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<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library, the charity shop and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{Frontpage|isbn=1529402255|titleauthor=A Body in the Bookshop Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteriestranslator)|authortitle=Helen CoxThe Honjin Murders|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary= Evie Bowes To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is very conscious of enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the scars on her facewords 'clever' or 'good'. They were acquired when she was rescued from a car For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the River Ouse by Inspector Halloran1930s. She’d been suspected The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the murder of whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her boyfriendfamily, for one thing. Either way, Owenthe celebrations have gone ahead as planned, and only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annex before the process sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of clearing her name she his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and her best friendsome mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, Kitt Hartley developed this case has a taste for detectionlot of the peculiar about it.|isbn=1782275002}}{{Frontpage|author=Cixin Liu|title=Death's End|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= If I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, I would have put it back on the shelf. Kitt developed a taste for Inspector Halloran TooNot because I didn't want to read it, but they’re taking because I'd have figured out that it slowlywas the final part of a trilogy. Coming in part way through a saga is never the easiest thing to do and it's particularly true in science fiction because without knowing the back-story there are not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when it's assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that you won't understand. This latter is particularly true of Cixin Liu's work – his range is phenomenal. WellGeorge R R Martin, sort who knows a thing or two about world-creation, described it as ''a unique blend of slowlyscientific and philosophical speculation, conspiracy theory and cosmology''. All of that and more.|isbn=1784971650
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Alexandra Christo1780894511|title= Into the Crooked PlaceDie Alone|author=Simon Kernick|rating= 4|genre= TeensThrillers|summary= In Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder and he's in the vulnerable prisoner unit: as a cop he's something of a world thriving with black magictarget, four young crooks embark on but the unit is not as secure as the inmates would have hoped and Mason is injured in a quest riot. On his way to hospital he's broken free by armed men and an offer is made to him. He's to take down their criminal leader after assassinate the man who is likely to become the country's next prime minister and he'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroad. His captors say that they discover the plot behind 're MI6, but Mason has his dangerous new magicdoubts. His choices are limited though and he has personal reasons to believe that it would be better if Alastair Sheridan was dead.|isbn=1250318378
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kathlaine C Gill and D Clark GillAkwaeke Emezi|title=Madness Between Light and DarkPet|rating=34.5|genre=FantasyTeens|summary=It's 1912The people of the town Lucille believe that all the monsters are gone. Their children are raised to understand that they were saved by the angels, those who rid the town of evil, and at New Hope Sanatoriumthere are no monsters anymore. But one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself, Christine Agnes Tupper is fast growing up. Abandoned there by parents who were ashamed and bleeds a little onto one of her hunchback, shemother's nevertheless grown up to an intelligent girl with a good heartpaintings. Her encounters with the inhabitants of the asylum swiftly take her on The blood awakens a fascinatingbizarre, thrilling and sometimes terrifying journey of self discovery-looking creature named Pet, allowing Agnes who somehow comes to life and declares that it is here to hunt the monster. Though Jam tries to prove convince it that all the monsters are gone, Pet is certain thatthere is one, even with a twisted spinestill, her heart and that the monster is hiding in the right place!home of her best friend, Redemption.|isbn=16411107080571355110
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=190874572X1686751680|title=Letters from ToveMy Mummy does weird things / Maman fait des choses bizarres|author=Tove Jansson (Author), Boel Westin (Editor), Helen Svensson (Editor), Sarah Death (Translator)Amelie Julien and Gustyawan|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyFor Sharing|summary=Back at the beginning of Which child doesn't think that there mother is, well, ''weird''? It might be that in the century I went on holiday to Nepal. I met a wonderful Finnish woman and we became sort of friends. I canmorning their mother doesn't remember if it was on like speaking much, when every self-respecting child knows that holiday or a later one that Paula told me I really had is when you're at your brightest with lots to read Tove Jansson. say? I do know that it was four years later that I finally acquired an English translation of The Summer Book, and that I eagerly awaited the ''Sort OfWhy''then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there' translations s doing yoga in front of the rest of Janssontelevision, which could be worrying if it wasn't so funny. We won's work t go into too much detail about what goes on in the bathroom and the colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and devoured them as soon as I could get my hands frankly, the less said the better about her reactions to your artistic efforts on themthe wall. I mean, what else would you use paint for?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk
|title=What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=''The day has ended''<br>
''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>
''But now, it's time, to be sure'' <br>
''For an entirely different adventure'' <br>
I hope you haven't forgotten how it feels to be much too excited for bed. If you're a parent at least, you'll know how it is to persuade an excited small person that yes, it is in fact time for bed. ''What Wonders DoYou See...'' sets out to cater to these children. Instead of trying to persuade them that night time is calm time, it takes a slightly different tack. It tells them that sleep is actually an exciting time: a time of dreams in which imagination takes over and has no limit. But the trick in accessing this wonderful and exciting world, is to get calm and relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and open the door to it.
