Changes

|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

|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

|authorisbn=Frederic Gros1785633457|title=A Philosophy Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of WalkingEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson

|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?

|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

|authorisbn=Sharon Blackie1739593901|title=If Women Rose Rooted22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|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

|author= Linda ScottJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title= The Double X EconomyBook of Hope

|genre= Politics and Society|summary=''Women are economically disadvantaged in every country in The done thing is to read a book all the world''way through before you sit down to review it. It's a bold statement for I’m making an opening chapterexception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, but I want to capture it's far from hyperbole as the following pages explainit hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book shines a light on what is happening has me in different places, and the impact on the local and world economytears. What can be learnt from the great strides in gender-equalising legislation in the west? What can be done about the selling of young women into marriage, and what can chimpanzees and bonobos teach us about mothering?|isbn=0571353606024147857X

|authorisbn=Danny Dorling1788360737|title=SlowdownArtivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=42|genre=Politics and Society|summary= We are living Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a time of rapid change, and we're worried about itvacuum. Dorling tells us that the latter It is normal, natural and probably good for usmade by people. We are designed Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to worry and with modifying the current state of what we're doing social environment in the world we have much to be worried aboutwhich he develops’’. HoweverTherefore, over the next three-hundred-and-some pagesall art must be political, if you can follow the arguments, it sets out even implicitly. Alexander Adams in scientific detail why either we shouldn't be as worried as we are, or his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in some cases the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that we're worrying about the wrong thingsart is freer when it is art for art’s sake. MostlyThe recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Because mostly, things are not changing as rapidly as we think they areTheir seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. In fact, the rate of change in many things is slowing down and the direction of change will in some cases go into reverseOr at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|isbn=0300243405

|isbn=02414467321398508632|title=Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in CrisisThe Wilderness Cure|author=Malena Ernman, Greta Thunberg, Beata Thunberg and Svante ThunbergMo Wilde

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=The Ernman / Thunberg family seemed perfectly normal. Malena Ernman It had been on the cards for a while but it was an opera singer and Svante Thunberg took on most of the parenting week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of their two daughterseating only wild food. Then eleven-year-old Greta stopped eating and talking and her sisterThe end of November, Beataparticularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, then nine years oldin a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, struggled Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with what was happeninga variety of terrains. In such circumstances, it's natural She had electricity which allowed her to seek run a solution close to homefridge, but eventuallyfreezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, it became clear she had shelter: this was not a plan to the family that they were ''burned-out people on a burned-out planetlive''. If they were to find a way wild just to live happily again their solution would need to be radicaloff its produce.

|isbn=06486848061529149800|title=Clara ColbyThings You Can Do: The International SuffragistHow to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=John HollidayEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=BiographyHome and Family|summary=The path of Clara Dorothy Bewick's life was probably determined when her family emigrated to the USAWe begin with a telling story. At All the time she was just three-years-old but because birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of some childhood ailmentthem stood and watched, she wasn't allowed unable to sail with her parents and three brothersthink of anything they could do. Instead, she remained with her grandparents, who doted on her The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and saw that she received a good education, both in began taking tiny amounts of water and out of schoolflying back to drop them into the fire. She The animals laughed: what good was the only child in the household and her childhood was gloriousthat doing. By contrast, her family had become pioneer farmers in ''I'm doing the mid-west of the United States and life was hardbest I can'', as Clara was to find out when she and her grandparents eventually went to join said the familyhummingbird. Clara would only know her mother for a few months: she was married for fifteen yearsAnd that, had ten pregnanciesreally, seven surviving children and died in childbirth not long after Clara arrived. As is the only way that we will solve the eldest girlproblem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, a heavy burden would fall on Clara and Wisconsin was a rude awakeninghowever small that might be.

|isbn=183895015X1638485216|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Bit of a Stretch: The Diaries of a PrisonerBlack Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Chris AtkinsFrederick Reynolds

|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=Documentary filmmakers don''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't usually get the run matter''. The murder of establishments within the MountbattenGeorge Floyd, a forty-six-year-Windsor Hotel Groupold black man, but after getting involved in an illegal tax scheme to fund his latest filmon 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, Chris Atkins was invited for a fiveforty-four-year stay-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 first nine months were spent in HMP Wandsworth, image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which is probably followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the oldest, largest police - and most dysfunctional prison not just in EuropeMinneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.

|author=Michael HarrisMatthieu Aikins|title=Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded WorldThe Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society|summary= It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not the book I was expecting it by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to be. For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to find calm, how to step outside the mainstream, but it is not that accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at alltimes painful journey. Instead There are tense moments and gripping accounts of telling us how it is more about border crossings which had me on edge the ''why''whole way through. Harries examines how weBut it're eroding solitude, which used to be s written with a natural part of our human life, haunting and why almost lyrical quality that matters. Of course, he talks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in allows the final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down reader to perfectly envisage the alleys environments and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led himpeople described.|isbn=1847947662B09N9157T6

|isbn=17837843501785633074|title=This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted HistoryStaggering Hubris|author=Esther RutterJosh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryHumour|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 Members of Parliament like us to be a time for making changes and she decided believe that she would travel the length and breadth of country is run by politicians, headed by the British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling Prime minister - the story of wool''primus inter pares'' (that's history for those of you who are Eton and how it had made and changed Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the landscape. She'd grown up on a sheep farm in Suffolk - 'prime'' a freemovers are the special advisers -range child on the farm'' SPADS - and learned who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to spinthe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, knit and weave from her mother and her mother's friendthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. This was in her bloodYou might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.

