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{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingauthor=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary="15" <!I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen 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=1788161211}}{{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''.

<!-- Bremner -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bremner_UsThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0525533184/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalism by Ian Bremmer]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]  It wasn't supposed to be like this, unkind: it was it? Every day seems to bring yet more news of doom and gloom. The spectre of terrorism hangs over most of simply the world, fuelling refugee crises and worries about national security. People keep saying that robots are coming to take all our jobs. Anti-establishment political parties are making huge gains adults in countries all around the world. And inequality is her life advising her as much of a problem as it ever was – if not more so. [[Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalism by Ian Bremmer|Full Review]] <!-- Wolff -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Wolff Trump.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1408711400?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1408711400]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] As I began listening to ''Fire and Fury: Inside 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'', as opposed, we must conclude to being an unstable... Well, let's not go therewhat they thought would be best for her. It's a little too frightening: this is the most powerful man in was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the world. So what made me listen to this book? Well, Donald Trump didn't want me to read it: US presidents don't often go down that road and rarely to a good destination girl (Ishe'm thinking of Richard Nixon heres usually fairly young) and that made me really want to know what was between the covers. But how did the book stack up? [[Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Anderson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Anderson_Fantasyland.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785038656?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785038656]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] Fantasyland covers the history of America from 1517 to 2017 in awesome detail. Covering five centuries of tempestuous history, Andersen paints the conjuring of America in vivid relief. Discussing everything from pilgrims to politicians, the exhilarating gold rush to alternative facts, seminal episodes are explored in forensic detail with razor sharp wit. [[Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen|Full Review]] <!-- Connolly -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Connolly_working.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1911585363?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1911585363]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class by Nathan Connolly]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] Simple summary: ''Know Your Place'' is an anthology of essays on the working class rescued by the working classhandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. There Few girls are twenty-three disparate pieces talking about everything you can imagine: day trips lucky enough to the seaside, access to the arts, food poverty, pub culture, glass ceilings, housing estates, vulgarity-as-class-marker, and much more.  And a full disclosure: ''Know Your Place'' was be brought to fruition by crowdfunding and I was a contributor. I read the proposed spec and just up ''knewwithout'' I would love the book, should it reach its fundraising target, and expectation that's why I stumped up some cash. I think class is both an under- and mis-discussed topic with working class people defined externally they will marry and talked about rather than listened to or allowed to define themselves. And I really did love the book just as I thought I would. So you know - there's a possible reviewer bias here that you should know about. I like to think I would have criticised ''Know Your Place'' had it fallen short of my hopes for it but just in case, I'm letting you knowchildren. [[Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class by Nathan Connolly|Full Review]] <!-- Smith -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[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]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]]  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 It was a frank belief 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 it would be 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 -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bristow China.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1910985902?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1910985902]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]], [[:Category:Travel|Travel]] Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, 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]] <!-- Landreth -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Landreth_Swell.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472938941?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1472938941]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Swell by Jenny Landreth]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Sport|Sport]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography and I love her encouragement before Louisa would conclude that we should each write our own. This is more than just (I say ''just''!) a recollection of the author's own encounters with water; it's also a history of women's fight for the right to swim. That sounds absurd until you start reading about it, then it becomes serious. Not too serious though – because Jenny Landreth belief is clearly a lover of the absurd. Not a lover of book blurbs myself, I do always seek to give a shout-out to those who get it dead right: in this case I'm definitely with Alexandra Heminsley's ''giggles-on-the-commute funnychoice''. [[Swell by Jenny Landreth|Full Review]] <!-- Maconie -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:MACONIE_lONG.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785030531/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Long Road From Jarrow by Stuart Maconie]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Travel|Travel]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] I cancelled my ''Country Walking'' magazine subscription about a year ago and the only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's column. His down-to-earth approach and sharp wit belie an equally sharp intellect and a soul more sensitive than he might be willing to admit. Let's be honest, though, 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 in. Like Maconie I have no connection (that I know of) to the Jarrow Crusade but when he talks about it being ''a whole matrix of events reducible to one word like Aberfan, Hillsborough, or Orgreave'' then somehow it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, at least. [[Long Road From Jarrow by Stuart Maconie|Full Review]] |} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francis O'GormanSakinu Ahronglong|title=Forgetfulness: Making the Modern Culture of AmnesiaHunter School

|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=After The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a glut work of books about mindfulness fiction. That's possibly misleading. I am not sure whether it is "fiction" in the sense that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it came is as something of a relief the blurb goes on to encounter ''Forgetfulnesssay ''recollections, Francis Ofolklore and autobiographical stories'Gorman's thinking on why . It feels like the twenty-first century is losing touch with latter. It feels like the paststories he tells about his experiences as a child, on why what is likely - or could be made - to happen is so much more important than what has gone beforeas an adolescent, as an adult are real and true. The book But memory is supremely intelligenta fickle thing, but with the knowledge worn lightly 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's eminently readable, regardless of how you feel about the conclusions he draws. More people should. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1501324691</amazonuk>1999791282

