Book Review: Becoming Cliterate – Why Orgasm Equality Matters And How to Get It by Laurie Mintz
 
I love reading non-fiction books that teach me something. I generally read three books at once, usually I’ve got a fantasy book, a non-fiction book and a random genre book going at the same time.
 
Recently, I listened to the audiobook of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari which was great. But then I read Becoming Cliterate by Laurie Mintz and WHOAH. It was brilliant. Super interesting and illuminating. I recommended it to all my female friends who love reading, and here I am recommending it to you! ​

Book Review: The Green Unknown: Travels in the Khasi Hills by Patrick Rogers
 
This travel memoir details one man’s adventures in the Khasi Hills in Meghalaya in north east India. This is a rainy land of dense jungles, waterfalls and where many ancient living bridges can be found. These living bridges have been grown from the roots of trees and bound and manipulated by the ancestors of those who currently live there to provide crossing places during the rainy season floods and over deep ravines. ​

Have you ever read a non-fiction book that made you stop everything and think, “Whoah, I didn’t know that, and now I do my entire worldview has changed”? 
 
Well, here are five books that did exactly that to me when I read them, and I feel a much more informed and enlightened human being because of them. ​

Audiobook Review: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (published by Penguin)
 
The audiobook narrated by British actress Helena Bonham Carter was absolutely excellent. Her reading helped to make this story come alive for me, adding humour, emotion and a vibrant personality to Anne that I probably wouldn’t have imagined if I had read the text. ​

Audiobook Review: Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder (published by Simon & Schuster)
​
This fascinating non-fiction book is more like a political thriller and at some points I had to remind myself that some of the unthinkable things it described actually happened in real-life. It follows the story of Bill Browder, an American financier who, due to personal reasons, was intrigued by Russia and decided to set up business there in the 90s, making a small fortune on his investments when the Soviet Union collapsed.  But his success came at a cost and he managed to piss off lots of oligarchs by exposing their corrupt practices, and then cause friction all the way up the chain to Vladimir Putin.

Productivity, or as I like to think of it, the art of getting sh*t done. 
​
I’ve consumed a fair few self-help books / articles / podcasts / TED Talks on this subject as I like to think of myself as a productive person who can always learn more.  But mostly I started reading this kind of stuff because I wanted to leave work on time (which was rare!) and get some help in managing my time to effectively plough through the mountains of work that I had when I used to work in PR. 

Book Review: More Human by Steve Hilton (published by WH Allen)

​If, like me, you are feeling disillusioned and frustrated with the current political system, the archaic and ineffective structure of Government and it’s pandering to big corporates, the inhuman focus on data / meeting targets / cutting budgets for ‘efficiency’ rather than looking at what the people on the ground really need, then More Human is for you. 

Book Review: This is London by Ben Judah (published by Picador)
​
I saw Ben Judah talk about his book This is London at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2016 and immediately went out and purchased it.  This is London is narrative non-fiction written by foreign correspondent Ben Judah who turns his attention to the lives of Londoners, but not the city dwellers who we all think of when we think of the capital, but to the immigrants, both legal and illegal. This is a tale of the Russian oligarchs, the Arab royalty, the Afghans, Nigerians, Poles, Romanians, Lithuanians and Filipinas.  Not a cockney in sight.