Difference between revisions of "Newest Lifestyle Reviews"

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[[Category:Lifestyle|*]]
 
[[Category:Lifestyle|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15"  <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
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|isbn=1786495902
 
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|title=The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind
<!-- Mackay -->
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|author=Isabel Hardman
|-
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|rating=5
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
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|genre=Lifestyle
[[image:Mackay_Trials.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524683094?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524683094]]
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|summary=Isabel Hardman suffered a trauma which she chooses not to share. She says that a friend who does know, burst into tears and health-care professionals' jaws have sagged in disbelief. Hardman dealt with this at the time by 'keeping going': the next day she went to work to cover the budget, next there was the EU referendum, the political party leadership contests and then it was party conference season. One night she had to be sedated and returned home to begin long-term sick leave. That was what brought me to this book: 2020 was the year when the bins went out more often than I did.
 
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}}
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{{Frontpage
===[[Trials and Tribulations of a Travelling Prostitute by Andrew Mackay]]===
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|author=Lauren Martin
 
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|title=The Book of Moods
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Business and Finance|Business and Finance]]
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|rating=5
 
 
Just chance you think that you're picking up a book about what can go wrong in life for an itinerant sex worker I'd better explain exactly what it was that author Andrew Mackay did for thirty three years. A travelling prostitute is a worker who is employed by one company but his services are sold out to other countries, usually at a substantial profit to the employing company and a lot of inconvenience to the employee. Mackay was an engineer who knew all that there was to be know about turbines and generators, or if he didn't could soon be up to speed to the extent of being able to teach other people. Occasionally his skills were used in the UK, but frequently he was abroad. Just every now and again he would be in those parts of the world which has the rest of us green with envy, but then there were those areas which feature heavily in the news and not in a good way. [[Trials and Tribulations of a Travelling Prostitute by Andrew Mackay|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Omeiza -->
 
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[[image:Omeiza_Parenting.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524682853?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524682853]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]
 
 
 
Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up in Nigeria and came to Britain to study for her A levels when she was 18. Her parents used their savings to give her this opportunity and called it an investment in her future. Now a qualified pharmacist, married and with a child of her own, Tabitha looks back at her childhood and reflects on the way her mother and father raised her. And she gives their parenting top marks. [[Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Kyncl -->
 
|-
 
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[[image:Kyncl_Stream.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0753545926?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0753545926]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Stream Punks by Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category: Entertainment|Entertainment]]
 
 
 
I watch quite a lot of YouTube. I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the gym, I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the cross trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the cast of my favourite shows. And sometimes I'll treat it as if it is Netflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. Having a new smart TV adds an extra, easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a small phone screen. So yes, I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the site it until I read this book.[[Stream Punks by Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Way -->
 
|-
 
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
 
[[image:Way_Tea.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1445670011?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1445670011]]
 
 
 
 
 
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===[[Tea Gardens (Britain's Heritage Series) by Twigs Way]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:History|History]]
 
 
 
Tea Gardens really began in London in the late 18th century: a trip to Kings Cross or St Pancras was effectively a trip to the country in those days. Men had their coffee houses, but they were not places where women could or would be seen. Tea was introduced to England in the 17th century but it was not until 1784 that the high duty was reduced from 119% to 12½% and tea became the drink of choice for the nation. Until then the working classes had been fuelled largely by cheap gin. Only, where would this beverage be drunk? One answer was the pleasure gardens where the fashionable went to see and be seen: by the mid 1600s tea was also being served in places such as Ranelagh Gardens. [[Tea Gardens (Britain's Heritage Series) by Twigs Way|Full Review]]
 
 
 
<!-- Nicholson -->
 
|-
 
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
 
[[image:Nicholson_Tambourine.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1524681822?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1524681822]]
 
 
 
 
 
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
 
===[[Mr Tambourine Man by Nicholson]]===
 
 
 
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Travel|Travel]]
 
 
 
Back in 1965 we heard ''Mr Tambourine Man'' by the Byrds on the radio very regularly. Nicholson was thirteen and saw the 45rpm recording of the song in the window of the local music store and would have loved to be able to buy it but didn't have the money. Thirteen-year olds didn't in those days unless it was a birthday or Christmas and you couldn't get a part-time job until you were fifteen. There would be a few of those badly-paid jobs before he finished his A levels and went to New York for three months. It's this trip which Nicholson feels turned him from being a boy into a man and allowed him to see the bigger picture.<br>
 