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Raymond WilliamsFrederic Gros|title= Culture and Society 1780-1950A Philosophy of Walking|rating= 45

|summary= From I confess I picked this one up from the last decades library in my pre-lockdown forage of the eighteenth century random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the final words of modernism, this book tracks societal changes through exploring five key words: industry, democracy, class, art pages I have marked and culturereturn to its varying wisdom when I need to. The meanings of such things Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the first two pages, their essence, changes as per their use and the era in which their implications were consideredwherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784870811</amazonuk>1781688370

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Patrick WestLun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)|title= Get Over YourselfTiananmen 1989: Nietzsche Our Shattered Hopes|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I never really followed the events of Tiananmen Square with much attention when it was playing out – someone in the second half of 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, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the people involved on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browser's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|isbn=1684056993}}{{Frontpage|author=Sharon Blackie|title=If Women Rose Rooted|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 our timesa reason and I'm not sure I can succinctly put it any better.|isbn=1912836017}}{{Frontpage|author= Linda Scott|title= The Double X Economy|rating= 15

|summary= Get Over Yourself considers Nietzsche's imagined perceptions of modern society and uses our society to explain his philosophy'Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in the world''. IIt'm sorry if that sounds vague s a bold statement for an opening chapter, but it's far from hyperbole as the best I can do from following pages explain. This book shines a light on what is happening in different places, and the blurb impact on the backlocal and world economy. After reading Get Over Yourself What can be learnt from cover to cover, I am still none the wiser great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the purpose selling of this book. It appears to be a series of personal opinions held together with quotesyoung women into marriage, which don't always appear relevant, from Nietzsche, Chumbawumba and newspaper articles.what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845409337</amazonuk>0571353606

{{Frontpage|author=Danny Dorling|title=Slowdown|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary= We are living in a time of rapid change, and we're worried about it. Dorling tells us that the latter is normal, natural and probably good for us. We are designed to worry and with the current state of what we're doing in the world we have much to be worried about. However, over the next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you can follow the arguments, it sets out in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we are, or in some cases that we're worrying about the wrong things. Mostly. Because mostly, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they are. In fact, the rate of change in many things is slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverse.|isbn=0300243405}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0241446732|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis|author= Cathy ScottMalena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante Thunberg|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-Clark year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and Adrian Levyher 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 family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radical.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0648684806|title= Clara Colby: The ExileInternational Suffragist|author=John Holliday|rating= 4|genre=Biography|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't allowed to sail with her parents and three brothers. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw that she received a good education, both in and out of school. She was the only child in the household and her childhood was glorious. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in the mid-west of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join the family. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen years, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakening.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=183895015X|title=A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a Prisoner|author=Chris Atkins|rating=5|genre= Politics and Society|summary= An account Documentary filmmakers don't usually get the run of establishments within the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel Group, but after getting involved in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for a five-year stay. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which is probably the fate oldest, largest and most dysfunctional prison in Europe.}}{{Frontpage|author=Michael Harris|title=Solitude: In Pursuit of Al Qaeda and a Singular Life in a Crowded World|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary= This is not the Bin Laden family since 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 events mainstream, but it is not that at all. Instead of 9/11, telling us how it is more about the ''why'The Exile'. Harries examines how we' plunges into 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 murky waters final chapter he talks about his own experience of international terrorismhaving deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him.|isbn=1847947662}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1783784350|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=5|genre=History|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, espionage writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and politicseven her knitting did not soothe her mind. Detailed January was going to be a time for making changes and meticulousshe decided that she would travel the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the book tackles landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the subject farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008294011|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece Temelkuran|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with the question ''Discuss the factors which led to...'' I agreed that she was right and wasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all angles'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I can't think of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as hen's teeth.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786893452|title=The Ungrateful Refugee|author=Dina Nayeri|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Here in the West, providing we see news reports about immigrants on a panoramic view regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry out, outsiders to the subject world and acting the situations that refugees find themselves in. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – and this is a rare opportunity to enlighten do that, in this intelligent, powerful and inform moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the readermiddle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1846045576|title=Walks In The Wild|author=Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1408858762</amazonuk>''An instruction manual for the forest'' is how Wohlleben's publisher described the idea for this book, and that's basically what it is – although right at the end the author says that it is not intended to be a reference book, but an appetiser.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Emily Clarkson1786331608|title= Can I Speak to Someone in Charge?Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story|author=Leah Hazard|rating= 4.5|genre= Politics and SocietyLifestyle|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''Can is the first book I Speak to Someone in Charge?'ve seen by a midwife. It', blogger Emily Clarksons an unusual profession in that it's debut book, is a fierce, witty 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 laugh-(for the most part) more than one goes out. It's an amazing thing to be able to do -loud funny ode to feminismescort new life into the world - and an enormous responsibility. In Leah Hazard came to it after a series of open letters, she addresses the issues faced by every modern woman, discussing everything from dealing with body hair to being made to feel uncomfortable career in the gym, as well as more personal issues, like her experiences of being television and ''Hard Pushed'catfished' and sent abuse online. This is the story of her career as a vital read for any girl born in midwife - and the 1990s, tackling some very serious social injustices beneath its fun exteriortitle tells more than one story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471156907</amazonuk>

