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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]==Politics and society==__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chloe RhodesAlastair Humphreys|title=Black Cats and Evil Eyes: A Book of Old-Fashioned SuperstitionsLocal|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=If you had asked me I would have said that I was not in Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the least superstitiousworld. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. I donAs he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt 't have a horseshoe hung outside the house, don't to share what I have any concerns learnt about the date 'Friday the 13th' and accept that some big issues from a broken mirror is an unfortunate accident rather than year exploring a blight on my life for the next seven yearssmall map. After allNature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, itrewilding…''s simply a matter One of the joys of applying logic to the situation. There are sensible reasons book for not walking under ladders or opening an umbrella is me was that the house. Not passing someone on the stairs is just being safety consciousbiggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, isnno single 't it? Then my husband sneezedright or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843178877</amazonuk>1785633678

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger OsborneEdel Rodriguez|title=Of the People, By the PeopleWorm: A New History of DemocracyCuban American Odyssey|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theoryWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle insteadThe revolution has happened, and Castro, looking at different democracies from that first thought of as a saviour of Greece in the sixth century BCcountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to the present daycreate a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. 'HumanityOur narrator's finest achievementfamily weren', as Osborne calls it t in the first sentence happiest of his prologueplaces here, comes from an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the Greek words ''demos'' country demanded (peopleespecially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and ''kratos'' (rule)the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. It had its origins in The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the system devised heat, but in ancient Athensthis sultry island country, it remains the earliest in kind of heat forcing you out of the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845950623</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon HoggartSarah Wilson|title=House of FunThis One Wild and Precious Life: 20 glorious years the path back to connection in parliamenta fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks 'House of Fun' What is a selection of some of the best of the parliamentary sketches which Simon Hoggart has written for the Guardian. In time they range from the 1993 Liberal Conference (as as it youplan to do with your one wild and precious life?''re probably thinking it, it I get to love that line so much because my answer is 's worth quoting the 'Little changesThis! Precisely this... except, periodically, the name of the party') through ' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the G4S (another case where there have been name changes.way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) debacle just prior she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the 2012 Olympicsbest life that we could be living. So far as Prime Ministers Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are concernednot''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we start with John Major and wend our way through to Cameron, with the Conservatives book-ending the Blair/Brown war. But I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the point about parliamentary sketches is fact that they we are under no obligation to record the major events: they illuminate the unusual, the usually unrecorded and the thought-provoking incidents of life in the political worldnot.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0852653816</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mick Hume1785633457|title=There Is No Such Thing As A Free PressCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=I'll confess that the phone-hacking scandal largely left me coldClive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. It seemed to be about people who had courted As he neared his eightieth birthday the media interest complaining that they had caught idea of exploring the media's interest when they didn't intend to do so. Then the hacking edges of murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone came to light and disinterest turned to disgustEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. The Leveson Enquiry became the best show in town if you really wanted to hear about what celebrities had been doing and I moved to wondering what the outcome would be and whether In fact, it would prove to should be a talking shop and waste of money. It might have remained that way if the Jimmy Savile scandal hadn't dominated the news pleasant holiday for a couple of weeks Clive and I really began to wonder if we here at Bookbag Towers were the ''only'' people hadnhis wife, Joan, shouldn't known what was going on. Why hadn't this made headlines when other less important news hadit? I needed to know more about the press. I particularly needed to know if increased regulation - which seems almost inevitable - could produce more Jimmy Saviles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845403509</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sandy Gall1529153050|title=War Against the Taliban: Why it All Went Wrong in AfghanistanBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=It's always struck me that there are several countries where western might Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is going to be largely ineffective when it comes coming to seem more and more like an invasion or any other form of warfare. Vietnam proved to be one such place for the Americans back in the seventies and when the latest incursion into Afghanistan was announced my immediate reaction was that there would be no positive outcomeadrenaline sport, not least because that I was what history dictated. This was broadly correct but overly simplistic and this was one of the reasons why Sandy Gallnudged towards ''s book appealed to me so much. HeBritain's been involved with Afghanistan since Best Political Cartoons of 2022''before'' the Soviet invasion of 1979. This isnSharp eyes will have noted that we't a war correspondent dropping in and out of a country, but a man with a deep love for re not yet through the year: the people and a concern for their welfarecartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. He has Who can imagine what there will be to come in the contacts, his knowledge is encyclopaedic and he's an expert communicator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809052</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley HarrisonB0B7289HKQ|title=Sylvia PankhurstConversations Across America: The Rebellious SuffragetteA Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=To some extentKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the history of way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the suffragettes was also the history of the Pankhurst familyperiod between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. Sylvia, born in 1882, The decision was made to ride the second daughter of Dr Richard and Emmeline PankhurstTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, and one Oregon - all 4250 miles of three sistersit - in 2015. The family They had always been heavily politicised, Richard being a founder member 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of the Fabian Society alongside George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, and the children had quite an austere upbringing. When their father’s health took a sudden turn challenge that it would be for the worse in 1898, Emmeline and eldest daughter Christabel were abroad most people who considered taking it on business and Sylvia was left in charge of her younger siblings as well as having to nurse him, taking the full force of the shock when he died in her arms. With his passing the family were left strangely detached from each other. His widow became heavily involved in public work Merv Loya was 75 years old and political agitation, an increasingly remote mother he was suffering from the young children who needed herearly-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950187</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=David Kaiser|title=How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the Quantum Revival|rating=3book.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=In his introduction Professor Kaiser states that there are three ways in which the west coast hippies have benefited the development of Physics; they opened up deeper speculation into the fundamental philosophy behind quantum theory, they latched on There's got to be a crucial theorem of Bell, about what Einstein termed very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it'spooky'' interactions between particles at a distance. This might otherwise have been totally neglected. Thirdly they propounded a key idea s the technology which has become known as takes centre stage along with the 'noworld-cloning theorembuilding. It'. Kaiser tells a lucid account as might be expected from s human beings who fascinate me: the Germeshausen Professor of technology and the History world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of Science and department chief in the Massachusetts Institute a book of Technology's program. Incidentally he also provides an engaging insight into the American industrialtwenty-military complex and associated institutions like the Californian University at Berkleytwo science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>039334231X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clive Stafford-SmithJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms The Book of AmericaHope

