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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17856330741787333175|title=Staggering HubrisYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Josh BerryBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=HumourPopular Science|summary=Members of Parliament like us I was tempted to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the read ''You Don'primus inter parest Have to be Mad to Work Here'' (thatafter enjoying Adam Kay's for those first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but insight into the reality is that workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don'primet Have to be Mad...'' movers are promised the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the memoirs work of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020a psychiatrist. You might not know the name now I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but he will certainly be the man to watchlaughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09MYXSRV4Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Otter's Coat: The Real Reason Turtle Raced Rabbit: A Cherolachian Tortoise and Hare|author=Cordellya SmithDisappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=When the world was madeDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the animals were given gifts. Bear was given strength so that he could become town of F for a protector. Water Spider received literary festival she is to be a strong web that even fire could not burnguest speaker at. Owl had excellent sight so that he could see the present ''Detoured by erratic train schedules and'' the futurenudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Rabbit developed intelligence - but, unfortunatelySwept up in this series of events, not the ability M eventually offers to use it well. He liked to trick other animals. He was also jealous which was how he came to be step in for a race with Turtlecircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. You might think that's not The train functions as a fair contest but wait motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and see. Things are not always as they seem. I'll tell you how it came abouta retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Giovanna FletcherB0GFQ81YQK|title=Walking on SunshineHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie|rating=4.5|genre=WomenChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Mike's wifeBefore people came and joined the animals, Pia, who he there was only the sky and the earth. Everything was with for seventeen yearsquiet until the earth and the sky began to tal to each other. First, has diedthe earth created bodies. And whilst he is dealing with his griefthen, the sky breathed life into them. These were the first humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. And so are people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, their best friends, Vicky bodies returned to the earth and Zazatheir life returned to the sky. But Pia left them all some 'rules' to follow, knowing And that she was dying is why the earth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that they would need help is why people must pay attention to carry on living, and care for, both. Whilst some of the rules are around practicalities such as clearing out her wardrobe}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GHPMNF6P|title=The Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary= When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, another one that Mike discovers one day encourages him he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take one over the running of their trips awaythe family's farm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, and Vicky and Zazauntil he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, struggling with their grief and their own suddenly life troublesis no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, decide but a dragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, and the zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to drop everything in their own livesraise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and go along with himnot being able to tell anyone about it.|isbn=140593560XBut this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529393930Stephanie Zabriskie|title=Making a Living: How Maasai Women Spoke to Craft Your Business|author=Sophie RochesterCows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=''Starting How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a creative business has never been easierchildren’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.''
''If not now, when?'' I know that I'm not alone in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into The Maasai are a businesscattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so. ThereCattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn's a lot t tell the whole story of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use the intimate and there are a lot of symbiotic connection its people who , and especially its women, have been delighted to accept what I make as giftswith their cows and for the natural world. Selling would offset The oral tradition retelling the costsmany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun to do, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need to think about? Well, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read ''Making a Living''does.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|author=Freya MarskeLivi Michael|title=A Marvellous LightElizabeth and Ruth|rating=43.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Robin Blyth ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is nudged into a job in work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Civil ServiceVictorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, much to his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey and learns that best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the streets treatment of London are threaded with magicthe working class published under a pseudonym. Desperate to remove The ''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's title appears in her novel as Pasley, a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and finds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a curse that threatens to swallow himdifficult and unjust hand at life. Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, Robin follows Edwin to the countryside, where novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the hedgegrows bristle with incantations Victorian working poor and interrogates the people shimmer with power. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in extent to which the British Isleswealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices. |isbn=15290808861784633682
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241480442Makenna Goodman|title=Healthy Vegan The Cookbook: Vegan Cooking Meets Nutrition Science|author=Niko Rittenau and Sebastian CopienHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=EmotionallyIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, I am a vegandisgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. MentallyHowever, I am Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a veganforce which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. I read [[How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance]] The connection between Helen and was appalled by the way in which we treat animals in our search for (preferably cheap) foodprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. Practically, I am not a vegan. It worked for a while apart from As the odd blip with regard to cheese but then a perfect storm former owner of those events which you hope donthe countryside house he't occur too often s considering, Helen represents a volta in your lifetime tempted me back his life, her past tied to animal-based proteinhis potential fresh start. It wasnThe realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''t the taste - I know an entity that I can get plant-based food that tastes just as good as anything plundered from is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the animal kingdom - it was reader gets the ease of being able to get sufficient protein when meals were often snatched in a few spare momentssense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=suppl_staflB0GCB1MQ7D|title=Supply Chain 20/20: A Clear View on the Local Multiplier Effect for Book LoversWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Kim StaflundAlan Kennedy|rating=4.5|genre=ReferenceAutobiography|summary=SoI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', youthere've finished writing your s frequently a book and you think they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the hard work is all done? Youtrue story. It're convinced s not often that all you need to do now is get it published and find a book that gives the money will start rolling in? Wrong full backstory, and wrong again. You presumably wrote rarely do you discover a memoir where the book because telling is so perfect that you wanted to - 'll go back and reread paragraphs and you had a talent sentences, just for delivering the written wordpleasure the words give. You knew your subject back to front''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. Now youIt're going to have to get to grips with s the story of how a boy from the book supply chainMidlands, which even parts born at the beginning of the publishing industry believe to be wrong but it's too difficult to change and no Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was one wants to be of the first to try. Then, when you ''finally'' have a copy founders of the book in your hands, you're going to have to work out how to sell it - because it ''is'' going to be down to youdepartment.