<!-- Elkin -->{{Frontpage[[image:Elkin_Flaneuse.jpg|leftisbn=1785903357|linktitle=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0099593378?ieConfessions of a Recovering MP|author=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creativeNick de Bois|rating=6738&creativeASIN=0099593378]]4|genre===[[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice Politics and London by Lauren Elkin]]===Society [[image:4star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:History|History]], [[:CategoryI should warn you in advance:Autobiography|Autobiography]] Lauren Elkin is down on suburbs: they're places where you can't or shouldn't this may not be seen walking; places where, in fiction, women who transgress boundaries are punished (thinking the best time for me to review the memoir of a Tory MP. Not only am I a left-of everything from ''Madame Bovary'' -centre - to ''Revolutionary Road''). When she imagines put it mildly - voter and so probably have next to herself what the female version no points of that well-known historical figurepolitical agreement with Nick de Bois, the carefree ''flâneur''but I, might bealong with everyone else, she thinks about women who freely wandered am currently subject to the world's great cities without having the more insalubrious connotation debacle of the word 'streetwalker' applied to them. [[Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Parisparliament, New Yorkgovernment and Brexit, Tokyo, Venice a dog and London by Lauren Elkin|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Noor -->[[image:Noor_Surgerypony show currently revealing in hideous technicolour the absolute dearth of competent leadership among our political classes.jpg|left|link=httpsAnd yes, opposition parties://wwwI'm looking at you as well.amazon.coYou're just as useless.uk/gp/product/1521173192?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1521173192]] ===[[Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroad by Saqib Noor]]===

[[image:4starSigh.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]]

The letters begin much in Desperate cry into the fashion 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 void 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 desperateSorry about that. [[Surgery on the Shoulders of Giants: Letters from a doctor abroad by Saqib Noor|Full Review]]<br>

<!-- Grindrod -->[[image:Grindrod Outskirts.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473625025?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473625025]] ===Move to [[Outskirts by John Grindrod]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Newest Popular Science Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]] ''Outskirts'' is an interesting take on a phenomenon of the modern age: the introduction of the green belt of countryside surrounding inner city housing estates. John Grindrod grew up on the edge of one such estate in the 1960's and '70's, as he puts it, ''I grew up on the last road in London.'' Grindrod explores the introduction of the green belt, and the various fights and developments it has gone through over the subsequent decades, as environmental and political arguments have affected planning decisions. Within this topic, he has somehow managed to wind around his personal memories of childhood, 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 States. Since then many Americans have been overcome with fear, worrying about what will become of American society during Trump's administration. Carolina de Robertis was no exception to this fear and in response to the newly elected President and his policies she put out a call for action. Radical Hope is the outcome to this call. De Robertis reached out to fellow writers and activists asking for letters, predominantly letters of love, addressed to the citizens of today and those of past and future generations in order to help spread hope during times of uncertainty.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349010102</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Matthew d'Ancona|title=Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''Our own post-truth era is what happens when society relaxes its defence of values that underpin cohesion, namely veracity, honesty and accountability.'' I'm old enough or perhaps naive enough to believe that when making a decision about political voting, you should be able to rely absolutely on what the candidate tells you. I've been suspicious for a decade or more, but it's become difficult to ignore the change in political attitudes since Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. With regard to the latter, when Trump was challenged on a statement he'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 the fading concept of 'the American Dream' - those Americans who were used to waiting patiently in line and who had found themselves overtaken by ''women, immigrants and public sector workers''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785036874</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stephen Moss|title= Wild Kingdom: Bringing Back Britain's Wildlife|rating= 4|genre= Animals and Wildlife|summary= Wildlife has been declining in Britain over the last few decades; it is an unfortunate by-product of human population growth, which in the modern world has increased significantly. Through this book Moss suggests a few ways in which we can start to bring back some of Britain's wildlife without compromising the human way of life: we can co-exist with nature. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581639</amazonuk>}}