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<!-- Wolff -->{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life|rating=5[[image:Wolff Trump.jpg|leftgenre=Travel|linksummary=https://wwwI was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places.amazonI was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity.co Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr.uk/gp/product/1408711400?ieStephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|isbn=UTF8&tag1788161211}}{{Frontpage|isbn=thebookbag-21&linkCode1504321383|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=as2&campLouisa Pateman|rating=1634&creative4.5|genre=6738&creativeASINAutobiography|summary=1408711400]]''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.

===[[Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff]]=== [[image:4This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] As I began listening to It wasn''Fire and Furyt unkind: Inside it was simply the Trump White House'' we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of the President of the United States taking to Twitter to establish that he was ''a stable genius'', adults in her life advising her as opposed, we must conclude to being an unstable... Well, let's not go therewhat they thought would be best for her. Itwas reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's a little too frightening: this usually fairly young) is rescued by the most powerful man in the worldhandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. So what made me listen Few girls are lucky enough to this book? Well, Donald Trump didnbe brought up ''without't want me to read it: US presidents don't often go down the expectation that road they will marry and rarely to have children. It was a good destination (I'm thinking of Richard Nixon here) belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that made me really want to know what was between the covers''a belief is a choice''. But how did the book stack up? [[Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff|Full Review]]<br>}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kurt AndersenSakinu Ahronglong|title= FantasylandHunter School|rating= 4.5|genre= History Autobiography|summary= Fantasyland covers the history The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of America from 1517 to 2017 fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in awesome detail. Covering five centuries of tempestuous historythe sense that Ahronglong made it all up, Andersen paints or whether it is as the conjuring of America in vivid relief. Discussing everything from pilgrims blurb goes on to politicianssay ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the exhilarating gold rush to alternative factslatter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, seminal episodes as an adult are explored in forensic detail with razor sharp witreal and true. But memory is a fickle thing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and there, and maybe calling it fiction means that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people should.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785038656</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nathan ConnollyFrederic Gros|title=Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working ClassA Philosophy of Walking

|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Simple summary: ''Know Your Place'' is an anthology I confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of essays on the working class by the working classrandom stuff. There are twenty-three disparate pieces talking about everything you Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can imagine: day trips turn down the pages I have marked and return to the seaside, access its varying wisdom when I need to . Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the artsfirst two pages, food poverty, pub culture, glass ceilings, housing estates, vulgarity-as-class-marker, and much morewherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911585363</amazonuk>1781688370

 <!-- Smith -->[[image:Smith_Dont.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/147212345X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=147212345X]] ===[[Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]Frontpage  Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms is part autobiography and part rallying call for society to tackle the systemic, endemic and debilitating inequality faced by the people of the United Kingdom, particularly in the North. Through reflecting on his own experiences during his childhood, Harry Leslie Smith has painted a frank and uncompromising picture of the grim, appallingly miserable childhood he had to endure due to the poverty faced by his family contrasted with the, shamefully still, grim and miserable lives many people endure today in a country ravaged by cuts, austerity and political turmoil. [[Don't Let My Past Be Your Future: A Call to Arms by Harry Leslie Smith|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Bristow -->[[image:Bristow China.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910985902?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCodeauthor=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1910985902]] ===[[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]Lun Zhang, [[:Category:Travel|Travel]] Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBCAdrien Gombeaud, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations. [[China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author=Francis O'GormanAmeziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title=ForgetfulnessTiananmen 1989: Making the Modern Culture of AmnesiaOur Shattered Hopes

|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=After a glut I never really followed the events of books about mindfulness Tiananmen Square with much attention when it came as something was playing out – someone in the second half of a relief to encounter ''Forgetfulness'their teens has other priorities, you know. I certainly didn't know of the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth of the Tank Man image, Francis OI didn'Gorman's thinking on why t know how the twenty-first century is losing touch with the pastarea had long been a venue for political protest, on why what is likely - or could be made - to happen is so much and I didn't know more important than what has gone beforea spit about the people involved on either side. The This book is supremely intelligent, but with the knowledge worn lightly and itpractically flawless in giving a general browser's eminently readable, regardless context for the whole season of how you feel about the conclusions he drawsprotests back in 1989. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1501324691</amazonuk>1684056993

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stuart MaconieSharon Blackie|title= Long Road From JarrowIf Women Rose Rooted|rating= 5|genre= Travel Biography|summary= I cancelled my ''Country Walking'' magazine subscription about normally say that you can tell how much a year ago and the only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's columnbook means to me by how many pages have corners turned down. His down-to-earth approach and sharp wit belie Perhaps an equally sharp intellect and a soul more sensitive than he might be willing even greater measure of impact is setting out to admit. Letbuy my own copy before I's be honest, though, ve finished reading the one I picked this one up because of someone else's review, in which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton Aycliffe. Places I grew up inve borrowed. Like Maconie I have no connection (that I know of) want to avoid clichés like 'powerful' 'inspiring' 'life-changing' – although it is definitely the first two and only time will tell about the Jarrow Crusade third – but when he talks about it being ''clichés exist for a whole matrix of events reducible to one word like Aberfan, Hillsborough, or Orgreavereason and I'' then somehow m not sure I can succinctly put it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, at leastany better.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785030531</amazonuk>1912836017