 
 
|}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
 
|title= Personal Stereo
 
|rating= 5
 
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary= These tiny 'Object Lessons', a range of books which are more like a long-form essay, explore often seemingly mundane items. ''Personal Stereo'' packs a lot of information into a small space.  Split into three distinct sections: Novelty, Norm, and Nostalgia,  'Novelty' traces the origin of the Sony Walkman, from its conception by two Japanese business men to it becoming a recognised entity on the streets of America. 'Norm' follows on from the universal success of the personal stereo, relating this to the technology which it set the groundwork for, such as the ubiquitous proliferation of MP3s, the iPod, and Smartphones, leading to the eventual downfall in the popularity of the Walkman.  Finally, in 'Nostalgia', Tuhus-Dubrow examines our need to hark back to a simpler time, when the personal stereo seemed the height of freedom.  
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|summary= I was in a great mood when I first learnt of this book, and because sarcasm doesn't always translate well into writing, imagine the word ''great'' being delivered with an eye roll and a sigh, through clenched teeth. I had spent the best part of a rainy, windy weekend afternoon out on the water at our local sailing club in the rescue rib, on standby in case anyone who was racing needed support. It's a volunteer duty we all do during the year, and normally I'm happy to, but that day the weather was miserable and I was miserable, and it all came to a head that evening when I noticed on the website that we had been thanked for our time as "Dave and wife". Wow. I had never needed this book more.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1501322818</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1538733625
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Chit Dubey
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|isbn=0008420386
|title=21 Doors to Happiness: Life Through Travel Experiences and Meditation
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|title=Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrong
 +
|author=Elizabeth Day
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I know that I'm not alone in having been brought up to ''achieve'', to look down on those who had different (''lesser'', it would have been said) aims, but there comes a point in life when you wonder about the point of it all.  Do you need to keep on ''achieving'', and if so, ''why''? Many years ago I had a light-bulb moment when I realised that achieving more, having more money, more material possessions didn't make me happy - and surely the point of it all was to be ''happy''?  Superficially that sounds very simple: live a life doing only what you want to do and pleasing yourself, but that doesn't bring happiness either.  Chit Dubey believes that happiness is inside you and you just need to delve a little deeper to find it.
+
|summary=What do Malcolm Gladwell, Alain de Botton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lemn Sissay, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sandé, Meera Syal, Dame Kelly Holmes and Andrew Scott have in common?  They've all failed and - more importantly - they've been willing to appear on Elizabeth Day's podcast to discuss their failures and how life worked out for them afterwards. You'll find the results of these discussions in ''Failosophy''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1999838912</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1504321383
 +
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
 +
|author=Louisa Pateman
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Autobiography
 +
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own.  You are not complete until you find a man''.
  
<!-- Moore -->
+
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.  It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.  It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after.  Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children.  It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
[[image:Moore Bientot.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782438610?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782438610]]
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
===[[A Bientot... by Roger Moore]]===
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|isbn=1538731738
 
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|title=Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Entertainment|Entertainment]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]]
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|author= Sarah Ban Breathnach
 
+
|rating=5
The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on for ever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, ''À bientôt…'', to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away. [[A Bientot... by Roger Moore|Full Review]]
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|genre=Lifestyle
<br>
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|summary=Someone once said: it's not self-indulgence, it's therapy!  I think they were talking about shopping, but it probably can be applied to most things.  In my case, it applies to writing about things because I want to, rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to sell.
 
