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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor 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 Her Worldthat there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Stefan KorneliusEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=BiographyGraphic Novels|summary=You have to admire the ladyWe're in childhood, this rather awkward and shy daughter of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as a Polish Catholic. His daughter studied with such intelligence and application that soon brought her academic success particularly we're in Russian and finally in Quantum ChemistryCuba. At the age of 26 The revolution has happened, she obtained her doctorate and - in passingCastro, it rather seems - her first husband, the physicist Ulrike Merkel. Her rise to power was rapid and took place through the period in which the DDR collapsed thought of as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry and dry sense of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment saviour of the characteristic known in German as ''fleissig'' - hardworkingcountry, seduloushas proven himself a Communist, diligent and assiduousnot done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=An Atheist Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's History family weren't in the happiest of Belief|author=Matthew Kneale|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=I’ve been places here, an atheist since I was old enough uncle refusing to take a view on be the good soldier the subject. country demanded (Many atheists especially as he would argue that we’re all atheists at birthprobably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, but that’s and not a subject liked for a book review)his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. I did have The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to take Religious Studies at school ease some of the heat, but have entirely forgotten almost everything I learned!in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584425</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Notebooks, 1922-86Sarah Wilson|authortitle=Michael OakeshottThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Michael Oakeshott My favourite Mary Oliver line is usually described as a conservative thinkerthe 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. According '' I'm lucky enough to Perry Anderson, his work influenced John Majorbe living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's style of politics; he named him in 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 London Review of Books in 1992 as one of four ‘outstanding European theorists of life we want – the intransigent Right’best life that we could be living. Luke O’Sullivan Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, who edited this collection of notebooks, has often said that he considers such descriptions limitingwe are not''. O’Sullivan is clearly enthusiastic about Oakeshott’s work and strove to enable these notebooks Don't care what you're doing, spanning a period of over sixty yearsshe thinks you (we, to I) could be publisheddoing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845400542</amazonuk>1785633848

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=The Why AxisCharging Around: Hidden Motives and Exploring the Undiscovered Economics Edges of Everyday LifeEngland by Electric Car|author=Uri Gneezy and John ListClive Wilkinson

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Wow! This is Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a most surprising economics bookpreference for slow travel.  Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse As he neared his eightieth birthday the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour and consuming patterns. I guess we know about that already because supermarkets here lull us into buying three for idea of exploring the price edges of twoEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, to come back next week it should be a pleasant holiday for £10 off a £100Clive and his wife, Joan, or to garner extra points on a loyalty card (Oh why can’t they just go for a cheaper price at 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 point of sale? Why do profits have current political turmoil which is coming to be in double percentage point increases year on year?). A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives is already part seem more and parcel more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of our lives2022''. If you’d asked me before I read this book, I would Sharp eyes will have lined up noted that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteering. However … these guys are differentwe're not yet through the year: they really do seem to care about the plight of the underprivileged, and they come cartoons run from an academic setting, rather than a commercial one4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk> Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alain de BottonB0B7289HKQ|title=The NewsConversations Across America: A UserFather and Son, Alzheimer's Manual, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Kari Loya

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Alain de Botton maintains Kari (that 'rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the news' has assumed way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the position in our lives which period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do it. The decision was once occupied by religionmade to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, with some consumers viewing Oregon - all 4250 miles of it as often as every fifteen minutes (slight blush there - let's say about every hour...)in 2015. Furthermore, we They had 73 days to do it completely unprotected against every political scandal or celebrity story- 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. The subMerv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-title 'A Userstage Alzheimer's Manual' sets out to remedy this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HYGYIGA</amazonuk>

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=Robert A CaroJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means Book of AscentHope

|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society |summary=It's only The done thing is to read a matter of days since book all the way through before you sit down to review it. I’m making an exception here, because I finished listening to [[The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path don’t want to Power by Robert A Caro|The Years lose any of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power]], the first part experience of Robert A Caro's definitive work on the President and despite having just spent over forty hours on the reading this amazing book , I wanted want to learn morecapture it as it hits me. I was torn though - the second book in a series And it is not often as good as the first and it struck hitting me that these might not be the most exciting years in Johnson's life. Was this This beautiful book going to be the link which took us on to the more exciting times? Not a bit of ithas me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00GSHD0U6</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=A Good African StoryArtivism: How a Small Company Built a Global Coffee BrandThe Battle for Museums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Andrew RugasiraAlexander Adams|rating=32|genre=Politics and Society|summary=There are few billionaire black African entrepreneursCan art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. As Andrew Rugasira points out It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in ''A Good African Story''which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the people who make money from African exports are virtually always white WesternersEra 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). Even Fair Trade participants remain skewed Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by the status quo of trade barriers which discriminate against Third World countrieslarge “left-wing” donors and media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099571927</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=Play It Again: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleWilderness Cure|author=Alan RusbridgerMo Wilde|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=I’ve maintained It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long time that I’ll read anythingconsumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, if it’s well-enough written. So it particularly in Central Scotland was with this fascinating memoirperhaps not the best time to start, even though it’s in a year in world where the life of an amateur pianistnormal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and I don’t play a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the piano – or indeed area around her was a note known habitat with a variety of musicterrains. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in his professional role before I read the book She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. A quick browse through the first couple of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell She had a clear story: it is his stockcar -in-trade as Editor of the Guardianand fuel. And the book duly held me through Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a messy, interrupted week of bedtime readingplan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=WinterThings You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Adam GopnikEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=ReferenceHome and Family|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering We begin with a unique telling story. All the birds and fascinating perspective on animals fled when the season forest fire took hold and most of winterthem stood and watched, Adam Gopnik takes unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art river and began taking tiny amounts of water and society, through flying back to drop them into the fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''Romantic WinterI'', ''Radical Winterm doing the best I can'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''said the hummingbird. In each essay And that, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themesreally, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetryis the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this booksmall that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>

