'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Guy Delisle
|title=Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
|summary=Meet Guy. He's a French-Canadian animator, leaving home for a short stay in the capital of one of the world's most intriguing, unknown and alien cultures - Pyongyang, North Korea - so he can work on a TV cartoon co-production. Forced to stay in one of the three official hotels designed for foreigners, so that the locals and people such as he do not have to mix, he see glimpses of the unique socialist dictatorship, stunning views of the buildings forced through the poverty, and thousands of unreadable faces.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079905</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Osman
|summary=The story opens when Tess bumps her old reliable car into a breakdown truck. That's rather convenient, since she isn't hurt, and the guy driving it is able to tow her to his garage, and then give her a lift to her new home. Naturally, since this is the 'chick-lit' genre, Tess and the truck-driver, who goes by the unlikely name of Ratty (an abbreviation of his surname) feel mutual antipathy of the sort that's clearly going to lead, sooner or later, to strong attraction.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931224</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary Beard
|title=It's A Don's Life
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Professor Mary Beard, feisty Cambridge classics don, keeps an eye open for architectural detail wherever she goes. Even on holiday, she notices the changing urban landscape and records interesting parallels with ancient cities in her sparky blog. She is engaged in writing a detailed history of Pompeii and suddenly realises, whilst perambulating the backstreets of the Mexican city of Oaxacan, that this is exactly what Pompeii must have been like. She observes the low rise shops, dirt tracks across dusty streets and the close juxtaposition of rich and poor. Impressive portals of grand residential properties tower above humble workshops, and this prompts her into imaginative reconstruction. In her blog, from which this intriguing book is culled, she tells us about just how Oaxacan encourages her to ponder again the curious cart ruts of Pompeii. She even finds walls splashed with political slogans that are just like Roman ''dipinti''. Indeed, here in Mexico, the local library displays an edifying message in Spanish which originates in Cicero's speech in his Pro Archia, ''Science and letters are the nourishment of youth and the diversion of old age.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682517</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kate Tremayne
|title=The Loveday Conspiracy
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Trevowan Manor has been the home of the Loveday family for generations. It will still be owned by a Loveday but St John Loveday lost the house on the throw of a dice before killing himself – and now his cousin Tristan has the house. St John's twin, Adam, vows that he will punish the man responsible. Amelia has been forced from Trevowan and is now living in a cottage with the other dispossessed women. As if this wasn't enough of a problem, her son from her first marriage, Richard, has become even more than wayward and Amelia is forced to make a difficult choice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755347676</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julian Barnes
|title=Staring at the Sun
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie, hyacinths and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly on the golf course - until the War comes and he runs away to America. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroom.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexandra Bruce
|title=2012: Science or Superstition
|rating=3.5
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=The fuss about 2012 has not started just recently. The first book to feature the story was from a Yale professor, in 1966. We've also had prog rock bands named after Popol Vuh, the Maya creation myth. But as the crunch date of December 21st, 2012 - the winter solstice that year - nears, it's becoming a very big story indeed. Even though it sounds absurd - the end of a 5,125-year long cycle of the Maya calendar, which started on August 13th, 3114BCE - or was judged to start then, when they came across this concept a couple of thousand years into that period. Surely they couldn't predict the future from their 'primitive' state with such accuracy?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1934708283</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jeff Kinney
|title=Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that school summer holidays are only enjoyable if you want to enjoy summer. Greg here doesn't want to notice it, and would prefer to spend his days curtains drawn, face glued to late night TV or a computer game, hand either clicking away at a controller or shovelling in snacks. The last thing he needs, then, is his mother, on a ''family togetherness'' trip, and on a budget, with bad ideas of what Greg should be doing instead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327650</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rick Yancey
|title=The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In late 19th century America, young Will Henry has been the apprentice of the stern, forbidding Dr Warthrop since the death of his parents, who were also employed by the doctor. The twelve year old boy has seen many things in his service to the monstrumologist - a specialist in monsters - but nothing can prepare him for the fateful day when an elderly grave robber brings the doctor the twin corpses of a young girl and the headless creature with fangs in his chest who had tried to feast on her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738546X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stella Whitelaw
|title=Midsummer Madness
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=You'll like Sophie Gresham. She wanted to be an actress but suffers from paralysing stage fright and when the side effects became too much for her she worked behind the scenes. She's a very good prompt despite the fact that you need to wrap up very warmly to survive in the prompt corner she loves her job and most of the cast in the theatre company. It's a bit of a shock though when she realises that the guest producer from New York is Joe Harrison, the man she helped out when he had nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. Sophie was a little softer in those days – in the meantime she's had to develop a protective shell.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089147</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bonnie Greer
|title=Obama Music
|rating=3
|genre=History
|summary=This is an interesting read, but unless I'm missing something, the focus of the book seems a little difficult to grasp. It's best if I start with the author's intentions as set out in her Prologue. It is a mixture of tales of her own life growing up on the South Side, she writes, interspersed with stories and observations about Obama, linking it with the music, musicians and music scene, past and present, including hip hop, country, classical, and rock'n'roll. All of these, she notes, were heard on the President's Inauguration Day. To them she adds the blues, gospel, soul and jazz of the South Side, when the people began to build the great institutions and great solidarity that enabled him to become the most powerful man on the planet.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558248</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=P J Parrish
|title=Dead of Winter
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loon Lake, Michigan is picture-postcard pretty – an idyll that sits serenely and snugly in the midst of a pine-peppered winter wonderland. Louis Kincaid needs a little serenity in his life and on arrival in Loon Lake he feels almost as if he has come home. Life has not been easy for Kincaid. A troubled, unhappy child of mixed race, passed around various institutions and foster homes, Louis figures that if he is going to put some integrity back into the world, he will need to wear a badge to do it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391346</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Russell Celyn Jones
|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is the main means of transport. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one another, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their lives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Owen Sheers
|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the old tale, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britain. She marries the King of Ireland, who doesn't treat her well. She manages to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensue.
In this new tale, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers who, in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jennifer Bohnet
|title=Follow Your Star
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=It's three years since Nanette Weston left Monaco. She'd been engaged to a Formula 1 racing driver and had lived the life of the wealthy but a serious car accident had ended all that. The accident could have killed her fiancé and she lost her driving licence because of the alcohol she'd consumed. Her slow recovery was hindered by the end of her engagement but she's found some contentment in being a nanny to two young children. When her friend and employer, Vanessa, remarries and takes an extended honeymoon in the Amazon Nanette is asked to take the children back to Monaco where their father lives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089090</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=J R Stephenson
|title=Crooked Justice
|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary break, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. It's a big stone that hides him, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
}}