|isbn=194812422X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742783Michael Harris|title=The Benefit Solitude: In Pursuit of Hindsight (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan Hilla Singular Life in a Crowded World
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLifestyle|summary=A superficial look would suggest to you that Simon Serrailer has been lucky and - all things considered - his life This is as good as not the book I was expecting it could to be. He's back at work after a long break For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, how to recuperate from step outside the violent incident which cost him his arm and almost his lifemainstream, but it is not that at all. When heInstead of telling us how, it is more about the ''why's not at work he's spending his time in the cathedral roof drawing the medieval angels which are being restored. ThereHarries examines how we's talk of an exhibition of his drawings. Lafferton seems re eroding solitude, which used to be quite settled as far as crime is concerned until one night when two local men open their front door to a couple seeking shelter. It's the usual story natural part of a broken-down carour human life, and a phone which won't make a callwhy that matters. The man are generous Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and welcoming what has come of that, and have no suspicions that eventually in the couple are simply there to plan a robbery. It's a serious error final chapter he talks about his own experience of judgement in having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the course of alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this investigation which will throw Simon Serrailler's future into doubtlost art led him.|isbn=1847947662
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=140638853XAndy Briggs|title=Somebody Give This Heart a Pen|author=Sophia ThakurCtrl+S
|rating=5
|genre=AnthologiesScience Fiction|summary=Sophia ThakurLife in the near future's debut anthology is a collection of poems that are not all uniquebad. We've reversed global warming and fixed the collapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, whether in relation to their style, length or themea virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. The collection is split into four sections, titled 'growBut almost anything isn't enough for some. Every day,'wait'normal people are being taken,'break'their emotions harvested - and 'grow again', guiding you through a process which is one of lives traded - to create death-defying thrills for the foundations that the anthology is built onrich and twisted. Now Theo’s mother has disappeared. Each section begins with a foregrounded title page containing various small pieces And as he follows her breadcrumb trail of writingclues, ranging from a quote by a Nigerian playwrighthe'll come up against the most dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, to African proverbs. This provides AI Bots and anarchists - as well as a nice introduction criminal empire that will kill to the section before you are immersed into the beautifully written and eloquent poems that Thakur has clearly put stop him finding her heart and soul into.. .|isbn=1409184641
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19109894601609809378|title=Flember: The Secret BookRabbits' Rebellion|author=Jamie SmartAriel Dorfman and Chris Riddell|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A mysterious islandWe're in the realm of the rabbits, only the foxes and wolves have taken over. King Wolf, His Wolfiness, has declared the rabbits don't exist, but the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing that the bunnies are in fact still around. Demanding a propaganda spree, King Wolf orders a humble monkey to be his official portrait photographer, but whatever the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is a distinct leporine hint. Can King Wolf succeed in proving himself victorious, can the rabbits show their continued existence to all who need to know of it – and what can the poor monkey caught in between do?}}{{Frontpage|author=Innosanto Nagara|title=M is for Movement|rating=4|genre=Emerging Readers|summary=Set in Indonesia, in the not too distant past, this is a story about social change. Dealing with some difficult issues, such as political corruption and nepotism, the book is neither boring nor preachy. A strange It educates gently, with vibrant, challenging illustrations, and mystical it portrays how social movements need people who will try, even when it seems that they will fail. The message is a positive one; that in an increasingly uncertain world, we do still have the power called Flemberto instigate change. |isbn=1609809351}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1780724047|title=A boyDictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs|author=Peter J Conradi|rating=4|genre=Pets|summary=I struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I've never encountered a dog who wasn't interesting or important -inventor called Devand probably both, who uncovers I was expecting a long forgotten secretmassive tome. And But ''A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a giantrich compendium of the world's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, red robot bear?! The sleepy village Sky. Bradley and Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's love for each and every one of Eden is about to descend into hilarious chaos - can disastrous Dev save his brand new best friend? Find out them. I knew that I was in this fully illustrated mad-cap adventuresafe hands.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02413552221785769294|title=FrostheartMan at the Window (Detective Cardilini)|author=Jamie LittlerRobert Jeffreys|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Way out in the furthest part of the known world, It's when we read that a young boy is creeping reluctantly to a tiny stronghold exists all teacher's bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. Nowadays you ''might'' hope that something would be done about it fairly quickly but this was 1965 and child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on its own, cut off from the rest part of human-kin by monsters that lurk beneath the Snow Seachild. There, a little The boy called Ash waits for would be safe that night though - albeit in the return of his parents, singing a forbidden lullaby to remind him of them... and doing his best to avoid his very, VERY grumpy yeti guardian, Tobu. But life is about to get a whole lot more crazy-adventurous for Ashmost horrific fashion. When a brave rescue attempt reveals he has amazing magical powers, hereached Captain Edmund's whisked aboard bedroom he found the man dead on the Frostheartfloor, the top of his skull missing. The school's initial reaction was that this was a sleigh packed full dreadful accident: there had been a cull of daring explorers who could use his helpkangaroos in some nearby fields and it was obviously a stray bullet which had killed the Captain. But can they help him find his family?