{{newreview''One more body just wouldn't matter''.|title=Outraged The murder of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England|author=Nigel Cawthorne|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fastGeorge Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looksforty-four-year-old police officer, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they havenin the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk… s death was an exception. ItThe image of Chauvin kneeling on George's a very clever idea to show exactly what neck is behind the not one which I'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tag, ll ever forget and as the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a book to be shelved alongside those with the wackier letters sent to backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''Daily Telegraphall'', these selections from tarred by the Royal town's press itself make a great eye-opener to the complaints and complainants of KentChauvin brush.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?: A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050Matthieu Aikins|authortitle=Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)The Naked Don't Fear the Water

|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The authors are leading researchers in their fieldsNaked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, and their papers have been critiqued by peerbecause it reads very much like a well-reviewerspaced thriller at times. Each of the chapters reports the results of This is not by any means a modelling exercisecriticism, examining progress or decline in one of ten key areas, including armed conflict, trade barriers, malnutrition, air pollution, ecosystem 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 biodiversity, health, water at times painful journey. There are tense moments and sanitationgripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. Key economic, growth But it's written with a haunting and other variables from credible sources provided a common set of data almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and assumptions, used in each studypeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1107679338</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Benn1785633074|title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze of Autumn SunshineStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyHumour|summary=Throughout my life I've found Members of Parliament like us to believe that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politicsthe country is run by politicians, whatever he had to say would give me food for thought headed by the Prime minister - and frequently changed the way ''primus inter pares'' (that I viewed a situation. He's a wonderful mixture for those of supreme intelligence you who are Eton and humanity which Oxbridge educated) but the reality is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and prime''movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the disadvantages privileged position of growing older, having access to the loneliness memoirs of widowhoodRafe Hubris, the upheaval man who was behind the skilful control of moving from the family home of sixty years and Covid crisis which was completely contained by the problems end of failing health2020.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved You might not know the status of national treasure, name now but surely he couldn't will certainly be in decline?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>the man to watch.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=What Should The End of Bias: How We Tell Change Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up FemaleMinds|author=Melissa BennJessica Nordell|rating=34.5

|summary='I am shocked when I read young feminists today blithely admitting Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they donmay no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it't know what second-wave feminists wrotes simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first.' As a twenty-something year old feminist, it pains me to admit how much this quote applied to me The able will come before the disabled. Having grown up knowing that college and university were paths I could definitely take Jobs, never being told that settling down and finding a husband was an important goal to havepromotions, and always getting higher salaries are the same opportunities as my male peers in preserve of the workplace, Iwhite man. Even when those who wouldn'd never seen – or, at least, ''thought'' I'd seen – t pass the inequalities, misogyny and chauvinism that were still apparently abundant in todaymedical become a part of an organisation it's society. The feminist movement had always seemed like an amazing wave of new ideas rare that their views are heard, that had happened forty or fifty years agotheir concerns are acknowledged. It was 's personally appalling and degrading for the reason my mother and I were now able to work and find a role outside individuals on the receiving end of the homebias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546270</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529148251|title=Peas and QueuesMisfits: The Minefield of Modern MannersA Personal Manifesto|author=Sandi ToksvigMichaela Coel

|summary=Dear Sandi ''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.''

You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and one of the reasons I’m so very excited Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be heading in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes)read a book of essays or a self-help book. For this alone, I had You're going to get my mitts on your latest offeringread writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining a You might be ''reading'' the book on manners previously, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the matter would lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be suitably hilarious and well worth carried on a read. I was not wrongcloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=Global Modernity and Other EssaysWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Tom RubensOtegha Uwagba|rating=45

|summary=It’s been difficult ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to write this review. The book’s eclectic naturebe seen as less desirable, with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche to the English Police Forceless hireable, makes it difficult less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to summarise and secondly, I’m no academic and philosophy is just HARD|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>}}Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|title=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better Alternative|author=Peter Mortimore|rating=4''0.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Peter Mortimore's thoroughgoing analysis 7% of the absurdities of current educational practice and prescriptions for finding English Literature GCSE students in England study a far better alternative deserves book by a wide readership. It is not just an organisation which is under siege but as his personal anecdotes indicate, more vigorously than his rigorously argued statistics, people are suffering. Parents are anxious, teachers badly led and burdened with confused policies and worst writer of all pupils are pressurised from early infancy. Reading his colour while only 7% study a book you might be forgiven for wondering by a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress and b) as Cicero might have asked, woman.'' ''Cui bonoThe Bookseller'', to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methods. He argues that their procedures are more effective, that support students and produce a fairer, harmonious society.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021

