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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kwame Anthony AppiahAlastair Humphreys|title=The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions HappenLocal|rating=3.5|genre=HistoryTravel |summary=In Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the Preface, Appiah believes that morality is an extremely important area of our lives as we live them todayworld. He goes on by saying that And then written about it's all . For this book he walked and cycled very well thinking close to home and then wrote about morality - our morals - our own code of living - but it's the ultimate action which truly matters. WellAs he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I would certainly agree with thathave learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. And as Appiah digs deeper into his subjectNature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, he tells his readers rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was struck by similarities betweenthat there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for examplesomebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we''the collapse re in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the duelcountry, the abandonment has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of footbinding, the end his were kind of Atlantic slaverytaking his time away. Our narrator's family weren' In t in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the following chapters country demanded (especially as he debates would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the issues of those three major areas of moralityfather being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. They wereThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in shortthis sultry island country, moral issues on a very large scale.it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393071626</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel JohnsonSarah Wilson|title=A Diary of The LadyThis One Wild and Precious Life: My First Year as Editorthe path back to connection in a fractured world

|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Along My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with most of your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my contemporaries Ianswer is ''This! Precisely this.'ve never read 'The Lady I' except once when looking for an au pair job in m lucky enough to be living my student days, one wild and that, it turns out, precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is the problemequally lucky. Before Rachel Johnson was appointed in June 2009 In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the average age of source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the readership was 75, life we want – the circulation was dropping and the magazine was haemorrhaging moneybest life that we could be living. The Budworth family Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, proprietors of we are not'The '. LadyDon't care what you' since it was founded 125 years agore doing, she thinks you (we, chose son and heir Ben Budworth to turn the magazineI) could be doing more…And she's fortunes around before it folded. He asked Rachel Johnson to be editoreffing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490674</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Rawnsley1785633457|title=The End of Charging Around: Exploring the Party: The Rise and Fall Edges of New LabourEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=After decades Clive Wilkinson has a history of watching politics more or less assiduously I was surprised travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the New Labour administration. Never before had so much been put – or so it seemed – in idea of exploring the public domain, but never before had I had quite such a feeling edges of really England in an electric car was not understanding what was going ontotally outrageous. In fact, of being party to only half it should be a story. The age of spin told us little that we really wanted to knowpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, but left unsaid all the important things. Early in 2010 I was disappointed that I'd missed Andrew Rawnsley's 'The End of the Partyshouldn' but now I'm rather glad that I did as t it's been republished in paperback with two additional chapters which include the extraordinary events surrounding the 2010 General Election.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046147</amazonuk>?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Penman1529153050|title=School Daze: Searching for a Decent State EducationBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=3.54|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=As a teacher myselfSeeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, Iwas nudged towards ''Britain'm naturally well aware of most s Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the aspects of education that Andrew Penman discusses here and some of year: the stories he repeats are well-known cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to me but may be of news to some readers31 August 2022. Yes, people Who can imagine what there will really do just about anything be to try and get their children into the school of their choice – even commit fraud! But how well does this book work as an insight into come in the type of measures some people will go to for those readers unaware of the desperation thatcan set in at this time in a child’s life2023 edition? It’s a good question…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906132976</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Geert MakB0B7289HKQ|title=An Island in TimeConversations Across America: The Biography A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of a VillageAmerica|author=Kari Loya

