Publication date: 2007-04-06
Dewey code: 363.325092
RRP: £16.99
Price: £0.65
Review One Unknown: A Powerful Account of Survival and One Woman's Inspirational Journey to a New Life / Rodale International Ltd:
Authors
- Lynne Spears
- Britney Spears
Price: £8.99
Review Britney Spears' Heart to Heart / Hodder & Stoughton Ltd:
Creator: Nat Finklestein
Publication date: 2007-07-30
Dewey code: 791.43028092
RRP: £18.99
Price: £9.60
Review Edie Factory Girl / Powerhouse Cultural Entertainment Books:
Authors
- Susan Ottaway
- Jackie George
Dewey code: 941
RRP: £16.95
Price: £47.95
Review She Who Dared: Covert Operations in Northern Ireland with the SAS / Pen & Sword Books Ltd:
Publication date: 2008-02-18
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £6.99
Price: £5.61
Review Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady / Filiquarian Publishing:
Edition: New e.
Publication date: 1998-10-13
Dewey code: 796.522095496
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.48
Review Annapurna: A Woman's Place / SIERRA CLUB BOOKS:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2002-07-01
Dewey code: 305
RRP: £6.99
Price: £12.95
Review A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother / Fourth Estate:Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work is the tale of her pregnancy and the birth of her daughter Albertine, which follows the ups and downs of the life of this first-time mother up to the time when her infant takes her first steps. Those moments, whether breastfeeding, coping with colic, enjoying her first smile or feeling free and yet trapped when away from her daughter, are told in raw and honest detail. Moments become hours, days, months and suddenly years-one colicky night can seem like any others for months, then suddenly distressed night-time crying is a thing of the past. Cusk has subtitled her book "On Becoming a Mother", and while other mothers may find similarities of experience within its pages-perhaps relief at not being the first or last mother who cannot leave her baby to cry, whatever the healthcare manuals might say-this is an account of her own unique experience with her daughter. Saturating the text is her almost unbelievable ignorance and naïvete about looking after babies. However, she herself admits on the very first page that "My own strategy was to deny it [childbirth] and so I arrived at the fact of motherhood shocked and unprepared, ignorant of what the consequences of this arrival would be". Cusk reads Dr Spock, Penelope Leach and the library of baby-care "experts" after the birth, and amusingly dismisses or agrees with their advice. She also intersperses her trials with excerpts from Jane Eyre's imprisonment in the Red Room to Lily Bart's childlessness in The House of Mirth and Coleridge's "cradled infant" in "Frost at Midnight". Cusk achieves engaging, amusing and touching reading out of what could be the interminable boredom of a crying, sticky, demanding baby. Despite her constant cries of fear of imprisonment by this "tetchy monarch", her love cannot help but seep through her moans and complaints, together with her almost frightened realisation that her daughter, even at a week old, is a separate person. [+]Cusk acknowledges her "stepdaughter, friend and ultimate ally", with the hope that she will one day read and like the book. Perhaps she should wait until she is pregnant with Cusk's first grandchild to be aware that her new experience is a very old story. -Olivia Dickinson.
Publication date: 2006-04-06
Dewey code: 362.76092
RRP: £14.99
Price: £1.34
Review Catch Me Before I Fall: Her Colour Made Her Different - The True Story of a Shattered Childhood / Virgin Books:
Publication date: 2006-07-01
Dewey code: 780
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.23
Review Read Between My Lines: The Musical & Life Journey of Stevie Nicks: The Musical and Life Journey of Stevie Nicks / SK Halliburton Enterprises:
Publication date: 2005-02-25
Dewey code: 070.51092
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.41
Review Front Row: Anna Wintour / Saint Martin's Press Inc.:
Publication date: 2001-09-13
Dewey code: 327.12410092
RRP: £18.99
Price: £19.99
Review Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 / Hutchinson:You have to admire the cheek of Open Secret's author Stella Rimington. After a career spanning 25 years in MI5, during which she was more than happy for the Official Secrets Acts to be used to the government's advantage, she is now outraged that attempts should have been made to block publication of her memoirs and is calling for the act to be reformed. In an extended preface to Open Secret, Rimington writes of her encounter with Cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, "By the end of an hour or so of being threatened, bullied and cajoled in the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger way the Establishment behaves to its recalcitrant sons and, as I now know, daughters, I was very shaken". One wonders what else she expected? The thought of any former director-general of MI5 writing his or her memoirs was bound to have disturbed the security services and, compared to many, Rimington got off lightly. But then, whatever else she might think, Rimington is still very much an Establishment woman. She submitted her manuscript for vetting, took out one or two edgy bits, and as she disarmingly points out, there are no revelations about the inner workings of the intelligence services. When she gets to any contentious issues, such as MI5's role in infiltrating CND and breaking the miners' strike, all she has to say is that MI5 never did anything wrong, that that those who say otherwise are conspiracy theorists and that we'll just have to take her word for it because she's right. The portrait that emerges of a bunch of mildly incompetent bureaucrats who wouldn't say boo to a goose does no favours to Rimington or MI5. The books does have its moments, particularly those describing a woman isolated in an almost exclusively male world, but its real significance lies in the fact it was published at all. If the director-general is allowed to go public, there's precious little to stop the MI5 foot soldiers doing likewise. [+]And when they do, the skeletons that Rimington has kept firmly locked in the cupboard might start to come tumbling out. -John Crace.
Publication date: 1998-08
Dewey code: 266.0092
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.78
Review Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime (Christian Heroes: Then & Now) / YWAM Publishing,U.S.:
Edition: 1
Publication date: 2008-10-17
Dewey code: 364.1552092
RRP: £12.00
Price: £7.12
Review Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning) / Chicago University Press:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-07-03
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.00
Review How Do You Want Me? / Ebury Press:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2004-12-28
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £7.61
Price: £4.25
Review Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self / Broadway Books:
Edition: 1
Publication date: 2007-11-01
Dewey code: 921
RRP: £17.99
Price: £8.39
Review The Vixen Diaries / Grand Central Publishing:
Publication date: 2004-09-15
RRP: £6.99
Price: £2.43
Review Jacqueline Wilson (All About) (All About) / Heinemann Library:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2004-08-19
Dewey code: 942.055092
RRP: £12.99
Price: £2.49
Review Elizabeth I / The History Press Ltd:
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2008-04-01
Dewey code: 791.4028092
RRP: £22.50
Price: £18.03
Review Home: A Memoir of My Early Years / Hyperion Books:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1994-05-19
Dewey code: 941
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.33
Review Ramlin Rose: The Boatwoman's Story / Oxford Paperbacks:
| Models & Brands:
One Unknown: A Powerful Account of Survival and One Woman's Inspirational Journey to a New Life, Britney Spears' Heart to Heart, Edie Factory Girl, She Who Dared: Covert Operations in Northern Ireland with the SAS, Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady, Annapurna: A Woman's Place, A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, Catch Me Before I Fall: Her Colour Made Her Different - The True Story of a Shattered Childhood, Read Between My Lines: The Musical & Life Journey of Stevie Nicks: The Musical and Life Journey of Stevie Nicks, Front Row: Anna Wintour, Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5, Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a Lifetime (Christian Heroes: Then & Now), Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning), How Do You Want Me?, Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self, The Vixen Diaries, Jacqueline Wilson (All About) (All About), Elizabeth I, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Ramlin Rose: The Boatwoman's Story |
