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Newest Lifestyle Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:Lifestyle|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Lifestyle]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brett Cohen1454955546|title=Stuff Every Dad Should KnowSugarless|author=Nicole M Avena|rating=45|genre=Home and FamilyLifestyle|summary=For an object lesson in how important the little things are, consider this book's title. 'This is not one of those collections of trivia or whimsies for fathers to appear cool to their children (ten great variations on tag; 6,000 good records with which to ween your daughter off Justin Bieber), itisn's not that kind of knowledge on offert a diet book. Here instead The last thing anyone needs is practical information on rearing your own little thing, and in a quiet way this pocket diary-sized volume has the cojones to expect to stick around being useful for a generation, as it starts at budgeting for children in the first place, and goes from the actual birth to marrying them offanother diet book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594745536</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Olga Levancuka1635866847|title=How to Be Selfish (The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Other Uncomfortable Advice)Terry Barlin Vesci|rating=34.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=It's strange how , the things that make you come to read a particular ''immediately'' feel that this is the bookfor you. A couple of days ago Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I was chatting to visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a dog-walking friend who retired about picture of a year agoslice of chocolate cake on the homepage. HeI don'd been surprised to find t eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the main problem in retirement was one book, which he hadnI't anticipated: all his life he'd had to account for himself to somebody else m avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and now he I was struggling told to discover what make a mess of it was . Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that ''he'' wanted to dosmears of butter would not be a problem. Then I found myself chatting to Olga Levancucka, author of ''How To Be Selfishloved'' - but she seemed like one of the most unselfish people I'd ever metthis book already. There was a book here waiting to be read!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1468115987</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Matousek0760381267|title=When You're Falling, DiveVerdura: Living a Garden Life|author=Perla Sofia Curbelo-Santiago|rating=43.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=You never quite know what life is going to serve up next and even the happiest moments or saddest news can be turned around in a heartbeat. For the author Mark Matousek his down was learning he was HIV positive, while his up, a while later, was being informed that it wasn’t quite the death sentence originally imposed and that he had quite a bit of life left. In this book he looks at how you can find the good in the bad or, to quote the subtitle, the keys to 'Using your pain to transform your life'. The art most important part of survival a garden is an intriguing the one. The same scale of trauma affects different people in different ways and this book seeks to draw on the wisdom of those who triumph in the face of adversity to share what they know and inspire the same behaviour in usenjoys it''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848504926</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael NeillSarah Wilson|title=Feel Happy NowThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''Feel Happy NowWhat is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is a dummy’s guide ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to happiness written by an NLP expert who Paul McKenna has dubbed . Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can'The finest success coach in t see that she acknowledges the worldsource) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are''. What makes this book stand out, perhaps, is living the way life we want – the complexity best life that we could be living. Her answer is done away withan unequivocal ''no, and everything is broken down to an accessible level without being too patronizingwe are not''. Its expert concepts presented in layman speak and the result is a highly readable and accessible book regardless of your belief in Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the subjectfact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848504942</amazonuk>1785633848
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Oxford1394159544|title=Make Yourself Immune to Heart AttackRecycling for Dummies|author=Sarah Winkler|rating=45
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=The older you get, the more likely it is that you will suffer from some form ''Recycling one ton of heart disease or even die from it. Many deaths occur without warning in people who are apparently healthy - so it's not something that you plastic can wait save up to be diagnosed and plan on doing something about at that stage16. Whatever your age there's a real possibility that you can make a significant improvement in your health ''and'' improve the quality 3 barrels of your lifeoil. I came to read this book because family members of my generation were suffering ''severe'' heart problems and it was a wake-up call that was impossible to ignore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907629319</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francesca Beauman0760378134|title=Shapely Ankle Preferr'dThe First-Time Gardener: A History of the Lonely Hearts AdvertisementContainer Food Gardening|author=Pamela Farley
