The Checkout Girl - Anna Sam

Can you scan 800 barcodes an hour? Can you smile and say 'thanks' 500 times a day? Do you never need to go to the toilet? Then working at a supermarket checkout could be just the job for you. Anna Sam spent 8 years as a checkout girl. Checkout - A Life on the Tills is a witty look at what it's really like to work in a supermarket: the relentless grind and less-than-perfect working conditions, along with people-watching and encounters with every kind of customer from the bizarre to the downright rude.

You Absolutely Couldn't Make it Up - Jack Crossley

After the runaway cult success of You Couldn't Make It Up and You Really Couldn't Make it up, Jack Crossley returns with his latest cornucopia of wonderful anecdotes and strange goings-on from around the British Isles. In his many years as a newspaper journalist, Jack Crossley has collected literally thousands of these strange but true newspaper items. They are stories that you wouldn't believe if they weren't written down in black and white. You Absolutely Couldn't Make It Up is another wonderful collection of irresistible whimsy, a testament to Great Britain's lasting legacy of eccentricity, bizarre bureaucracy and confounding stubbornness!

How To Be A Woman - Caitlin Moran

1913 - Suffragette throws herself under the King's horse. 1969 - Feminists storm Miss World. Now - Caitlin Moran rewrites "The Female Eunuch" from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller. There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727.

 However, a few nagging questions do remain...Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby? Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in "How To Be A Woman" - following her from her terrible 13th birthday ('I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me') through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.

Run Mummy Run - Cathy Glass

Run Mummy Run, is a novel based on a true story. Aisha joins a dating service she has found in the paper, and finds the perfect match. But what is so perfect turns into her worst nightmare. How far can she go to escape her life and save herself and her children.

The Good Women Of China - Xinran

The good women of China, follows the lives of several women and how they really live in Modern China.  Xinran, a journalist, presented a radio show inviting women to share their stories annonomously.  Revealling a shocking truth of obedience, political turmoil, and stories which shock you to the core.

Why read - After reading about Korea, I have become interested in learning about peoples lives in different countrys.  This book was recommened because they knew of my interests.

A poinent and very sad book, but also very interesting.  Xinarn presents each story as a case study of different women she has encounted, threaded with her own life expereinces, how she met these women and similar smaller stories she relates to along the way.

It is such a sad book, in the stories are really heartbreaking what these women have put up with, and it is so secreative to the outside world.  It brings such a interersting insight into a world that is rarely reported.  Xinran style of writing is captivating, and she really can bring these stories to life.  A fantastic, if not sad read.

Nothing To Envy - Barbra Demick

Nothing To Envy brings us the true accounts of North Korea. If you were to google a night map of the country you will notice their are no lights.  Their is no internet, and books like gone with the wind are banned.  All television and phone calls are screened, and the education system only teaches children what the government wants them to hear.  The country is poor and people are rationed like the war.