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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jacqueline RoseMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Women in Dark TimesThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story s message in this short work of Birdie, autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the young mother town of toddler Emaleen, who longs F for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where literary festival she works as is to be a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day lifecontrol, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of journey slowly bends toward a simple life surrounded by naturetraveling circus. When she meets Arthur NielsonSwept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a strange, taciturn and solitary man, circus performer who says he has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a cabin over theremotif of transience and impermanence, she feels called to go - while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising ita retreat into fantasy, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives foreveran impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=14722790421804272329
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Max BoucheratB0GFQ81YQK|title=The Last Life How the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Lori MillsMalagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=We meet Lori on Before people came and joined the first evening she's got animals, there was only the sky and the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeearth. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, Everything was quiet until the earth and that is the sky began to log on tal to Voxminereach other. First, the world-buildingearth created bodies. And then, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldthe sky breathed life into them. But These were the first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, humans and they belonged to both earth and then she finds something even more spookysky. For the server she And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and her bestie learned and nobody else should remembered, especially how they came to be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screenthey grew old and died, their bodies returned to the earth and their life returned to the sky. And that is why the earth and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is a girl why people must pay attention to turn?|isbn=0008666482, and care for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008385068B0GHPMNF6P|title=The Midnight FeastZookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Lucy FoleyCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=ItWhen Phil's midsummer on father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. Itfamily's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promisedfarm zoo. ItHe's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, and she's converted suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husbandneither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he, Edgar, Owenhis mother Abi, was and the architect and work is still ongoing on parts zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of the site. The heat is oppressive scales and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going joy, despite having no idea how to be settled actually raise dragons and not being able to tell anyone about it won't be long . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before a body is found.imagined…
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|author=James BaldwinStephanie Zabriskie|title=Giovanni's RoomHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Children's Non-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 a gay bar. While David is engaged How Maasai Women Spoke to Hella, who Cows is travelling a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in SpainNgorongoro, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himselfTanzania. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356'}}{{Frontpage|author=Ashley HicksonThe Maasai are a cattle-Lovence|title=Wild East|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Written in verse, herding people and this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came 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 event, and be so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, Cattle are status and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, wealth in Maasai culture but this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part doesn't tell the whole story of a poetry writing workshop group the intimate andsymbiotic connection its people, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetryespecially its women, have with their cows and for the power of creativity and crafting your wordsnatural world.|isbn=0241645441}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1635866847|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci|rating=4oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, does.5|genreisbn=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 - 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 and I was told 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.B0G9WTGY6J
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|author=Jacqueline FeldmanLivi Michael|title=Precarious LeaseElizabeth and Ruth
|rating=3.5
|genre=BiographyHistorical Fiction|summary=The title of this novel refers to a French legal term (''bail précaireElizabeth and Ruth'') associated with squatters in France, affording them temporary suspension is a work of historical fiction wrought from eviction charges and processes, but few scant property rights. Among mentions the life of other squats dotted around Paris like Le Carrosse and La Miroiteriethe Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, Feldman takes particular interest in one squat of massive proportions which adopted an almost mythical status best known for its inhabitantsher first novel Mary Barton (1848), admirers and detractors alike: Le Bloc. Something like a haven for artists and marginal members radical critique of society (as one character, Le Général, repeats throughout, ''I live on the margins treatment of the margins of the marginsworking class published under a pseudonym. The ''Ruth''from Livi Michael')s title appears in her novel as Pasley, Le Bloc a young Irish prostitute who was subject to the continual threat of eviction abandoned as a child and the pressures from above which oppressed its inhabitantsfinds herself in Manchester' livess New Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. We follow Le Bloc from its opening Set in 2012 until its eventual dissolutionManchester between 1839 and 1842, framed as a tragedy in this bookthe novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices. |isbn=18042714031784633682
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|author=Jenny ValentineMakenna Goodman|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 MasonHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=There's It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a new Superintendent hard-to-place feeling that something in Thames Valley — DCS Wainwright—and she's youngyour life is not quite right. The protagonist, ambitious, and ruthless. She talks a good talk about work/life balance disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and family valueshis relationship, but as far as she's concernedembodies this feeling. However, she has two main problems, and they're both called DI Wilkins. Ray Wilkins Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is of Nigerian descentseductive, Baliol educated radical and always immaculately dressedunnerving: Helen. He's married to Diane The connection between Helen and has twin sonsthe protagonist is indirect yet intimate. Management's opinion As the former owner of him is that he thinks too highly of himself and his last boss felt that he needed more experience at what the countryside house he called 'the wet end'. Ryan Wilkins comes from s considering, Helen represents a trailer park - volta in facthis life, it could be said that he's never really left ither past tied to his potential fresh start. He lives in shell suits The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and tracksuits, always in vivid colours. Previous management was adamant that he should describes her as ''neveran entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form'' be given responsibility. Wainwright feels that Although she would be best shut of both of themlives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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|isbn=1787333175B0GCB1MQ7D|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work HereWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Benji WaterhouseAlan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=Popular ScienceAutobiography|summary=I was tempted have often wondered how prominent people came to read hold their positions. With 'celebrities'You Don, there't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kays frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's first not often that you find a book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This that gives the full backstory, and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is Going to Hurt}}so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, a glorious mixture of insight into just for the workings of pleasure the NHS, humour and autobiographywords give. ''You DonWhy My Mother Went Away't Have to be Mad..' is one of those rare exceptions. It'' promised s the same elements but moved story of how a boy from physical problems to mental illness and the work Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a psychiatristProfessor of Psychology at Dundee University. I did wonder whether it In fact, he was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but one of the founders of the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understandingdepartment.