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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War AmericaAlastair Humphreys|authortitle=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J DoberLocal
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel |summary=If 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 told you 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 doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible biggest thing he learned about all of medical experimentsthese things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that they had done things like tie toddlers every upside is likely to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyeshave 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, injected children with radiationand Castro, sterilised those first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to be subhuman and even castrated create a child just to level playing field for all. get a Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. supply Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of tissue 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 a lab experimenthis 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 might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germany. I am not.out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Across the PondSarah Wilson|authortitle=Terry EagletonThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Terry Eagleton 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 a Brit 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 (Manchester bornwe, no lessI) who now lives 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 Dublin with an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and his American 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 childrenmore like an adrenaline sport, so he seems well placed 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 write a book about come in the difference between us 2023 edition?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and themSon, Alzheimer's, there Yanks. Mid way through and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the pagesSoul of America|author=Kari Loya|rating=4|genre=Travel|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, he even stops by the way) wanted to tell us that in spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a way he had good time to do it. The decision was made to write thisride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, because when he wishes Virginia to read a bookAstoria, he writes Oregon - all 4250 miles of it- in 2015. To read someone else’s, he suggests, is ‘an unwarranted invasion They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of their personal space’a challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. That’s how so very British Merv Loya was 75 years old and he iswas suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>
}}
{{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. }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill StarkJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=High Sobriety: My Year Without BoozeThe Book of Hope |rating=4.5|genre=LifestylePolitics and Society |summary=On The done thing is to read a book all the first way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up with the hangover from Hellexperience 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. She was no stranger to them|isbn=024147857X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1788360737|title= Artivism: at thirty five she'd been binge drinking The Battle for more than twenty years and was Museums in the dubious position Era of being 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 health reporter who wrote herself off at weekendssocial environment in which he develops’’. And by 'wrote herself off' I mean being seriously drunk on a very regular basisTherefore, having consumed vast quantities of alcohol and having regularly put herself in danger of serious illnessall art must be political, unwanted pregnancy and assaulteven implicitly. But on that first day Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in January Stark decided the Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that she was going art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to do something about it 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 the initial decision was that she would spend three months on the wagonprogressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaWilderness Cure|author=A T WilliamsMo Wilde
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=Almost ten years ago on a Sunday morning back in September 2003, British Troops raided a hotel in Basra. It was a difficult period in the occupation, six months had been on from the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in cards for questioning from a hotel in while but it was the vicinity week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of insurgent weaponryeating only wild food. The Iraqis were hoodedend of November, plasticuffedparticularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, forced into stress positions and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by in a world where the British. Other men and officers watched, walked normal sores had been exacerbated by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of tortureclimate change, Brexit and a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiationpandemic. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in Wilde had a few advantages: the region area around her was a known habitat with a variety of another 250 individualsterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, men freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and womenfuel. Most importantly, whose families are making legal claims she had shelter: this was not a plan to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guards''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ryu Murakami1529149800|title=From The Fatherland, With LoveThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHome and Family|summary=From 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 Fatherland, With Love is a 2005 Japanese novel set in tiny hummingbird flew to the then-near future river and began taking tiny amounts of 2011water and flying back to drop them into the fire. Fatherland (as 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 abbreviate it) explores solve the social and political ramifications problem of climate change – by each of one speculative scenario: us doing what if North Korea invaded Japan?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968451</amazonuk>we can, however small that might be.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A 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.''
The above words were uttered in 1943 murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a gentleman called Bernard Gabrielforty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. Mr Gabriel was a piano player who founded We rarely see pictures of a unique club, 'murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The Society image of Timid SoulsChauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I' that encouraged timid performers ll ever forget and fearthe protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police -wracked musicians to come and not just in out of the cold Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'to play, to criticise and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey of stage fright.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed to be cured tarred by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably in the years that followedChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rithy PanhMatthieu Aikins|title=The EliminationNaked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Three years ago I went It's easy to Cambodiaforget 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. I went This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to S21, because you cannot go 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 Phnom Penh perfectly envisage the environments and not go 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 former high school Tuol Sleng country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (Tuol Slav Prey as it had beenthat's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) and see what it becamebut the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. I went We are in the privileged position of having access to Choeung Ekthe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, because you cannot NOT the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know about the killing fields, and you cannot really know about them until you have stood therename now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689295</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ivo Mosley1846276772|title=In the Name The End of the PeopleBias: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of How We Change Our WorldMinds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=On the spectrum ranging between democracy and totalitarianismAnyone who is not an able, Ivo Mosley upholds white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the system extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of elective oligarchy lies closer to everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the latterdisabled. And yet Jobs, he essentially sayspromotions, Western democracy as we know higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become a part of an organisation it today is 's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It'nothing'' but this form of representative government, excluding a large proportion s personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the people whose freedoms bias but it claims to protect's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402626</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529148251
|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.''