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}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=My Psychosis Story: A Story of Fear and Hope Through Adversity
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|author=Sharon Blackie
|author=Emmanuel Owusu
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|title=If Women Rose Rooted
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 +
|genre= Biography
 +
|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.
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|isbn=1912836017
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1543987877
 +
|title=Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life
 +
|author=Dr Thomas Jordan
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Lifestyle
 +
|summary=''Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life'' is a book about love relationships rather than a book about love.  The two greatest emotions are love and grief and love is the opposite of grief: ''if you love'', Dr Thomas Jordan tells us, ''you will inevitably grieve''. Your love relationships begin the moment you're born and end only when you die.  Whilst we all come into the world hoping to give and receive love there are many people for whom love is not quite so simple. Some people suffer multiple disappointments - sometimes repeating the same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignation. For people who are making the same mistakes repeatedly, self-preservation, in the form of resignation is a necessity.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Michael Harris
 +
|title=Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''My Psychosis Story'' recounts Emmanuel Owusu's journey into and eventually out of psychosis. In late 2014, during a visit home for Christmas, he found himself exhausted, anxious and unable to sleep. Symptoms persisted and soon he was suffering from noise sensitivity and intense headaches. Various visits to A&E failed to diagnose a physical cause. Things deteriorated further and possible diagnoses of anxiety and post traumatic concussion  were suggested. And ''still'' things got worse. Eventually, Owusu's condition deteriorated so far that he was suffering from delusions and hallucinations. An ambulance was called and he was detained - sectioned - under the Mental Health Act in 2015.
+
|summary= This is not the book I was expecting it to be. For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, how to step outside the mainstream, but it is not that at all. Instead of telling us how, it is more about the ''why''.  Harries examines how we're eroding solitude, which used to be a natural part of our human life, and why that matters.  Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524680559</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1847947662
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Megan Hine
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|isbn=0753553236
|title= Mind of a Survivor
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|title=Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
|rating= 5
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|author=B J Fogg
|genre= Lifestyle
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|rating=5
|summary=Megan Hine is probably the type of person that you'd want with you in a crisis situation. Cool, calm and capable; this survival expert is equally at home in desert, mountain, tundra and jungle environments. She's navigated her way around some of the most inhospitable regions on the planet and survived to tell the tale. But just what is it that makes some people more capable in a survival situation than others? Physical fitness? Bushcraft skills? Experience? Whilst all of these are important, Hine argues that ''attitude'' is one of the most important factors in survival. In this book, she examines how the right mindset can mean the difference between life and death when isolated in the wilderness.
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|genre=Lifestyle
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473649285</amazonuk>
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|summary=Go on, admit it - you're not quite perfect.  You still have those odd, quirky even loveable (to you) habits which seem to annoy other people. Other people, of course, are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws which they could so easily correct, if only they would make just a little bit of effort. Or put another way, I get cross with myself because I forget to do things or do some actions more than I should and no matter how I try to make what seem to be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to grips with the concepts.  I constantly fail and then I get cross with myself for failing. Lack of willpower is another burden to add to the list.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Caroline Ikin
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|isbn=1785785516
|title=The Kitchen Garden (Britain's Heritage Series)
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|title=Fucking Good Manners
 +
|author=Simon Griffin
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I love visiting country houses, but you can keep the interiors and the flower gardens - what interests me is the kitchen garden: seeing one which has been restored to its former glory is a real treat, as was ''Britain's Heritage: The Country Garden'' when it landed on my desk.  There was no longer any need to guess at the work that had been done: here was the history complete with glorious illustrations as well as some wonderful advertisements.  ''Canary Guano.  For Greenhouse and garden. Perfectly cleanMay be used by a lady.'' is still making me giggle.
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|summary=Manners maketh man, they say.  It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of conventions, some of which are ages old and other which have evolved over time.  Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get an invitation to Buckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they're about getting the basics right before we try to deal with more difficult mattersOf course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and friends, but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and to act appropriately.  ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the way.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144566884X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview <!-- remove 7/7 -->
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{{Frontpage
|author= Veronica M McNally
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|isbn=1999811402
|title= Cracking the Obesity Crisis
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|title=Painting Snails
|rating= 1.5
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|author=Stephen John Hartley
|genre=Lifestyle
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|rating=4.5
|summary= Any weight-related book, whether one that considers issues from a medical or sociological perspective, or one that provides advice on how to eat well or lose weight, whose opening pages feature ''fat people are basically insecure, unhappy people trapped inside very unattractive bodies'', ''Islamic people however are at an advantage as they do Ramadan and they are not overweight'', ''there is hope for overweight and obese people, but I don’t see a way back for the clinically aid [sic] morbidly obese'' and my personal favourite: ''as women’s hands are smooth and soft in many cases, females would be useful behind soldiers to be there as assistants to men quickly reloading magazines of bullets speedily'', any such book needs to provide an awful lot of valuable content in the pages that follow to have a chance of redeeming itself.
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|genre=Autobiography
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524662003</amazonuk>
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|summary=It's very difficult to classify ''Painting Snails'': originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results.  The answer would be something along the lines of 'try it and see'.  Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time).  I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from ''Casualty'', but that isn't really what the book's about.  There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either.  Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'?  Yep - that's the one.  It's an autobiography.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1848993609
 +
|title=Good Mood Food: Unlock the Power of Diet to Think and Feel Well
 +
|author=Charlotte Watts and Natalie Savona
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Cookery
 +
|summary=I thought I was getting a cookbook: I liked the idea of a series of recipes which would make me feel happy.  For once this isn't a case of 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' - it's a case of getting something which could change your life for the better - for good - rather than a quick fix.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Will Darbyshire
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|isbn=Kyncl_Stream
|title=This Modern Love
+
|title=Stream Punks
|rating= 4
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|author=Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan
|genre= Lifestyle
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= Love is love, but at the same time love is changing, the way we find it, the way we express it, the way we walk away from things. You can change a Facebook status and tell the entire world the ins and outs of your relationship, you can meet people online, you can conduct long distance relationships in much more real time than in the past when you had to rely on the postman to deliver your heartfelt, handwritten note. This book, a compilation of letters and other contributions, explores what love is in the 21st century. It's certainly international – there were 15,000 submissions from over 100 countries – and it's also touching, funny, frustrating and all those other things.
+
|genre=Entertainment
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784755168</amazonuk>
+
|summary=I watch quite a lot of YouTube. I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the gym, I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the cross-trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the cast of my favourite shows. And sometimes I'll treat it as if it is Netflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. Having a new smart TV adds an extra, easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a small phone screen. So yes, I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the site it until I read this book.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Williams