|genre=Politics and Society|summary=On 16 October 1986, Derrick and Duane Moo Young were shot and killed, in Miami. British businessman Kris Maharaj was arrested, and in 1987 he was convicted of their murders and sentenced The done thing is to death. His defence lawyer, Eric Hendon, took read a book all the unusual line of offering no defence at all - when way through before you sit down to review it came time to present his case, he simply rested. Kris protested his innocence throughoutI’m making an exception here, and continues because I don’t want to do so to this day. Despite weighty evidence in support lose any of the experience of reading thisamazing book, he still languishes I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in prison 26 years latertears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846556252</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gordon Weiss1788360737|title=Artivism: The CageBattle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=42|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=The history of Ceylon, and latterly Sri Lanka has at its centre an undeniable contradictionCan art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. A nation which espoused and proclaimed peaceful Buddhism was caught in one of Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the bloodiest conflicts social environment in the recent past, a conflict peppered with suicide bombings, mass killingswhich he develops’’. Therefore, rapesall art must be political, torture and imprisonment, and more than a hint of genocideeven implicitly. Gordon Weiss was intimately involved as a journalist and as Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the United Nations Spokesman in Sri Lanka Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for two years art’s sake. The recent trend of the almost 40 years conflict, 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 has produced media elites hoping to create a detailed account of the background more globalist and eventual denouement of this conflictprogressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954847X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Siri Hustvedt1398508632|title=Living, Thinking, LookingThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=45

