I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Twice As Hard is an exploration of Black Identity in the working world and a blueprint for success. You will learn what obstacles limit opportunity for Black professional progress, how to understand and overcome racial stereotypes, be productive, find purpose, and ultimately thrive in business.

Authors Opeyemi and Raphael Sofoluke explore their own personal brand of ethics, the challenges they have faced in their careers, and the learnings they took from them, before inviting other successful business people in a broad range of industries to share their experiences and the practical measures they take to realise their goals, too.

Featuring tips on entrepreneurship, as well as insights on the corporate world, this book highlights the positive advancements made in recent years, and equips individuals and businesses with the tools they need to continue to progress.

Twice As Hard aims to empower and inspire Black professionals, get everyone thinking and talking about their actions, and continue the fight for a truly inclusive, understanding society.

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The Verdict:

Raphael Sofoluke is the founder of the UK Black Business Show and UK Black Business Week. His wife Opeyemi Sofoluke is Lead Regional Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager at a “Big Four” tech company. This book is essential for Black people navigating the corporate world or developing their own entrepreneurial brand and also vital for white people who want to be better, constructive allies to Black colleagues and entrepreneurs.

TWICE AS HARD was released in the United Kingdom on 3rd June 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

”Someone in your life has died, and they are not coming back.” What a HUGE thing to say.

Grief can feel like a boat ride on a stormy ocean, but what if you had a lighthouse to guide you safely to shore? You Will Be Okay will help you navigate through the hard emotions you feel when someone you know has died, with practical activities, stories from others who have been through it and tips on how to talk about your grief. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, you just need to find your way.

You will be okay.

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The Verdict:

Julie Stokes is a clinical psychologist and executive leadership coach with a background in palliative care, who founded a grief support service called Winston’s Wish to support bereaved children. This is a deeply compassionate, well written and timely book that’s sensitively illustrated by Laurène Boglio and offers practical guidance to children aged 9+ on how to handle a bereavement, including how to process and talk about their emotions.

YOU WILL BE OKAY was released in the United Kingdom on 19th August 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

A new look at the future of life on Earth by the great scientific visionary of our age.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about the future of life on Earth. He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene- has already begun.

New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants - as desperately slow acting and thinking creatures. But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by sci-if writers and film-makers. These hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend them from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do. And Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project.

It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos. Maybe, he speculates, the novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At the age 100, James Lovelock has produced an important and compelling new work.

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The Verdict:

James Lovelock is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the originator of the Gaia Theory that the Earth is a self-regulating organism. Bryan Appleyard is a journalist. This is an interesting but light weight and contradictory book that asserts humanity is entering a new age called the novacene where cyborgs (essentially AI machines) will become dominant but, due to the nature of Gaia, will partner with humans due to their equal dependence on Earth.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

What was it like to live in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century? In a successor to his acclaimed Nine Wartime Lives: Mass Observation and the Making of the Modern Self, James Hinton uses autobiographical writing contributed to Mass Observation since 1981 to explore the social and cultural history of late-twentieth-century Britain. Prompted by thrice-yearly open-ended questionnaires, Mass Observation’s volunteers wrote about their political attitudes, religious beliefs, work, childhoods, education, friendships, marriages, sex lives, mid-life crises, ageing - the whole range of human emotion, feeling, attitudes, and experience. At the core of the book are seven ‘biographical essays’: intimate portraits of individual lives set in the context of the shift towards a more tolerant and permissive society from the 1960s, and the rise of Thatcherite neo-liberalism as the structures of Britain’s post-war settlement crumbles from the later 1970s.

The mass observers featured in the book, four women and three men, are drawn from across the social spectrum - wife of a small businessman, teacher, social worker, RAF wife, mechanic, lorry driver, banker: all active and forceful characters with strong opinions and lives crowded with struggle and drama. The honesty and frankness with which they wrote about themselves takes us below the surface of public life to the efforts of ‘ordinary’, but exceptionally articulate and self-reflective, people to make sense of their lives in rapidly changing times.

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The Verdict:

James Hinton is Professor Emeritus at Warwick University with expertise on 20th century British social history. Using 7 contributors to the Mass Observation project (which has been running since 1981) this absorbing and moving book assesses attitudes to the societal and economic changes of the 80s and 90s (albeit with caveats as to the reliability of the opinions expressed given that it’s a self-reporting project) and made me want to read more.

The Blurb On The Back:

Politicians continually tell us that anyone can get ahead. But is that really true? This important book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top.

Friedman and Laurison show that a powerful ‘class pay gap’ exists in Britain’s elite occupations. Even when those from working-class backgrounds make it into prestigious jobs, they earn, on average, 16% less than colleagues from privileged backgrounds. But why is this the case? Drawing on 200 interviews across four case studies - television, accountancy, architecture, and acting - they explore the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile.

This is a rich, ambitious book that demands we take seriously not just the glass but also the class ceiling.