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=In Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the mid 1990s journalist and author Geert Mak returned way) wanted to spend some time with his native Friesland father and took up residence in the village of Jorwertperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. His aim The decision was made to investigate ride the quiet revolution going on Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the agrarian communities not just of Holland recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of the whole of Europe.  This wasn't going to a challenge that it would be an outsider's view. Mak grew up in the northern Dutch province; he spoke the language; he knew the games and understood the for most peoplewho considered taking it on. In a very real sense Mak Merv Loya was going home… 75 years old and finding that it scarcely existed any morehe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546868</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Mark Oaten|title=Screwing Up|rating=4I've got a couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Like John Profumo I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and others, Mark Oaten will probably be remembered for then forget to return to the wrong reasonsbook. It was the episode which made him for There's got to be a while the countryvery compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's No. 1 paparazzi target, and the technology which as he recounts in his Prologue, when his 'takes centre stage along with the world was crashing down' and it hardly needs recounting in detail-building. Yet when all is said and done, this is a very lively, readable, sometimes quite poignant memoir from one of It's human beings who fascinate me: the men whose career at Westminster began technology and ended with the Blair and Brown yearsworld scape are purely incidental. Throughout there is an admirable absence So, what did I think of a book of selftwenty-pitytwo science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849540071</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel PennacJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=School BluesThe Book of Hope |rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Daniel Pennac's The done thing is to read a book discusses 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 issue experience of children who struggle at schoolreading this amazing book, and offers some ideas on how teachers can and should help themI want to capture it as it hits me. It And it is not a dry textbook on educational theoryhitting me. He writes from personal experience, as a teacher and novelist who was once 'un cancre', translated here as a dunce or a bad studentThis beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694648</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Lewis1788360737|title=Artivism: The Kid: A True StoryBattle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=42|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Kevin Lewis grew up on Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a poverty-stricken London council estate 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 his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the sort Era of home Postmodernism’ is adamant that the neighbours complain aboutart is freer when it is art for art’s sake. His mother – inadequate by any measure – hated him The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more than most of her six children and he was beaten and starved by both of his parentsovertly political (read: left wing). You might think that Social Services would Their seemingly grass roots movements have stepped in been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and removed him, but any relief was media elites hoping to be short-livedcreate a more globalist and progressive regime. Eventually he was put into care but even then the support was inadequate and Kevin found himself caught up in a criminal underworld where he was known simply as 'The Kid'Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014104859X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1398508632|title=Decline and Fall: Diaries 2005 to 2010The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=At It had been on the end of [[A View from the Foothills by Chris Mullin|A View from the Foothills]] we left Chris Mullin wondering why he cards for a while but it was no longer Tony Blair's Africa minister at the Foreign Officeweek-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. He The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was never perhaps not the best time to get start, in a definitive answer to this, but was later told that Blair handed out world where the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweetsnormal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sackedBrexit and a pandemic. In Decline and Fall we see Chris come down from Wilde had a few advantages: the foothills area around her was a known habitat with a variety of politics terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and return to the backbenchesdehydrator. He might no longer be in She had a position of power, but he's still in the thick of itcar - and fuel. Perhaps thoughMost importantly, some of the enjoyment is draining away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very importantshe had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683998</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Malalai Joya1529149800|title=Raising My VoiceThings You Can Do: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares How to Speak OutFight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4.5|genre=Politics Home and SocietyFamily|summary=Forget entertainment – this is We begin with a book to read if you have any interest in telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the war in Afghanistan. My particular view has developed from a British armchair, comprising part emotional reaction, a smidgeon forest fire took hold and most of history them stood and an over-reliance on British media sources. In a war zone where truth has been a casualty throughoutwatched, this book gives the general reader an authentic view unable to think of conditions in Afghanistan over anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the past twenty five years river and began taking tiny amounts of continual warfare. Written by a young water and hot-headed, wildly patriotic 'ordinary' woman, this is no more reliable than any other partisan view, but its value is flying back to help put official news sources drop them into their proper contextthe fire. I found it educative in several senses.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041503</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patricia Nicol|title=Sucking Eggs The animals laughed: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift and Going Green|rating=2.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In the current economy, lots of people are trying to make ends meet in their own wayswhat good was that doing. Not since the days of Brownie badges has the word ''thriftI'm doing the best I can' been bandied around so much, but now it's not so much about saving money as it is about surviving. Actually, maybe it always was, but the Guiding Association thought a jolly piggy bank was a more appropriate badge emblem than a depressed family collapsed in front of their Sky TV with their supermarket-own curry struggling to fill said the void left by a regular take awayhummingbird. What we all need is a return to the good old days And that, when life was simpler and people happierreally, is the days when you didn't need to clear half an hour in your diary to navigate only way that we will solve the olive aisle problem of the supermarket, and when you ate climate change – by each of us doing what was fresh and localwe can, not because it was cheap or you were in the mood, but because it was all they hadhowever small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521121</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Adam Phillips|title=On Balance|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Essential for a tightrope walker, prized as an intellectual objective, balance is generally considered something to which we can aspire. We praise someone who makes a balanced decision, we envy people who have a 'good work/life balance' we offer an opinion One more body just wouldn't matter'on balance' to demonstrate that we have considered various arguments and options.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143888</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=James Robertson|title=And The Land Lay Still|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The novel starts ... at 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 endworld. We rarely see the fictional character, photographer Mike Pendreich collating many, many photographs which his late father took with his trusty camerapictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. His father The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is generally acknowledged as not one which I'll ever forget and the better of the two at the craft; he simply had the knackprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. And what his son is now There was a backlash against the police - and not just in charge of are black and white photographs charting a social history at that time. And we Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all know that a picture is worth a thousand words'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114356X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan GreenMatthieu Aikins|title=Murder in The Naked Don't Fear the High HimalayaWater