|summary='LivingIt had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, Thinkingin a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Looking' is Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a collection variety of essays by Siri Hustvedt terrains. She had electricity whichallowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she claims, are linked by an abiding curiosity about what it means had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to be human. In these essays she examines who we are and how we got that waylive off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444732633</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Brummer1529149800|title=Britain for SaleThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4.5|genre=Business Home and FinanceFamily|summary=Buy British, we're constantly told, We begin with a telling story. All the birds and many people do - animals fled when the Frenchforest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, the Germans, Qataris, Chinese..unable to think of anything they could do. If you want The tiny hummingbird flew to buy British you'd be hard pressed to use a British electricity company, the people shifting North Sea oil river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to you might be foreign, drop them into the trains near you may be foreign-operated, and so much of fire. The animals laughed: whatgood was that doing. 's in 'I'm doing the shops you buy from would of coursed be sourced from abroadbest I can'', and shipped through foreign-owned portssaid the hummingbird. Whether or not the country is going to hell in a handcartAnd that, it's moving in piecemeal stages to exterior business interestsreally, and is the British citizen gets only way that we will solve the worst problem of the dealclimate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847940757</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere|title=This is Not the End of the Book;|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=In many ways, the cover of my edition of this book is perfectly appropriate. Huge, bold serif script, with nothing but the typeface; a declamatory instance of the art in the most common of fonts, and that perfect semi-colon at the end of the book's name - proving that that itself is not the be-all and end-all. Buy this book, as you can, in electronic form, and you might see this cover for ten seconds at most, but it is so much part and parcel of what's withinOne more body just wouldn't matter''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552450</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Ian Bremmer|title=Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a Gforty-Zero World|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We're all used to terms like 'G7' which then became the 'G8' four-year- old police officer, in the group US city of countries which met periodically to thrash out global problems - frequently with America being expected to take Minneapolis sent shock waves around the lead where military muscle or finance was concernedworld. We even nod knowingly at the mention rarely see pictures of the G20 - formed with the good intention that a larger group would be able to tackle such issues as climate changemurder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. We know where good intentions generally lead but there wasnThe image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I't even sufficient agreement amongst ll ever forget and the nations to all head off in the same directionprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. So when There was a point was reached where America was no longer financially able backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or politically willing to play global policeman what was left?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921041</amazonuk>creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard ParryMatthieu Aikins|title=People Who Eat Darkness: Love, Grief and a Journey into JapanThe Naked Don's Shadowst Fear the Water|rating=4.5

|summary=Just over 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 decade agowell-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, 21-year-old Lucie Blackman went but rather a testament to Japan in search of adventure, excitement, and how well Matthieu Aikins – a way Canadian citizen who decided to pay off her debtsaccompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. A couple There are tense moments and gripping accounts of months later, her disappearance set in motion a high profile investigation border crossings which would see her face plastered over had me on edge the news for some time in this countrywhole way through. As so often happens with the media, though, there was a huge amount of interest in her plight, and her familyBut it's desperate search for her, and then, written with the mystery looking less a haunting and less likely to be solved, almost lyrical quality that allows the papers found something else to report on. Just over half a year later, there was a tragic end reader to perfectly envisage the tale as her dismembered body was discoveredenvironments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099502550</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stieg Larsson1785633074|title=The Expo Files: Articles by the Crusading JournalistStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry

|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=[[:Category:Stieg Larsson Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Reg Keeland (translatorOxbridge educated)|Stieg Larsson]] would not have known Anders Breivik, but if theythe reality is that the ''prime''d coincided you can be damned sure he knew all there was to know about him. Larsson and his journalist colleagues were working to condemn movers are the special advisers - the farSPADS -right activities throughout Europe, and open who are the truth about driving force behind the right-wing Swedish parties to his audience, and here is constant proof he knew an awful lot about his awful subjectgovernment. In just the first two, powerful, short essays here he brings terrorism We are in the UK, Italy and Oklahoma privileged position of having access to his home audiencethe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, and discusses Swedish extremism in its light; showing the liberal laws in Sweden that allowed man who was behind the skilful control of the extremists to be seen as too much on Covid crisis which was completely contained by the straight and narrow, too mainstream, and even able to enter parliamentend of 2020. The idea of 'it couldn't happen here' gets blown out You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the water, and as we've seen that is relevant man to us everywherewatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051342</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Manhire (editor)1846276772|title=The Arab SpringEnd of Bias: Rebellion, revolution, and a new world orderHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=34.5

