Lovereading Latest: The Real World

Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 - Sonnet Stanfill and Oriole Cullen

Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950
Sonnet Stanfill and Oriole Cullen

Format: Hardback - Released: 07/05/2012
Lovereading Price: £15.00 - Saving £5.00 (25%)

May 2012 Non-Fiction Book of the Month. Published to tie in with an exhibition opening on 19th May and running throughout the year. A quite fascinating progress through recent women’s fashion for glamorous evening wear. A change that we follow from the highly structured and corseted New Look to the more recent trends of deconstruction and asymmetry with folded and pleated fabric showing new materials, radical new ways of wearing clothing. As ever with V & A costume books, the colours are rich and vibrant but I would just have loved a bigger book with more detail and I would have loved to see inside some of these costumes to look at their construction. Like for Like ReadingThe Golden Age of Couture: Paris & London 1947-57, Claire WilcoxFashion History: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century, Akiki Fukai

The Bicycle Book - Bella Bathurst

The Bicycle Book
Bella Bathurst

Format: Paperback - Released: 26/04/2012
Lovereading Price: £6.74 - Saving £2.25 (25%)

May 2012 Travel Book of the Month. A brilliant, charming, engaging look at the sometimes weird world of the bicycle and bicyclist. The people who ride them (including over water), the people who build them (the revered magicians), in fact a huge cast of colourful characters and stories. A must for any fan of pedal power.

Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan - Zarghuna Kargar

Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan
Zarghuna Kargar

Format: Paperback - Released: 03/05/2012
Lovereading Price: £6.74 - Saving £2.25 (25%)

Starting life as part of the BBC World Service transmission, Afghan Woman’s Hour, women were encouraged to tell their stories, it became one of the most widely listened to programmes in the country. Zarghuna Kargar interweaves her own story around these biographical fragments, tragic stories of women broken and downtrodden by such a deeply traditional and conservative culture where women have value only as bearers of sons. The situation has worsened due to the wars adding widowhood and disablement to women’s woes. There are chinks of light among the stories, a loving relationship, a woman finding a way of supporting her family, another able to choose the man she loves but one is left angered and saddened at the treatment meted out to the Afghan women and deeply grateful to Zarghuna Kargar for revealing the plight of these women. Like for Like Reading: Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick

The Way I See It : Rants, Revelations And Rules For Life - Alan Sugar

The Way I See It : Rants, Revelations And Rules For Life
Alan Sugar

Format: Paperback - Released: 26/04/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

Given Sir Alan’s public face I was prepared to be annoyed and at odds with his views but found so much sense and refreshing lack of bullshit in The Way I See It that I’ve become rather a fan. His personal recollections of starting in business, failures as well as successes underline a lot of what has changed in modern Britain. The dead hand of Health and Safety, ambulance chasing lawyers, pap journalism and government bureaucracy stifling creativity. But hard work, conviction and determination can still win out. Highly motivating reading, highly enjoyable to read and a real insight into Alan Sugar himself. Like for Like Reading:Top Man: How Philip Green Built his High Street Empire, Stewart LansleyBusiness Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur, Richard Branson

Arab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks Out for Freedom and Justice from North Africa to Iran - Nasser Weddady and Sohrab Ahmari

Arab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks Out for Freedom and Justice from North Africa to Iran
Nasser Weddady and Sohrab Ahmari

Format: Paperback - Released: 08/05/2012
Lovereading Price: £8.99 - Saving £3.00 (25%)

Reading here of the Arab peoples and their struggles seems to echo uncomfortably with our own history, knowing how long it took to wrestle power from the religious and political elites, how long for women in particular to gain the rights that should be theirs. This book of wishes and dreams lays out the hopes – and prayers of those in the Arab world struggling for the most basic of human rights. It shows vividly that beneath the public face seethes discontent, fear and longing for a better world. There is optimism, sadness, hope and despair, a growing number of people unhappy with their lack of rights and freedoms. One is left feeling anger at the sclerotic regimes who hold down their population at any cost and with hope that there will be a better way. Like for Like ReadingKarama! Journeys through the Arab Spring, Johnny WestThe Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising, Paperback 256 pages C Hurst & Co Publishers 1st July 2011 9781849041591

District Nurse - Patricia Jordan

District Nurse
Patricia Jordan

Format: Paperback - Released: 26/04/2012
Lovereading Price: £5.99 - Saving £2.00 (25%)

A reissue of an old favourite in this highly popular nostalgic genre, taking us back to a time when district nurses were a common sight and cycled the streets taking care of patients in their own homes. Patricia Jordan was born in Irealnd and came to England to train – a long, hard process in the 1940’s. She them became a district nurse, and now shares her experiences of patients and fellow professionals in her thoroughly likeable autobiography.Like for Like ReadingYes Sister, No Sister: My Life as a Trainee Nurse in 1950’s Yorkshire, Jennifer CraigNurse on Call: Tales of a Black Country District Nurse, Edith Cotterill

The Tao of Travel - Paul Theroux

The Tao of Travel
Paul Theroux

Format: Paperback - Released: 05/04/2012
Lovereading Price: £7.49 - Saving £2.50 (25%)

April 2012 Travel Book of the Month. A travel miscellany with Paul Theroux’s best pieces interspersed with his choice of the best travel writing. Travellers' tales new and old – from novice to expert.Like for Like ReadingOxTales: Meetings with Remarkable Travellers, Ruth PadelThe Smell of the Continent: The British Discover Europe, James Munson & Richard Mullen

Nightwalk A Journey to the Heart of Nature - Chris Yates

Nightwalk A Journey to the Heart of Nature
Chris Yates

Format: Hardback - Released: 26/04/2012
Lovereading Price: £11.24 - Saving £3.75 (25%)

Chris Yates, one of Britain's most insightful and lyrical writers, raises his gaze from his beloved rivers and ponds and takes us on a mesmerizing tour of the British countryside. Last November, the sudden appearance of a hundred wintering ravens in a wood in Cranborne Chase, where I have lived for twenty-five years without seeing more than a few solitary specimens, reminded me that there is always something ready to flame up again in the landscape, just when it seemed the fire had gone out. In Crystal Wood we accompany Chris Yates on the most magical of journeys into the very heart of the British countryside. His acute observation of the natural world and ability to transcend it exquisitely sets Chris apart from his contemporaries. Time slows down for a deeper intimacy with nature, and through Chris's writing we hear every rustle of a leaf, every call of a bird. He widens the power of our imagination, heightening our senses and revealing beauty in the smallest details.