I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

BY JONNY OATES BITEBACK PUBLISHING £20.00

Jonny Oates has run away from home, stolen his father’s credit card and is on a plane to Ethiopia. The teenager’s plan is to help people who are suffering in the 1985 famine and, in the process, relieve his inner turmoil. Fast forward a few years and he is on a plane to Ethiopia again, this time sat with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden elegantly charts Oates’s extraordinary journey from life as a suicidal teenager to life working in the top ranks of government.

Throughout, Oates hits key emotional notes, sometimes rather literally with regular references to music. For instance, when describing the letter he wrote to his parents before he ran away he says: “It starts off abruptly with an ill-judged quote from Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man”… Underneath, the stark sentence: ’By the time you read this letter I will be in Addis Ababa and heading for the famine camps.” And so, he captures the ridiculousness of the action as well as the youthful emotional intensity.

Later on, when he’s sharing a bed with a man who does not love him back, Lou Reed’s ’Perfect Day’ is playing in the background. On a lighter note, he describes attending his friend’s gigs during his days at University of Exeter. That friend happens to be Thom Yorke. For the first few chapters, Oates adopts a third person omniscient perspective as he describes his struggles as a teenager. Although this is unusual for a memoir and takes a while to get used to, the perspective has a tender and sympathetic quality. Oates writes: “A sense of aloneness and desperation overwhelms him. For the first time since he stepped off the plane at Bole Airport he can no longer master his emotions, and he begins to cry - quiet tears which flow in rivulets down his cheeks. “Please help me, please help me,' he whispers.”

Oates switches to a first-person perspective as the content becomes more typical of a political memoir. He reveals some of the difficulties of working in a coalition government as chief of staff to Nick Clegg and regales his readers with anecdotes about David Cameron and George Osborne. For instance, he reveals that David Cameron was so desperate to avoid a TV debate during the lead up to the 2015 election, the prime minister offered to get former Conservative MP, Olympic icon and Sheffield local Seb Coe to come out in favour of Nick in his Sheffield Hallam constituency. Oates explains: “The quid pro quo for this generous offer is that Nick pulls out of the TV debate with Farage to give Cameron some cover in also refusing to take part”

He says Nick was too decent to agree to such a deal. But Oates isn’t entirely scathing about his Tory colleagues and his time in government as he describes his bond with the Tory special advisors as well as the joy of being involved in the process of legalising gay marriage.

This memoir does a lot. It provides an introspective study of a young boy struggling with his sexuality and charts some of the most significant historic and political events in Africa and the UK. The thread that ties this book together is Oates’s continual reverence for and acknowledgement of the kind people surrounding him, from the religious leader who saves him from suicide in Ethiopia, to his dedicated political allies. Although the subject matter is often harrowing, this is an unusual and uplifting account of life in politics.

Gardening With A Chainsaw

I wanted to tell her that chainsaws rarely work spending ninety per cent of their time being fed oil, the torque strengthened the plug scraped free of soot and the chain adjusted only then do the wood chips fly like confetti as trees kiss the vertical goodbye waving, swaying, then crashing to the shagpile forest floor the desire to cut and chop, make something from the wild lingers we gather cabbage tops, think on the big gesture of a copse projects passed on like a half-built shed or a thrown bouquet the chainsaw bides its time as it leaks upon the shelf teeth grinding upon the oily tongue of blade like a bull who's just seen a cow

I curate a smile, turn the key in the lock walk out into the sudden garden of quiet devastation

Gareth Writer-Davies.

How We Learn: The New Science of Education and the Brain

BY STANISLAS DEHAENE, PENGUIN BOOKS, £9.99

Dehaene embarks on a search for more effective, evidence-based learning strategies. Focusing on four key pillars: Attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation, Dehaene considers how people can change their practices at school, home or work to improve on our brain’s greatest talent, its capacity for learning.

Being 10% Braver

BY KEZIAH FEATHERSTONE AND VIVIENNE PORRITT, SAGE PUBLICATIONS, £12.99

Being 10% Braver features stories from women leaders in education who have overcome challenges. In the typical school textbook style, there are learning outcomes at the end of each chapter and its lessons include, how to tackle imposter syndrome, how to call out unacceptable behaviour and how to ask for what you need.

Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World

BY AMELIA PETERSON AND VALERIE HANNON, CAMBRIDGE PRESS, £20.00

The pandemic has raised questions about the function of schools. If so much could be done online, what is their purpose? But Peterson and Hannon say there has not been enough serious public debate about the job of schools and so this book aims to shift conversations from ‘how?’ to ‘why?’

More For Faten

You look to a spot that’s taken by a star

Because there’s so much more You could be doing, And so much more, the air above, beneath your Wings; and more - in lists I cannot bring To cornicing, polish, finishing.

You’ve a dark-browed hunger more

Like anger - but possessed, too At times, of a simpler, lighter hue; But when the missed ambition strikes You look at me, busied in my blue Music, and decide to mar

The day with your temper: tics, My love, I’ve gotten used to.

Omar Sabbagh

Omar Sabbagh is a widely published poet, writer and critic. His latest books are: Reading Fiona Sampson: A Study in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (Anthem Press, 2020); To My Mind or Kinbotes: Essays on Literature (Whisk(e)y Tit, 2021). Morning Lit: Portals After Alia is forthcoming in early 2022 with Cinnamon Press. Currently, he teaches at the American University in Dubai (AUD), where he is Associate Professor of English.