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Mariana EnriquezJeremy Cooper|title=A Sunny Place for Shady PeopleDiscord|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realitiesDiscord: her settings include an abandoned field full a lack of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishapagreement or harmony (as between persons, things, 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 into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. ideas)|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 principal example of discord within the worldnovel, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social mediaas with most instances of discord, where she posted every step is easily located. The two protagonists of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals the novel, Rebekah Rosen andEvie Bennet, basically, monetary gainare as different as they come. Now Anuri Rebekah is in her twenties an uptight, traditional and she is slowly trying no-nonsense composer close to regain her confidence and to get her life backretirement, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri while Evie is battling alcoholisma force of nature, failing to start her PhDbounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, undergoing therapy oozing with talent and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing socharm. Most importantlyThe two, she is desperately worried about her little sisterpredictably, who is the new focus of Opheliadon's online empire. Can she save her sistert always see eye to eye, their approaches different and perhaps herself and her relationship Evie's progressive views at odds with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|author=David Chadwick|title=Headload of Napalm|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary= ItRebekah's September 1973 in Hicksconservative leaning. However, California. Hicks is something connects them beyond just their musical project: a Mojave desert town sort 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 fragile alliance formed within the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until...clamour.|isbn= B0D321VJ761804272264
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage|author=Edward W Said|title=Representations of the Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they should be. Said clearly rejects the comfortable image of the intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, he insists on the intellectual as a public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who speaks truth to power even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Joan DidionNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions 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 a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=This book ''It is Joan Didionnever too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''s heartbreaking autobiographical account 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 offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the grief she endured following her husbandproportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''s sudden death. Books The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that shed light which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less aloneglobal scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pityRather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normalor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, lends them a human face Preciado urges his readers to wear''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=00072168581804271454
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{{Frontpage
|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.
|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=295967572X
|title=Pale Pieces
|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.
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|isbn=02416784121035043092|title=The Proof of My InnocenceKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Jonathan CoeAnn Cleeves|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Life after university hasnI can't worked out quite have been the way that Phyl anticipatedonly 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. SheIt's back homebeen seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with her parents Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of Heathrow Airporta storm, she can't resist getting involved. All those ideas He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothingpair - which had been stolen from a museum. }}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The situation improves when Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, Rashidathe protagonist of this tale. Christopher Swann (described by some Just as T's story is being told, the story of a lefty blogger) second protagonist is investigating unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a think tank which originated at Cambridge University wealthy family in the 1980s19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It plans to push the government is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a more extreme direction quest for truth and knowledge, and is ready to actin service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739526910Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen SibleyBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's lifeEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, he arrives is steeped in an unfamiliar Devon town to recoveranguish and distortion. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday homeEven a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, he dreams becomes evidence of reconnecting with everything he has love lost. But as those tentative plans falterWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me, he becomes swept up in '' it is less an invitation than a local world desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of unlikely friendshipsthis plea is Xavier, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilitiesher ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.''|isbn=1804271934
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{{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.
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{{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.''
Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.
|isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)
|title=Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of 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 vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.
|isbn=1804271977
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|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' 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}}{{Frontpage|isbn=13996130731836284683|title=Moral InjuriesThe Big Happy|author=Christie WatsonDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for Well! This is a quarter of murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousbook, which is a bonus when you aim it's nothing like I expected it to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist , and it takes me on a trauma doctorwild ride. Anjali And that is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them theyjust what happened with ''The Big Happy're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We I don't know who suffered the tragedy or want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the consequencesscene. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event Once that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involveddone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Sally Rooney|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction |summary=If you were to bring up an image Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a city banker in your mindgrandmaster 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, you're unlikely the central one for readers to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces unravel is the pin-stripe suit fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his background 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= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is the East Enda keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, where he was familiar with violenceis an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, poverty and injusticeone at which he excels. There was no posh public school on This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his CV - but mum that he had been to the London School spends a couple of Economicsafternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and he has Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a facility with numbers 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 most of us can only envywill deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. He also realised If that most rich people expect poor people to 's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be stupidbettered for those tumultuous years. It was his ability at what was, essentially, 's a card game which got him compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an internship with Citibankentirely different beast. Eventually, 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 turned into permanent employment as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a traderseries 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.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Leanne EganJenny Valentine|title=Lover BirdsUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When new girlElk and Mab are best friends, Isabelor more than that even, moves to Loutheir friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabelt get each other's disdain for everything around hercontact details at the time. A misunderstanding between But then chance brings them leaves them hating each otherback together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with herand now they must work through their grief, and thattheir 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 ''s definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isnYou Don't it? Because Lou Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is straightGoing to Hurt}}, isn't she? Even though none a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of her relationships with boys have gone very well so farthe NHS, humour and sheautobiography. 's never had 'You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a good kiss with any of them? psychiatrist. So she just finds herself watching Isabel, 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 wanting to hang out with her because fighting it is always delivered with her is fun, empathy and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?|isbn=000862657Xunderstanding.
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