by Chris Richards. Shirley Library, Southampton are Winners of the Best Library Display of the Booker Prize Short List 2019. “The hardest thing to source were the rubber ducks!” says Fran Simonis, who along with colleague Cath Brear of Shirley Library, Southampton, set up the winning display. The competition...
Books
Book review: We Are The Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer
reviewed by Dan O’Farrell. All sensible people care about climate change. We are all worried about it. But are we really worried? Do we actually believe it? This is the central question around which Jonathan Safran Foer’s new non-fiction book revolves. Using examples and anecdotes from both world history...
Book review: In The House In The Dark Of The Woods by Laird Hunt
reviewed by Sarah Groszewski. A story worthy of Halloween, the book is an unusual and atmospheric, twisted fairy-tale for adults with a liking for eerie horror and fantasy. Laird Hunt’s seventh novel is a contemporary fairy-tale that follows a young Puritan woman’s journey as she sets off into a...
Book review: Heaven My Home by Attica Locke
reviewed by Frances Churchward. The latest book from award-winning Attica Locke is set mostly in Texas shortly after Trump’s election to the presidency. Immediately following the election there appears to be a rise in the activities of the far right. In East Texas, a nine year old boy has...
Book review: The Burning Land by George Alagiah
reviewed by Frances Churchward. The Burning Land is George Alagiah’s first novel. Alagiah is, of course, well known as a presenter of BBC news. Before becoming a news presenter, he worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC during which time he covered several major conflicts and he has...
Book review: Austen Secret by Richard M Jones
reviewed by Chris Richards. Exciting and satisfying, Richard M Jones presents an adjacent history beginning back over 200 years ago, showing the ripples of choices and snap judgements made down the years in his new fiction novel Austen Secret. This is the second adventure with Sidney, Ali and Gemma...
Book review: The Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
reviewed by Frances Churchward. Laura Lippman’s latest novel is set in 1960s USA, in times when many women were expected to stay at home and look after house, husband and children. It was also a time of huge racial discrimination, when attacks on Negro women attracted little attention from...
Book Review: Our Women on the Ground: essays by Arab women reporting from the Arab world, edited by Zahra Hankir
by Alex Thurley-Ratcliff. A first of its kind, this collection of writing by Arab women journalists is both challenging and thought-provoking. It’s not comfortable reading but it’s well worth picking up, because it totally delivers. The nineteen essays cover an enormous range – from Lina Attalah’s “On a belated...
Book Review: Outgrowing God: a beginner’s guide by Richard Dawkins
by Alex Thurley-Ratcliff. “Should we believe in God? Do we need God in order to explain the existence of the universe? Do we need God in order to be good?” asks the back cover blurb on Richard Dawkins latest book. Dawkins does not just return a list of answers...
Book review: The Rapture by Claire McGlasson
Reviewed by Sally Churchward. I defy anyone to read even the cover of Claire McGlasson’s debut novel, and not be intrigued. “This is the Garden of Eden. Hidden in plain sight. It was here in Bedford all along. Welcome to the Panacea Society, a terribly English cult.” McGlasson’s work...