|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Himalayan mountains mean many things to different people. To the people of Tibet, trapped under the atheist occupiers from China, who ran Naked Don't Fear the Dalai Lama out in the 1950s in their consuming urge for lebensraum and mineral mining, they are a near-impenetrable barrier, protecting their country from historyWater isn's prior ravages, but keeping people who want outt actually fiction, because it reads very much in. To rich Westerners, they are like a sparkling challenge well- paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a task of the highest ordercriticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a box Canadian citizen who decided to tick accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to self-fulfilment - something to be climbed, because they're thereperfectly envisage the environments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1586487140</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Woodsford1785633074|title=Dear Mr Bigelow: A Transatlantic FriendshipStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyHumour|summary=Meet Mister Bigelow. He's elderly, living alone on Long Island, New York, with some health problems but more than enough family and friends Members of Parliament like us to get him believe that the country is run bypoliticians, and still a very active interest in yachting, regattas and more. Meet, too, Frances Woodsford. Sheheaded by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's reaching middle-age, living with her brother and mum in Bournemouth, and working for the local baths as organiser those of events, office lackey you who are Eton and moreOxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. I suggest you do meet them, although neither ever met We are in the privileged position of having access to the other. Despite this they kept up a brisk and lively conversation about all aspects memoirs of lifeRafe Hubris, from the late 1940s until his death at man who was behind the beginning skilful control of the 60sCovid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. And as a result comes this book, of heavily edited highlights, which opens up a world of social history and entertaining diary-style commentYou might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542293</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Skloot1846276772|title=The Immortal Life End of Henrietta Lacks|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in October 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five children, died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. However, a sample of her cancer cells taken the same year lived on, grew and reproduced. Often referred to as HeLa cells, cells with their origins in the original sample are still being used in medical and scientific research today, nearly sixty years on. Many of the scientific breakthroughs that have been made using HeLa cells are hugely profitable. But her children have spent their lives in low waged jobs and on welfare, unable to afford basic health insurance. Understandably they feel a lot of anger at this injustice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230748694</amazonuk>}}  {{newreviewBias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Garrett Keizer|title=The Unwanted Sound of Everything We WantJessica Nordell

|summary=What Anyone who is noise? Do we count birdsong at sunrise as noise? And if sonot an able, what different term would we use white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to describe which they suffer from it: it's simply a jet aircraft taking off? part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Why do we respond so differently to Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the two? white man. Even more intriguinglywhen those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, would our response change if that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the birdsong woke us from an exhausted sleep receiving end of the bias but it's not just the aircraft was taking off to jet us on a long awaited holiday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586485520</amazonuk>individuals who are negatively impacted.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rushkoff1529148251|title=Life IncMisfits: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it BackA Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel|rating=3.5

