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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1504321383Alastair Humphreys|title=SingleLocal|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, Againthe book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and Againaccess, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and Againthat there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Louisa PatemanEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we'You can't be happy and fulfilled on your ownre in Cuba. You are The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not complete until you find done nearly enough to create a man''level playing field for all. This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. It wasnOur narrator's family weren't unkind: it was simply in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the adults in her life advising her country demanded (especially as to what they thought he would probably be best shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for herhis successful photography business, success being frowned upon. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where The mother gets the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by couple jobs with the handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough party to be brought up ''without'' ease some of the expectation that they will marry and have children. It was a belief and heat, but in this sultry island country, it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sakinu AhronglongSarah Wilson|title=Hunter SchoolThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary= The flyleaf My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to this little collection tells us do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that it line so much because my answer is a work of fiction''This! Precisely this. That's possibly misleading' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. I am not sure whether it Sarah Wilson is "fiction" in the sense equally lucky. In her book that Ahronglong made it all up, or whether it is takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the blurb goes on source) she pushes us to say think about whether we really ''recollections, folklore and autobiographical storiesare''. It feels like living the life we want – the latterbest life that we could be living. It feels like the stories he tells about his experiences as a child, as Her answer is an adolescentunequivocal ''no, as an adult we are real and truenot''. But memory is a fickle thingDon't care what you're doing, and maybe poetic licence has taken over here and thereshe thinks you (we, and maybe calling it fiction means I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that its safer and therefore more people will read it. More people shouldwe are not.|isbn=19997912821785633848
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1785633457|title=A Philosophy Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of WalkingEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson
|rating=5
|genre= Politics Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and Societyhis wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary= I confess I picked this one up Seeking some light relief from the library in my pre-lockdown forage current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of random stuff2022''. Now I Sharp eyes will have to go out an buy my own copy so noted that I can turn down we're not yet through the year: the pages I have marked and return to its varying wisdom when I need cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to. Some books draw you in slowly31 August 2022. This one had me Who can imagine what there will be to come in the first two pages, wherein Gros explains why ''walking is not a sport''.|isbn=17816883702023 edition?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Lun ZhangConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Adrien GombeaudAlzheimer's, Ameziane and Edward Gauvin (translator)300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|titleauthor=Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered HopesKari Loya|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic NovelsTravel|summary=I never really followed Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the events of Tiananmen Square way) wanted to spend some time with much attention when his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it . The decision was playing out – someone in made to ride the second half Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of their teens has other priorities, you knowit - in 2015. I certainly didn't know of They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the weeks of protests and hunger strikes from the students before the massacre and the birth recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of the Tank Man image, I didn't know how the area had long been a venue challenge that it would be for political protest, and I didn't know more than a spit about the most people involved who considered taking it on either side. This book is practically flawless in giving a general browserMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's context for the whole season of protests back in 1989.|isbn=1684056993
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sharon Blackie1739593901|title=If Women Rose Rooted22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre= BiographyScience Fiction|summary= I normally say that you can tell how much a book means to me by how many pages have corners turned down''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Perhaps an even greater measure Instead of impact is setting out flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to buy my own copy before Itrack grandma.''ve finished reading the one I've borrowedgot a couple of confessions to make. I want 'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to avoid clichés like read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There'powerfuls got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there' s science fiction: far too often it'inspiring' 'lifes the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-changingbuilding. It' – although it is definitely s human beings who fascinate me: the first two technology and only time will tell about the third – but clichés exist for world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a reason and I'm not sure book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I can succinctly put loved it any better.|isbn=1912836017
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{{Frontpage
|author= Linda ScottJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title= The Double X EconomyBook of Hope
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.
|isbn=024147857X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788360737
|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism
|author=Alexander Adams
|rating=2
|genre= Politics and Society
|summary=''Women are economically disadvantaged Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in every country his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the world''Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It's had been on the cards for a bold statement for an opening chapter, while but it's far from hyperbole as was the following pages explainweek-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. This book shines a light on what is happening The end of November, particularly in different placesCentral Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, and in a world where the impact on the local normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and world economya pandemic. What can be learnt from Wilde had a few advantages: the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling area around her was a known habitat with a variety of young women into marriageterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and what can chimpanzees dehydrator. She had a car - and bonobos teach us about mothering?|isbn=0571353606fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Danny Dorling1529149800|title=SlowdownThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=Politics Home and SocietyFamily|summary= We are living in begin with a time of rapid change, and we're worried about ittelling story. Dorling tells us that All the birds and animals fled when the latter is normalforest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, natural and probably good for usunable to think of anything they could do. We are designed The tiny hummingbird flew to worry the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and with flying back to drop them into the current state of fire. The animals laughed: what we're good was that doing in the world we have much to be worried about. However, over ''I'm doing the next three-hundred-and-some pages, if you best I 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 said the wrong thingshummingbird. Mostly. Because mostlyAnd that, really, things are not changing as rapidly as is the only way that we think they are. In fact, will solve the rate problem of climate change in many things is slowing down and the direction – by each of change will in some cases go into reverseus doing what we can, however small that might be.|isbn=0300243405
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414467321638485216|title=Our House is on FireBlack, White, and Gray All Over: Scenes of a Family A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and a Planet in CrisisLaw Enforcement|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante ThunbergFrederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
''One more body just wouldn't matter''.
