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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonPaul B Preciado|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the place. Meat ''It is getting thrown around like it's going out of fashion, and we have never too late to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise embrace the power revolutionary optimism of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>}}childhood''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreSamantha Harvey|title=Fortune CookieOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Fudge Cassidy and In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then youBooker Prize for ''d be spot on as thatOrbital's where Fudge's father got , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the idea from. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but lives of a group of astronauts aboard the combination worksInternational Space Station. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather Through a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this narrative lens that her father couldn't cope with mirrors the problems and he now has another family. Itastronauts's just Cupcakeorbital perspective, Joey and her mother – and not Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a lot of moneywholly new light.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>1529922933
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenifer Roberts295967572X|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of PortugalPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become what the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one purpose of them)this journey is, and became Queen in 1777is uncertain. A conscientious woman, she had Django found the misfortune to be born in during tickets ''on the floor somewhere'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacyhas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Instinctively a supporter of Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the old religion, with a humanitarian approach pair travel to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, station by coach and wore her crown rather reluctantlythe train is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Hughes0008551324|title=Thomas Wogan is DeadThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. A man Neither side likes or has a day out any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows prison and he's in prepared to tell the police where the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array body of animals (a batmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, a toadhe promises, a sea urchinis 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, all waiting for... well, something. is it? Yup, as you didnThe new Deputy Police Constable doesn't need telling, hethink 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 deadhappening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Wild ThingsVaim
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Max''All was strange''. When I say he sometimes gets .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the wrong end pervading sense of the stick about adultsotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for revengeJatgeir and Eline, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit two of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>1804271829
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Strong1035043092|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=TrevorI can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. It's troublesome dogbeen seven years since we heard from him, Streakerbut he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, has had three puppies. They were fatheredJames, according to local bully Charlie Smuggas well as Cassie, by one the daughter of his Alsatiansformer partner. Trevor would ideally like to keep themWillow's also his boss, at least until Christmasand she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled to half when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the money from the sale aftermath of the puppiesa storm, but before they she can be sold 't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the three puppies go missing in the park and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thea Lenarduzzi
|title=The Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain Smyth and Michael TerryClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The WideBig Kiss, Bye-Mouthed FrogBye
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Do you know the joke about the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard it. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell Everything in personthis book, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide openhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, but to hopefully spark your memoryis steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to usually a number symbol of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogsintimacy and closeness, and becomes evidence of love lost. When the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying narrator cries out internally, ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round come over hereand kiss me, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funnyis less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. Anyway, The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a book of that jokeghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel Vreeman0008405026|title=Don't Swallow Your GumA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It'''BANG'''s sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. That's She was never found and the sound of copious urban myths being shot downinvestigation ground to a halt. '''BANG'''Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. ThatInitially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the sound positioning of the old wives slamming the door, as their tales get revealed as baselessbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. '''CLICK'''. That's the noise lots of ill-informed websites make What looked as they get closed down. All noises come due though it was going to this brilliant book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Annie Taylor|title=Violet|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Violet be an open-and-shut case is now a very special hippocomplex double murder. She Kerrigan is extremely small but convinced that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, they Una Burt) are slightly worried that Violet has a very unusual habit of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reasonless convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)
|title=The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J HealyMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Tommy Storm Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and the Galactic KnightsAndreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersBiography|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. He's one Biographies are often seen as the form of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a gang vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destructionhis literary contemporaries. Not just In the planetfirst section of this book, or the solar system, or even the galaxyTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but EVERYTHINGof what you yourself imagine it to be. Nobody seems Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of whatuse is it?'s going to cause this destruction'. Well, or whenMaxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, but giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day. So Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>1804271977