|summary=The author of this book was mugged outside his apartment one Christmas Eve. He posted a note online to warn his neighbours ''How am I able to be extra careful, and was promptly berated for doing something so public that could potentially damage property values in his local area. This is a thought-provoking snippettransparent on paper about rape, malpractice and if the whole book was like thispoverty, Iyet still compartmentalise? It'm sure s as though I would have been grippedwere telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516691</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Peter Beaumont|title=The Secret Life Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Peter Beaumont is 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 Foreign Affairs editor television industry at The Observerthe Edinburgh TV Festival. He joined You might be ''reading'' the paper in 1989 and has spent much of the intervening time dealing with the kind of book but you need to 'foreign affairs' that is better described as listen'war reporting'. to the words as though you'The Secret Life of War' is a distillation of his years re in the fieldlecture theatre. It is The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a book ill-served by both its title and its cover, except maybe insofar as both might serve to sneak it onto the bookshelves cloud of those who really need to read it, but probably wouldn't choose to do so were it more accurately wrappedexquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520982</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary Younge0008350388|title=Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|summary=Consider, if you will, guilt. You might have it tainting you, as 'beyond the perpetrators, every person who stands in solidarity with them and maintains solidarity after the fact becomes entangled'. The link might not strictly To be a legal onedark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, but concern 'norms of religion and moralsless hireable, etiquette less intelligent and custom as well as dayultimately less valuable than my light-to-day communications and interactions'skinned counterparts.. Hence a collective guilt like no other - that witnessed in Germany. 'The assumption that membership to a people engenders solidarity is something Germans of my generation do not easily like to accept', we read. However difficult it might have been back then in its day, Germany had to physically renounce anything to do with Nazism, to actively 'opt-out' of connections We Need to avoid the solidarity seen connecting the whole nation like a toxic spider web. And since then itTalk About Money's linked in all the children, in a ''bequeathal'' of guilt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636776</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|author=Michael Wolff|title=The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch|rating=3''0.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=There can be few people who are unaware 7% of the name English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of Rupert Murdoch. Over four decades he's built News International into colour while only 7% study a seventy billion dollar corporation from its original Australian base. His position in the UK media is such that he's courted book by politicians and has what many believe to be an excessive amount of power for someone who is not elected and is not even a UK citizenwoman. '' He's now expanding into Southeast Asia and in his eightieth year it's still difficult to imagine when – or where – he will stop.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523523</amazonuk>}}The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Neil MacFarquhar|title=The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday|rating=4Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old.5|genre=Politics Her sisters were seven and Society|summary=''What are the chances of change in the Middle East?'' is the question central to this booknine. Since Neil MacFarquhar spent thirteen years wandering the length and breadth of the Islamic stronghold of the Middle EastIt was her mother who came first, I feel inclined to believe his in-depth assessmentwith her father joining them later. In descriptive The family was hard-working, principled and reasoned terms, he identifies conservative forces which predominate in the region, primarily determined that their children would have the religious and political machinery which condemns liberalization and modernizationbest education possible. This discussion There was always a painful awareness of attempts to promote change, for example by individual dissidents or money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the mediafamily acquired a car. For Otegha, is strengthened education meant a scholarship to a private school in the second half of the book by detailed case studies of six nations with particular reference to their readiness London and motivation for changethen a place at New College, Oxford. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1586488112</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David AaronovitchRichard Brook|title=Voodoo HistoriesUnderstanding Human Nature: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped The WorldA User's Guide to Life

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=What shape is I am a conspiracy theory? firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. Unusual questionIn my case, I knowthis is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, but if I think on had come across this evidence book I'd have skimmed it is round. A conspiracy theory is lumpen, ragged, full found some of holesit interesting, and has a huge circular gap where but it would not have 'hit home' in the obvious and sensible has dropped through, leaving the believer or theorist with the implausible skeleton of what they choose way that it does now. I believe it came to think instead. They certainly have a habit of coming round in circles - if me not just because I mentioned was likely to give it a heinous crime caused by a western leader favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that killed hundreds or more peoplechose their own books rather than getting them randomly, purely so there is a predisposition towards expecting to get their like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way and get '' ] – but also because it is a war started, book I could be referring needed to Roosevelt and Pearl Harborread, Maggie Thatcher and the General Belgrano, or Bush etc and 9/11right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009947896X</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Rogers1787332098|title=The Last ResortHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry Mance

|summary=Flicking through the channels ''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on the TV the other night I stumbled across an interview with George Bush's former Deputy Chief sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of Staffwild animals stay out there, Karl Rove. After witnessing an especially cringe making hip hop turn at the Washington Correspondents' Dinner (if you haven't seen it take a look at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln5RD9BhcCo here]. It really is jaw droppingly awful) attention turned to weightier matterssomewhere, most notably Guantanamo Bay and the war '' hopefully on terror and the Bush administrations response to Hurricane Katrinanext David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144841</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Martin Bell|title=A Very British Revolution: The Expenses Scandal and How I was going to Save Our Democracy|rating=4|genre=Politics argue. I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and Society|summary=I've long thought it strange that of all much prefer my elephants in the ills wild but then I realised that have befallen I was quibbling for the country over the last few years sake of it was not really the bankers' follies or the swine flu . Essentially that never really got off quote sums up my attitude to animals - and I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to choose between the ground but company of humans and the venality company of our MPs which caught animals, I would probably choose the public's attentionanimals. Compared I insisted that I read this book: no one was trying to the amounts required to bail out a bank the sums involved were minutestop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, but moatseggs, floating duck houses chicken and fish and flipping houses caught I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the imagination and our elected representatives became just a little wary of admitting what they did for a livingdecision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848311281</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dominique Lapierre1523092734|title=A Rainbow in the Night Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=4.5

