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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Global Modernity Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and Other Essayscycled 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=Tom RubensEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Politics and SocietyGraphic Novels|summary=It’s been difficult 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 write this reviewcreate 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 book’s eclectic nature, mother gets the couple jobs with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche the party to ease some of the English Police Forceheat, but in this sultry island country, makes it difficult 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 summarise 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 secondly, I’m no academic 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 philosophy precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is just HARDequally 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>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?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativeBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Peter MortimoreTim Benson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Peter Mortimore's thoroughgoing analysis of Seeking some light relief from the absurdities of current educational practice and prescriptions for finding a far better alternative deserves a wide readership. It is not just an organisation political turmoil which is under siege but as his personal anecdotes indicate, coming to seem more vigorously than his rigorously argued statistics, people are suffering. Parents are anxious, teachers badly led and burdened with confused policies and worst of all pupils are pressurised from early infancy. Reading his book you might be forgiven for wondering a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress and b) as Cicero might have askedmore like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain'Cui bonos Best Political Cartoons of 2022'', to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methods. He argues Sharp eyes will have noted that their procedures are more effective, that support students and produce a fairer, harmonious societywe're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk> Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Inventing Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the Enemy: Essays on EverythingTransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Umberto EcoKari Loya

|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next way) wanted to you a gentleman talks and eats spend some time with furious energy. He tells of Dante, Cicero, his father and St Augustine and quotes the period between two jobs seemed like a multitude of obscure troubadours good time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from the Middle Ages. He repeats himselfYorktown, gestures flamboyantlyVirginia to Astoria, nudges you sharply Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the ribs, belches and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information recommended time - but in the flow there were factors which pointed this up as more of his discourse there is a fondness challenge that it would be for iteration and reiterationmost people who considered taking it on. He throws bones over his shoulder Merv Loya was 75 years old and when he reaches the cheese course was suffering from early- definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informed, intrigued and prodded to examine his discourse again and again, even if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy'stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=George Brock|title=Out I've got a couple of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age|rating=3confessions to make.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=At about the turn of the century most people I'm not keen on the street where short stories as I live had find it easy to read a morning paper delivered few stories and a good number also got an evening paperthen forget to return to the book. The queue at the newsagent in the village would There's got to be out of the door each morning as people picked up a paper on their way very compelling hook to workkeep me engaged. I canThen there's science fiction: far too often it't remember when I last saw a newspaper boy (or girl) on their rounds and we only buy s the weekend papers as an indulgence technology which takes centre stage along with a more leisurely breakfastthe world-building. Times have changed - and thereIt's no sign that human beings who fascinate me: the situation is likely to settle in technology and the near futureworld scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749466510</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Against Their Will: The Secret History Book of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J DoberHope

|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had The done things like tie toddlers thing is to beds read a book all the way through before you sit down to insert live pathogens into their eyesreview it. I’m making an exception here, injected children with radiation, sterilised those thought because I don’t want to be subhuman and even castrated a child just to get a supply lose any of the experience of tissue for a lab experimentreading this amazing book, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germanywant to capture it as it hits me. I am notAnd it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=Across Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the PondEra of Postmodernism|author=Terry EagletonAlexander Adams|rating=3.52|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Terry Eagleton Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a Brit (Manchester bornvacuum. 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, no less) who now lives even implicitly. Alexander Adams in Dublin with his American wife and children, so he seems well placed to write a new book about ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the difference between us and them, there Yanks. Mid way through the pages, he even stops to tell us Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that in a way he had to write this, because art is freer when he wishes 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 book, he writes itmore globalist and progressive regime. To read someone else’s, he suggests, is ‘an unwarranted invasion of their personal space’Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. That’s how so very British he is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill Stark1398508632|title=High Sobriety: My Year Without BoozeThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=4.5

|summary=On It had been on the cards for a while but it was the first week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up with the hangover from Helleating only wild food. She The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was no stranger perhaps not the best time to them: at thirty five she'd start, in a world where the normal sores had been binge drinking for more than twenty years exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was in the dubious position a known habitat with a variety of being the health reporter who wrote herself off at weekendsterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. And by Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live''wrote herself wild just to live off' I mean being seriously drunk on its produce.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=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 very regular basistelling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, having consumed vast quantities unable to think of alcohol anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and having regularly put herself in danger began taking tiny amounts of serious illness, unwanted pregnancy water and assaultflying back to drop them into the fire. But on The animals laughed: what good was that first day in January Stark decided doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', said the hummingbird. And that she was going to do something about it and , really, is the initial decision was only way that she would spend three months on we will solve the wagonproblem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=A Very British Killing: The Death murder of Baha Mousa|author=A T Williams|rating=5|genre=History|summary=Almost ten years ago George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a Sunday morning back in September 2003forty-four-year-old police officer, British Troops raided a hotel in Basra. It was a difficult period in the occupation, six months on from US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the Uworld.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members We rarely see pictures of the Queena murder taking place but Floyd's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects in for questioning from a hotel in the vicinity of insurgent weaponrydeath was an exception. The Iraqis were hooded, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by the Britishprotests which followed cannot have been unexpected. Other men and officers watched, walked by or wondered at There was a backlash against the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torture, a 26 yearpolice -old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed not just in further encounters with British patrols Minneapolis: whatever their colour or prison guardscreed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ryu MurakamiMatthieu Aikins|title=From The Fatherland, With LoveNaked Don't Fear the Water

