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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=WinterLocal|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=Adam GopnikEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=ReferenceGraphic Novels|summary=In this collection We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of five essaysthe country, each one offering has proven himself a unique Communist, and fascinating perspective on 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 season happiest of winterplaces here, Adam Gopnik takes an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the reader on a captivating journeycountry demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, exploring historysuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, art and societynot 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, through 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?'Romantic Winter' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ', 'This! Precisely this.'Radical Winter' 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'Recuperative Wintert see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really '', are''Recreational Winterliving the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal '' and no, we are not''Remembering Winter. Don't care what you'. In each essayre doing, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themesshe thinks you (we, whilst also touching on surrounding ideasI) 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. For example, As he neared his eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetryan electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex it should be a pleasant holiday for Clive and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpointswife, which add a charmingJoan, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>shouldn't it?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle EnglandBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Nigel CawthorneTim Benson

|summary=It Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was ever thus… nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; 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 are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend will be to have qualifications come in the 2023 edition?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Conversations Across America: A Father and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors alreadySon, cooking for their working menfolk… ItAlzheimer's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind , and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the 'disgusted Soul of Tunbridge Wells' tagAmerica|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 as the period between two jobs seemed like a book good time to be shelved alongside those with do it. The decision was made to ride the wackier letters sent Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to the ''Daily Telegraph''Astoria, these selections from the Royal town's press itself make a great eyeOregon - all 4250 miles of it -opener in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the complaints 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 complainants of Kenthe was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=How Much have Global Problems Cost 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 World?: A Scorecard from 1900 book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to 2050|author=Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)|rating=4keep me engaged.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=The authors are leading researchers in their fields, and their papers have been critiqued by peer Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-reviewersbuilding. Each of It's human beings who fascinate me: the chapters reports technology and the results of a modelling exercise, examining progress or decline in one of ten key areas, including armed conflict, trade barriers, malnutrition, air pollution, ecosystem and biodiversity, health, water and sanitationworld scape are purely incidental. Key economicSo, growth and other variables from credible sources provided what did I think of a common set book of data and assumptionstwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, used in each studyI loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1107679338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony BennJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze Book of Autumn SunshineHope |rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society |summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had The done thing is to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed read a book all the way that I viewed a situationthrough before you sit down to review it. He's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I’m making an exception here, because I opened this volume don’t want to lose any of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks experience of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing olderreading this amazing book, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing healthI want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me.'' I've always been relieved that Benn This beautiful book has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be me in decline?tears. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=What Should We Tell Our Daughters?Artivism: The Pleasures and Pressures Battle for Museums in the Era of Growing Up FemalePostmodernism|author=Melissa BennAlexander Adams|rating=32|genre=Politics and Society|summary='I am shocked when I read young feminists today blithely admitting that they don't know what second-wave feminists wroteCan art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum.' As a twenty-something year old feminist, it pains me to admit how much this quote applied to meIt is made by people. Having grown up knowing that college and university were paths I could definitely take, never being told Antonio Gramsci stated that settling down and finding a husband was an important goal ‘’Every man… contributes to have, and always getting modifying the same opportunities as my male peers social environment in the workplacewhich he develops’’. Therefore, I'd never seen – orall art must be political, at least, ''thought'' I'd seen – even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the inequalities, misogyny and chauvinism Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that were still apparently abundant in today's societyart is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The feminist movement had always seemed like an amazing wave recent trend of new ideas that had happened forty or fifty years agoso-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). It was the reason my mother Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and I were now able media elites hoping to work create a more globalist and find a role outside of the homeprogressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546270</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersWilderness Cure|author=Sandi ToksvigMo Wilde

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Dear Sandi  You are my all 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 favourite celebrity lesbadyketo start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and one a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes)terrains. For this alone, I She had electricity which allowed her to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining run a book on manners previouslyfridge, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious freezer and well worth dehydrator. She had a readcar - and fuel. I Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not wronga plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Global Modernity Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Other EssaysReduce Waste|author=Tom RubensEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=Politics Home and SocietyFamily|summary=It’s been difficult 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 write this reviewdrop them into the fire. The book’s eclectic natureanimals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche to said the English Police Forcehummingbird. And that, makes it difficult to summarise and secondlyreally, I’m no academic and philosophy is just HARD|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.