+
|isbn=Omeiza_Parenting
|title=Grandpa Diet and Diabetes
+
|title=Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood
 +
|author=Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Nick's Mum is an accident and emergency nurse and life can get a bit hectic at times, particularly when she has to arrange for someone to look after Nick and his twin sister Emma.  One day in the school holidays Grandpa had the pleasure of looking after the kids and Nick thought this was cool. Grandpa used to be a bit of a rocker, you see, and that's the sort of music he always has playing.  He might have a stick but Nick sure that he doesn't really need it - it's there just in case. He does have a problem though and Mum explains it by saying that Grandpa has to eat at the right time every day because he has diabetes.
+
|summary=Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up in Nigeria and came to Britain to study for her A levels when she was 18. Her parents used their savings to give her this opportunity and called it an investment in her future. Now a qualified pharmacist, married and with a child of her own, Tabitha looks back at her childhood and reflects on the way her mother and father raised her. And she gives their parenting top marks.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524667641</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Twigs Way
+
|isbn=Mackay_Trials
|title=Allotments (Britain's Heritage Series)
+
|title=Trials and Tribulations of a Travelling Prostitute
 +
|author=Andrew Mackay
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Business and Finance
 +
|summary=Just chance you think that you're picking up a book about what can go wrong in life for an itinerant sex worker I'd better explain exactly what it was that author Andrew Mackay did for thirty-three years. A travelling prostitute is a worker who is employed by one company but his services are sold out to other countries, usually at a substantial profit to the employing company and a lot of inconvenience to the employee. Mackay was an engineer who knew all that there was to be know about turbines and generators, or if he didn't could soon be up to speed to the extent of being able to teach other people. Occasionally his skills were used in the UK, but frequently he was abroad. Just every now and again he would be in those parts of the world which has the rest of us green with envy, but then there were those areas which feature heavily in the news and not in a good way.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1529104432X
 +
|title=The Art of Noticing: Rediscover What Really Matters to You
 +
|author=Rob Walker
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Allotments came about originally from the enclosure of land, primarily for sheep pasture. Fearing that the enclosures would leave peasants unable to feed themselves, Elizabeth I issued an act requiring all new cottages to have four acres of ground, something which has been honoured more by history than by Elizabeth's contemporaries.  It was the first in a long line of legislation with that aim in mind - which largely failed to achieve their aims.
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|summary=The curse put on reviewers is that we get to read through a book which is really better dipped into or read gradually and thoughts allowed to be provoked.  And so it was with ''The Art of Noticing''.  It's a simple premise: the pace of modern life and rapidity of technological advances means that we are constantly overwhelmed and distracted.  Rob Walker wants us to be able to steal our attention back.  He gives us his thoughts on various areas of our lives and then provides 131 exercises to help us recover our attention.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445665700</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nicos Nicolaou
+
|isbn=1786331608
|title=The Anxiety-Elimination System
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|title=Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story
 +
|author=Leah Hazard
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Nick Nicolau suffered a major panic attack and was told by his doctor that he would need medication to control the attacks and that there wasn't much more that he could do - apart that was, from going home to sleepThe next morning he had another attack which he could neither stop nor control and before long was having panic attacks every day and developed generalised anxiety and phobiasAfter a great deal of work and research he discovered how to control his anxiety - and now he helps others to do the same.   No one is born with a chemical imbalance in the brain and genes do not determine behaviour. The proof of the efficacy of his system is that through the course of a particularly challenging life event - his divorce - he didn't slip back into inappropriate anxiety.
+
|summary=Over the past few years, we've had a rash (sorry - no pun intended) of books by medical practitioners.  Doctors have been at the forefront, but ''Hard Pushed'' is the first book I've seen by a midwifeIt's an unusual profession in that it's one of the few callings within the medical system where most of the patients are healthy and the only one where one person comes into the system and (for the most part) more than one goes outIt's an amazing thing to be able to do - to escort new life into the world - and an enormous responsibility. Leah Hazard came to it after a career in television and ''Hard Pushed'' is the story of her career as a midwife - and the title tells more than one story.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524667412</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Akon Margaret Kalu
+
|isbn=0753552655
|title=Eat With Pleasure
+
|title=Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days
|rating=3
+
|author=James Wallman
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=When you think about a certified nutrition coach you probably imagine someone who is going to be very strict with you about what you should or shouldn't be eating.  You visualise someone who will insist that you eat worthy (and probably tasteless) food and completely avoid those foods which you really love.  Gone will be the bar of chocolate and possibly even the mug of coffee which gets you going in the morning. It was particularly refreshing and something of a relief to encounter Akon Margaret Kalu - certified nutrition coach and food blogger at [http://www.therealakon.co.uk www.therealakon.co.uk]She's outspoken.  She believes that the occasional treat does you no harm so long as you don't make it a regular habitIn fact you're better having a small, occasional, indulgent snack than resisting and finally giving into cravings and ''binging''.  In other words, she lives in the real world with the rest of us imperfect beings.
+
|summary=Most things you can replace, but one of the things which you simply can't replace is time. Even though we know this, we fail to use what we have wiselyWe have more leisure time, but that's not how it feels: a high value is put on how we spend our working hours, but there's a low value on leisureUnfortunately, we now know how to work and not how to ''live'': we need to ''learn'' how to spend our leisure time wisely and James Wallman has taken on the onerous task of teaching us how to do this.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524676942</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Ruth Pearson
+
|isbn=B07ML4Q55J
|title=Say Yes to New Opportunities!
+
|title=Home Workout for Beginners: 6 Week Fitness Program with Fat Burning Workouts for Long Term Weight Loss
 +
|author=James Atkinson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Ruth Pearson was deputy head of her school and was studying for a Masters degree when she suffered an emotional breakdown as a result of the stresses of the jobThe breakdown was so severe that she was afraid to return to the classroom, but rather than sitting back and letting the circumstances overwhelm her she allowed what had happened to become a catalyst which would help her to change her lifeIn ''Say Yes to New Opportunities'' she shares what she learned from the experienceTo come back from this situation requires strength, honesty and a sense of purpose, all of which Pearson demonstrates quite clearly throughout this book.
+
|summary=James Atkinson has all the qualifications which you need in a workout instructor and he looks the part.  He's been actively involved in the health and fitness arena for more than twenty years and he spent nine years as a member of 9 Parachute Regiment, Royal Engineers.  He has another qualification which means a lot to me: he's been on the other sideThere was a time when he was overweight and not particularly strong.  As a child, he was slow to developThis means that he ''understands'' what it's like and he knows how his clients feel: it's much more helpful than the twenty-something who was born super-fit and with an attitude problem.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524676616</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1999308719
 +
|title=Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-aging treatments
 +
|author=Adrian Cull
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Lifestyle
 +
|summary=For many years now I've (half) joked that I intended to live forever and that so far, it was working out OKTime has passed though and although I'm a great deal fitter and healthier than most people of my age there were a few nagging health problems which were tipping my life out of balance.  It was time to look for a new approach and as so often happens, the reviewing gods brought me the book I needed.  ''Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-ageing treatments'' seemed like the answer to my problems - only you get so much more than just 101 tips.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Confessions of Modern Women
+
|isbn=1847941834
|author=Spadge Whittaker
+
|title=Atomic Habits
 +
|author=James Clear
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=She's back! Huzzah! Do you remember when Spadge Whittaker [[Braver Than Britain, Occasionally by Spadge Whittaker|faced her (and our) deepest fears]]? We loved the way she did that. EXCEPT FOR THE SPIDERS.
+
|summary=I've said this before but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now!  ''Atomic Habits''  is in the last category.
 