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19131010371786695227|title=The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte MettlestoneInvisible in a Bright Light|author=Jaclyn MoriartySally Gardner|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bronte doesn't miss her parentsThe beginning of this excellent story will leave the reader more than a little confused: who is the man in the green suit, what is the Reckoning, and she's not particularly sad when she learns why are rows of their terrible fate at people in a cave? But stick with it – Ms Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the hands of piratessame disorientation as our heroine. And why should she be? After allWe watch in dismay as the strange man, they just dumped her on Aunt Isabelle (without even asking if it would be a convenient arrangement for either party) when she was a baby. They swanned off who seems to have adventuresno eyes, and never once came back does his best to persuade her to check if their only child was healthy answer his questions. But for some reason Celeste, despite her bewilderment, remains wary and happygives nothing away.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14012800481912374854|title=Batman: Nightwalker: The Graphic NovelViolet|author=Marie Lu, Stuart Moore and Chris WildgooseS J I Holliday|rating=43.5|genre=TeensThrillers|summary=The young man called Bruce Wayne I've never been but understand that travelling is a very noticeable one – he can hardly go anywhere without all about meeting new people – bystanders, paparazzi, and suchlike – reminding him he's a billionaire at the age of eighteenforming instantaneous bonds with people in often chance situations. Feeling rather stuck with the legacy heWell that's inherited from his murdered parents, he wants to do charitable deeds. But one night, exactly what happens when he speeds off the two main/only characters meet in his posh new car a travel agency in pursuit of Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a criminal, he goes too far as far as refund on an extra ticket for the authorities are concerned, Trans-Siberian train and gets given Violet is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the most unlikely stretch of community service instead – cleaning in the home for violent criminals that is Arkham Asylumsame sold-out journey. There he learns of some other people who also allege charitable intent – As the Nightwalkerstwo team up, a gang who steal any ten-figure bank account contents they cantravelling through Mongolia, Serbia and murder into Russia, it could've been the owner. Can he get close to one start of them and get the truth a beautiful friendship but this a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a tale of their schemesobsession, or will the manipulative Madeleine be a step too far for the young do-gooder?manipulation and toxic friendships.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07W4MNBSG1912374838|title=Be Careful Who You MarryNothing Important Happened Today|author=Lizzy MumfreyWill Carver
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was coming up to Halloween in 1987 and Nothing Important Happened Today is a group of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftydark, twisted, difficult read. When you're only seventeen that seems positively ancientStories about cults often are, but Liz was convinced this is different; it's written with a sense of style that is quite unlike anything I've read before. I can'your entire life depends on who you marry''t remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. The only eligible boys were the Young Farmers and the idea of living in a farmhouse and having While a couple of children called Will slim and Olly appealed to Charlotterelatively small book, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry the rather superior Patrick Shepleyslow-Botham. The place to start their search was obviously the Young Farmers' Halloween disco that weekend. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in moving nature of the classplot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Michael J Malonewilliamabbey|title=In The Absence Pursuit of MiraclesWilliam Abbey|author=Claire North|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=John DochertyWhen William Abbey fails to prevent the lynching of a young boy in 1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother has been taken into a nursing home following a massive stroke. It is thought unlikely that she will ever be able A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, as the shadow of the dead boy begins to live independently againfollow him across the world. Faced with having to sell the family home Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in order to pay for her nursing care, Docherty starts the clear outpursuit of William. In the attic As he finds a childhood picture of himselfunable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, holding a toddler he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – a toddler and seeks to kill the one he knows nothing about. He also finds a blood-stained shoe.|isbn=191237479Xloves the most…
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=06928535451643785036|title=The Things We DoWondrous Apothecary|author=Kay PfaltzMary E Martin
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=ItThose who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning 's 2015 'The Hay Wagon'', and Dr Eleanor Hartley is a prison psychologist at the state penitentiary Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and she knows that her next patient is cheese, if not going to be easysworn enemies. If you'Jane Doeve watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, you' has been convicted of the murder of two men - one a police officer. She pleaded guilty d have said that they were magnets, drawing and since then has been silent: even her identity is repulsing each other in doubtequal measure. She Wainwright was carrying identification as Jane Dunlap when she was arrestedat the socially acceptable end of the artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo itwas all too obvious that there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn on, he's frequently been proved brought to be falsethe attention of the police. There seem to be no family or friends who are missing her. EleanorOn this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon''s task is to get Jane talking, to find out why a seemingly normal young woman would murder two men.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Patti SmithMary H.K. Choi|title=Year of the MonkeyPermanent Record
