to the conclusion that I was in create a level playing field for a serious and thoughtall. Well, those hours-provoking readlong speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. The preface tells us that Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the two Liberian men country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro- Rufus Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the younger Jacob left Liberian soil in vastly different circumstances father being watched and watched, and not liked for different reasonshis successful photography business, success being frowned upon. But as they meet up years later and thousands The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of miles away from their homelandthe heat, but in this sultry island country, their it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=3.5|genre= Lifestyle|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''Little LiberiaThis! Precisely this.'' in New York City has a tall order: I'm lucky enough to contain and accommodate their big personalities be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to a certain extentthink about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, their big egoswe are not''. Can it cope?Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|isbn=1785633848}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0224085662</amazonuk>Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tracy Kidder1529153050|title=Mountains Beyond MountainsBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping Seeking some light relief from the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly current political turmoil which is coming to help people less fortunate than him. ''Dedicated his life'' seem more and ''works tirelessly'' - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful peoplemore like an adrenaline sport, but when reading I was nudged towards ''Mountains Beyond MountainsBritain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022', you'll realise there. Sharp eyes will have noted that we's re not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating yet through the disease is just one part of year: the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to many people31 August 2022. [http://www.pih.org/ Partners In Health], Who can imagine what there will be to come in the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwide. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684315</amazonuk>2023 edition?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian JohnsB0B7289HKQ|title=Death of a PirateConversations Across America: British Radio A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Making Soul of the Information AgeAmerica|author=Kari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=If you are inclined to take your cues from the weekly reviewsKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, as by the witty poet Gavin Ewart once expressed way) wanted to spend some time with his father and 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 for expression in Coalition Government policyperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. There are concerns too about the legislation governing the internet and references back The decision was made to ride the Sixties battles betweenTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, on the one handVirginia to Astoria, the unbridled selfOregon -expression all 4250 miles of the free market and, on the other, it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the virtues of selfrecommended time -restraint in such matters but there were factors which pointed this up as the re-examination of the Lady Chatterley trial, now fifty years ago. An unusual and quite intriguing book, Death more of a Pirate, about the development of intellectual property and piracy in radio touches challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on all these contemporary concerns in a dramatic way. It combines the history of modern broadcasting with a crime story Merv Loya was 75 years old and consequent trialhe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393068609</amazonuk>
}}
{{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 flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Valerie Benaim Jane Goodall and Yves AzeroualDouglas Abrams |title=Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True StoryBook of Hope |rating=3.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society |summary=In November 2007 The done thing is to read a book all the French Presidentway through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, Nicolas Sarkozy was newly divorced from his second wife andbecause I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, despite his position 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 Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=2|genre= Politics and busy life, feeling rather lonelySociety|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. He accepted an invitation Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to a dinner party from a friend and met supermodel and recording artistmodifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, Carla Brunieven implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The attraction between them was instant – she had already said Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that she wanted a man with nuclear power art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and he was smitten by the attentions of media elites hoping to create a beautiful, famous more globalist and intelligent womanprogressive regime. Within months they were marriedOr at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0907633145</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Beate Teresa Hanika1398508632|title=Learning to ScreamThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde
|rating=5
|genre=TeensLifestyle|summary=Malvina is thirteen years oldIt had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the youngest of three children best time to start, in a dysfunctional familyworld where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Her father is Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a very grumpy teacher, known habitat with little understanding a variety of children, whilst her mother seems to suffer permanently from migraineterrains. She has had electricity which allowed her to run a good friend, Lizzyfridge, freezer and they play together as much as they can, united in their dislike of the 'boys from the estate'dehydrator. Her grandmother died last year, leaving her granddad on his own She had a car - and it's Malvina's job to go and visit him and take him his mealsfuel. The family think Most importantly, she had shelter: this is was not a great arrangement because they know how much Granddad loves Malvina and looks forward plan to her visits. There's a problem though. Malvina doesn't like going, particularly on her ownlive'' wild just to live off its produce. Granddad kisses her on the mouth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390606</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529149800
|title=Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste
|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=Home and Family
|summary=We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', said the hummingbird. And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew RawnsleyMatthieu Aikins|title=The End of Naked Don't Fear the Party: The Rise and Fall of New LabourWater
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=After decades of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised by the New Labour administration. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in the public domain, but never before had I had quite such a feeling of really not understanding what was going on, of being party It's easy to only half a story. forget at times that The age of spin told us little that we really wanted to know, but left unsaid all the important things. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that INaked Don'd missed Andrew Rawnsley's 'The End of t Fear the PartyWater isn' but now I'm rather glad that I did as t actually fiction, because it's been republished in paperback with two additional chapters which include the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Penman|title=School Daze: Searching for reads very much like a Decent State Education|rating=3well-paced thriller at times.