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[[Category:Lifestyle|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Lifestyle]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0753558378
|title=Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters
|author=Greg McKeown
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''The marginal return of working harder was, in fact, negative.''
That's what happened to Patrick McGinnis. It's no exaggeration to say that he devoted his life to the company he worked for, struggling through, even when he was ill, only to find that he was working for a bankrupt company. His stock had fallen by 97%, he had lost his health and his job had little value. He made a bargain with God; if he survived, he would make some changes. He did survive and came through stronger - and richer. There is, you see, a different way: ''great things are not reserved for those who bleed, for those who almost break.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1523092734
|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space
|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529109116
|title=Call Me Red: A Shepherd's Journey
|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=''I want the image of a British farmer to simply be that of a person who is proudly employed in feeding the nation. I don't think that is too much to ask.''
The stereotypical farmer was probably born on the land where ''his'' family have farmed for generations. He's probably grown up without giving much thought as to what he really wants to do: he knows that he'll be a farmer. It's not always the case though. Hannah Jackson was born and brought up on the Wirral: she'd never set foot on a commercial farm until she was twenty although she'd always had a deep love of animals. Her original intention was that she would become 'Dr Jackson, whale scientist' and she was well on her way to achieving this when her life changed on a family holiday to the Lake District. She saw a lamb being born and, although 'Hannah Jackson, farmer' lacked the kudos of her original intention, she knew that she wanted to be a shepherd. With the determination that you'll soon realise is an essential part of her, she set about achieving her ambition.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1786495902
|title=The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind
|author=Isabel Hardman
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lauren Martin
|title=The Book of Moods
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|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.
|isbn=1538733625
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008420386
|title=Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrong
|author=Elizabeth Day
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
|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''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1504321383
|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.
}}
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- Rob Walker -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|{Frontpage[[image:1529104432X.jpg|linkisbn=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529104432X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | styletitle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Art of Noticing: Rediscover What Really Matters to You by |author=Rob Walker]]==|rating=4 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] 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. [[The Art of Noticing: Rediscover What Really Matters to You by Rob Walker|Full Review]]}}<!-- Leah Hazard -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|{{Frontpage[[image:1786331608.jpg|linkisbn=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786331608/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | styletitle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by |author=Leah Hazard]]==|rating=4 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] 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 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. [[Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by Leah Hazard|Full Review]]}}<!-- James Wallman -->{{Frontpage|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0753552655.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0753552655/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|title===[[Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days by |author=James Wallman]]==|rating=4 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] 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 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. [[Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days by James Wallman|Full Review]]}}<!-- James Atkinson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|{{Frontpage[[image:B07ML4Q55J.jpg|linkisbn=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ML4Q55J/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|title===[[Home Workout for Beginners: 6 Week Fitness Program with Fat Burning Workouts for Long Term Weight Loss by |author=James Atkinson]]|rating===4[[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] 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 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. [[Home Workout for Beginners: 6 Week Fitness Program with Fat Burning Workouts for Long Term Weight Loss by James Atkinson|Full Review]]}}<!-- Adrian Cull -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|{{Frontpage[[image:1999308719.jpg|linkisbn=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1999308719/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | styletitle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-aging treatments by |author=Adrian Cull]]==|rating= [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Popular Science|Popular Science]] summary=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. [[Live Forever Manual: Science, ethics and companies behind the new anti-ageing treatments by Adrian Cull|Full Review]] <!-- Clear -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1847941834.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847941834/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Atomic Habits by James Clear]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Popular Science|Popular Science]], [[:Category:Lifestyle|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. [[Atomic Habits by James Clear|Full Review]] <!-- Stuart Roberts -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1527230783.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1527230783/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Keep Your Health and Fitness For Life: Don't Let Age Be A Barrier by Stuart Roberts]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|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 mis-step 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. [[Keep Your Health and Fitness For Life: Don't Let Age Be A Barrier by Stuart Roberts|Full Review]] <!-- Dhladhla -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1720812675.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1720812675/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[Beyond Thought by Chris Dhladhla]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|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? [[Beyond Thought by Chris Dhladhla|Full Review]] <!-- Watson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0993454682.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993454682/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Rockstar Retirement Programme: How to retire like a rockstar by Dominic Watson]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]] Even with a birthday fast approaching, I'm still a bit young to be reading about retirement. My next life change in the pipeline will be a big one, and it does involve leaving the 9 to 5 behind for a yacht and the silky blue waters of the Caribbean, but only for a year, and then I will be back, tanned and refreshed but barely 40 and with many working years still to come. Also, I like work. My job is interesting, I get to travel, what we do matters and it's not badly rewarded. So no, I'm not planning to retire just yet. But as the premise of this book is about planning (and if not now, then when?) I was still intrigued. [[Rockstar Retirement Programme: How to retire like a rockstar by Dominic Watson|Full Review]] <!-- Jankel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1999731506.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1999731506/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Spiritual Atheist by Nick Seneca Jankel]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Spirituality and Religion|Spirituality and Religion]]