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryHome and Family|summary=You might think If you've ever thought how good it would be to be able to pop out into the Lonely Hearts ad garden and pick some fruit and vegetables for a trivial mattermeal – but realised that you wouldn't know where to start, this is the book you need. You might think It's comprehensive: you'll cover everything from why you should grow your own food, what you're going to grow, what you'll grow it should appear in lower case (both containers and not be capitalisedsoil), but where you'd be in disagreement with Ms Beaumanll put these containers, who gives a big L how you'll water and fertilise them and you finish the main part of the book with a big H to it every time she writes of it in her survey of its historyhandy section on troubleshooting. WhatThere's more, she gets to write about also a lot more than just the contents of the adverts in this brilliant bookgood glossary.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009951334X</amazonuk> So, is it any good?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roman Krznaric1398508632|title=The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to LiveWilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Most of us have probably made at least one of those end-of-It had been on the cards for a while but it was theweek-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year lists of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best bookstime to start, albums and parties we have been to in a world where the previous twelve monthsnormal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. But can you, Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with some effort, locate the one you made in 1987? Have you ever constructed a graph variety of your ups terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and downs in dehydrator. She had a given period, car - and then decided to expand it by separating emotionalfuel. Most importantly, intellectual, sexual and financial aspects and colour coding them? Have you made she had shelter: this was not a list of all your lovers, bosses or friends and then rated them from 1 to 10 on several dimensions each? Do you have one of the books that list ''100 things plan to do before you die'' or live''500 books wild just to read in your life'' (and ticked live off the ones you have done)? Did you ever spend a whole evening and half of a night filling in dubious 'personality' questionnaires on the Internet? Have you ever doodled something, decided that it beautifully expresses the deepest essence of your personality and then proceeded to draw such icons for all your friends? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685389</amazonuk>its produce.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Luca Turin Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Tania Sanchez Agnes Bromme (Translator)|title=The Little Book Of PerfumesI May Be Wrong
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleAutobiography|summary=When the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiece, I have always admired people who seem 'm inclined to know about scent, those whose dressing tables are littered with bottles none think it doesn't really matter how the rest of which flaunt the name of a major (or increasinglyworld responds to your book. I know, minor) celebrity. Some of having read the bottles might be works of art book in themselvesquestion, but the general understanding is that they’ve been bought not for their vessels, nor for their exclusive advertising campaigns, special offers or celeb endorsement, but for their evocative scentLindeblad would disagree with that thought. Perfumery is clearly an art He knows (and a science and if your skills aren’t as honed as they might be, at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of the world responds to this is a wonderful little book to sink your teeth into , because it tells the truth as you’re guided through the field by two people very much it is, in the knowearly 21st century.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685192</amazonuk>1526644827
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda M James1732898731|title=How to Write and Sell Great Short StoriesThe Boy Who Loved Boxes: A Children's Book for Adults|author=Michael Albanese |rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Having read any number of books There was a Boy who loved boxes. He had a box for everything and he was meticulous about crafting great storiesstorage: his parents probably couldn't believe their luck! It began with art supplies, I thought I had had my fill stuffed toys and the like: all the things which most children have in abundance. The Boy's delight was in the sense of order in his room: it made him feel happy. As he grew up and that there were no became a Man, his life became more books left that could bolster my enthusiasm complicated and help me to get on he dealt with my writingthis by getting bigger and better boxes. In short, I thought Look carefully at the only thing left pictures and you'll see that could motivate me was, well, meone of them has a padlock...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846947162</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Ryan1846276772|title=Following AtticusThe End of Bias: How a little dog led one man on a journey of rediscovery to the top of the world We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=4.5|genre=PetsPolitics and Society|summary=Tom Ryan Anyone who is a middle-aged, stressed journalist, running his own newspapernot an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it''Undertoad'' in Newburyport in Americas simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. His life is full of political intrigues and mayoral electionsJobs, promotions, boardroom deals and subterfuge and his life is full higher salaries are the preserve of challengesthe white man. He doesnEven when those who wouldn't need pass the medical become a dogpart of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. He doesnIt't even particularly want a dog, s personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but when a miniature schnauzer enters his life one day, everything changesit's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141048972</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|author=Erling Kagge
|title=Walking: One Step At A Time
|rating=5
|genre= Lifestyle
|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David SavageRichard Brook|title=Furniture with SoulUnderstanding Human Nature: Master Woodworkers and Their CraftA User's Guide to Life|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsLifestyle|summary=David Savage is I am a master furniture maker firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the artists featured in the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this bookI'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, so he is but it would not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who to include have 'hit home' in the book. Having said way that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty and – often – originalityit does now. It's the text that makes the book shine, though – as I believe it seeks came to me not just because I was likely to give it a critical appreciation of each man and one womanfavourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's worku.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, but so there is a predisposition towards expecting to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled like the good times as well as the bad. It isbook, even if you likeit doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, ten in-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the futureright now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>4770031211</amazonuk>1800461682