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The Verdict:

Sam Friedman is Associate Professor in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Daniel Laurison is Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College. This is an absolutely fascinating book that really resonated with me about the role class and privilege play in social mobility and the role homophily still plays in career progression using case studies and interviews in an anonymised accountancy firm, TV channel, acting and an architecture firm.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

I’d always carried with me a burden of conviction I could not set down. I could not deny the beliefs that shaped me any more than I could deny the colour of my eyes.

It made for a lonely life.

It’s been several months since the US officially declared war on Iraq, and the world has evolved. Tensions are high, hate crimes are on the rise, and the Muslim community is harassed and targeted more than ever. Shadi, who wears hijab, keeps her head down. SHe’s too busy drowning in her own troubles to find the time to deal with bigots.

Shadi is named for joy, but she’s haunted by the loss of family and friendship. And then, of course, there’s the small matter of her heart - it’s broken. Trying to navigate her crumbling work by soldiering through, Shadi says nothing, each day retreating farther and farther inside herself until finally, one day, everything changes.

She explodes.

An Emotion Of Great Delight is a searing look into the world of a single Muslim family in the wake of 9/11. It’s about a child of immigrants forging a blurry identity, falling in love, and finding hope in an ever-changing world …

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The Verdict:

Tahereh Mafi’s YA novel is an uneven mix of melodrama, romance, coming-of-age story and recent historical events that, for me, is hampered by the fact that the main character is incredibly passive so all the events happen to her rather than her driving them. Although that’s a believable reaction as Mefi is overwhelmed and shutting down, I didn’t find it interesting to read so that and the melodramatic style left me somewhat disappointed.

AN EMOTION OF GREAT DELIGHT was released in the United Kingdom on 10th June 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Tiger Warrior.

Jack loves his grandad’s stories about the Jade Kingdom, a world of heroes, beasts and adventures.

But when Grandad gives him a magic coin, Jack discovers the kingdom is real … and he has to save it from terrible danger.

Can Jack and his new friend Princess Li stop the deadly Dragon King?

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The Verdict:

M. Chan’s fantasy novel for readers aged 6+ (the first in a series) makes good use of the Chinese zodiac and mythology, has dynamic illustrations by Alan Brown and plenty of action to keep young readers but the story is a little choppy and predictable (which young readers won’t necessarily realise but more experienced readers will). It’s a perfectly okay read and one that young martial arts fans will enjoy but I can’t say I’d rush to read on.

TIGER WARRIOR: ATTACK OF THE DRAGON KING was released in the United Kingdom on 8th July 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Meet Kitticorn.

She’s cute, she’s fluffy and she LOVES to explore! But Prince Miles doesn’t have time for adventures when he has the perfect picnic to organise and a strict schedule to follow. Can Kitticorn show him that sometimes the best kind of fun is unplanned?

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The Verdict:

The fourth in Matilda Rose and Tim Budgen’s THE MAGIC PET SHOP SERIES of picture books is a cute read about not judging by appearances and learning that sometimes you need to kick loose and be open to adventures and havoc rather than living by rigid plans. It was a little too sweet for me and I would have liked it if Kitticorn had learnt that sometimes planning is useful but young readers should enjoy the emphasis on play and having fun.

KITTICORN was released in the United Kingdom on 22nd July 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Do not trust the Liar.
Do not go in the River.
Do not cross the King.

In Red Valley, California, you follow the rules if you want to stay alive. But even that isn’t enough to protect Sadie now that she’s unexpectedly become the Liar: the keeper and maker of Red Valley’s many secrets. In a town like this, friendships are hard-won and bad blood lasts generations, and when not everyone in town is exactly human, it isn’t a safe place to make enemies.

And though the Liar has power - power to remake the world, with just a little blood - what Sadie really needs is answers: Why is the town’s sheriff after her? What does the King want from her? And what is the real purpose of the Liar of Red Valley?

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The Verdict:

Walter Goodwater’s contemporary fantasy novel is a slickly plotted, vividly imagined affair about power, authority and belonging and has a well realised main character who I rooted for. The world building works very well and I loved the way he incorporates his fantasy elements but the ending was, for me, slightly anti climactical given the events building up to it. Still there is scope here for a sequel, which I would definitely read.

THE LIAR OF RED VALLEY by Walter Goodwater will be released in the United States on 28 September 2021 and in the United Kingdom on 30th September. Thanks to Rebellion Publishing for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Sofia thinks her little brother is MESSY! And LOUD! And always DEMANDING Mummy and Daddy’s attention!

So when she finds out she’s going to be a big sister again, she shouts ‘NO MORE BABIES!’

Will Sofia ever feel happy about having another new baby in the house?

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The Verdict:

This delightful picture book by Madeleine Cook with absolutely spot on illustrations by Erika Meza is a must-read for any little ones who are having trouble adjusting to having a younger sibling. It’s also that rare picture book that can give parents and carers ideas for how to help little ones adjust to having a smaller sibling so they don’t feel neglected. I thought it was smashing and well worth your time.

NO MORE BABIES was released in the United Kingdom on 3rd June 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.