Just popping up to say I’ve had two reviews at Shiny New Books over the last week, so do pop over if you’d like to find out more.
The Future of Trust by Ros Taylor
The Futures Series from indie publisher Melville House UK recently launched with four titles that couldn’t be more different from each other: going from Songwriting, to Trust, to War Crimes Justice, to Wales! These smaller A-format flapped paperbacks are short nf / novella length perfect for the extended essays between their covers. The expert authors are as wide-ranging as the titles and have been challenged by the publisher to come up with ideas to get us thinking and talking about their topics.
I got The Future of Trust to read and review. A subject slightly outside my usual fare but the blurb sounded so thought-provoking – indeed, it was a thought-provoking read, and I left me with plenty to think about and maybe question my own attitudes towards trust. Author Ros Taylor is a journalist and podcaster, previously having worked at the Guardian and the LSE where she was research manager for the Truth, Trust & Technology Commission, so ideally placed to comment in this area. If the other titles in this series are as fascinating as Trust, they’ll be well worth reading indeed.
Read my full review HERE.
Melville House, flapped paperback, 160 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)
To the Dogs by Louise Welsh
Welsh is probably my favourite contemporary Scottish author, a crafter of satisfying thrillers with an important social side to them, and often set in Glasgow. To the Dogs is a super standalone which shows the murkier side of the gravy train, when university vice-chancellor and self-made man Jim Brennan has to dive into his family’s gangster past to save his son in prison on a drug dealing charge. A good man forced into doing not so good things to save his family – or was he already doing that via the schmoozing of potential not so ethical donors? It’s an interesting dichotomy, isn’t it?
Read my full review HERE.
Canongate hardback, 368 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via our affiliate link (free UK P&P)
I’ve left a title on your review of The Future of Trust, such an important topic and one of more than mere philosophical interest.