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Raymond WilliamsLinda Scott|title= Culture and Society 1780-1950The Double X Economy|rating= 45

|summary= From ''Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the last decades of world''. It's a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the eighteenth century to the final words of modernism, this following pages explain. This book tracks societal changes through exploring five key words: industryshines a light on what is happening in different places, democracy, class, art and culturethe impact on the local and world economy. The meanings What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of such thingsyoung women into marriage, their essence, changes as per their use and the era in which their implications were considered.what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784870811</amazonuk>0571353606

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Patrick WestDanny Dorling|title= Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche for our timesSlowdown|rating= 14|genre= Politics and Society|summary= Get Over Yourself considers Nietzsche's imagined perceptions We are living in a time of modern society rapid change, and uses our society to explain his philosophywe're worried about it. I'm sorry if Dorling tells us that sounds vague but it's the best I can do from latter is normal, natural and probably good for us. We are designed to worry and with the blurb on current state of what we're doing in the backworld we have much to be worried about. After reading Get Over Yourself from cover to cover However, I am still none over the wiser about next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you can follow the purpose of this book. It appears to arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be a series of personal opinions held together with quotesas worried as we are, which donor in some cases that we't always appear relevantre worrying about the wrong things. Mostly. Because mostly, from Nietzschethings are not changing as rapidly as we think they are. In fact, Chumbawumba the rate of change in many things is slowing down and newspaper articlesthe direction of change will in some cases go into reverse.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845409337</amazonuk>0300243405

{{Frontpage[[image:Landreth_Swell.jpg|leftisbn=0241446732|linktitle=httpsOur House is on Fire://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472938941?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1472938941]] {{newreviewScenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author= Cathy Scott-Clark Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Adrian Levy|title= The ExileSvante Thunberg|rating= 45|genre= Politics and Society|summary= An account The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the fate parenting of Al Qaeda their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happening. In such circumstances, it's natural to seek a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear to the Bin Laden family since the events of 9/11, that they were ''The Exileburned-out people on a burned-out planet'' plunges into the murky waters of international terrorism, espionage and politics. Detailed and meticulous, the book tackles the subject from all angles, providing If they were to find a panoramic view of the subject and acting way to live happily again their solution would need to enlighten and inform the readerbe radical.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408858762</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Emily Clarkson0648684806|title= Can I Speak to Someone in Charge?Clara Colby: The International Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 4.5|genre= Politics and SocietyBiography|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USA. At the time she was just three-years-old but because of some childhood ailment, she wasn'Can I Speak t allowed to Someone in Charge?''sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, blogger Emily Clarkson's debut bookshe remained with her grandparents, is who doted on her and saw that she received a fiercegood education, witty both in and laugh-out-loud funny ode to feminismof school. In a series of open letters, she addresses She was the only child in the issues faced by every modern womanhousehold and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, discussing everything from dealing with body hair to being made to feel uncomfortable her family had become pioneer farmers in the gymmid-west of the United States and life was hard, as well as more personal issues, like Clara was to find out when she and her experiences of being 'catfished' and sent abuse onlinegrandparents eventually went to join the family. This is Clara would only know her mother for a vital read few months: she was married for any girl born fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the 1990seldest girl, tackling some very serious social injustices beneath its fun exteriora heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471156907</amazonuk>

<!-- Elkin -->[[image:Elkin_Flaneuse.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099593378?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0099593378]] ===[[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking of everything from ''Madame Bovary'' to ''Revolutionary Road''). When she imagines to herself what the female version of that well-known historical figure, the carefree ''flâneur'', might be, she thinks about women who freely wandered the world's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation of the word 'streetwalker' applied to them. [[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London by Lauren Elkin|Full Review]]Frontpage<br> <!-- Noor -->[[image:Noor_Surgery.jpg|left|linkisbn=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1521173192?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1521173192]]183895015X ==|title=[[Surgery on the Shoulders A Bit of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroad by Saqib Noor]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:CategoryStretch:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] The letters begin much in the fashion Diaries of any young man away from home, perhaps in a quite exciting country, writing back to family and friends to tell them of his experiences, the sights he's seen and the people he's met. It's just a little different in ''Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants'' though: Saqib Noor is a junior doctor, training to be an orthopaedic surgeon and over a period of ten years he visited six countries, not as a tourist but to give medical assistance. They're countries which Noor describes as ''fourth world'' - third world with added disaster - and their need is desperate. [[Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroad by Saqib Noor|Full Review]]<br> {{newreviewPrisoner|author= Rebecca Asher|title= Man UpChris Atkins|rating= 5|genre= Politics and Society|summary= When a couple of years ago my university introduced compulsory consent workshops along with an option of 'good lad' sessions for boys, all debate broke loose. ShouldnDocumentary filmmakers don't consent be self-evident for everyone? Would usually get the workshops reinforce run of establishments within the stereotype of 'laddish' boys? Would it all be about pointing fingers at boys and victimizing girls? What about nonMountbatten-binary people? In shortWindsor Hotel Group, how could these workshops be anything else than but after getting involved in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for a mission doomed to failure?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784701807</amazonuk>five-year stay. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which is probably the oldest, largest and most dysfunctional prison in Europe.