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=As This is not by any means a teacher myselfcriticism, I'm naturally well aware of most of the aspects of education that Andrew Penman discusses here and some of the stories he repeats are well-known to me but may be of news rather a testament to some readers. Yes, people will really do just about anything to try and get their children into the school of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this book work Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as an insight into 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 life? It’s a good question…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Geert Mak|title=An Island in Time: The Biography of refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a Village|rating=4|genre=History|summary=In the mid 1990s journalist vast and author Geert Mak returned to his native Friesland at times painful journey. There are tense moments and took up residence in the village gripping accounts of Jorwert. His aim was to investigate the quiet revolution going border crossings which had me on in the agrarian communities not just of Holland but of edge the whole of Europeway through. This wasn't going to be an outsiderBut it's view. Mak grew up in written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the northern Dutch province; he spoke the language; he knew reader to perfectly envisage the games environments and understood the people. In a very real sense Mak was going home… and finding that it scarcely existed any moredescribed.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546868</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Oaten1785633074|title=Screwing UpStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyHumour|summary=Like John Profumo and othersMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for headed by the wrong reasons. It was Prime minister - the episode which made him ''primus inter pares'' (that's for a while those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the countryreality is that the ''s No. 1 paparazzi target, and which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his prime'world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detailmovers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. Yet when all is said and doneWe are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one the man who was behind the skilful control of the men whose career at Westminster began and ended with Covid crisis which was completely contained by the Blair and Brown yearsend of 2020. Throughout there is an admirable absence of self-pityYou might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Pennac1846276772|title=School BluesThe End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Daniel PennacAnyone 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 book discusses simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the issue disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of children the white man. Even when those who struggle at schoolwouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and offers some ideas degrading for the individuals on how teachers can and should help them. It is the receiving end of the bias but it's not a dry textbook on educational theory. He writes from personal experience, as a teacher and novelist just the individuals who was once 'un cancre', translated here as a dunce or a bad studentare negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Lewis1529148251|title=The KidMisfits: A True Story|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on a poverty-stricken London council estate in the sort of home that the neighbours complain about. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him more than most of her six children and he was beaten and starved by both of his parents. You might think that Social Services would have stepped in and removed him, but any relief was to be short-lived. Eventually he was put into care but even then the support was inadequate and Kevin found himself caught up in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as 'The Kid'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPersonal Manifesto|author=Chris Mullin|title=Decline and Fall: Diaries 2005 to 2010Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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. He was never 'How am I able to get a definitive answer to thisbe so transparent on paper about rape, but was later told that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweetsmalpractice and poverty, with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sacked. In Decline and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills of politics and return to the backbenches. yet still compartmentalise? He might no longer be in a position of power, but heIt's still in the thick of it. Perhaps as though, some of I were telling the enjoyment is draining truth whilst simultaneously running away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very importantit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683998</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patricia Nicol0008350388|title=Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You We Need to Talk About Diet, Thrift and Going GreenMoney|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=2.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In the current economy, lots of people are trying to make ends meet in their own ways. Not since the days of Brownie badges has the word ''thrift'' been bandied around so much, but now it's not so much about saving money To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as it is about surviving. Actuallyless desirable, maybe it always wasless hireable, but the Guiding Association thought a jolly piggy bank was a more appropriate badge emblem less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than a depressed family collapsed in front of their Sky TV with their supermarketmy light-own curry struggling to fill the void left by a regular take awayskinned counterparts... What we all need is a return '' ''We Need to the good old days, when life was simpler and people happier, the days when you didnTalk About Money''t need to clear half an hour in your diary to navigate the olive aisle of the supermarket, and when you ate what was fresh and local, not because it was cheap or you were in the mood, but because it was all they had.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521121</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan GreenRichard Brook|title=Murder in the High HimalayaUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.
|isbn=1800461682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787332098
|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World
|author=Henry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The Himalayan mountains mean many things to different people. To the people of Tibet''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, trapped under the atheist occupiers from Chinafoxes, who ran the Dalai Lama out elephants and so on. And we assign them places in the 1950s in their consuming urge for lebensraum and mineral miningsociety: cows go on plates, they are a near-impenetrable barrierdogs on sofas, protecting their country from history's prior ravagesfoxes in rubbish bins, but keeping people who want out, very much elephants in. To rich Westernerszoos, they are a sparkling challenge - a task and millions of the highest orderwild animals stay out there, ''somewhere, a box to tick '' hopefully on the way to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because theynext David Attenborough series.''re there.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Skloot1523092734|title=The Immortal Life of Henrietta LacksA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, ''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31her life. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew Again and again and reproducedagain. Often referred to as HeLa cells'' (Alma Derricks, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research todayformer CMO, 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 to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)
''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to live the life you've always wanted.''
Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garrett KeizerPolly Barton|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We WantFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=What is noiseWhere do I start? Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noiseI could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan? '' Japan has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And if solike Barton, what different term would we use I don't know the answer to describe a jet aircraft taking offthe question ''why Japan? Why do we respond so differently to '' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the two? Even more intriguinglyfirst essay, would our response change if which is on the birdsong woke us from an exhausted sleep but sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the aircraft was taking off sound of ''every party where you have to jet us on a long awaited holiday?introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>1913097501
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Fabes
|title=Signs of Life
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.
|isbn=1788161211
}}
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