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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, 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}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We'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, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a 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 whether 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, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|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 slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and 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, 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'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 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 most 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. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.'' 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 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 technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the 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 societySociety |summary= The done thing is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360737|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=2|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Emily CockayneMo Wilde|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It 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, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Cheek Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4|genre=Home and Family|summary=We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', said the hummingbird. And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by Jowleach of us doing what we can, however small that might be.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1638485216|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A History Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement|author=Frederick Reynolds|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.'' ''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of NeighboursGeorge 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthieu Aikins|title=The Naked Don't Fear the Water

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the beginning 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 first chapter, whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost everyone has a neighbour; if you have a neighbourlyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described.|isbn= B09N9157T6}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=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 one yourself; Eton and neighbours can enrich or ruin our livesOxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. In this engaging bookWe are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, she takes various case studies and anecdotes the man who was behind the skilful control of living side the Covid crisis which was completely contained by side in Britain from around 1200 the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to the present daywatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</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=Jonathan M Katz0008350388|title=The Big Truck That Went ByWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45

|summary=It was January 12''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, 2010 less hireable, less intelligent and AP correspondent Jonathan Multimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts.. Katz was preparing to ship out of Haiti after spending the last two and a half years reporting about political instability, riots and disasters. He was preparing for a change of scene, a stint in Afghanistan, concluding that ''It sounded like a good place for a break ''We Need to Talk About Money''. Nature had other plans.by Otegha Uwagba

When ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the earthquake struckUK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came first, Katz with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was unexpectedly thrown always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into the thick a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the actionfamily acquired a car. As the only American reporter on the ground For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at the time of the quakeNew College, he felt duty-bound to break news of unfolding events to an oblivious worldOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034187X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean M Twenge and W Keith CampbellRichard Brook|title=The Narcissism EpidemicUnderstanding Human Nature: Living in the Age of EntitlementA User's Guide to Life

|summary=Twenge ''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and Campbell have been studying the rise so on. And we assign them places in narcissism as a social trend. They are well-qualified to commentsociety: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, having worked since 1998 with social psychologist Roy Baumeisterfoxes in rubbish bins, who pioneered research elephants in this fieldzoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.'' I was going to argue. At more than three hundred pages itI mean, cows are for cheese (I couldn's rather weighty t consider eating red meat...) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but then I realised that I was quibbling for the popular market at which sake of it's aimed. 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, but even if you only dip into 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 think you'll take home their messageneeded to either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1416575987</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Tim Moore|title=You Are Awful (But I Like You): Travels Through Unloved Britain|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=This ''To claim space is not to live the first book I've read about the scummy, unloved corners life of our country, choosing unapologetically and I approached it in just the same way I did with the last - I looked to see if it might feature Leicester, where I livebravely. The opinion seems It is to be that you can only like Leicester enough to be proud of it if live the life you're not from there originally - and as I grew up on ve always wanted.'' Sometimes the edge of reviewing gods are generous: at a village time when violence against women is much in the middle of nowherenews, it suits me fine''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. But no Now - despite its problems (thanksto be clear - this book is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, Labour councils) it doesnbut discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''t count. ItI's not grottyve always thought that women need to rise above this, uglyto be people who don't need protection, run-down and unappreciated enoughpeople who claim their own space. It still has some semblance of lifeIf all women did this, unlike too many towns and cities in Britain where the industry, the jobs, the life and the thought have been sucked out, seemingly beyond repair. After stumbling upon the nightmare those few men who are violent to women would realise that we are not just an easy target to be used to prove that is the out-of-season, redundant English coastal town, our author has valiantly journeyed round many of these grot-spots, and found the story of decrepitude only exacerbatingthey are big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy Birmingham and David McNeillPolly Barton|title=Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear DisasterFifty Sounds

|summary=In 2011Where do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Why Japan?'' Japan was hit has been on my radar for a while and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by a 9now.0 magnitude earthquakeI may get there later this year, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdownbut I am not hopeful. The tale And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of this devastating trio of tragedies the question in the first essay, which is told by two journalists whoon the sound ''giro' ''ve lived in Tokyo for years– which she describes as being, among other things, and the pairing sound of Birmingham and McNeil give us a real insight into just how this could ''every party where you have happened and the way that half a dozen people, from all walks of life, responded to itintroduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230341861</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Selina GuinnessStephen Fabes|title=The Crocodile by the Door: The Story Signs of a House, a Farm and a FamilyLife

|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>