|summary=A Tunisian Anyone who is not an able, white man, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire on 17th December 2010, understands bias in what appeared at that they may no longer even recognise the time extent to be which they suffer from it: it's simply a desperate gesture showing a complete lack part of hope after his humiliation by a municipal officialeveryday life. White men will always come first. What followed was one of The able will come before the most remarkable events of recent yearsdisabled. Jobs, promotions, as a wave higher salaries are the preserve of revolutions occured in what became known as the Arab Springwhite man. As you Even when those who wouldn'd expect from t pass the medical become a top nwespaper, the Guardian had reporters, bloggers and columnists covering part of an organisation it all's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and Toby Manhire provides a compilation degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the paperbias but it's output herenot just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652542</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Everett1529148251|title=LanguageMisfits: The Cultural Tool|rating=4.5|genre=Popular Science|summary=Daniel Everett previously worked as a missionary in far flung corners of the world– a fact that isn’t surprising given the number of references to faith that crop up over the pages. This new book, however, is about two much more appealing (to me) subjects: language and travel. If [[:Category:Bill Bryson|Bill Bryson]] is a travel writer with an interest in linguistics, then Daniel Everett is a linguist with an interest in travel. It’s not quite the ‘read it by a pool’ sort of book that Bryson might release but is somewhere between a formalised every day read and a text book with a big dollop of informality stirred in. The travel stories – jaunts to Brazil, Mexico and beyond – are great, and while you might think they’re taking things a bit off track (albeit in a rather pleasant way) sooner or later the linguistic point will become clear.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682673</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewA Personal Manifesto|author=Kira Cochrane (editor)|title=Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of FeminismMichaela Coel|rating=45

|summary=Some revolutions happen faster than others''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and the revolution in society's thinking about women is certainly one of the more gradual ones. Kira Cochranepoverty, Womenyet still compartmentalise? It's Editor at as though I were telling the ''Guardian'' from 2006 – 2010, has collected together the best articles and essays truth whilst simultaneously running away from that paper's women's section since 1971it. The result, ''Women of the Revolution: Forty Years of Feminism'', is a lively account of the more recent women's liberation movement in the UK and of the issues facing women in a modern, late twentieth/early twenty-first century society.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652275</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Frankie Owens|title=The Little Book Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of Prison|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It’s probably pretty safe mind. You're not going to assume that the sort read a book of prisons shown on TV, and their portrayals of life inside, bear as much resemblance essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to real jails as professionals within the television industry at the doctors in Grey’s Anatomy or House do to their NHS counterpartsEdinburgh TV Festival. That’s why Frankie has written this You might be ''reading'' the book: but you need to provide a guide ''listen'' to what life inside is really like the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and how best to survive it with your sanity, and body, intactyou'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904380832</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Stone (editor)0008350388|title=Lotteries in Public LifeWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|summary=Peter Stone's reader 'To be a dark-skinned Black woman is an examination not so much of examples of lotteries in public lifeto be seen as less desirable, less hireable, but of the theoretical less intelligent and conceptual issues which the use of ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba 'sortation' in decision taking raises0. There are essays here about the use 7% of the lottery English Literature GCSE students in politics, in allocating scarce resources (such as school places or human organs) and even on the problems England study a book by a writer of defining the lottery and the methods for assuring fairness. Because lotteries are used in many societies to resolve issues and perhaps because of recent discussion of the use of the lottery to allocate school places, this is colour while only 7% study a book by a hot issue which raises fundamental questions about democracy and choicewoman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402081</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Donovan Hohn|title=Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In January 1992 a container ship was on its way from China Otegha Uwagba came to the USA UK from Kenya when it she was caught in a storm five years old. Her sisters were seven and two containers broke loose from the decknine. It was her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. They held nearly thirty thousand bath toys The family was hard- yellow ducksworking, green frogs, red beavers and blue turtles - which were freed when the containers broke up principled and determined that their children would have circumnavigated the globe for almost twenty yearsbest education possible. Donovan Hohn There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a teacher and when one shortage of his students wrote an essay describing what had happened to anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the toys it caught Hohn's imaginationfamily acquired a car. The rest is - as they say - history For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a very good bookplace at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908526009</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita Anand, Julian Barnes, Bella Bathurst, Alan Bennett and othersRichard Brook|title=The Library BookUnderstanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to Life

|summary=I had better begin by saying am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had a vested interest in liking come across this book since I am 'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a chartered librarian myself and so am wholeheartedly in support of saving our nationfavourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's public librariesu.s.p. But you don't need to be is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a librarian predisposition towards expecting to enjoy this like the book. It , even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is rich with anecdotes from some wonderful writers and makes a pleasant book I needed to read whether you're keen to save libraries or not, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781250057</amazonuk>1800461682