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1529077745|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Spam EA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh -Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most one of us will have had the care workers who was due to deal with them. Fortunately, we can hit work a shift the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they camenight before but who had never turned up. D I certainly prefer not Vera Stanhope is called in to torture my friends by sending such rubbish oninvestigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, no matter how bad my luck is supposed to become if I don'tfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually Some people believe that Chloe was a matter of life and responsible for the death, rather than just claiming but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>Josh.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeanette WintersonB0FK5LHKD9|title=The Battle Colour of the SunMemory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in It's been three years. Her capital city is since we last reviewed a busybook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streetsso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heartLike all Bowden's desire: an excitable black puppy named Maxstories, whothere's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''licking and a . We like this running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy theme in the air and an author's work - take a tail wagging mystery but give it different flavour and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''atmosphere each time. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreOlga Tokarczuk|title=Love and Kisses|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to university. All that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he worked. OhHouse of Day, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Henry Mintzberg|title=ManagingHouse of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Business and FinanceLiterary Fiction|summary=''Study after study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, thereWhat's such the good of a market for bulky management and leadership and general business books world that keeps changing like this one. that? How does anyone who needs or wants to read can one ever find the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books go on calmly living in one, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>}}?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn FoxhenleyA|title=Blood BornUltimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=To give support to Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a vulnerable gang-rape victimPrivate Investigator for some time now, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothers. But when Anya arrives at the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time to save herhe should be doing quite well financially. In the panic Unfortunately, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or his daughter's defence against a cleverly staged murdercharge drained his savings. Worse still His wife, in Laura, has been trying to save the girlpersuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's lifewhat 'ordinary people do', Anya has interfered with a crime scene and '' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case falls apart. She blames herself for , it's the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news thought of another attack. A pair of sisters have been stabbed and raped resulting in the death money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of one, while the other clings to lifejustice that he really should put right.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1836284683
|title=The Big Happy
|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingSally Rooney|title=Remembrance DayIntermezzo|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=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=In ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the year 2000 an old lady years Peter McArdle spent growing up in a wheelchair watches and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the unveiling family history of a sea-going family, with the new war memorial in docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the village squarewhat-might-have-been. ThereIt's pride in what has been achieveda book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in the family who are gathered around her and there are memories tooMcArdle's early years. Some are good I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but many are notthey were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Layton1836285493|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumesWill is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, our he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite junior mammoths Oscar lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and Arabella have nothing much else Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to do apart from return explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods of Difficult Sums''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. They If you're supposed to be making presentations looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what they did during ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the holidays toobook for you. If that's what you're looking for, but Oscar hasnI don't done any preparation andthink Anthony Seldon's book, frankly{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, he canbe bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. 't really remember what he actually did do with all '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 free time other than no Difficult Sumsoccurred and the situation in 2024. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbJenny Valentine|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a cart pulled by her horse Prettylifetime connection. She They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's very politecontact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, friendlyand they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and kind-heartedtragic, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enoughand now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, but there's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywheretogether.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>1471196585
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mij Kelly and Louise Nisbet1787333175|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=For SharingPopular Science|summary=Mouse doesnI was tempted to read ''You Don't like anyone and keeps herself Have to herself. Her things are her things and she is too selfish be Mad to share them with anyone else. One day, an old man moves in to MouseWork Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's house. He used first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to be Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the happiest man in workings of the worldNHS, but now hehumour and autobiography. ''You Don's sadt Have to be Mad... He's fed up ' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of having given, given, given all his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopesa psychiatrist. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides I did wonder whether it was acceptable to cheer him up by giving him be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a clementine.situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BlandMariana Enriquez|title=The Very Cranky BearA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=For SharingShort Stories|summary=Moose, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head into a cave to get out of the rain, but little do they know Mariana Enriquez writes horror that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him updisturbingly real, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to cheer him up somehow. Zebra paints stripes on himan urban planning mishap, Moose fashions antlers for him an overcrowded homeless shelter and Lion sticks a mane crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of straw on him. Unsurprisingly, this makes Bear even crankier, her characters are so it's down to Sheep to save plausible that the day..supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>1803511230
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1529934753|title=Mum and Dad GlueThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=A young boyFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's parents are splitting most famous living artist, was not going to show upfor the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. He's going through Still, he arrived in the usual emotions that nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children , one of divorce go through: worrywhom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, feeling unsureyou tend to do things like that, blaming himselfbut it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. Lexi Williams, anger, denialan intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and then trying proceeded to get them to stay together. His method for this isnspray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''t Stop the usual response though: he looks for glue War''. It seemed to stick his mum and dad togetherbe part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. Thankfully The can had been laced with cyanide, he finds some wise and kindly advice in the processSir Max Bruce was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clara VulliamyAriel Saramandi|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingPolitics and Society|summary=ItIn this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as 's Pearl's bedtime, but she says sherotting's really busy and isn't going to sleep. She just wants to play and play and play. When , a blunt yet apt metaphor for the bear with sticky paws rings systemic decay brought about by the doorbellmalignant forces of racism, patriarchy, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as you might expecta kind of diagnostic, charting the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyvarious diseases afflicting the island state.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>1804271616