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398706906Jeremy Cooper|title=The Lost|author=Simon BeckettDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The disappearance principal example of Metropolitan police firearms officerdiscord within the novel, Jonah Colley's young sonas with most instances of discord, Theois easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, just about finished himRebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, particularly are as he blamed himself for what had happeneddifferent as they come. He'd fallen asleep in Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the park whilst Theo was playing and when he wokemusical scene as a precocious saxophonist, Theo had gone. It cost him his marriage oozing with talent and his homecharm. Ten years later heThe two, predictably, don's largely come through it t always see eye to eye, their approaches different and heEvie's out progressive views at odds with his team when he gets a phone call from DS Gavin McKinney. Gavin used to be his best friend but itRebekah's a long time since they've spokenconservative leaning. He's obviously in some difficulty now - Jonah can hear it in his voice - and he asks Jonah to meet him at Slaughter Quay. ''There's no one else I can trust''However, he sayssomething connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda MasonTom Percival|title=The Hiding Place|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=Needing an escape from their turbulent life, Nell Galilee takes her husband and stepdaughter to Whitby, where they rent a cliffside holiday cottage by the name of Elder House. She hopes that it will be the perfect place to sort things out. But there's something not quite right about Elder House. The atmosphere is unsettling and off – and before long Nell starts to suspect that she and her family aren't alone there…|isbn=1838771964}} {{Frontpage|author=Paul Cleave|title=The Quiet PeopleWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary= I am not a fan of "the Prologue". Most books are the worse for them. In this case I might make an exception. We start with Luca Pittman who Will's life is difficult, in a hurrymultitude of ways. He has to hurry is bullied because he has children that 'the wrong shoes', he should not has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't haveenough money for even the most basic of things like food, and when his dad can't work because he hurrieslost his job at the college, when he bundles things was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the back of fact that his car mum and tries to run dad are separated, and then hears sirens behind himWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, which he should not hear because this still has a tiny amount of hope. He is New Zealand good at art, and that clings to the moments of joy when he is not how they do things theredrawing, he takes that feel like a light at the end of a risk. It ends badlylong, dark tunnel.|isbn=19131939421398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Will CarverEdward W Said|title=Psychopaths AnonymousRepresentations of the Intellectual |rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Maeve Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'' is less a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously strict theory of what intellectuals are and also, curiously, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also more a self-acknowledged psychopathpassionate argument for what they should be. Whilst analysing and critiquing Said clearly rejects the AA steps she is mainly using comfortable image of the groups intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to find targetsother specialists...targets for sexual encountersInstead, he insists on the intellectual as a public figure, targets to feed her desire to hear of people's miseryoften awkward, and targets for her violent behaviour. Yet she also seems to be searching for others who think as she doesabrasive, and when she's unable to find like-minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her ownunpopular, hoping who speaks truth to encounter others who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous power even when it is borninconvenient or risky.|isbn=19131937561804272248
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529418100Sylvie Cathrall|title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin WalkerA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=I'm not usually There are few greater joys than a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget which lives up to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' was hard to resist and I'm rather glad that I didn't even trycompelling premise. For those new to the series, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who and the background to why Bruno And this is in St Denisone of them.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GJW49GF1786482126|title=Buried Lies The Janus Stone (Gaby Darin Book 5Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Jenny O'BrienElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Hannah Thomas Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was having her first night away from her songoing to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Hunter had diabetes and Was this was controlled by a pump attached to his stomach, so her over-protectiveness was understandable, but her fiance, Ianritual killing or murder? Inevitably, was pestering her to get married and she thought it would be a good idea for him to find out what parenting was ''really'' likeDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Her friend, Milly, had arranged to take her boyfriend, LiamIt's difficult as Ruth knows, for a night in a posh hotel but then he dumped her and she couldnNelson doesn't get the money back, so Hannah was offered that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the opportunity to go in his placeone night they spent together some three months ago. She would return home Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to find Ian dead and five-year-old Hunter missingsudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GV3WS1Q0008551375|title=Without a TraceWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jane BettanyNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Life hadnLeanne Wilson't been easy for Ruth Prendergast: shes 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 come through a divorce and right out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now . Then it was raining hardemerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All she wanted was to get back to her new home were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and settle down for a quiet eveningsensible people. It wasnNone of the 't going what a stupid thing to be thoughdo' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: when she went into her bedroom she found DS Max Craigie is certain there's a dead man killer on her bed with a knife in his chest. She'd no idea who he wasthe loose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838774823Paul B Preciado|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: A Three Dog Problem|author=S J BennettDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=It's 2016 and the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Simon Holcroft has decided that too much good claret and It is never too little exercise is putting a strain on his waistband. Swimming, he decides, is the way to go and he can use the Buckingham Palace pool which is how he came to be there early one morning and discovered the body of Cynthia Harris at the side of the pool. There was broken glass - a crystal tumbler, by the look at it - probably one of the young royals being careless - and it looked as though Mrs Harris had slipped and cut herself so badly that she had bled out. Still, it was a shock for Sir Simon.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=057136358X|title=April in Spain|author=John Banville|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred late to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got embrace the chance to kill a lot revolutionary optimism of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time''. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''? It was after Percychildhood's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can. 