|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary=From It's easy to forget at times that The FatherlandNaked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, With Love 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 2005 Japanese novel set in vast and at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the then-near future of 2011whole way through. Fatherland (as I will abbreviate But it) explores 's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the social environments and political ramifications of one speculative scenario: what if North Korea invaded Japan?people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908968451</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Polly Morland1785633074|title=The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How to be BraveStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=34.5|genre=ReferenceHumour|summary='I see no reason why Members of Parliament like us to believe that the shy and timid in any community couldn’t get together and help each other.' The above words were uttered in 1943 country is run by a gentleman called Bernard Gabriel. Mr Gabriel was a piano player who founded a unique clubpoliticians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''The Society of Timid Soulsprimus inter pares'' (that encouraged timid performers 's for those of you who are Eton and fearOxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers -wracked musicians to come the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in out the privileged position of having access to the cold 'to playmemoirs of Rafe Hubris, to criticise and be criticised in order to conquer that old bogey the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of stage fright2020.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed to You might not know the name now but he will certainly be cured by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably in the years that followedman to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rithy Panh1846276772|title=The EliminationEnd of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell

|summary=Three years ago I went Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to Cambodiawhich they suffer from it: it's simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. I went to S21Jobs, promotions, because you cannot go to Phnom Penh and not go to higher salaries are the preserve of the former high school Tuol Sleng (Tuol Slav Prey as it had been) and see what it becamewhite man. I went to Choeung Ek, because you cannot NOT know about Even when those who wouldn't pass the killing fieldsmedical become a part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and you cannot really know about them until you have stood theredegrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689295</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=Ivo Mosley0008350388|title=In the Name of the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of Our WorldWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=45

|summary=On the spectrum ranging between democracy and totalitarianism, Ivo Mosley upholds that the system of elective oligarchy lies closer ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to the latter. And yetbe seen as less desirable, he essentially saysless hireable, Western democracy as we know it today is less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...''nothing '' but this form of representative government, excluding a large proportion of the people whose freedoms it claims We Need to protect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402626</amazonuk>}}Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|author=Paul McMahon|title=Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It's predicted that the world's population will reach nine billion 0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by 2050 and given that there are regular appeals for money to relieve a famine in some part writer of the world itcolour while only 7% study a book by a woman.''s not unreasonable to wonder whether or not we will be able to feed nine billion people. Recent turmoil in food markets adds to the worry, but the truth is that we could feed that number people ''nowThe Bookseller'' 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 neighbour. Paul McMahon looks at how in this very readable book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250340</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021

{{newreview|author=Mac Carty|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on Otegha Uwagba came to the Margate Sands of Time)|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for 'The Vagaries of Swing' UK from Kenya when she was the BBC television series 'True Love' which portrayed a series of romantic encounters all set by the sea in his home town of Margatefive years old. But Carty has taken the original idea - about relationships between people - Her sisters were seven and run nine. It was her mother who came first, with ither father joining them later. The family was hard-working, extending ''love'' into ''passion'', say for cricket, or (at principled and determined that their children would have the other end best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of the scale) as money although this did not translate into a human encounter which ends in violenceshortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. Whilst When Otegha was ten the television series might have been the catalyst for the book there was another and probably more compelling reasonfamily acquired a car. When his friend Mike died he realised that he had no one with whom For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to share his fund of stories about growing up a private school in Margate, all of which had been revisited on a regular basis London and usually over then a pint. I've just read the resultplace at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily CockayneRichard Brook|title=Cheek by JowlUnderstanding Human Nature: A History of NeighboursUser's Guide to Life

|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

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

|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 Cirque du Soleil RSD) ''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and bravely. It sounded like a good place for a breakis to live the life you've always wanted.''. Nature had other plans.

When Sometimes the earthquake struckreviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, Katz was unexpectedly thrown into the thick of the action''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. As the only American reporter on the ground 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 time of the quakemoment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. I've always thought that women need to rise above this, he felt duty-bound to break news of unfolding events 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 oblivious worldeasy target to be used to prove that they are big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034187X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean M Twenge and W Keith CampbellPolly Barton|title=The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of EntitlementFifty Sounds

|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

|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

{{newreview|author=Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill|title=Strong This was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her. It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the Rain: Surviving Japangirl (she's Earthquake, Tsunami, and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In 2011, Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown. The tale of this devastating trio of tragedies usually fairly young) is told rescued by two journalists the handsome prince whothen marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are lucky enough to be brought up ''without''ve lived in Tokyo for years, and the pairing of Birmingham expectation that they will marry and McNeil give us have children. It was a real insight into just how this could have happened belief and the way it would be many years before Louisa would conclude that half ''a belief is a dozen people, from all walks of life, responded to itchoice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341861</amazonuk>