{{Frontpage<!-- Grindrod -->|author=Michael Harris[[image:Grindrod Outskirts.jpg|left|linktitle=httpsSolitude://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473625025?ie=UTF8&tagIn Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World|rating=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473625025]]5|genre===[[Outskirts by John Grindrod]]===Lifestyle [[image:4star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] ''Outskirts'' This is an interesting take on a phenomenon of not the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of countryside surrounding inner city housing estatesbook I was expecting it to be. John Grindrod grew up For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to find calm, how to step outside the edge of one such estate in the 1960's and '70'smainstream, as he puts but it, ''I grew up on the last road in Londonis not that at all.'' Grindrod explores the introduction Instead of the green belt, and the various fights and developments telling us how it has gone through over is more about the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions''why''. Within this topicHarries examines how we're eroding solitude, he has somehow managed which used to wind around his personal memories be a natural part of childhoodour human life, producing a memoir with a lot of heart. [[Outskirts by John Grindrod|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author= Carolina de Robertis|title= Radical Hope|rating= 4|genre= Politics and Society|summary= On 8th November 2016, Donald Trump was elected as the 46th President of the United Stateswhy that matters. Since then many Americans have been overcome with fear Of course, worrying he talks about how some people have found solitude and what will become has come of American society during Trump's administration. Carolina de Robertis was no exception to this fear that, and eventually in response to the newly elected President and final chapter he talks about his policies she put out a call for action. Radical Hope is the outcome to this call. De Robertis reached own experience of having deliberately sought it out to fellow writers and activists asking for letters, predominantly letters of love, addressed to but mostly he wanders down the citizens of today alleys and those of past and future generations in order to help spread hope during times of uncertaintyby-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349010102</amazonuk>1847947662

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew d'Ancona1783784350|title=Post-TruthThis Golden Fleece: The New War on Truth and How to Fight BackA Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHistory|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she''Our own post-truth era is what happens when society relaxes its defence of values that underpin cohesion, namely veracity, honesty d never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and accountabilityeven her knitting did not soothe her mind.'' I'm old enough or perhaps naive enough January was going to believe be a time for making changes and she decided that when making a decision about political votingshe would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, you should be able to rely absolutely on what discovering and telling the candidate tells you. Istory of wool've been suspicious for a decade or more, but s history and how it's become difficult to ignore the change in political attitudes since Brexit had made and changed the election of Donald Trumplandscape. With regard to the latter, when Trump was challenged She'd grown up on a statement hesheep farm in Suffolk - 'd made which was subsequently found to be incorrect, his response was ''Who cares if I got it wrong?'' He was able to tap to a free-range child on the fading concept of farm'the American Dream' - those Americans who were used and learned to waiting patiently in line spin, knit and who had found themselves overtaken by ''women, immigrants weave from her mother and public sector workers'her mother's friend. This was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785036874</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephen Moss0008294011|title= Wild KingdomHow to Lose a Country: Bringing Back Britain's WildlifeThe 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating= 4.5|genre= Animals and WildlifeAutobiography|summary= Wildlife has been declining A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in Britain over years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the last few decades; it is an unfortunate by-product of human population growth, question ''Discuss the factors which in the modern world has increased significantlyled to... Through this book Moss suggests '' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a few ways in which good or bad thing that we can start didn't know what all 'this' was leading to bring back some . I think now that I do know. We are in danger of Britainlosing democracy and whilst it's wildlife without compromising a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the human way of life: we can co-exist with nature'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581639</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Clegg1786893452|title=Politics: Between the ExtremesThe Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri

|summary=The political landscape is changing rapidly at I should warn you in advance: this may not be the moment. A little more than two years ago we were facing best time for me to review the end memoir of the UK's first coalition government since World War II and fully expecting that we would see anothera Tory MP. Instead we saw Not only am I a Conservative government elected left-of-centre - to put it mildly - voter and so probably have next to no points of political agreement with Nick de Bois, but I, along with a workable majority. Brexit saw everyone else, am currently subject to the end debacle of one Prime Minister parliament, government and another elected by Brexit, a few members dog and pony show currently revealing in hideous technicolour the absolute dearth of parliamentcompetent leadership among our political classes. As And yes, opposition parties: I write we'm looking at you as well. You're facing another general election, with a Conservative landslide predictedjust as useless. Sigh. In two years we've seen  Desperate cry into the Liberal Democrats collapse from being part of the ruling coalition to a party whose MPs could hold a meeting in a decent-sized carvoid over. Sorry about that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784704164</amazonuk>At least Nick de Bois made me laugh!