The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Matthieu Aikins
|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normalNaked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. Malena Ernman was an opera singer There are tense moments and Svante Thunberg took gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on most of edge the parenting of their two daughters. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sister, Beata, then nine years old, struggled with what was happeningwhole way through. In such circumstances, But it's natural to seek written with a solution close to home, but eventually, it became clear haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the family that they were ''burned-out environments and people on a burned-out planet''. If they were to find a way to live happily again their solution would need to be radicaldescribed.|isbn= B09N9157T6
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=06486848061785633074|title=Clara Colby: The International SuffragistStaggering Hubris|author=John HollidayJosh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyHumour|summary=The path Members of Clara Dorothy BewickParliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's life for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was probably determined when her family emigrated to completely contained by the USAend of 2020. At You might not know the time she was just three-years-old name now but because he will certainly be the man to watch.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=The End of some childhood ailment, she wasn't allowed to sail with her parents Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and three brothers. InsteadSociety|summary=Anyone who is not an able, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her and saw white man understands bias in that she received they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a good education, both in and out part of schooleveryday life. She was White men will always come first. The able will come before the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousdisabled. By contrastJobs, her family had become pioneer farmers in promotions, higher salaries are the mid-west preserve of the United States and life was hard, as Clara was to find out white man. Even when she and her grandparents eventually went to join those who wouldn't pass the family. Clara would only know her mother for medical become a few months: she was married for fifteen yearspart of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, had ten pregnancies, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrivedthat their concerns are acknowledged. As It's personally appalling and degrading for the eldest girl, a heavy burden would fall individuals on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakeningthe receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=183895015X1529148251|title=Misfits: A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a PrisonerPersonal Manifesto|author=Chris AtkinsMichaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Documentary filmmakers don't usually get 'How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the run truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.'' Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of establishments mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the Mountbatten-Windsor Hotel Group, television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but after getting involved you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest film, Chris Atkins was invited for a five-year staythe lecture theatre. The first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, which is probably the oldest, largest disjointedness will fade away and most dysfunctional prison in Europeyou'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Michael Harris0008350388|title=Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded WorldWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard Brook
|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary= This I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is not one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I was expecting 'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it to bedoes now. For some reason I expected believe it came to be another self-help manual on how me not just because I was likely to find calmgive it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, how so there is a predisposition towards expecting to step outside like the mainstreambook, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is not that at alla book I needed to read, right now.|isbn=1800461682}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry Mance|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. Instead And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of telling us how it is more about the wild animals stay out there, ''whysomewhere,''hopefully on the next David Attenborough series. Harries examines how we're eroding solitude, which used ' I was going to be a natural part of our human lifeargue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and why I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that mattersI was quibbling for the sake of it. Of course, he talks about how some people have found solitude Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and what has come I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of that, humans and eventually in the final chapter he talks about his own experience company of having deliberately sought it outanimals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but mostly he wanders down the alleys I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and by-ways I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that his thinking about this lost art led himmaking the decision would not be comfortable.|isbn=1847947662
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17837843501523092734|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through BritainWomen's Knitted HistoryGuide to Claiming Space|author=Esther RutterEliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck ''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her office joblife. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, writing Cirque du Soleil RSD) ''To claim space is to people she'd never met live the life of choosing unapologetically and preparing spreadsheetsbravely. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mindIt is to live the life you've always wanted. January was going to be '' Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time for making changes and she decided that she would travel when violence against women is much in the length and breadth of the British Isles with occasional forays abroadnews, discovering and telling the story of wool''A Women's history and Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - to be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it had made and changed 's something far more effective, but discussion at the landscape. Shemoment seems to be about how women can be 'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 'protected' a free-range child on the farm'. I' - and learned ve always thought that women need to spinrise above this, knit and weave from her mother and her motherto be people who don's friendt need protection, people who claim their own space. This was in her bloodIf all women did this, those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008294011Polly Barton|title=How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship|author=Ece TemelkuranFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=A little Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for a while ago a friend asked me and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I thought that we were living through what in years to come would be discussed have visited by A level history students when faced with now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''Discuss why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the factors question in the first essay, which led is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to...introduce yourself'' .|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary= I agreed that she was right brought up on maps and wasn't certain whether it first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was a good or bad thing that we birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't know inherit what all 'this' Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was leading the guts to. I think now that I simply go out and do knowit. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst it's a flawed system I canalso didn't think inherit the kind of a better onesteady nerve, particularly as 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 'benevolent dictatorbottle' is as rare as hen. In order words I's teethm 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
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17868934521504321383|title=The Ungrateful RefugeeSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Dina NayeriLouisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants ''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering about themman''. 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. But It was reinforced by all of those stories are written fairy tales where the girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by journalists – almost always western, and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism handsome prince who then marries her so that they carry out, outsiders can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the world expectation that they will marry and the situations that refugees find themselves inhave children. It's rare that we find out the journeys from the refugees themselves – was a belief and this is a rare opportunity to do it would be many years before Louisa would conclude 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 belief is a ten-year-oldchoice''.
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