Dave is an author 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 artistoffering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. An inspirational speaker Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and a professional horseman. And a recovering alcoholicconservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The son whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a Lutheran ministerglobal scale, heor as ''pangea covidica''s struggled with . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a controlling fathersign of weakness, run away or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to join the circus (not a metaphor), trained horses, painted caravans, designed and painted theatre sets, and hit rock bottom when the bottle took over''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=B0965V3LLN1804271454
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tade ThompsonSamantha Harvey|title=Far From the Light of HeavenOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship RagtimeIn 2024, bound for Samantha Harvey won the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter Booker Prize for the ship's AI captain. However'Orbital'', when she wakes up at a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the end lives of her trip to find dozens a group of her passengers butchered and astronauts aboard the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on mirrors the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shellastronauts's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in toworbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagosour planet in a wholly new light. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=03565143231529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob Keeley295967572X|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 45|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrots, broccoli, cabbage and aubergines. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily Our unnamed narrator is keen about to explain how good begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they are for you 're going and how nice to eat. One daywhat the purpose of this journey is, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordan, who tells her that carrots grow on treesis uncertain. Infuriated, Lily checks with Django found the teacher, who explains that fruits grow tickets ''on trees the floor somewhere'' and vegetables, like carrots, grow has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the ground. Jordan says, "I did try past as the pair travel to tell her, Miss!" the station by coach and everyone laughs at poor Lilythe train is a steam locomotive.|isbn= B09HHN541V
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178607981X0008551324|title=Bad ApplesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Will DeanNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at It's unusual for anyone from the side of Hardie family to approach the roadpolice. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of Neither side likes or has any respect for the car - other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and heard he's prepared to tell the screams from deep inside police where the forest. Determining the direction body of a sound isn't easy when you need hearing aids missing person is buried and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where a woman who was holding responsible for her coat over death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the body of a manpolice doing what he wants. He'd been decapitatedAnd 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. He was Arne Gustav PerssonNot much to ask, a resident of Visbergis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdadottir1035043092|title=Cold As HellThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary= In I 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 red suitcase new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with 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 bottom body of a fissure popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a lava fieldstorm, there is a bodyshe can't resist getting involved. And He'd been battered about the man who has put her there has just discovered that he is capable head with a Neolithic stone - one of killinga pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1913193888
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeThea Lenarduzzi|title=FledglingThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Bavaria''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, 1900how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house In this compelling novel, built bit by bit over Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the decadesidentity of T, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods belowprotagonist of this tale. ItJust as T's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system story is not as we'd know itbeing told, the roof story of a second protagonist is retractableunveiled: Annie, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and daughter of a passion for the long-standing wealthy family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and in the dying grandma to our heroine19th century, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance died of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but ittuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassieimagination. Annie's bedroom window one stormy day fate is a cherub, above all, an enticing story to T. And if you think such It is a heavenly arrival is going to be story which she consumes avariciously, both in a completely great quest for truth and knowledge, and wonderful thingin service of myth, think again..fable and fantasy. |isbn=183994188X1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Anyone who Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is not an ablesteeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply usually a part symbol of everyday life. White men will always come firstintimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. The able will come before When the disabled. Jobsnarrator cries out internally, promotions''come over here and kiss me, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become ' it is less an invitation than a part desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of an organisation it's rare that their views are heardthis plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacteda ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Teresa Driscoll0008405026|title=Her Perfect A Stranger in the Family(Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=The novel begins by introducing you 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 Gemmaa halt. Now, who at first instance appears to be your average studenther mother, faced with the familiar horrifying realisationHelena, at the eleventh hour, that and her graduation outfit is all wrongfather are dead in their bed. Suddenly Initially, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there', paving s something about the way for positioning of the sinister tone bodies that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremonyboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex whodunit with a list of suspects double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that continues to grow the further you readexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1542028752
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=8409290103Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=If Only|author=Matthew TreeThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that ''We were born from the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was same body. I've never really wanted to send him a monthly allowancethink about this. Patrick sent the money regularly '' Ernaux's work is always very candid and a correspondence - her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to say than Patrickher sister, however, this letter will never reach her. It wasnWhy? Because Annie Ernaux't that Lowry senior didn't care for his sons sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, it a few months before the vaccine was that he didn't care to have him made compulsory in this country where he might be a danger to his wife France, and other children2 years before the author was even born. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to get the young man on his wayan 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