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=Paul McMahon0008350388|title=Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of FoodWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's predicted that the world's population will reach nine billion by 2050 and given that there are regular appeals for money to relieve To be a famine in some part of the world it's not unreasonable dark-skinned Black woman is to wonder whether or not we will be able to feed nine billion peopleseen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts... '' Recent turmoil in food markets adds ''We Need to the worry, but the truth is that we could feed that number people Talk About Money''nowby Otegha Uwagba '' if different approaches were taken and there was cooperation rather than an unseemly scramble to secure access to food even if this results in starvation for the neighbour0. Paul McMahon looks at how 7% of English Literature GCSE students in this very readable England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a bookby a woman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250340</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily CockayneRichard Brook|title=Cheek by JowlUnderstanding Human Nature: A History of NeighboursUser's Guide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises at the beginning of the first chapter, almost everyone has a neighbour; if you have I am a neighbourfirm believer that sometimes we choose books, you are one yourself; and neighbours can enrich or ruin our livessometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of the latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this engaging bookI'd have skimmed it, she takes various case studies and anecdotes found some of living side by side it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in Britain from around 1200 the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the present daybook, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>1800461682
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787332098
|title=How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World
|author=Henry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''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 sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''
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=Jonathan M Katz1523092734|title=The Big Truck That Went ByA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It was January 12, 2010 and AP correspondent Jonathan M''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Katz was preparing to ship out of Haiti after spending the last two Again and a half years reporting about political instability, riots again and disastersagain. He was preparing for a change of scene'' (Alma Derricks, a stint in Afghanistanformer CMO, concluding that ''It sounded like a good place for a break''. Nature had other plans.Cirque du Soleil RSD)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean M Twenge and W Keith CampbellPolly Barton|title=The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of EntitlementFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Twenge 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 Campbell if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have been studying the rise in narcissism as a social trendvisited by now. They are well-qualified to commentI may get there later this year, having worked since 1998 with social psychologist Roy Baumeisterbut I am not hopeful. And like Barton, who pioneered research I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in this field. At more than three hundred pages it's rather weighty for the popular market at first essay, which itis on the sound ''s aimedgiro' '' – which she describes as being, but even if you only dip into this bookamong other things, I think the sound of ''every party where youhave to introduce yourself''ll take home their message.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1416575987</amazonuk>1913097501
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim MooreStephen Fabes|title=You Are Awful (But I Like You): Travels Through Unloved BritainSigns of Life|rating=45
|genre=Travel
|summary=This is not the first book I've read about the scummy, unloved corners of our country, was brought up on maps and I approached it in just the same way I did with the last first- person narratives of tales of far away places. I looked to see if it might feature Leicester, where I live. The opinion seems to be that you can only like Leicester enough to be proud of it if you're not from there originally was birth- righted wanderlust and as I grew up on the edge of a village in the middle of nowhere, it suits me finecuriosity. But no - despite its problems (thanksUnfortunately, Labour councils) it doesnI didn't countinherit what Dr. It's not grotty, ugly, run-down Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and unappreciated enoughdo it. It still has some semblance I also didn't inherit the kind of lifesteady nerve, unlike too many towns ability to talk to strangers and cities in Britain where the industry, the jobs, the life and the thought basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been sucked out, seemingly beyond repairgifted with the requisite 'bottle'. After stumbling upon In order words I'm not the nightmare that is the out-sort of-season, redundant English coastal town, our author has valiantly journeyed round many of these grot-spots, person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and found the story of decrepitude only exacerbatingnot come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>1788161211
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1504321383
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.
}}
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