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen MackeyPekka Harju-Autti|title=MikiLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Possessed It's the eighteenth century, a time of great beautydiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, the kind that drives men madan experienced Scottish sea captain, Fire is used sent to people trying to kill herthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. She isn't used Along with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to them doing it by accidentthese faraway lands. When a poacher The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the woods outside her home accidentally shoots herislanders' leader, Aarav, Fire is hard pressed to keep the temperamental Lord Archer from killing him. But as sure as Fire is the man did not mean keen to cause her harm, she is made unsure by the strange fog that exists in the man's mindestablish good relations.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Justin ScroggieHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Eye Spy: Uncovering the Secrets of the World Around YouLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaLiterary Fiction|summary=Signs are everywhere. I wasn't really one of those who thought our roads were littered with too many traffic signs until the day I was driven past First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a pair of speed regulation signs, positioned at timeless text which wrenches the exit end hearts of a one-way street but facing its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the illegal way up itpage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Not all signs, Like the lives of courseher characters, they are quite as unnecessary, or indeed as blatantly visible, which is where this pictorial guide to countless coded messages, signifiers and other similar factoids comes inoften left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340994487</amazonuk>1804271675
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose Saramago Tom Percival|title=Small MemoriesThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary=Having been born Will's life is difficult, in 1922 and lived through so much a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the twentieth centurywrong shoes', with an authorhe has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn's view t have enough money for even the most basic of change things like food, and peoplehis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, Jose Saramago has certainly experienced was working a cash-in-hand job on a lotbuilding site and had an accident. Civil Wars in Throw into that mix the neighbouring Spain; the growth of fact that his country - which still left it as western Europemum and dad are separated, and Will's poorestlife seems bleak in every direction. Here And yet, he allows us witness still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to his mind drifting through his childhoodthe moments of joy when he is drawing, in that feel like a light at the country and in Lisbonend of a long, and provides a subtle and gentle memoirdark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655148X</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eoin ColferSylvie Cathrall|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide A Letter to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6) Luminous Deep|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Of all the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows There are few greater joys than many. Why try and write a new Hitchhiker's Guide book which lives up to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task? compelling premise. And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups this is one of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English? Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up a storythem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>0356522776
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harlan Coben1786482126|title=Tell No OneThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I've been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the reviews are site was going to be believed and you are a fan of the hold seventy-five 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrumentluxury' thriller, apartments - when they discovered the man is quite simply not capable bones of turning out a duff novelchild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. But you know how it Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is, what pregnant with one thing and another and his child as a bulging pile result of books to the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be read and reviewedobvious before long, I just somehow hadn't managed not least because Ruth is prone to give him my full attention. Until nowsudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Peel Guadalupe Nettel and Sheila RavenscroftRosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Margrave of the MarshesThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentShort Stories|summary=John Peel This collection was without doubt one of the most important disc jockeys of truly enchanting in all time. Born in Merseyside in 1939, he began his career in mid-60s America before returning home to join Radio London and then become one senses of the original Radio 1 teamword: spellbinding with its fantastical, where he stayed until his death 37 years later. I admired the man for his passion for playing the music nobody else would give the time of day (even if I didn't always enjoy it myself) magical elements and his readiness to say exactly what he thought, even if it was not what his employers at the BBC wanted to hear, and I always enjoyed reading his columns charming in the music weeklies its gentle portrayal of nature and later Radio Timeshuman relationships. Nevertheless I found much of his show unlistenable towards the end, recall some of his rather curmudgeonly remarks on air (guest slots on Radio 1's Round Table review programme come to mind), Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and thought his build-'em-upprecisely, knock-'em-down stance rather irritating after her stories structured by a while. So I approached this book with an open mind as a fan, but not an uncritical onewisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552551198</amazonuk>1804271470
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez 0008551375|title=Perfumes: The A - Z Guide|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The only thing that could be conceivably better than reading ''Perfumes'' would be to read it while sampling the scents it reviews, but even without the olfactory component, ''Perfumes'' is a delight: Turin (a lyrical scientist) and Sanchez (an analytically enthusiastic collector) not only treat perfume creation as high art, but turn perfume criticism into an art form When Shadows Fall (or at least a sophisticated genre of writingD S Max Craigie) too. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681278</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Malouf |title=Ransom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Taking his theme from a small part of Homer's Iliad, Malouf tells the story of the king of Troy, Priam's grief-stricken voyage into the Greek camp to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of his fallen son, Hector, killed by the equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells the story in sparse, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story telling.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven M Gillon|title=The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours AfterNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryCrime|summary=The assassination of President Kennedy came Leanne Wilson's body was found at a pivotal moment in my life and for more than forty years I've read most of what has been written about the event. It's been bottom of variable qualitya Scottish mountain, but seemingly the books fed the curiosity result of people entranced by the charismatic young President who died so publiclya tragic accident. IShe'd come to the point looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of wondering if there was anything new to be saidan unpleasant relationship, but Stephen Gillom has it looked at 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 happened from an unusual they were doing and largely overlooked angle – sensible people. None of the first twenty four hours of Lyndon Johnson'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's Presidencya killer on the loose.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>046501870X</amazonuk>
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