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen Maxim Gorky and David Hackston Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Rabbit FactorReminiscences 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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|isbn=1529077745
|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, he's perfect for A man walking his job dog in the insurance company – until they decide he's not early morning discovered the body of a team-member, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-planman in the park near Rosebank, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has died, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everythingcare home for troubled teens. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to occupy his mind, work a shift the night before but he perks who had never turned up a little when he sees huge holes . D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the finances – it runs at a steady moneymurder -moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and her only clue is the amount vanisheddisappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Fortunately (or otherwise) some Some people are quickly on believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the scene to explain that missing money – itgirl's been turned into a gambling debt diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has also now been inherited by Henri, and the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan..find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|isbn=191319387X
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|isbnauthor=1471179311Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Unheard|author=Nicci FrenchHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Tess''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, a teacher and Jason''House of Day, a headmasterHouse of Night'', have split up: she and Poppy have moved out somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the family home and Jason is now married small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to Emilynight, however quotidian, causing chaos. The separation was amicable - they had just drifted apart. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was But, the family home and another constant in that image is the flat she shares with her mother. It ''seemed'' to be working well until the day that Poppy came home with a menacing drawing of a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearing, using words she was unlikely to have heard in either home. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns to a therapist for helphouse, then her doctor and finally stoic against the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslyancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711966151836284683|title=IcedThe Big Happy|author=Felix FrancisDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=Miles Pussett used 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 Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourwild ride. He was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - And thatis just what happened with ''The Big Happy''s high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horses. ItI don's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that het want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'd never go back ll have to itat least set the scene. But when he sees Once that something suspicious is going on's done, Miles can't help but look I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for answers, even when it puts him in dangeryourself.
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|isbnauthor=147228612XSally Rooney|title=The Late Train to Gipsy Hill|author=Alan JohnsonIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably haven't taken much notice Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of thema grandmaster at putting it into words. They live quiet, uneventful lives Her dialogue is gripping and stay mostly under the radar. In a city like Londonso brilliantly frustrating, that's as her characters never quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himsay exactly what they feel. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on Among the many relationships woven into this story, the train each morning: he'd love central one for readers to ask her for a date but he doesn't have unravel is the couragefraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. ThenIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, on contrasts sharply with his homeward commuteolder brother Peter, Arina speaks to him and asks for his helpa successful lawyer living in Dublin. Before Following their father's passing after a long he finds himself on the run from mobstersbattle with cancer, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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|authorisbn=Claire McGowan1836285493|title=I Know YouThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=45|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=''Then:'' Casey returns from Will is a walk with the babykeen player of video games, Carsona conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and comes across three bodiesa supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, almost a whole family taken downand one at which he excels'This hasn'Now:'' Rachel is out for a walk with her dogt gone unnoticed by his headteacher, BrandyMrs Howarth, when and she comes across has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a body in the woodscouple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1542019974
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291482511009473085|title=Misfits: A Personal ManifestoThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Michaela CoelAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it''How am I able s simpler 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 explain a book by describing what it.'' Before you start reading isn't'Misfits'and that applies to ' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a selfThe Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 -help book14 Wasted Years?''. YouIf you're going to looking for an easy read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coelwill deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within t the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festivalbook for you. You might be If that's what you'readingre looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon' the s book but you need , {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'listen'is an entirely different beast. It' to s the seventh book in a series which looks at the words impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as though you're in the lecture theatremost important. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on This book follows the well-established format: a cloud series of experts from various fields review the state of exquisite writingthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Jenny Valentine|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=It was the sort of thing Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that happened every dayeven, although not to Leila Syed. She'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her their friendship is a once in a paniclifetime connection. He was supposed to be taking Max to school They meet as children one day on a trip out but heunfortunately they don'd been called into work and t get each other's contact details at the delay in getting there could lead to financial lossestime. As the school was only five minutes out of Leila's wayBut then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, could she drop him off? Of coursesomething terrible and tragic, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her now they must work toothrough their grief, and their friendship, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risktogether.|isbn=1471196585
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