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Newest Politics and Society Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=The EconomistEdward W Said|title=Pocket World in Figures 2015Representations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=ReferencePolitics and Society|summary=There are people who donEdward Said's ''t understand Representations of the joy of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) - just Intellectual'' is less a collection strict theory of figures relevant to what intellectuals are and more a particular circumstancepassionate argument for what they should be. If you're one Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of those people then this book will mean little the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to youother specialists. Instead, but if you want he insists on the intellectual as a pocket (wellpublic figure, often awkward, abrasive, certainly handbag or briefcase) work of reference then this book will be a treasure. I once gave a copy to a diplomat and he kept his wife awake until the early hours as he came across another gem which she had unpopular, who speaks truth to know without delay. The 2015 edition power even when it is the twenty fourth in the series - and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for the onslaughtinconvenient or risky.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781252734</amazonuk>1804272248
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Stand and Deliver: A Design for Successful GovernmentAriel Saramandi|authortitle=Ed StrawPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Confidence in politicians is at an all-time low. In factthis powerful collection of essays, an alarming number Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Britons express outright contemptMauritius, not just for their leaders, but for tunneling deep into the entire political class - for wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the politicans themselvescountry at one stage as ''rotting'', a blunt yet apt metaphor for the civil servants standing behind them, even for systemic decay brought about by the Westminster bubble malignant forces of commentators racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and policy wonksgovernmental dysfunction. We vote for them Each essay in ever-decreasing numbers and even those who continue to vote often do not feel represented. Worse stillthis collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, charting the younger you are, the more likely you are to be politically disengaged. We're in danger of losing an entire generation from various diseases afflicting the political processisland state. How can this be good for a democracy?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>099294760X</amazonuk>1804271616
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Harry's Last StandGregor Hens and Jen Calleja (translator)|authortitle=Harry Leslie SmithThe City and the World|rating=54
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=RAF veteran Harry Leslie Smith rose to prominence last year with a famous Guardian article In ''The City and the World''This year, I will wear Gregor Hens reveals how cities are as much imagined spaces as they are physical ones. With a poppy deep affection for the last time' about urban landscapes that have shaped his life, Hens reflects on places like Cologne, Berlin, and Goch on the way in which the remembrance Lower Rhine with a blend of those who died in the great wars has been co-opted to justify today’s military conflictspersonal memory and thoughtful observation. HereHis writing, he tackles themes of povertyat times abstract, political corruptioncaptures not just architectural features but the emotional and mental geographies tied to each location, unemploymentfor example, his perspectives as a child as opposed to as an adult. From Belgium and Germany to Berkeley and Columbus, Hens traces a lack map of experiences, turning cities into reflections of hope felt by so many people todayidentity and belonging.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848317263</amazonuk>1804271691
}}
{{newreview|title=Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and Her WorldFrontpage|author=Stefan Kornelius|rating=4|genre=Biography|summary=You have to admire the lady, 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 in Russian and finally in Quantum Chemistry. At the age of 26, she obtained her doctorate and - in passing, 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 as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry and dry sense of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is the embodiment of the characteristic known in German as ''fleissig'' - hardworking, sedulous, diligent and assiduous.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPaul B Preciado|title=An Atheist's History of Belief|author=Matthew KnealeDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=I’ve been ''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, and brings forth a new sensorium as an atheist since I was old enough offering to take the new generation, a view on 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 subjecttension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. (Many atheists would argue The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that we’re all atheists at birthwhich has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, but that’s not or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a subject sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for a book review)political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. I did have to take Religious Studies at school but have entirely forgotten almost everything I learned!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584425</amazonuk>1804271454
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Notebooks, 1922-86Jacqueline Feldman|authortitle=Michael OakeshottPrecarious Lease
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyBiography|summary=Michael Oakeshott is usually described as The title of this novel refers to a conservative thinkerFrench legal term (''bail précaire'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension from eviction charges and processes, but few scant property rights. According to Perry AndersonAmong mentions of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiterie, his work influenced John Major's style Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of politics; he named him in the London Review massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status for its inhabitants, admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and marginal members of Books in 1992 society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the margins of four ‘outstanding European theorists the margins of the intransigent Right’. Luke O’Sullivanmargins''), who edited this collection Le Bloc was subject to the continual threat of notebooks, has often said that he considers such descriptions limitingeviction and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitants' lives. O’Sullivan is clearly enthusiastic about Oakeshott’s work and strove to enable these notebooksWe follow Le Bloc from its opening in 2012 until its eventual dissolution, spanning framed as a period of over sixty years, to be publishedtragedy in this book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845400542</amazonuk>1804271403
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday LifeClaire Dederer|authortitle=Uri Gneezy and John ListMonsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?|rating=53
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Wow! This Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is a most surprising economics bookoriginal and expressive. Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse The reader gets the impression that the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and consuming patternsonto the page. I guess we know about that already because supermarkets here lull us into buying three In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for the price his actions. This model of two''monstrous men'' as she calls them, to come back next week is consistent for £10 off a £100the first few chapters, or to garner extra points on a loyalty card (Oh why can’t they just go for a cheaper price at interrogating the point likes of sale? Why do profits have to be in double percentage point increases year on year?)Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives Her critical voice is already part acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and parcel of our lives. If you’d asked me before I read this bookmaintaining her own subjectivity, I would have lined up that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteering. However … these guys are different: they really do seem to care about the plight of the underprivilegedshe holds it so dearly, and they come from an academic settinga personal, rather than a commercial onecollective voice.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk>1399715070
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alain de BottonVirginie Despentes|title=The News: A User's ManualKing Kong Theory
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''King Kong Theory'' is a hard-hitting memoir and feminist manifesto, which can be seen as a call to arms for women in a phallocentric society broken at its core. Originally written in French, the book is a collection of essays in which Virginie Despentes explores her experiences as a woman through the complex prism of her varied life: from rape to sex work and pornography. Though these discussions are intertwined, their placement within the book can feel somewhat disjointed, a reflection of their original form as independent essays.