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyTeens|summary=On the coast of Santa CruzPablo, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the monkey a college drop- one packed with mischiefout, sorrow, and unexpected momentsis working at a New York bodega. In a stranger He's wordsmassively in debt, he's avoiding his mother, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he'Anything s surprised to discover that the girl he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, they start a relationship. With one character who is possible: after trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone, and the other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone allover the world, it's the year of the monkeyan interesting clash as they come together. This isn't just a love story though, and actually it's really just Pab'. As Smith wanders s story, about the coast of Santa Cruz journey he takes in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her his life via his meet- loss and aging are faced head on, as it the shifting political waters in Americaup with Leanna Smart. |isbn=15266147580349003459
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Margaret Atwood1609809319|title=The TestamentsLong-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Sondra Silverston (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian FictionConfident Readers|summary= Finally! Almost forty years One day a boy is in the zoo with his father, when the man gets called away on, we have a sequel to urgent business. [[The Handmaidboy isn's Tale by Margaret Atwood|The Handmaidt hustled into a cab and taken home first, though, no – he's Tale]]given hot dog money, and taxi money, and told to just stick around on his own and enjoy himself. I don't want to tell you too much about the plot because Well, it's a novel that is entirely plot driven. Suffice it to say no surprise that the orphan-for-an-afternoon sensation the lad feels doesn''The Testaments'' takes place fifteen years latert make him happy, and so he thinks of a species name for himself, fifteen years after Offred gets and curls himself up into an empty cage, as if he were a van, not knowing what will happen nextnew exhibit. It And it's told by three narrators: Aunt Lydia, who is secretly writing her memoirs in Ardua Hall; Agnes, a girl brought up in Gilead with then the expectation she will marry a commander; Daisy, a rebellious teenage girl in Canada who knows of Gilead only from school lessons and its Pearl Girl missionaries who occasionally call into the store owned by her parents...|isbn=1784742325drama begins…
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anne Boden1785785516|title=The Money RevolutionFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin
|rating=4
|genre= Business and FinanceLifestyle|summary= Money is changingManners maketh man, they say. It might not be in the ways you thinkcertainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of conventions, some of which are ages old and other which have evolved over time. We’re Manners are not suddenly getting a 3p about how much to tip or £3 coin (and have how you should behave if you ever even found a country that offers anything different get an invitation to the 1Buckingham Palace, 2, 5 model?) We’re they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they're about getting a lot the basics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. Of course we all have more digital relaxed manners when we're with paymentsfamily and friends, which seems but it's best if we learn to suit most people apart from charity collectors distinguish between our public and private lives and the homeless to act appropriately. ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the street, but although this book has the subtitle that includes the word ‘’digital’’, it’s not really about this eitherway. Instead it’s about the ‘’management’’ of your finances, and how to take control.|isbn=1789660610
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=147117316X0008324859|title=Guilty Not GuiltyFowl Twins|author=Felix Francis|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=The Honourable William Herbert Millgate Gordon-Russell (Bill Russell to those who knew him well) was acting as a volunteer steward at Warwick Racecourse when he was told of the violent death of his much-loved wife. It would get worse though: the successful insurance actuary would be accused of killing her and hounded by the media. Then he would lose his job and his home. His best friends would turn against him, as they came to believe him guilty of the murder. Yet there was no really compelling evidence that he was guilty.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1908745819|title=Surfacing|author=Kathleen JamieEoin Colfer
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes when people suggest that you read a certain bookRelax, they tell you ''this one has your name on it''. Mostly we take them at their word, or noteveryone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but rarely do we ask them why they thought so, unless it turns out that we didnthe baddies aren't like getting away with skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of the book. That's a rare experienceFowl family to contend with. People who Those cute little twins are sensitive to hearing a book calling your namenow eleven (and, frankly, rarely get it wrong. In cute no longer) and in this case I was told why. The blurb speaks of the author considering ''an older, less tethered sense of herself.'' Older. Less tethered. That's not their first independent adventure, they meet a bad description of where I am. Add troll and without even trying manage to that my love of make two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with immortality whatever the natural worldcost (to other people), of those aspects of the poetic and lyrical that an unusual interrogator-nun. The boys are about style chased, kidnapped, arrested and even killed (though not formfor long), and substance most all with the help of all, about connection. Of course this book had my name on it. It was written for me. It would have found its way to me eventually. I am pleased to have it fall onto my path so quicklyone trainee fairy.
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