|summary=A book integrating otherwise piecemeal news stories picked up over the past forty years into ''She brings a coherent explanation is always welcome. This book explores South Africa's history and development, from the earliest Dutch arrivals hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in 1652 to the first racially integrated elections in 1994her life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0306818477</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marina Hyde|title=Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over The World Again and Why We Need an Exit Strategy|rating=3.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=I have what is perhaps a regular-sized interest in A again and B-list celebritiesagain. I can name the off-spring of many an actress, tell you who the spokespeople for certain brands are, write a list of celebs with publicly declared devotions to certain religions, even win the odd pub quiz thanks to knowing the birth names of various performers. I know all sorts of things about this rather small subset of society, but I know the ''what'' more than the ''why''(Alma Derricks, and that's exactly the problemformer CMO, according to this book. After all, if more of us sat down to wonder about what it actually ''is'' that the likes of Geri Halliwell and Nicole Kidman bring to the UN, we might seriously question how and why they ever got involved in the first place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532050</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)

{{newreview|author=Salman Rushdie|title=Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticisms 1981 - 1991|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We read some authors because we know we're going 'To claim space is to enjoy themlive the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. Others, we feel somehow obliged It is to read. If we consider ourselves ''readers'', and certainly if we have any pretensions (I use live the word advisedly) to being life you've always wanted.'well-read'', then there are some books and more particularly some authors with whom we are required to become familiar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542250</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Carole White and Sian Williams|title=Struggle or Starve|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Struggle or Starve Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is a collection of autobiographical writings about girlsmuch in the news, '' and womenA Women's lives in South Wales between the warsGuide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. This Now - to be clear - this book is not a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, an independent publisher set up but discussion at the moment seems to encourage Welsh be about how women writerscan be ''protected''. Most of the contributors in I've always thought that women need to rise above this book came from miners, to be people who don' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurityt need protection, people who claim their own space. If 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard Wilkinson and Kate PickettPolly Barton|title=The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone Fifty Sounds

|summary=If you asked people why it is (or might be) 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 good idea to reduce inequality in a society, many people while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would assume that reducing inequality works have visited by making now. I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the life question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the poorest better: that question in the poor are first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the ones who benefit from reduction sound of inequality''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141032367</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David ShieldsStephen Fabes|title=Reality Hunger: A ManifestoSigns 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'The Novel is Deadt inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn' is not really what a novelist wants t inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to read first on picking up a new book – but strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I persevered had been gifted with Shieldsthe requisite 'bottle' manifesto and . In order words I'm glad I didnot the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. This is a thought-provoking wake-up call Fabes did precisely that any artist, writer or book-lover will enjoy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024114499X</amazonuk>1788161211

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chinua Achebe1504321383|title=The Education of a British-Protected ChildSingle, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman

|summary=This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran ''You can't be happy and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africafulfilled on your own. Some of the essays You are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebenot complete until you find a man''s family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846142598</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Norah Vincent|title=Voluntary MadnessThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: My Year Lost and Found in it was simply the Loony Bin|rating=3.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=''Voluntary Madness'' is journalist Norah Vincent's account of her visits to three mental health facilities adults in America. The first is an urban, public hospital that houses mainly homeless, psychotic patients, many of whom are addicted to drugs. In this hospital, the doctors are overworked and jaded and medication is always the answer. Soon, the author finds that her latent depression (which led life advising her as to do the book in the first place) is returning. The process of being institutionalised breaks what they thought would be best for her sense of self-worth down astonishingly fast. Indeed, It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she suggests that it 's usually fairly young) is rescued by the lack of autonomy in institutional life, even for those patients handsome prince who voluntarily commit themselves, then marries her so that makes it so hard for them they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to rebuild independent lives when be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they finally leave the institutionwill marry and have children. It was a belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513439</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Gabriel Weston|title=Direct Red|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=Few people have the ability Move to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargon. Gabriel Weston is one such – and ''Direct Red'' held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours. She's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520699</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]