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[[Category:Politics and Society|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Fabes
|title=Signs of Life
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-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''.
This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sakinu Ahronglong
|title=Hunter School
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary= The flyleaf to this little collection tells us that it is a work of 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 is as the blurb goes on to say ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical stories''. It feels like the latter. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult are real 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.
|isbn=1999791282
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Frederic Gros
|title=A Philosophy of Walking
|rating=5
|genre= Politics and Society
|summary= I confess I picked this one up from the library in my pre-lockdown forage of random stuff. Now I have to go out an buy my own copy so that I can turn down the pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need to. Some books draw you in slowly. This one had me in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.
|isbn=1781688370
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)
|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a time for making changes and she 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 landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - '' a free-range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friend. This was in her blood.
}}
{{Frontpage{|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15"<!-- Peter Wohlleben -->0008294011|-title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship| styleauthor=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|Ece Temelkuran[[image:1846045576.jpg|linkrating=http://www4.amazon.co.uk/dp/1846045576/ref5|genre=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Autobiography| stylesummary=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 ''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;Discuss the factors which led to...''|===[[Walks In The Wild by Peter Wohlleben I agreed that she was right and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)]]=== [[image:4starwasn't certain whether it was a good or bad thing that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now that I do know.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Animals We are in danger of losing democracy and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] whilst it's a flawed system I can'An instruction manual for t think of a better one, particularly as the forest'benevolent dictator' is how Wohllebenas rare as hen'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 appetiserteeth. [[Walks In The Wild by Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)|Full Review]]}}<!-- Nayeri -->{{Frontpage|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786893452.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786893452/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|title===[[The Ungrateful Refugee by |author=Dina Nayeri]]==|rating= [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Biography|Biography]] summary=Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants on a 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 world and 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 do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri -someone who was born in the middle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing to America as a ten-year-old.[[The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri}}{{Frontpage|Full Review]]isbn=1846045576|title=Walks In The Wild<!-- de Bois -->|author=Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)|-rating=4| stylegenre="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Animals and Wildlife|Animals and Wildlife[[image:1785903357|summary=''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.jpg}}{{Frontpage|linkisbn=http1786331608|title=Hard Pushed://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785903357/refA Midwife's Story|author=nosim?tagLeah Hazard|rating=thebookbag-21]]4|genre=Lifestyle| stylesummary="verticalOver 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 -align: top; textto 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 -align: left;"|and the title tells more than one story.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785903357|title==[[Confessions of a Recovering MP by |author=Nick de Bois]]|rating===4[[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] summary=I should warn you in advance: this may not be the best time for me to review the memoir of a Tory MP. Not only am I a 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 everyone else, am currently subject to the debacle of parliament, government and Brexit, a dog and pony show currently revealing in hideous technicolour the absolute dearth of competent leadership among our political classes. And yes, opposition parties: I'm looking at you as well. You're just as useless.
Sigh.
Desperate cry into the void over. Sorry about that.
At least Nick de Bois made me laugh! [[ Confessions of a Recovering MP by Nick de Bois |Full Review]] <!-- Leah Hazard -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786331608.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786331608/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story by Leah Hazard]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Lifestyle|Lifestyle]], [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] 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]] <!-- Reeves -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788312201.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788312201/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] ''Women in Westminster have changed the culture of politics and the perception of what women can do'' ''Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics'' chronicles the battles the 491 women who have been elected over the course of the past century have fought and highlights their victories. It is remarkable that the history of female Members of Parliament began in 1918, the same year in which women were first given the right to vote but a decade before all women were given suffrage on equal terms with men. Although Constance de Markievicz was the first female elected to Parliament, it was only in 1919 that Nancy Astor became the first women to take her seat in the House of Commons and pave the way for women of the future. It was not long after in 1924 that the first female MP, Margaret Bondfield, was appointed into a cabinet position and since then women MPs have endeavoured to fight gender inequality and campaign for female rights. Within 100 years there has been a gradual revolution of change in politics and to date, Britain has been led by two female Prime Ministers. However, such great landmarks have overshadowed the other female MPs whose early achievements, which have paved the way for subsequent women politicians, are consistently overlooked. In ''Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics'' Rachel Reeves brings the forgotten stories into the spotlight to document the history of British female political history from 1919 to 2019. [[Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves|Full Review]] <!-- Ece Temelkuran -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0008294011.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008294011/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]], [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:History|History]] 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 '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. [[How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran|Full Review]] <!-- Yuval Noah Harari -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1787330672.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787330672/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Politics and Society|Politics and Society]] Yuval Noah Harari gave us ''Sapiens'', which told the history of mankind and then ''Homo Deus'' which looked at mankind's future. Now we have ''21 Lessons for the 21st Century'' which looks at the challenges we currently face and it's enlightening, thought-provoking and occasionally just a little bit frightening. It's unlikely that mankind will face what - eighty years ago - would have been thought of as a traditional war, with armies, navies and air forces fighting it out hand to hand. It's much more likely that the threats we'll face will be relatively new. Harari looks at them in some depth. [[21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari|Full Review]] <!-- Bremner -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bremner_Us.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, was it? Every day seems to bring yet more news of doom and gloom. The spectre of terrorism hangs over most of 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 in countries all around the world. And inequality is 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 there. It's a little too frightening: this is the most powerful man in 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 (I'm thinking of Richard Nixon here) 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>
