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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary=Politics Alastair Humphreys has walked and society=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, the 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 access, 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 that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan M KatzEdel Rodriguez|title=The Big Truck That Went ByWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=It was January 12We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, 2010 and AP correspondent Jonathan Mnot liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Katz was preparing The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ship ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of Haiti after spending the last two kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a half years reporting fractured world|rating=3.5|genre= Lifestyle|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the 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) she pushes us to think about political instabilitywhether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, riots and disastersI) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not. He was preparing |isbn=1785633848}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for a change slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of sceneEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a stint in Afghanistanpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, concluding I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer'It sounded s, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a good place time to do it. The decision was made to ride the 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 recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that it would be for a breakmost people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739593901|title=22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Nature had other plans Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''

When 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 earthquake struck, Katz was unexpectedly thrown into book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the thick of technology which takes centre stage along with the actionworld-building. As It's human beings who fascinate me: the only American reporter on technology and the ground at the time world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. }}{{Frontpage|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Book of Hope |rating=5|genre=Politics and Society |summary= The done thing is to read a book all the quakeway through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, he felt duty-bound because I don’t want to break news lose any of unfolding events the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to an oblivious worldcapture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>023034187X</amazonuk>024147857X

The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean M Twenge Matthieu Aikins|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and W Keith CampbellSociety|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 by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. 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 perfectly envisage the environments and people described.|isbn= B09N9157T6}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=The Narcissism Epidemic: Living Staggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=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 Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the Age privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of Entitlement2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell

|summary=Twenge and Campbell have been studying Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the rise in narcissism as extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a social trendpart of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. They are well-qualified to commentJobs, having worked since 1998 with social psychologist Roy Baumeisterpromotions, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who pioneered research in this fieldwouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. At more than three hundred pages itIt's rather weighty personally appalling and degrading for the popular market at which individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's aimed, but even if you only dip into this book, I think you'll take home their messagenot just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1416575987</amazonuk>

Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Moore0008350388|title=You Are Awful (But I Like You): Travels Through Unloved BritainWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45|genre=TravelPolitics and Society|summary=This ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is not the first book I've read about the scummyto be seen as less desirable, unloved corners of our countryless hireable, less intelligent and I approached it in just the same way I did with the last ultimately less valuable than my light- I looked to see if it might feature Leicester, where I liveskinned counterparts... '' The opinion seems ''We Need to be that you can only like Leicester enough to be proud of it if youTalk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''re not from there originally - and as I grew up on the edge 0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a village in the middle book by a writer of nowhere, it suits me finecolour while only 7% study a book by a woman. '' But no - despite its problems (thanks, Labour councils) it doesn't count'The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. It's not grotty, ugly, run-down Her sisters were seven and unappreciated enoughnine. It still has some semblance of lifewas her mother who came first, unlike too many towns and cities in Britain where the industry, the jobswith her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, the life principled and determined that their children would have the thought have been sucked out, seemingly beyond repairbest education possible. After stumbling upon the nightmare that is the out-There was always a painful awareness of-season, redundant English coastal town, our author has valiantly journeyed round many money although this did not translate into a shortage of these grot-spotsanything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and found the story of decrepitude only exacerbatingthen a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Birmingham and David McNeillRichard Brook|title=Strong in the RainUnderstanding Human Nature: Surviving JapanA User's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear DisasterGuide to Life

|summary=In 2011''When we do think about animals, Japan was hit by a 9we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on.0 magnitude earthquakeAnd we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdownmillions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.'' I was going to argue. The tale of this devastating trio of tragedies is told by two journalists who I mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn've lived t consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in Tokyo the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for years, 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 pairing company of Birmingham and McNeil give us a real insight into just how this could have happened humans and the way company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that half a dozen peopleI read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. I eat cheese, from all walks of lifeeggs, responded chicken and fish and I needed to iteither do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341861</amazonuk>

''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to live the life you've always wanted.'' Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''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 far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, to be people who don't 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.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina GuinnessPolly Barton|title=The Crocodile 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 Door: The Story answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of a Housethe question in the first essay, which is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, a Farm and a Familythe sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|isbn=1913097501}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Fabes|title=Signs of Life

|genre=BiographyTravel|summary=Selina Guinness lived at Tibradden as a child and in 2002 she I was brought up on maps and her husbandfirst-toperson narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-berighted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, Colin Graham, moved back I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to the house when her elderly uncle Charles became frailsimply go out and do it. The surname might lead you to suspect that there were brewery millions in the background but this wasnI also didn't inherit the case. The couple were young academics kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and doing what needed to be done at Tibradden basic practicality that would have meant that I would need to be done in addition to full-time jobshave survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. The house was on In order words I'm not the outskirts sort of Dublin - 'derelict fields' if you were person who will get on a bike outside a property developer or the last defence against the encroaching city if you were London hospital and notcome home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844881571</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick|title=The Untold History of This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the United States|rating=4adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.5|genre=History|summary= Itwas reinforced by all those fairy tales where the girl (she's been said that history usually fairly young) is written rescued by the victorshandsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. It would also Few girls are lucky enough to be pertinent to add that the writing will always polish brought up the worthy parts whilst whilst finding a convenient carpet under which can be swept the events which are best forgotten. There's no country with a victory under its belt which is above this practice: I've just been brought up very sharply as I considered the Irish potato famine from the [[The Famine Plot: Englandwithout's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy by Tim Pat Coogan|Irish perspective]]the expectation that they will marry and have children. That's It was a story you'll not read in belief and it would be many British history books. The majority of British people years before Louisa would accept though conclude that their country has had an imperialist past - and that the natives have not always thrown themselves down in front of us in their joy at our arrival''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091949297</amazonuk>