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|titleauthor=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativeMatthieu Aikins|authortitle=Peter MortimoreThe Naked Don't Fear the Water

|summary=Peter MortimoreIt's thoroughgoing analysis of easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the absurdities of current educational practice and prescriptions for finding a far better alternative deserves Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a wide readershipwell-paced thriller at times. It This is not just an organisation which is under siege by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as his personal anecdotes indicate, more vigorously than his rigorously argued statistics, people are sufferinga refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. Parents There are anxious, teachers badly led tense moments and burdened with confused policies and worst gripping accounts of all pupils are pressurised from early infancyborder crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. Reading his book you might be forgiven for wondering But it's written with a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress haunting and b) as Cicero might have asked, ''Cui bono'', almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines perfectly envisage the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methods. He argues that their procedures are more effective, that support students environments and produce a fairer, harmonious societypeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Inventing the Enemy: Essays on EverythingStaggering Hubris|author=Umberto EcoJosh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryHumour|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the sunlitPrime minister -bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next to you a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of Dante, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude of obscure troubadours from the Middle Ages. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in the ribs, belches who are Eton and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information Oxbridge educated) but in the flow of his discourse there reality is a fondness for iteration and reiteration. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the cheese course SPADS - definitely too much information on who are the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things driving force behind the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imaginationgovernment. You We are better informed, intrigued and prodded in the privileged position of having access to examine his discourse again and againthe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, even if only to challenge what you have heardthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. Such are You might not know the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing name now but he will certainly be the Enemy''man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Brock1846276772|title=Out The End of PrintBias: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital AgeHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=34.5

|summary=At about Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the turn extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of the century most people on the street where I live had a morning paper delivered and a good number also got an evening papereveryday life. White men will always come first. The queue at able will come before the newsagent in disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the village would be out preserve of the door each morning as people picked up a paper on their way to workwhite man. I canEven when those who wouldn't remember when I last saw pass the medical become a newspaper boy (or girl) on part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their rounds and we only buy the weekend papers as an indulgence with a more leisurely breakfastconcerns are acknowledged. Times have changed - It's personally appalling and theredegrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's no sign that the situation is likely to settle in not just the near futureindividuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749466510</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|isbn=0008350388|title=Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War AmericaWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J DoberOtegha Uwagba

|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had done things like tie toddlers ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyesbe seen as less desirable, injected children with radiationless hireable, sterilised those thought less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to be subhuman and even castrated Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a child just to get book by a supply writer of tissue for colour while only 7% study a book by a lab experiment, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germanywoman. I am not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021

{{newreview|title=Across Otegha Uwagba came to the Pond|author=Terry Eagleton|rating=3UK from Kenya when she was five years old.5|genre=Politics Her sisters were seven and Society|summary=Terry Eagleton is a Brit (Manchester bornnine. It was her mother who came first, no less) who now lives in Dublin with his American wife her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children, so he seems well placed to write a book about would have the difference between us and them, there Yanksbest education possible. Mid way through the pages, he even stops to tell us that in There was always a way he had to write painful awareness of money although this, because when he wishes to read did not translate into a book, he writes shortage of anything: itwas simply carefully harvested. To read someone else’s When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Otegha, he suggestseducation meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, is ‘an unwarranted invasion of their personal space’. That’s how so very British he isOxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill StarkRichard Brook|title=High SobrietyUnderstanding Human Nature: My Year Without BoozeA User's Guide to Life

|summary=On the first of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up with the hangover from HellI am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. She was no stranger to them: at thirty five she'd been binge drinking for more than twenty years and was in the dubious position In my case, this is one of being the health reporter who wrote herself off at weekendslatter. And by Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'wrote herself off' I mean being seriously drunk on a very regular basisd have skimmed it, having consumed vast quantities found some of alcohol and having regularly put herself in danger of serious illnessit interesting, unwanted pregnancy and assault. But on that first day but it would not have 'hit home' in January Stark decided the way that she it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was going likely to do something about give it and 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 initial decision was book, even if it doesn't always turn out that she would spend three months on the wagonway'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=A T WilliamsHenry Mance

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Almost ten years ago ''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on a Sunday morning back in September 2003, British Troops raided a hotel in Basra. It was a difficult period And we assign them places in the occupationsociety: cows go on plates, six months dogs 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 sofas, foxes in for questioning from a hotel rubbish bins, elephants in the vicinity of insurgent weaponry. The Iraqis were hoodedzoos, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by the British. Other men and officers watchedmillions of wild animals stay out there, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torture''somewhere, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in '' hopefully on the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guardsnext David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Ryu Murakami|title=From The FatherlandI was going to argue. I mean, With Love|rating=4cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=From The Fatherland, With Love is a 2005 Japanese novel set ) and I much prefer my elephants in the wild but thenI realised that I was quibbling for the sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals -near future of 2011and I consider myself an animal lover. Fatherland (as If I will abbreviate it) explores had to choose between the social company of humans and political ramifications the company of animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that I read this book: no one speculative scenario: what if North Korea invaded Japan?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968451</amazonuk>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.