 
This time, Spadge has turned her attention to what it means to be a modern woman in twenty-first century, digital Britain.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993429912</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Dixe Wills
+
|isbn=1527230783
|title=Tiny Campsites: 80 Perfect Little Places to Pitch
+
|title=Keep Your Health and Fitness For Life: Don't Let Age Be A Barrier
 +
|author=Stuart Roberts
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Travel
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I've often been put off the idea of camping by the thought of large, soul-less campsites, often populated by people who want to party late into the night.  I much prefer camping to mean something - a feeling of being somewhere special, of being able to be at one with natureBut the trouble is, where do you find these gems? Well, ''Tiny Campsites'' will provide you with eighty perfect little places to pitch your tent.
+
|summary=My birth certificate might suggest a higher figure, but I know that I'm only 42.  I learned a long time ago that I could retain that feeling by keeping my life in balance.  This meant eating sensibly, getting quality sleep and having regular exercise which I enjoyed.  There was an added bonus too: I was juggling four chronic conditions and living this way meant that I could keep three of them in the background.  Then a silly misstep meant that the hip problem flared upThe only way I could get more than an hour or two asleep was to take pain relief and the duodenal ulcer started to complain. Because I was masking symptoms I didn't dare to exercise - and the black dog of depression prowled along behind me.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749578483</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1720812675
 +
|title=Beyond Thought
 +
|author=Chris Dhladhla
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Lifestyle
 +
|summary=Have you ever felt trapped by your own thoughts? That your mind is so busy processing what's going on in the world around you that you just can't catch a moment and simply ''be''? Or that the outside world just won't stop pressing in upon an inner life that you'd like to be more peaceful?
 +
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Literary Fiction Reviews]]