|isbn=191309734X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1009473085
|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Alain de Botton maintains 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 newsinside story about what ' has assumed 'really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the position in our lives which was once occupied by religionbook for you. If that's what you're looking for, with some consumers viewing it as often as every fifteen minutes (slight blush there - letI don't think Anthony Seldon's say about every hour...)book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. Furthermore, we do it completely unprotected against every political scandal or celebrity storyIt's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The sub-title Conservative Effect''A Useris an entirely different beast. It's Manual' sets out to remedy the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards thisas 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HYGYIGA</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert A CaroAlastair Humphreys|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of AscentLocal
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyTravel |summary=ItAlastair 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 's only 'to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a matter small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of days since I finished listening 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 [[The Years of Lyndon Johnsonhave a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: The Path to Power by Robert A CaroCuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power]]revolution has happened, and Castro, the first part thought of as a saviour of Robert A Caro's definitive work on the President country, has proven himself a Communist, and despite having just spent over forty hours on the book I wanted not done nearly enough to learn morecreate a level playing field for all. I was torn though Well, those hours- long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the second book in a series is not often country demanded (especially as good he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the first father being watched and watched, and it struck me that these might not be the most exciting years in Johnson's lifeliked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. Was this book going The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to be ease some of the link which took us on to heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the more exciting times? Not a bit kind of heat forcing you out of it.the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00GSHD0U6</amazonuk>1474616720
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=A Good African StoryThis One Wild and Precious Life: How the path back to connection in a Small Company Built a Global Coffee Brand|author=Andrew Rugasirafractured world|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=There My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are few billionaire black African entrepreneurs'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. As Andrew Rugasira points out in Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''A Good African Story. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the people who make money from African exports fact that we are virtually always white Westerners. Even Fair Trade participants remain skewed by the status quo of trade barriers which discriminate against Third World countriesnot.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099571927</amazonuk>1785633848
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Play It AgainCharging Around: An Amateur Against The ImpossibleExploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Alan RusbridgerClive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyTravel|summary=I’ve maintained for Clive Wilkinson has a long time that I’ll read anything, if it’s well-enough written. So it was history of travelling by unconventional means with this fascinating memoir, even though it’s a year in preference for slow travel. As he neared his eightieth birthday the life idea of an amateur pianist, and I don’t play exploring the piano – or indeed a note edges of music. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger England in his professional role before I read the bookan electric car was not totally outrageous. A quick browse through the first couple of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell In fact, it should be a clear story: it is pleasant holiday for Clive and his stock-in-trade as Editor of the Guardian. And the book duly held me through a messywife, Joan, interrupted week of bedtime reading.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>shouldn't it?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=WinterBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Adam GopnikTim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=ReferenceHumour|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on Seeking some light relief from the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and societymore like an adrenaline sport, through I was nudged towards ''Romantic WinterBritain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022', '. Sharp eyes will have noted that we'Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering Winter''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation re not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to these pivotal notions31 August 2022. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork Who can imagine what there will be to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>come in the 2023 edition?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=Outraged Conversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle EnglandAmerica|author=Nigel CawthorneKari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=HumourTravel|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fastKari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, without using by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and the period between two jobs seemed like a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looksgood time to do it. The decision was made to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, and no public conveniences; people pretend Virginia to have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors alreadyAstoria, cooking for their working menfolk… Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. It's a very clever idea They had 73 days to show exactly what is behind do it - slightly less than the 'disgusted recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as a book to challenge that it would be shelved alongside those with the wackier letters sent to the ''Daily Telegraph'', these selections for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from the Royal townearly-stage Alzheimer's press itself make a great eye-opener to the complaints and complainants of Kent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony BennJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze Book of Autumn SunshineHope |rating=45|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society |summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had The done thing is to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed read a book all the way that I viewed a situationthrough before you sit down to review it. He's a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modern-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I’m making an exception here, because I opened this volume don’t want to lose any of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks experience of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing olderreading this amazing book, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing healthI want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me.'' I've always been relieved that Benn This beautiful book has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be me in decline?tears. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>024147857X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=What Should We Tell Our Daughters?Artivism: The Pleasures and Pressures Battle for Museums in the Era of Growing Up FemalePostmodernism|author=Melissa BennAlexander Adams|rating=32|genre=Politics and Society|summary='I am shocked when I read young feminists today blithely admitting that they don't know what second-wave feminists wroteCan art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum.' As a twenty-something year old feminist, it pains me to admit how much this quote applied to meIt is made by people. Having grown up knowing that college and university were paths I could definitely take, never being told Antonio Gramsci stated that settling down and finding a husband was an important goal ‘’Every man… contributes to have, and always getting modifying the same opportunities as my male peers social environment in the workplacewhich he develops’’. Therefore, I'd never seen – orall art must be political, at least, ''thought'' I'd seen – even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the inequalities, misogyny and chauvinism Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that were still apparently abundant in today's societyart is freer when it is art for art’s sake. The feminist movement had always seemed like an amazing wave recent trend of new ideas that had happened forty or fifty years agoso-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). It was the reason my mother Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-wing” donors and I were now able media elites hoping to work create a more globalist and find a role outside of the homeprogressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546270</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersWilderness Cure|author=Sandi ToksvigMo Wilde
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Dear Sandi You are my all It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time favourite celebrity lesbadyketo start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and one a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes)terrains. For this alone, I She had electricity which allowed her to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining run a book on manners previouslyfridge, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious freezer and well worth dehydrator. She had a readcar - and fuel. I Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not wronga plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Global Modernity Things You Can Do: How to Fight Climate Change and Other EssaysReduce Waste|author=Tom RubensEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows
|rating=4
|genre=Politics Home and SocietyFamily|summary=It’s been difficult We begin with a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the forest fire took hold and most of them stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to write this reviewdrop them into the fire. The book’s eclectic natureanimals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'm doing the best I can'', with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche to said the English Police Forcehummingbird. And that, makes it difficult to summarise and secondlyreally, I’m no academic and philosophy is just HARD|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativeMatthieu Aikins|authortitle=Peter MortimoreThe Naked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Peter MortimoreIt's thoroughgoing analysis of easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the absurdities of current educational practice and prescriptions for finding a far better alternative deserves Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a wide readershipwell-paced thriller at times. It This is not just an organisation which is under siege by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as his personal anecdotes indicate, more vigorously than his rigorously argued statistics, people are sufferinga refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at times painful journey. Parents There are anxious, teachers badly led tense moments and burdened with confused policies and worst gripping accounts of all pupils are pressurised from early infancyborder crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. Reading his book you might be forgiven for wondering But it's written with a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress haunting and b) as Cicero might have asked, ''Cui bono'', almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines perfectly envisage the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methods. He argues that their procedures are more effective, that support students environments and produce a fairer, harmonious societypeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Inventing the Enemy: Essays on EverythingStaggering Hubris|author=Umberto EcoJosh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=HistoryHumour|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the sunlitPrime minister -bathed ancient countryside near Milan. Next to you a gentleman talks and eats with furious energy. He tells the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of Dante, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude of obscure troubadours from the Middle Ages. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in the ribs, belches who are Eton and even breaks wind. His conversation contains nuggets of information Oxbridge educated) but in the flow of his discourse there reality is a fondness for iteration and reiteration. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the cheese course SPADS - definitely too much information on who are the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things driving force behind the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imaginationgovernment. You We are better informed, intrigued and prodded in the privileged position of having access to examine his discourse again and againthe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, even if only to challenge what you have heardthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. Such are You might not know the effects of reading Eco’s essays in ''Inventing name now but he will certainly be the Enemy''man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Brock1846276772|title=Out The End of PrintBias: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital AgeHow We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell|rating=34.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=At about Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the turn extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part of the century most people on the street where I live had a morning paper delivered and a good number also got an evening papereveryday life. White men will always come first. The queue at able will come before the newsagent in disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the village would be out preserve of the door each morning as people picked up a paper on their way to workwhite man. I canEven when those who wouldn't remember when I last saw pass the medical become a newspaper boy (or girl) on part of an organisation it's rare that their views are heard, that their rounds and we only buy the weekend papers as an indulgence with a more leisurely breakfastconcerns are acknowledged. Times have changed - It's personally appalling and theredegrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's no sign that the situation is likely to settle in not just the near futureindividuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749466510</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529148251
|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto
|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''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.''
Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a self-help book. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War AmericaWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J DoberOtegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had done things like tie toddlers ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyesbe seen as less desirable, injected children with radiationless hireable, sterilised those thought less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to be subhuman and even castrated Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a child just to get book by a supply writer of tissue for colour while only 7% study a book by a lab experiment, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germanywoman. I am not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>}}'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill StarkRichard Brook|title=High SobrietyUnderstanding Human Nature: My Year Without BoozeA User's Guide to Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=On the first of January 2011 Jill Stark woke up with the hangover from HellI am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. She was no stranger to them: at thirty five she'd been binge drinking for more than twenty years and was in the dubious position In my case, this is one of being the health reporter who wrote herself off at weekendslatter. And by Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'wrote herself off' I mean being seriously drunk on a very regular basisd have skimmed it, having consumed vast quantities found some of alcohol and having regularly put herself in danger of serious illnessit interesting, unwanted pregnancy and assault. But on that first day but it would not have 'hit home' in January Stark decided the way that she it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was going likely to do something about give it and a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the initial decision was book, even if it doesn't always turn out that she would spend three months on the wagonway'' ] – but also because it is a book I needed to read, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922247030</amazonuk>1800461682
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787332098|title=A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha MousaHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=A T WilliamsHenry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryPolitics and Society|summary=Almost ten years ago ''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on a Sunday morning back in September 2003, British Troops raided a hotel in Basra. It was a difficult period And we assign them places in the occupationsociety: cows go on plates, six months dogs on from the U.S. led invasion. Temperatures were more than 50 degrees centigrade. Members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) took ten suspects sofas, foxes in for questioning from a hotel rubbish bins, elephants in the vicinity of insurgent weaponry. The Iraqis were hoodedzoos, plasticuffed, forced into stress positions and subjected to karate chops and kidney punches by the British. Other men and officers watchedmillions of wild animals stay out there, walked by or wondered at the stench that resulted from vicious punishment. After 36 hours of torture''somewhere, a 26 year-old hotel receptionist lay dead by asphyxiation. His grossly disfigured body bore 93 individual injuries. There are now in '' hopefully on the region of another 250 individuals, men and women, whose families are making legal claims to have been killed in further encounters with British patrols or prison guardsnext David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575116</amazonuk>}}''
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1523092734
|title=A Women's Guide to Claiming Space
|author=Eliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rithy PanhPolly Barton|title=The EliminationFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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 the former high school Tuol Sleng (Tuol Slav Prey as it had been) and see what it became. I went to Choeung Ek, because you cannot NOT know about the killing fields, and you cannot really know about them until you have stood there.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689295</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ivo Mosley|title=In the Name of with the People: Pseudo-Democracy and the Spoiling of Our World|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=On the spectrum ranging between democracy and totalitarianism, Ivo Mosley upholds that the system of elective oligarchy lies closer to the latter. And yet, he essentially says, Western democracy as we know it today is question ''nothingWhy Japan?'' but this form of representative government, excluding Japan has been on my radar for a large proportion of the people whose freedoms it claims to protect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402626</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul McMahon|title=Feeding Frenzy: The New Politics of Food|rating=4|genre=Politics while and Society|summary=It's predicted that if the worldhadn's population will reach nine billion t gone into melt-down I would have visited by 2050 and given that now. I may get there are regular appeals for money to relieve a famine in some part of the world it's not unreasonable to wonder whether or later this year, but I am not we will be able to feed nine billion peoplehopeful. Recent turmoil in food markets adds to the worryAnd like Barton, but I don't know 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 answer 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>}} {{newreview|author=Mac Carty|title=The Vagaries Of Swing (Footprints on the Margate Sands of Time)|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Mac Carty tells us that the catalyst for question 'The Vagaries of Swing' was the BBC television series why Japan?'True Love' which portrayed a series She explains her feelings in respect of romantic encounters all set by the sea question in his home town of Margate. But Carty has taken the original idea - about relationships between people - and run with itfirst essay, extending which is on the sound ''lovegiro'' into ''passion''– which she describes as being, say for cricketamong other things, or (at the other end sound 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 reason. 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 a regular basis and usually over a pint. I've just read the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291336761</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emily Cockayne|title=Cheek by Jowl: A History of Neighbours|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=As Emily Cockayne emphasises at the beginning of the first chapter, almost everyone has a neighbour; if 'every party where you have a neighbour, you are one to introduce yourself; and neighbours can enrich or ruin our lives. In this engaging book, she takes various case studies and anecdotes of living side by side in Britain from around 1200 to the present day''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546949</amazonuk>1913097501
}}