|isbn=00082940111846276772|title=The End of Bias: How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to DictatorshipWe Change Our Minds|author=Ece TemelkuranJessica Nordell

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=A little while ago a friend asked me if I thought Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that we were living through what in years they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come would be discussed by A level history students when faced with before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the question ''Discuss preserve of the factors which led towhite man...'' I agreed that she was right and wasnEven when those who wouldn't certain whether pass the medical become a part of an organisation it was a good or bad thing 's rare that we didn't know what all 'this' was leading to. I think now their views are heard, that I do knowtheir concerns are acknowledged. We are in danger of losing democracy and whilst itIt's a flawed system I can't think personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of a better one, particularly as the 'benevolent dictator' is as rare as henbias but it's teethnot just the individuals who are negatively impacted.

|isbn=17868934521529148251|title=The Ungrateful RefugeeMisfits: A Personal Manifesto|author=Dina NayeriMichaela Coel|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Here in the West, we see news reports about immigrants ''How am I able to be so transparent on a regular basis – some media welcoming them, some scaremongering paper about them. But all of those stories are written by journalists – almost always westernrape, malpractice and almost always, no matter how deep the investigative journalism they carry outpoverty, outsiders to the world and the situations that refugees find themselves in. yet still compartmentalise? It's rare that we find out as though I were telling the journeys truth whilst simultaneously running away from the refugees themselves – and this is it.'' Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a rare opportunity certain frame of mind. You're not going to do that, in this intelligent, powerful and moving work by Dina Nayeri read a book of essays or a self-someone who help book. You're going to read writing which was born in inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the middle of a revolution in Iran, fleeing book but you need to ''listen'' to America the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a ten-year-oldcloud of exquisite writing.

|isbn=18460455760008350388|title=Walks In The WildWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Peter Wohlleben and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)Otegha Uwagba|rating=45|genre=Animals Politics and Wildlife|Animals and WildlifeSociety|summary=''An instruction manual for the forestTo 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' is how Wohlleben's publisher described 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the idea for this bookUK 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's basically what 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 is – although right at was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the end the author says that it is not intended family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to be a reference bookprivate school in London and then a place at New College, but an appetiserOxford.

|isbnauthor=1786331608Richard Brook|title=Hard PushedUnderstanding Human Nature: A MidwifeUser's Story|author=Leah HazardGuide to Life|rating=4.5

|summary=Over the past few yearsI am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, we've had a rash (sorry - no pun intended) of and sometimes books by medical practitionerschoose us. Doctors have been at the forefrontIn my case, but ''Hard Pushed'' this is one of the first latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I've seen by a midwife. Itd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home's an unusual profession in the way that itdoes now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag'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 outu. It's an amazing thing to be able to do - .p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to escort new life into like the world - and an enormous responsibility. Leah Hazard came to book, even if it after a career in television and doesn''Hard Pushedt always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is the story of her career as a midwife - and the title tells more than one storybook I needed to read, right now.|isbn=1800461682

|isbn=17859033571787332098|title=Confessions of How to Love Animals in a Recovering MPHuman-Shaped World|author=Nick de BoisHenry Mance|rating=45

|summary=I should warn you in advance''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: 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 cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so probably have next to no points of political agreement with Nick de Boison. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, but Ifoxes in rubbish bins, along with everyone elseelephants in zoos, am currently subject to the debacle and millions of parliamentwild animals stay out there, government and Brexit''somewhere, a dog and pony show currently revealing in hideous technicolour '' hopefully on the absolute dearth of competent leadership among our political classesnext David Attenborough series. And yes, opposition parties: I'm looking at you as well. You're just as useless.

SighI was going to argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the company of humans and the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1523092734|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)

Desperate cry into ''To claim space is to live the void overlife of choosing unapologetically and bravely. Sorry about that It is to live the life you've always wanted.''

|isbnauthor=1788312201Polly Barton|title=Women Fifty Sounds|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary= 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 and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by 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 ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politicsthe question in the first essay, which 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=Rachel ReevesStephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|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'Women in Westminster have changed t inherit the culture kind of politics 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 perception of what women can dorequisite 'bottle'. In order words I''Women m not the sort of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics'' chronicles the battles the 491 women person who have been elected over the course of the past century have fought will get on a bike outside a London hospital and highlights their victoriesnot come home for six years. It is remarkable Fabes did precisely that the history of female Members of Parliament began in 1918.|isbn=1788161211}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1504321383|title=Single, Again, and Again, the same year in which women were first given the right to vote but 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 decade before all women were given suffrage on equal terms with menman''. Although Constance de Markievicz  This was what Louisa Pateman was the first female elected brought up to Parliament, believe. It wasn't unkind: it was only simply the adults in 1919 that Nancy Astor became the first women her life advising her as to take what they thought would be best for her seat in the House of Commons and pave the way for women of the future. It was not long 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 in 1924 . Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that the first female MP, Margaret Bondfield, was appointed into a cabinet position they will marry and since then women MPs have endeavoured to fight gender inequality and campaign for female rightschildren. Within 100 years there has been It was a gradual revolution of change in politics belief 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 it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politicsa belief is a choice'' Rachel Reeves brings the forgotten stories into the spotlight to document the history of British female political history from 1919 to 2019.