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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Mariana Enriquez|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonSunny Place for Shady People|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyShort Stories|summary=If you were Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to bring up an image of a city banker in your mindurban planning mishap, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie an overcrowded homeless shelter and jeans replaces the pina crime-stripe suit and his background is the East End, ridden neighbourhood where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV safety meetings are routine - but he had been to the London School of Economicsall within Argentina. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most The circumstances of us can only envy. He also realised her characters are so plausible that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game the supernatural or otherworldly horror which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned seeps into permanent employment as these spaces adopts a tradersimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Leanne Egan1529934753|title=Lover BirdsThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When new girlFor a little while, Isabelit looked as though Sir Max Bruce, moves to Louthe country's hometown most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around herhis retrospective at the Royal Academy. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each otherStill, but Lou feels her pulse racing every he arrived in the nick of time she looks at Isabel or speaks , complete with herhis two wives and six children, and one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't but it? was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Because Lou is straightLexi Williams, isnan intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting 't she? 'Stop the War''. Even though none It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far'blue-face' attacks, and she's never but this was different. The can had a good kiss been laced with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabelcyanide, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657XSir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jacqueline RoseAriel Saramandi|title=Women in Dark Times|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=''The world of the unconscious is not the antagonist of political life, but its steadfast companion, the hidden place or backdrop where any true revolution must begin…'' Women in Dark Times is Jacqueline Rose's homage to courageous women throughout history, particularly women Portrait of the 21st, 20th and 19th centuries. Her historical and political backdrop is, thus, expansive, yet she navigates it with intelligence and an acknowledgment that feminism's lengthy mission is a testament to its successes, and not its failures: ''the ongoing force of feminism''.|isbn=1804271713}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=IntermezzoIsland on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to explain a book intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by describing what it ''isn't'' colonialism and that applies slavery to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''expose how these legacies still shape modern life. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver Saramandi describes the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If thatcountry at one stage as 's what you're looking for, I donrotting't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory blunt yet apt metaphor for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review systemic decay brought about by the state malignant forces of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010racism, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mark Lingane|title=Chimera|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''The survivor stumbles forwardpatriarchy, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.'' ''Broken environmental degradation and fragmented recollections tumble around her headgovernmental dysfunction. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come Each essay in shallow, ragged gasps this collection serves as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.'' ''There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.'' As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group kind of aliensdiagnostic, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently charting the various diseases afflicting the last human being aliveisland state.|isbn=B0DNVWMYP21804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784745758Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Three Days in June|author=Anne TylerLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=The day before your daughterIt's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. Firstthe eighteenth century, it was her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject time of 'people skills' discovery and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resignedBritain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, depending on who was explaining an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the situationAndaman Islands in his endeavour. When she got home (in the middle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, they set off on a catperilous voyage to these faraway lands. He thinks that he'll be staying The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and that Gail will be adopting the cat. And thatislanders's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal lifeleader, Aarav, is keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Eowyn IveyHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Black Woods Blue SkyLili is Crying|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of BirdieFirst published in 1953 in French, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for this novel is a life beyond timeless text which wrenches the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect hearts of Emaleen. Described its readers just as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river Bessette wrenches words and live sentences from their proper position on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn page and solitary manpositions them elsewhere, who says he has a cabin over theredisjointed, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with truncated. Like the lives of her. Without realising itcharacters, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives foreverthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=14722790421804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Max BoucheratGregor Hens and Jen Calleja (translator)|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, City and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008385068|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyWorld|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=ItIn ''s midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend City and splendid celebrations are promised. Itthe World's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests Gregor Hens reveals how cities are enemies as well much imagined spaces as friends. Old scores they are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.}}{{Frontpage|author=James Baldwin|title=Giovanni's Room|rating=4physical ones.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in With a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, deep affection for the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality urban landscapes that ultimately dooms have shaped his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence|title=Wild East|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Written in verselife, this is Ronny's storyHens reflects on places like Cologne, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic eventBerlin, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in Goch on the Lower Rhine with a new town, a new school, and keep himself out blend of trouble. He listens to music constantly, personal memory and has always dreamed of being a rapperthoughtful observation. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry His writing workshop group and, slowlyat times abstract, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.|isbn=0241645441}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1635866847|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci|rating=4.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - captures not just architectural features but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book emotional and I was told mental geographies tied to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book already.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jacqueline Feldman|title=Precarious Lease|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, but few scant property rights. Among mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterieeach location, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitantsexample, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like his perspectives as a haven for artists and marginal members of society (child as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the margins of the margins of the margins''), Le Bloc was subject opposed to the continual threat of eviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. We follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, framed as a tragedy in this book. |isbn=1804271403}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529425905|title=A Voice in the Night (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=There's a new Superintendent in Thames Valley — DCS Wainwright—and she's young, ambitious, and ruthless. She talks a good talk about work/life balance and family values, but as far as she's concerned, she has two main problems, and they're both called DI Wilkinsan adult. Ray Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Baliol educated From Belgium and always immaculately dressed. He's married Germany to Diane and has twin sons. Management's opinion of him is that he thinks too highly of himself and his last boss felt that he needed more experience at what he called 'the wet end'. Ryan Wilkins comes from a trailer park - in fact, it could be said that he's never really left it. He lives in shell suits Berkeley and tracksuits, always in vivid colours. Previous management was adamant that he should ''never'' be given responsibility. Wainwright feels that she would be best shut of both of them.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}Columbus, Hens traces a glorious mixture map of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|author=Mariana Enriquez|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishapexperiences, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps turning cities into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. |isbn=1803511230}}{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus reflections of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, identity and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|author=David Chadwick|title=Headload of Napalm|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until...belonging.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804271691
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Hunchback|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I was in the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and turned to the back inside cover. There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.|isbn=0241700787}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Penman
|title=Erik Satie Three Piece Suite
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=This unconventional biography somewhat mirrors Satie's admittedly effusive personality: whimsical, experimental and creative. It is divided into three sections: the first, an essay, the second, an A-Z encyclopedia on Satie and the third, a 'Satie Diary', documenting Ian Penman's thoughts surrounding Satie, his muse.
|isbn=1804271535
}}
{{Frontpage
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Joan DidionGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Year Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of Magical Thinkingnature and human relationships. Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world.|isbn=1804271470}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=This book is Joan DidionLeanne Wilson's heartbreaking autobiographical account body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the grief result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she endured following posted her husbandintentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of the 'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's sudden deatha killer on the loose. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008643660|title=The Burial Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=A group of archaeologists are such uncovering a beautiful Roman site close to Little Sky: it's idyllic and necessary resource some of the excavations are being televised. There's even a hoard of Roman gold worth millions which will be split between the finders and the landowner. It's perfect until the group begin receiving threatening letters. Jake Jackson, a former police detective, is trying to lead a simpler life at Little Sky but he's inevitably drawn in to investigate. Reading the letters, it's difficult to help people feel less aloneavoid the conclusion that there will be violence and even the local police are keen that Jake should be involved.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like 5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self-pity, denial and delusion brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and makes them utterly normalconservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, lends them or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a human face sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to wear''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=00072168581804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Mary McCarthy
|title=Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Mary McCarthy describes herself as an ''amateur architect'', obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her ''burning interest in the past'' to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing.
|isbn=1804271659
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan Buckley
|title=One Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.
|isbn=1804271764
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jen Beagin
|title=Big Swiss
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a fly on the wall. That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of the window. She's in too deep.
|isbn=0571378579
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604
|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Leanne Egan
|title=Lover Birds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|isbn=000862657X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sally Rooney
|title=Intermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1009473085
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|isbn=0008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Us in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787333175
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}