{{newreview|author=Polly Morland|title=The Society ''To claim space is to live the life of Timid Souls: Or, How choosing unapologetically and bravely. It is to be Brave|rating=3live the life you've always wanted.5|genre=Reference|summary='I see no reason why the shy and timid in any community couldn’t get together and help each other.'

The above words were uttered Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in 1943 the news, ''A Women's Guide to Claiming Space'' by a gentleman called Bernard GabrielEliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Mr Gabriel was Now - to be clear - this book is not a piano player who founded a unique club'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'The Society of Timid Souls'. I' ve always thought that encouraged timid performers and fear-wracked musicians women need to come in out of the cold 'to playrise above this, to criticise and be criticised in order people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, those few men who are violent to conquer women would realise that old bogey of stage fright.' The method evidently worked, as many a timid soul claimed we are not just an easy target to be cured by these unorthodox methods and club membership grew considerably in the years used to prove that followedthey are big men.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251908</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rithy PanhPolly Barton|title=The EliminationFifty Sounds

|summary=Three years ago Where do I went to Cambodia. start? I went to S21could start with where Barton herself starts, because you cannot go to Phnom Penh and not go to with the former high school Tuol Sleng (Tuol Slav Prey as it had question ''Why Japan?'' Japan has been) on my radar for a while and see what it becameif 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 went don't know the answer to Choeung Ekthe question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, because you cannot NOT know about which is on the killing fieldssound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, and you cannot really know about them until the sound of ''every party where you have stood thereto introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846689295</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo MosleyStephen Fabes|title=In the Name of the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling Signs of Our WorldLife|rating=45|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=On I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the spectrum ranging between democracy guts to simply go out and totalitarianism, Ivo Mosley upholds that do it. I also didn't inherit the system kind of elective oligarchy lies closer steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the latter. And yet, he essentially says, Western democracy as we know it today is requisite 'bottle'nothing. In order words I'' but this form m not the sort of representative government, excluding person who will get on a bike outside a large proportion of the people whose freedoms it claims to protectLondon hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845402626</amazonuk>1788161211

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul McMahon1504321383|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 by 2050 Single, Again, and given that there are regular appeals for money to relieve a famine in some part of the world it'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 worryAgain, but the truth is that we could feed that number people ''now'' 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>}} {{newreviewAgain|author=Mac Carty|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on the Margate Sands of Time)Louisa Pateman|rating=4.5

|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for 'The Vagaries of Swing' was the BBC television series You can'True Love' which portrayed a series of romantic encounters all set by the sea in his home town of Margate. But Carty has taken the original idea - about relationships between people - t be happy and run with it, extending ''love'' into ''passion'', say for cricket, or (at the other end of the scale) as a human encounter which ends in violence. Whilst the television series might have been the catalyst for the book there was another and probably more compelling reasonfulfilled on your own. When his friend Mike died he realised that he had no one with whom to share his fund of stories about growing up in Margate, all of which had been revisited on You are not complete until you find a regular basis and usually over a pint. Iman''ve just read the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Emily Cockayne|title=Cheek by JowlThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: A History of Neighbours|rating=4it was simply the adults in her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.5|genre=History|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises at It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the beginning of girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the first chapter, almost everyone has a neighbour; if you have a neighbour, you handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live happily ever after. Few girls are one yourself; lucky enough to be brought up ''without'' the expectation that they will marry and neighbours can enrich or ruin our liveshave children. In this engaging book, she takes various case studies It was a belief and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 to the present dayit would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''a belief is a choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Jonathan M Katz|title=The Big Truck That Went By|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It was January 12, 2010 and AP correspondent Jonathan M. Katz was preparing Move 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''. Nature had other plans. When the earthquake struck, Katz was unexpectedly thrown into the thick of the action. As the only American reporter on the ground at the time of the quake, he felt duty-bound to break news of unfolding events to an oblivious world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>023034187X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean M Twenge and W Keith Campbell|title=The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Twenge and Campbell have been studying the rise in narcissism as a social trend. They are well-qualified to comment, having worked since 1998 with social psychologist Roy Baumeister, who pioneered research in this field. At more than three hundred pages it's rather weighty for the popular market at which it's aimed, but even if you only dip into this book, I think you'll take home their message.|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 is not the first book I've read about the scummy, unloved corners of our country, 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 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 - and as I grew up on the edge of a village in the middle of nowhere, it suits me fine. But no - despite its problems (thanks, Labour councils) it doesn't count. It's not grotty, ugly, run-down and unappreciated enough. It still has some semblance of life, 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 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 exacerbating.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546930</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]