Revision as of 13:20, 13 December 2020

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Review of

The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind by Isabel Hardman

5star.jpg Lifestyle

Isabel Hardman suffered a trauma which she chooses not to share. She says that a friend who does know, burst into tears and health-care professionals' jaws have sagged in disbelief. Hardman dealt with this at the time by 'keeping going': the next day she went to work to cover the budget, next there was the EU referendum, the political party leadership contests and then it was party conference season. One night she had to be sedated and returned home to begin long-term sick leave. That was what brought me to this book: 2020 was the year when the bins went out more often than I did. Full Review

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Review of

The Book of Moods by Lauren Martin

5star.jpg Lifestyle

I was in a great mood when I first learnt of this book, and because sarcasm doesn't always translate well into writing, imagine the word great being delivered with an eye roll and a sigh, through clenched teeth. I had spent the best part of a rainy, windy weekend afternoon out on the water at our local sailing club in the rescue rib, on standby in case anyone who was racing needed support. It's a volunteer duty we all do during the year, and normally I'm happy to, but that day the weather was miserable and I was miserable, and it all came to a head that evening when I noticed on the website that we had been thanked for our time as "Dave and wife". Wow. I had never needed this book more. Full Review

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Review of

Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrong by Elizabeth Day

4star.jpg Lifestyle

What do Malcolm Gladwell, Alain de Botton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lemn Sissay, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sandé, Meera Syal, Dame Kelly Holmes and Andrew Scott have in common? They've all failed and - more importantly - they've been willing to appear on Elizabeth Day's podcast to discuss their failures and how life worked out for them afterwards. You'll find the results of these discussions in Failosophy Full Review

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Review of

Single, Again, and Again, and Again by Louisa Pateman

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man.

