Cher (2024) Cher: The Memoir, Part One. HarperCollins.
After seven decades Cher’s story is too big for one volume. In Part One we are taken from her mother Georgia’s dark and unstable childhood, to Cher’s less than normal upbringing – miserable hardship, multiple ‘fathers’, mother’s constant search for fame, and always moving moving, until at the age of 16 she meets and goes to live with Sonny Bono a 27-year old musician. She tracks her career that starts as a backup singer for Phil Spector, followed by pop stardom with Sonny and later to the wildly popular Sonny and Cher Show which made her a household name. However the duo failed to thrive when Sonny’s coercive behaviour, infidelity and financial abuse eventually led Cher to walk out. We leave Cher in her early thirties her career as a solo artist and as an actor ahead of her. Chatty celebrity filled memoir about resilience, talent and becoming an icon. Looking forward to Part Two.
Rating: 4/5
Tyler, Anne (2025) Three Days in June. Chatto & Windus.
Gail Baines is a very orderly and disciplined person, some consider her to be acerbic and socially inept. Over the three days of this story Gail must navigate her daughter Debbie’s wedding, come to terms with the possibility of being jobless and host unwelcome guests – Max her big messy amiable ex-husband and a homeless older cat. The signs are not good. Gail is flustered by the arrival of her ex as he stirs up uncomfortable memories. When Debbie discloses a potential infidelity by her groom Gail reveals her own disloyalty to poignant effect. Touching, hopeful and beautifully observed storytelling.
Rating: 5/5
Sittenfeld, Curtis (2025) Show Don’t Tell. Doubleday.
A wry and thought-provoking collection of twelve short stories exploring dilemmas, insecurity, memory, prejudice and entitlement. The characters analyse their own and others’ societal position, creative talents, physical attractiveness, and economic status, with contemporary issues as a background. A for Alone experiments with the Mike Pence rule of avoiding one-on-one time with members of the opposite sex, White Women LOL sees a white woman branded a ‘Karen’ on social media for confronting Black restaurant patrons, and Show Don’t Tell examines humility and literary success. A compulsive collection of finely nuanced tales.
Rating: 4/5
Yeo, Sophie (2024) Nature’s Ghosts: The World We Lost And How To Bring It Back. Harper North.
Human activities have permanently altered our natural world and past ‘ghosts’ still haunt the land. Sophie Yeo examines landscapes of the past by exploring species and environmental loss, from the Pleistocene landscapes carved by megafauna, to the eagle-haunted skies of the Dark Ages, to pollen records and rewilding initiatives. As ecosystems vanished with the advent of agriculture species were driven to extinction. Early farmers carved out space for new open-land species. Recognising that many of our attempts to control nature have often failed Yeo highlights the need for conservation that reintroduces old diversity into the modern farmed landscape to prevent ecological collapse. Personal and provocative. Compelling read.
Rating: 5/5
Bradley, Kaliane (2024) The Ministry of Time. Sceptre.
There is a lot going on in this science fiction novel! In a future UK time travel has been discovered and the Ministry of Time is experimenting by bringing historical figures, who were near death, into the future, to be assimilated into modern society. The narrator is the disaffected daughter of a Cambodian refugee who is employed as a ‘bridge’ for a nineteenth century seaman from a doomed Arctic expedition. An unlikely romance ensues. This is an immigrant story, where fear, conflicting cultural norms and experiences are channeled in a sinister world. Its scope is vast covering off on issues from the British Empire and geopolitics to genocide and climate change. Something for everyone! Off-beat but in spite of all the book’s hype, tonally and story-wise it did not jell for me.
Rating: 2/5
Zeldovich, Lina (2024) The Living Medicine: How Phages Will Save Us When Antibiotics Fail. Black & White.
In an era of antibiotic resistance phages are positioned to become a powerful ally in the escalating super bug fight. Humans desperately need an alternative to antibiotics. Instead of prescribing an antibiotic your doctor could give you a vial of bacteriophage, a special type of virus that preys on the bacteria only. Phages are a natural virus that operate differently by playing a vital role on the human virome – a viral counterpart to our microbiome, which safeguards us from pathogens. Unfortunately, in the West phages are not available as medication yet, unlike in the former Soviet territories. Zeldovich explores the history of phages, the work of Georgia’s Eliava Institute and current pharmaceutical research. Convincing. Science writing at its best.
Rating: 4/5
7:30 Bookclub 