I 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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Oakwater1523092734|title=Bubble Wrapped ChildrenA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=35

|summary=''Bubble Wrapped Children'' takes She brings a look at the state of adoption hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in the UK, her life. Again and again and how aspects of it are being threatened by the use of social networksagain. The author, with over 20 years' experience in the adoption world' (Alma Derricks, paints a broad picture of the issues facing adopters and adoptees. Peppering the text are some examples of unwanted Facebook contact from birth parentsformer CMO, which have had massive knock-on effects for the adopted children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780920970</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)

{{newreview|author=Francesca Beauman|title=Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Advertisement|rating=5|genre=History|summary=You might think the Lonely Hearts ad a trivial matter. You might think it should appear in lower case and not be capitalised, but you'd be in disagreement with Ms Beauman, who gives a big L and a big H To claim space is to it every time she writes live the life of it in her survey of its historychoosing unapologetically and bravely. What's more, she gets It is to write about a lot more than just live the contents of the adverts in this brilliant booklife you've always wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009951334X</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Justin Yifu Lin|title=Demystifying Sometimes the Chinese Economy|rating=4|genre=Business and Finance|summary=The success of the Chinese economy, and as Lin makes us aware, reviewing gods are generous: at a success which contrasts strongly with what appeared major failure time when violence against women is much in the recent historical pastnews, ''A Women's 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's something which needs explanationfar more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. No one can ignore it I've always thought that women need to rise above this, and we are confronted with the effects of it from the ownership of Thames water to the faces of tourists in London and Stratford on a daily basisbe people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. And in the roots of its success If all women did this, those few men who are the potential seeds of future change, a change violent to women would realise that now more than ever is crucial we are not just an easy target to be used to the way the world economy worksprove that they are big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521181747</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James PalmerPolly Barton|title=The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New ChinaFifty Sounds

|summary=Gene Sharp is an American politologist and 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 veritable (while and venerable) guru of nonif the world hadn't gone into melt-violent struggledown I would have visited by now. The story behind I may get there later this year, but I am not hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''From Dictatorship to Democracywhy Japan?'' is a fascinating one. The book, or a booklet really as it consists She explains her feelings in respect of 160 small pagesthe question in the first essay, was apparently created in response to a request from Burmese dissenters in which is on the early 1990sound ''giro' ''s. Sharp responded to this request by producing a generic text– which she describes as being, among other things, a manual for the subversive that lies out the theory and practical advice for those engaged in a struggle sound of ''every party where you have to bring down a dictatorshipintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688396</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicholas ShaxsonStephen Fabes|title=Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the WorldSigns of Life|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Most people think about the subject I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of tax havens far away places. I was birth- if they need to think about them at all - as something righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which is unlikely ever was the guts to concern them simply go out and that theydo it. I also didn're for t inherit the super-rich kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and celebritiesbasic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. What might surprise them is that more than half In order words I'm not the sort of world trade as well as most international lending is routed through them person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and that many common items in your everyday shopping will not come to you via a tax havenhome for six years. And we really should be thinking about them because tax havens are ensuring Fabes did precisely that wealth in unprecedented amounts is being transferred from the poor to the rich - greatly exceeding the aid which flows in the opposite direction.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099541726</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=Louise Foxcroft|title=Calories and CorsetsThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: A history of dieting over two thousand years|rating=4it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with girl (she's usually fairly young) is a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution to Get Healthy. So it’s rescued by the perfect time for a new diet book to hit the shelveshandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. The title of this one might make you think it’s going Few girls are lucky enough to be full of useful tips, and brought up ''without'' the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes expectation that they will marry and even have children. It was a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note the subtitle, if you will: 'belief and it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a history of dieting over 2000 years'belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Dennis O'Donnell|title=The Locked Ward|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Dennis O’Donnell spent 7 years working in a Scottish hospital and this is the account of his time there. It takes a special type of person Move to work in Mental Health services, and though O'Donnell ultimately leaves the Locked Ward, he clearly is one of those people, made all the more remarkable by the fact that this wasn’t his life long vocation, having previously worked as a school teacher (some might say an equally challenging role). |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093606</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]