{{newreview|title=Inventing Otegha Uwagba came to the Enemy: Essays on Everything|author=Umberto Eco|rating=4|genre=History|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in the sunlit-bathed ancient countryside near MilanUK from Kenya when she was five years old. Next to you a gentleman talks Her sisters were seven and eats nine. It was her mother who came first, with furious energyher father joining them later. He tells of Dante, Cicero The family was hard-working, principled and St Augustine and quotes a multitude of obscure troubadours from determined that their children would have the Middle Agesbest education possible. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in the ribs, belches and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets There was always a painful awareness of information but in the flow money although this did not translate into a shortage of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiterationanything: it was simply carefully harvested. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches the cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things Otegha was ten the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imaginationfamily acquired a car. You are better informed For Otegha, intrigued and prodded education meant a scholarship to examine his discourse again a private school in London and againthen a place at New College, even if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing the Enemy''Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=George BrockRichard Brook|title=Out of PrintUnderstanding Human Nature: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital AgeA User's Guide to Life|rating=34.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=At about the turn of the century most people on the street where I live had am a morning paper delivered firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and a good number also got an evening papersometimes books choose us. The queue at In my case, this is one of the newsagent latter. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' in the village would be out of the door each morning as people picked up a paper on their way to workthat it does now. I can't remember when believe it came to me not just because I last saw was likely to give it a newspaper boy (or girl) on favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their rounds and we only buy own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the weekend papers as an indulgence with a more leisurely breakfast. Times have changed - and therebook, even if it doesn's no sign t always turn out that the situation way'' ] – but also because it is likely a book I needed to settle in the near futureread, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749466510</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children How to Love Animals in Cold War Americaa Human-Shaped World|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J DoberHenry Mance

|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings ''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 the most horrible of medical experimentssociety: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, that they had done things like tie toddlers to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyesfoxes in rubbish bins, injected children with radiationelephants in zoos, sterilised those thought to be subhuman and even castrated a child just to get a supply millions of tissue for a lab experimentwild animals stay out there, ''somewhere, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germany. I am not'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|title=Across the Pond|author=Terry Eagleton|rating=3I was going to argue.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Terry Eagleton is a Brit I mean, cows are for cheese (Manchester born, no lessI couldn't consider eating red meat...) who now lives and I much prefer my elephants in Dublin with his American wife 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 children, so he seems well placed I consider myself an animal lover. If I had to write a book about choose between the difference between us company of humans and themthe company of animals, there YanksI would probably choose the animals. Mid way through the pages, he even stops to tell us I insisted that in a way he had to write I read this, because when he wishes book: no one was trying to read a book, he writes itstop me but I was initially reluctant. To read someone else’s I eat cheese, he suggestseggs, is ‘an unwarranted invasion of their personal space’chicken and fish and I needed to either do so without guilt or change my choices. That’s how so very British he is I suspected that making the decision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill Stark1523092734|title=High Sobriety: My Year Without Booze|rating=4.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=On the first of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up with the hangover from Hell. She was no stranger to them: at thirty five sheA Women'd been binge drinking for more than twenty years and was in the dubious position of being the health reporter who wrote herself off at weekends. And by 'wrote herself off' I mean being seriously drunk on a very regular basis, having consumed vast quantities of alcohol and having regularly put herself in danger of serious illness, unwanted pregnancy and assault. But on that first day in January Stark decided that she was going s Guide to do something about it and the initial decision was that she would spend three months on the wagon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaClaiming Space|author=A T WilliamsEliza Van Cort

|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|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 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 for questioning from 'She brings a hotel hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in the vicinity of insurgent weaponryher life. The Iraqis were hooded, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions Again and subjected to karate chops again and kidney punches by the Britishagain. Other men and officers watched'' (Alma Derricks, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of tortureformer CMO, a 26 year-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 in further encounters with British patrols or prison guards.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)

{{newreview|author=Ryu Murakami|title=From The Fatherland, With Love|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=From The Fatherland, With Love ''To claim space is a 2005 Japanese novel set in to live the then-near future life of 2011choosing unapologetically and bravely. Fatherland (as I will abbreviate it) explores It is to live the social and political ramifications of one speculative scenario: what if North Korea invaded Japan?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968451</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Polly Morland|title=The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How to be Brave|rating=3life 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>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]