This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up without the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that a belief is a choice. Full Review

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Review of

Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life by Sarah Ban Breathnach

5star.jpg Lifestyle

Someone once said: it's not self-indulgence, it's therapy! I think they were talking about shopping, but it probably can be applied to most things. In my case, it applies to writing about things because I want to, rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to sell. Full Review

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Review of

If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie

5star.jpg Biography

I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. Perhaps an even greater measure of impact is setting out to buy my own copy before I've finished reading the one I've borrowed. I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better. Full Review

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Review of

Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life by Dr Thomas Jordan

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life is a book about love relationships rather than a book about love. The two greatest emotions are love and grief and love is the opposite of grief: if you love, Dr Thomas Jordan tells us, you will inevitably grieve. Your love relationships begin the moment you're born and end only when you die. Whilst we all come into the world hoping to give and receive love there are many people for whom love is not quite so simple. Some people suffer multiple disappointments - sometimes repeating the same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignation. For people who are making the same mistakes repeatedly, self-preservation, in the form of resignation is a necessity. Full Review

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Review of

Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World by Michael Harris

5star.jpg Lifestyle

This is not the book I was expecting it to be. For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, how to step outside the mainstream, but it is not that at all. Instead of telling us how, it is more about the why. Harries examines how we're eroding solitude, which used to be a natural part of our human life, and why that matters. Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him. Full Review

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Review of

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by B J Fogg

5star.jpg Lifestyle

Go on, admit it - you're not quite perfect. You still have those odd, quirky even loveable (to you) habits which seem to annoy other people. Other people, of course, are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws which they could so easily correct, if only they would make just a little bit of effort. Or put another way, I get cross with myself because I forget to do things or do some actions more than I should and no matter how I try to make what seem to be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to grips with the concepts. I constantly fail and then I get cross with myself for failing. Lack of willpower is another burden to add to the list. Full Review

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Review of

Fucking Good Manners by Simon Griffin

4star.jpg Lifestyle

Manners maketh man, they say. It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of conventions, some of which are ages old and other which have evolved over time. Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get an invitation to Buckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they're about getting the basics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and friends, but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and to act appropriately. Fucking Good Manners aims to help us on the way. Full Review

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Review of

Painting Snails by Stephen John Hartley

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

It's very difficult to classify Painting Snails: originally I thought that as it's loosely based around a year on an allotment it would be a lifestyle book, but you're not going to get advice on what to plant when and where for the best results. The answer would be something along the lines of 'try it and see'. Then I considered popular science as Stephen Hartley failed his A levels, did an engineering apprenticeship, became a busker, finally got into medical school and is now an A&E consultant (part-time). I found out that there's an awful lot more to what goes on in a Major Trauma Centre than you'll ever glean from Casualty, but that isn't really what the book's about. There's a lot about rock & roll, which seems to be the real passion of Hartley's life, but it didn't actually fit into the entertainment genre either. Did we have a category for 'doing the impossible the hard way'? Yep - that's the one. It's an autobiography. Full Review

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Review of

Good Mood Food: Unlock the Power of Diet to Think and Feel Well by Charlotte Watts and Natalie Savona

4.5star.jpg Cookery

I thought I was getting a cookbook: I liked the idea of a series of recipes which would make me feel happy. For once this isn't a case of 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' - it's a case of getting something which could change your life for the better - for good - rather than a quick fix. Full Review

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Review of

Stream Punks by Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan

4.5star.jpg Entertainment

I watch quite a lot of YouTube. I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the gym, I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the cross-trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the cast of my favourite shows. And sometimes I'll treat it as if it is Netflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. Having a new smart TV adds an extra, easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a small phone screen. So yes, I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the site it until I read this book. Full Review

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Review of

Parenting through the Eyes of a Child: Memoirs of My Childhood by Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza

4star.jpg Autobiography

Tabitha Ochekpe Omeiza was brought up in Nigeria and came to Britain to study for her A levels when she was 18. Her parents used their savings to give her this opportunity and called it an investment in her future. Now a qualified pharmacist, married and with a child of her own, Tabitha looks back at her childhood and reflects on the way her mother and father raised her. And she gives their parenting top marks. Full Review

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Review of

Trials and Tribulations of a Travelling Prostitute by Andrew Mackay

3.5star.jpg Business and Finance

Just chance you think that you're picking up a book about what can go wrong in life for an itinerant sex worker I'd better explain exactly what it was that author Andrew Mackay did for thirty-three years. A travelling prostitute is a worker who is employed by one company but his services are sold out to other countries, usually at a substantial profit to the employing company and a lot of inconvenience to the employee. Mackay was an engineer who knew all that there was to be know about turbines and generators, or if he didn't could soon be up to speed to the extent of being able to teach other people. Occasionally his skills were used in the UK, but frequently he was abroad. Just every now and again he would be in those parts of the world which has the rest of us green with envy, but then there were those areas which feature heavily in the news and not in a good way. Full Review

