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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sally Rooney1806344777|title=IntermezzoArthur and the Land of Nimbostratus: Arthur's Able Adventures|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction For Sharing|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard Arthur dreams of adventures. He looks out of life his window each day and is something thinks of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustratingall the escapades he could have, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, places he could go and the central one for readers to unravel things he could see. His favourite day is Saturday because that's the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan day his friend Maxine - she of the booming laugh and Peter Koubeksilver bangles - comes to visit. Ivan, Maxine is a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living great believer in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trialspower of imagination.|isbn=0571365469
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|isbn=10094730851035043092|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=Sometimes itI can's simpler t have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to explain start a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened new life on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for youOrkney. If thatIt's what you're looking forbeen seven years since we heard from him, I don't think Anthony Seldonbut he's booknow living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}as well as Cassie, can be bettered for those tumultuous yearsthe daughter of his former partner. ItWillow's a compelling read also his boss, and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. she ''The Conservative Effectshould'' be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book found, in a series which looks at the impact aftermath of a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most importantstorm, she can't resist getting involved. This book follows He'd been battered about the wellhead with a Neolithic stone -established format: one of a series of experts pair - which had been stolen from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024a museum.
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|author=Mark LinganePolly Barton|title=Chimera|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.'' ''Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.'' ''There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.'' As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradationWhat Am I, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive.|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784745758|title=Three Days in June|author=Anne TylerA Deer?
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=The day before your daughterPolly Barton's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked fordebut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. FirstThe narrator, it was her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted newly relocated from London to head but the discussion moved Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the subject process of 'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resignedlocalisation, depending on who was explaining the situationrewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. When she got home (Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in the middle striving for universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the daynovel opens out into a wider, resonant question: who would have thought that could happento what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying and that Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.|isbn=1804272175
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|authorisbn=Eowyn IveyZabriskie1|title=Black Woods Blue SkyA Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom|author=Stephanie Zabriskie|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Children's Non-Fiction|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of BirdieAcross many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the young mother world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They were understood as natural variations of toddler Emaleenhuman intelligence and awareness, who longs for a life beyond each holding value within the Alaskan lodge where she works as community.'' This lovely story is a bar waitresssynthesis of that tradition, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleenwas carried down through generations by oral retellings. Described as It shows that a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires community or society is not made up from interchangeable building blocks of a simple life surrounded human beings but by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn range of people with different skills and solitary mandifferent personalities, who says he has all contributing to a cabin over there, she feels called whole that combines them all and to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives foreverthe benefit of them all.|isbn=1472279042
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|authorisbn=Max Boucherat1787333175|title=The Last Life of Lori MillsYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersPopular Science|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening sheI was tempted to read ''You Don's got the house t Have to herself – no neighbour be Mad to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to log on to VoxminerHurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the world-buildingNHS, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldhumour and autobiography. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn''You Don't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyHave to be Mad... For '' promised the server she same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs the work of tamperinga psychiatrist. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the game has been doctored – well, where laughter is directed at a situation rather than a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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|isbnauthor=0008385068Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Midnight Feast|author=Lucy FoleyDisappearing Act|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ItDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's midsummer on message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the Dorset coast and guests gather town of F for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at The Manor. It's their opening weekend Detoured by erratic train schedules and splendid celebrations are promisednudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. It's all headed Swept up by Francesca Meadowsin this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The Manor was her ancestral home train functions as a motif of transience and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for impermanence, while the circus embodies the wealthy reshaping of identity and famous. Her husbanda retreat into fantasy, Owen, was an impulse that lies at the architect and work is still ongoing on parts very heart of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is foundnovel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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|authorisbn=James BaldwinB0GFQ81YQK|title=Giovanni's RoomHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Children's Non-Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows Before people came and joined the narrator Davidanimals, an American man living in Paristhere was only the sky and the earth. Everything was quiet until the earth and the sky began to tal to each other. First, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovannithe earth created bodies. And then, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay barthe sky breathed life into them. While David is engaged These were the first humans and they belonged to Hellaboth earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, who is travelling in Spainespecially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, their bodies returned to the real tension in earth and their life returned to the novel arises not from his infidelity but from sky. And that is why the deeper conflict within himselfearth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. It And that is David's crippling shame why people must pay attention to, and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovannicare for, both.|isbn=0141186356
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|authorisbn=B0GHPMNF6P|title=Ashley HicksonThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-LovenceUps|titleauthor=Wild EastCarolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensFantasy|summary=Written in verse, this is RonnyWhen Phil's storyfather unexpectedly dies, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronnytake over the running of the family's mum who is worried for Ronnyfarm zoo. He's safety after a tragic eventnot expecting much excitement, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a new town, a new schoolcave in New Zealand, and keep himself out of troublesuddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. He listens to music constantlyThen the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, and has always dreamed of being but a rapper. But nowdragon! Now he, in this new schoolEdgar, his teacher encourages him mother Abi, and the zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to be part raise this little bundle of a poetry writing workshop group scales andjoy, slowly, Ronny begins despite having no idea how to see the connections between rap actually raise dragons and poetry, not being able to tell anyone about it. But this tiny little dragon may show them love and the power of creativity and crafting your words.|isbn=0241645441connection in ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866847Stephanie Zabriskie|title=The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin VesciHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the book for youoral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Before I started reading '' The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://wwwMaasai are a cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to be so.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] Cattle are status and therewealth in Maasai culture but this doesn's a picture t tell the whole story of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the bookespecially its women, which I'm avoiding have with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book their cows and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in for the margins are sanctionednatural world. You get to fold down The oral tradition retelling the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this book alreadymany conversations Maasai women have had with their cows, does.|isbn=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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|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|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}}
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
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|authorisbn=Joan Didion0008551375|title=The Year of Magical ThinkingWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=This book is Joan DidionLeanne Wilson's heartbreaking autobiographical account body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the grief result of a tragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she endured following was living her husband's sudden deathbest life now. Books Then it emerged that shed light on taboo topics like death are such 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 beautiful and necessary resource stupid thing to help people feel less do' explanations applied. They were all alonewhen they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like }}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''  Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self-pity, denial and delusion brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and makes them utterly normalconservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, lends them when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a human face sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to wear''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=00072168581804271454
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|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.
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|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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|isbnauthor=0241678412Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Proof of My Innocence|author=Jonathan CoeTower|rating=45|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Life after university hasn't worked out quite 'How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the way that Phyl anticipatedprotagonist of this tale. SheJust as T's back homestory is being told, living with her parents and on the story of a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of Heathrow Airport. All those ideas a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of becoming tuberculosis after being locked in a writer seem to have come to nothingtower, captures T's imagination. The situation improves when Annie'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl s fate is, above all, an enticing story to his adopted daughter, RashidaT. Christopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) It is investigating a think tank story which originated at Cambridge University she consumes avariciously, both in the 1980s. It plans to push the government a quest for truth and knowledge, and in a more extreme direction service of myth, fable and is ready to actfantasy. |isbn=1804271799
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|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.
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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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|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 them leaves But then chance brings them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with herback together, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even they are inseparable. Something has happened though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, something terrible and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabeltragic, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is funnow they must work through their grief, and she definitely just hates Isabeltheir friendship, doesn't she?together.|isbn=000862657X1471196585
}}