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Buckley0753558378|title=Ssh! Lose Weight in 20 MinutesEffortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters|author=Greg McKeown|rating=34.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=After years ''The marginal return of limited exercise combined with a love of fine food, Alex Buckley working harder was known to his friends as Fat Al. He followed a number of diet plans to no effect before coming up with his own solution, which is outlined in this bookfact, negative. His message is basically an extended version of the long standing sound advice that to lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more. Buckley's suggestions break this broad truth down into achievable micro steps. He provides tips on ways of sustaining weight loss by very gradually changing your behaviour. The book does not offer detailed recipes or a programme of food exclusion. It is very much about advice on small day to day choices and gradual change, written in a straightforward and easily accessible style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908218282</amazonuk>}}'
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{{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)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Ackerman1529109116|title=One Hundred Names For LoveCall Me Red: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of HealingShepherd's Journey|author=Hannah Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Diane Ackerman's husband, Paul West, had been in hospital for three weeks with 'I want the image of a kidney infection and was just rejoicing in the fact British farmer to simply be that he was to go home the next day. As Diane watched , Paul suffered of a massive stroke. The effects were catastrophic, but worst of all, person who is proudly employed in feeding the man who had been a brilliant wordsmith was robbed of his power of speech and lost his extensive vocabularynation. It's eight years since this happened and the intervening years have been a constant battle to improve Paul I don's speech and restore some joy to his life. There have been ups – and many downs – but despite a brain scan indicating t think that Paul might well be a vegetable he has since his stroke written books. His vocabulary will never be back is too much to what it was, but it remains impressive and, strangely enough, many of the words which he finds easiest to use are those which he encountered a number of years agoask.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039307241X</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hugh Bowring1786495902|title=Green Living GuideThe Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind|author=Isabel Hardman|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=The 'Green Living Guide' is Isabel Hardman suffered a Magbook - so the format is like trauma which she chooses not to share. She says that of a magazine friend who does know, burst into tears and health- and although it initially seems a little expensive for something that looks just like a magazine you quickly findcare 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, on openingnext there was the EU referendum, that the political party leadership contests and then it contains an enormous amount of interesting was party conference season. One night she had to be sedated and useful informationreturned home to begin long-term sick leave. Even already determined eco-warriors should find something of interest in That was what brought me to this wide-ranging guidebook: 2020 was the year when the bins went out more often than I did.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907232060</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Arianne CohenLauren Martin|title=The Sex Diaries ProjectBook of Moods|rating=45
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=ItI was in a great mood when I first learnt of this book, and because sarcasm doesn's often said 'there's nowt so queer as folkt always translate well into writing, imagine the word '. Surely this should be qualified as 'theregreat's nowt so queer as folks' sex lives'being delivered with an eye roll and a sigh, through clenched teeth. Arianne Cohen has made I had spent the best part of a major online database of testimony from people about their thoughts regarding sex - having itrainy, not having itwindy weekend afternoon out on the water at our local sailing club in the rescue rib, having it with whom theyon standby in case anyone who was racing needed support. It're withs a volunteer duty we all do during the year, having it with those whom theyand normally I're not with. And in every sensem happy to, but that day the results can be exceedingly queerweather 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091939356</amazonuk>1538733625
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vatsyayana0008420386|title=Kama SutraFailosophy: 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 ''Kama SutraFailosophy''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Single, Again, and Again, thenand Again|author=Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own.. What could I possibly say to introduce it that You are not complete until you donfind a man''t already know or think you know?.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Shilling1538731738|title=The Stranger in the MirrorSimple Abundance: A Memoir of Middle Age365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life|author= Sarah Ban Breathnach