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Review of

The Art of Noticing: Rediscover What Really Matters to You by Rob Walker

4star.jpg Lifestyle

The curse put on reviewers is that we get to read through a book which is really better dipped into or read gradually and thoughts allowed to be provoked. And so it was with The Art of Noticing. It's a simple premise: the pace of modern life and rapidity of technological advances means that we are constantly overwhelmed and distracted. Rob Walker wants us to be able to steal our attention back. He gives us his thoughts on various areas of our lives and then provides 131 exercises to help us recover our attention. Full Review

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Review of

Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by Leah Hazard

4star.jpg Lifestyle

Over the past few years, we've had a rash (sorry - no pun intended) of books by medical practitioners. Doctors have been at the forefront, but Hard Pushed is the first book I've seen by a midwife. It's an unusual profession in that it's one of the few callings within the medical system where most of the patients are healthy and the only one where one person comes into the system and (for the most part) more than one goes out. It's an amazing thing to be able to do - to escort new life into the world - and an enormous responsibility. Leah Hazard came to it after a career in television and Hard Pushed is the story of her career as a midwife - and the title tells more than one story. Full Review

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Review of

Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days by James Wallman

4star.jpg Lifestyle

Most things you can replace, but one of the things which you simply can't replace is time. Even though we know this, we fail to use what we have wisely. We have more leisure time, but that's not how it feels: a high value is put on how we spend our working hours, but there's a low value on leisure. Unfortunately, we now know how to work and not how to live: we need to learn how to spend our leisure time wisely and James Wallman has taken on the onerous task of teaching us how to do this. Full Review

B07ML4Q55J.jpg

Review of

Home Workout for Beginners: 6 Week Fitness Program with Fat Burning Workouts for Long Term Weight Loss by James Atkinson

4star.jpg Lifestyle

James Atkinson has all the qualifications which you need in a workout instructor and he looks the part. He's been actively involved in the health and fitness arena for more than twenty years and he spent nine years as a member of 9 Parachute Regiment, Royal Engineers. He has another qualification which means a lot to me: he's been on the other side. There was a time when he was overweight and not particularly strong. As a child, he was slow to develop. This means that he understands what it's like and he knows how his clients feel: it's much more helpful than the twenty-something who was born super-fit and with an attitude problem. Full Review

1999308719.jpg

Review of

Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-aging treatments by Adrian Cull

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

For many years now I've (half) joked that I intended to live forever and that so far, it was working out OK. Time has passed though and although I'm a great deal fitter and healthier than most people of my age there were a few nagging health problems which were tipping my life out of balance. It was time to look for a new approach and as so often happens, the reviewing gods brought me the book I needed. Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-ageing treatments seemed like the answer to my problems - only you get so much more than just 101 tips. Full Review

1847941834.jpg

Review of

Atomic Habits by James Clear

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

I've said this before but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! Atomic Habits is in the last category. Full Review

1527230783.jpg

Review of

Keep Your Health and Fitness For Life: Don't Let Age Be A Barrier by Stuart Roberts

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

My birth certificate might suggest a higher figure, but I know that I'm only 42. I learned a long time ago that I could retain that feeling by keeping my life in balance. This meant eating sensibly, getting quality sleep and having regular exercise which I enjoyed. There was an added bonus too: I was juggling four chronic conditions and living this way meant that I could keep three of them in the background. Then a silly misstep meant that the hip problem flared up. The only way I could get more than an hour or two asleep was to take pain relief and the duodenal ulcer started to complain. Because I was masking symptoms I didn't dare to exercise - and the black dog of depression prowled along behind me. Full Review

1720812675.jpg

Review of

Beyond Thought by Chris Dhladhla

4star.jpg Lifestyle

Have you ever felt trapped by your own thoughts? That your mind is so busy processing what's going on in the world around you that you just can't catch a moment and simply be? Or that the outside world just won't stop pressing in upon an inner life that you'd like to be more peaceful? Full Review

Move on to Newest Literary Fiction Reviews