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=MiddleSomeone once said: it's not self-aged women disappear. indulgence, it's therapy! They are not see on televisionI think they were talking about shopping, their lives do not appear in newspapers, the legions of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At least, that is what the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 but it probably can be applied to find the narrative of her contemporaries and their lives which she has been reading about and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanished. She looks in the mirror and sees a face she does not recognisemost things. Even with a punishing regime of early bed, no alcohol and litres of waterIn my case, it refuses applies to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides writing about things because I want to take a magnifying glass , rather than because I can sell it or because I've got something to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth and old agesell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701181001</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacques Bonnet, James Salter and Sian ReynoldsSharon Blackie|title=Phantoms on the BookshelvesIf Women Rose Rooted|rating=3.5|genre=LifestyleBiography|summary=Translated from French this beautifully presented little I normally say that you can tell how much a book takes 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 reader into homes boasting book collections, large and smallone I've borrowed. Studded with succinct and appropriate quotations such as I want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing'there – although it is no better definitely the first two and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for a reason for and I'm not reading a book than having sure I can succinctly put it' by Anthony Burgessany better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694583</amazonuk>1912836017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sandy Donaghy1543987877|title=The Longest JourneyLearn to Love: Nine Keys Guide to Health, Wealth and HappinessHealing Your Disappointing Love Life|author=Dr Thomas Jordan
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=How many self-help books have you read where the ideas all seem very good, but they've not been tested in the fire, so 'Learn to Love: Guide to speak? Healing Your Disappointing Love Life'' is a book about love relationships rather than a book about love. The end result seems good, but you suspect that two greatest emotions are love and grief and love is the starting point wasnopposite of grief: 't 'if you love'all', Dr Thomas Jordan tells us, '' that disadvantageous and more to the point, the cynic inside you wonders if the motivation for writing the book was financial gainwill inevitably grieve''. Has it made Your love relationships begin the moment you shy away from such books? 're born and end only when you die. Now, I want you to drop the cynicism, because what Whilst we have here is a book that's written from all come into the heart 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 wallet same mistakes - and this eventually becomes resignation. For people who are making the only motivation same mistakes repeatedly, self-preservation, in writing it was to help people. Unusual? Yup; it the form of resignation isa necessity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425161065</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roy VickeryMichael Harris|title=Garlands, Conkers and Mother-DieSolitude: British and Irish Plant-LoreIn Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=This is not the book I was expecting it to be. For many centuriessome reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, plants have not only had practical uses as food, remedies, textiles and dyeshow to step outside the mainstream, but have also symbolic and folkloric meaning in many different culturesit is not that at all. The term Instead of telling us how, it is more about the ''plant-lorewhy''. Harries examines how we' has been coined re eroding solitude, which used to describe the profusion be a natural part of the customs our human life, and why that matters. Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and beliefs associated with plantswhat has come of that, and this book gathers together many eventually in the final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the plantalleys and by-lore traditions of Britain and Irelandways that his thinking about this lost art led him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1441101950</amazonuk>1847947662
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cindy M Meston and David Buss0753553236|title=Why Women Have SexTiny Habits: Understanding Sexual Motivation from Adventure to Revenge (and The Small Changes That Change Everything in Between)|author=B J Fogg|rating=4.5|genre=Popular ScienceLifestyle|summary=Many many years agoGo on, a man who was far too young admit it - you're not quite perfect. You still have those odd, quirky even loveable (to be the fusty, dusty RE teacher he was shaping you) habits which seem to be, asked my best friend and I why we were each having sex with our girlfriendsannoy other people. Even aged fifteen I thought something along the lines Other people, of 'wellcourse, are sorely afflicted with some dreadful flaws which they could so easily correct, if he doesn't know by now, he never will', and listed that it was great fun, only they would make just a very enjoyable sensation, showed an appetite for the relationshiplittle 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 that sex proved the ultimate in bonding - no matter how much closer, I try to make what seem to be blunt, could you be quite monumental changes I never quite seem to get to someone than actually inside them? grips with the concepts. I'll come clean now and admit said girlfriend was not real, but several have been since, constantly fail and then I have had heaps of fun finding out how - and perhaps why - women have sexget cross with myself for failing. I was never Lack of willpower is another burden to add to know, until now, there are 237 reasons for itthe list.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546639</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Wilkin1785785516|title=Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward GoreyFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin
|rating=4
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=I'm all in favour Manners maketh man, they say. It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of Edward Gorey becoming a bigger nameconventions, especially here in the UKsome 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, where his output is certainly less lauded than in his native USA. they have nothing to do with class or financial status: Itthey's evident from re about getting the bright, glossy pages here that he was an extraordinary talentbasics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. Polymath Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and know-all in real lifefriends, in his ink drawings he can show the complexity of someone like Dore, while using his draughtsmanship but it's best if we learn to pen macabre whimsy, like an old-fashioned love-child of Mervyn Peake distinguish between our public and private lives and Edward Learto act appropriately. ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0764948040</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1999811402
|title=Painting Snails
|author=Stephen John Hartley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|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.
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