Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
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| + | |author=Ben Aaronovtich | ||
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| + | |summary= When local police find something weird - spectres scaring commuters on a particular part of the Metropolitan Line, for example - they call for PC Peter Grant of the Special Assessment Unit, also known as The Folly. Stray river gods, missing Victorian children, fleeting 18th century dispatch riders, they are all in a day’s (or a night’s) work for The Folly. | ||
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Revision as of 16:48, 30 September 2017
The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page. Ewritingservice.com is the custom writing service thousands of students trust all over the world. My Homework Done is your best choice among those websites that do homework for you.
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The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovtich
When local police find something weird - spectres scaring commuters on a particular part of the Metropolitan Line, for example - they call for PC Peter Grant of the Special Assessment Unit, also known as The Folly. Stray river gods, missing Victorian children, fleeting 18th century dispatch riders, they are all in a day’s (or a night’s) work for The Folly. Full review...
The Happy Ending by David Stokes
Harry Pigeon is 97 years old. He's a bit shakey on his pins, can't move far without his walking frame, has been known to have a fall or two – so makes sure he has his panic button with him – but still he's managing well enough at home. Mentally he's all there, even if he does have these conversations with his wife, who's been dead the last 6 years. There's a point when 'doing ok' stops being quite so ok, a point when there's clearly no purpose left. No-one comes, even the paramedics seem to have shunted you to the bottom of the list, and well, it's all becoming just a bit too undignified. To be honest, when he found the morphine Betty'd been stock-piling against the day her own illness got too much for her but never used as it turned out, Harry was on the point of using it himself. Full review...
Jack and the Geniuses 2: In the Deep Blue Sea by Bill Nye and Gregory Mone
Jack and Ava, aged twelve, Matt (16) and Dr Hank Witherspoon (quite a bit older) have barely recovered from their adventures at the South Pole when they find themselves packing once again, this time en route for the tiny Pacific Ocean island of Nihoa, near Hawaii. Dr Hank has been asked to help solve some problems with millionaire Ashley Hawking's ground-breaking new invention for generating electricity, which performed badly at its first public demonstration, and the wealthy lady has specifically invited his three young companions to come along too. Ava and Matt are excited by the scientific possibilities; Jack, his brain fuelled not by facts but by the exploits of his favourite cartoon programme, Duck Detective, is convinced sabotage is the cause. Full review...
Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody
Much as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flight, which collected Fellini, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field in Leeds and landed them at the school in good time. It was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it was. Full review...
The Princess and the Suffragette by Holly Webb
I am a big fan of the beloved classic 'A Little Princess' by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but when I found out that Holly Webb had written a sequel, I wasn't sure whether to read it. On the one hand, I wanted to catch-up with the characters. On the other hand, I was sceptical that another writer would be able to match the warm and cosy innocence with which the original is written and I was worried that it would appear as a twee or weak imitation without much substance. I decided to take the book as a fun chance to see what happened to Sara and friends, and as an opportunity to wander nostalgically through the corridors of Miss Minchin's prim and proper school. Full review...
The Invention of Angela Carter by Edmund Gordon
Angela Carter is remembered as an influential and inventive writer – with works like The Bloody Chamber and Nights at the Circus propelling her to fame, and a status as an icon and inspiration for many modern-day writers. Here author Edmund Gordon delves into the life of Carter – from the London of the 1940s through to the London of the 1990s, with stops in Bristol, Tokyo, Australia, and various other places in between. A work that is as full of detail as it is full of devotion to a remarkable woman, The Invention of Angela Carter is the first authorised biography of a woman and a writer who is hugely missed today. Full review...
Mr Tambourine Man by Nicholson
Back in 1965 we heard Mr Tambourine Man by the Byrds on the radio very regularly. Nicholson was thirteen and saw the 45rpm recording of the song in the window of the local music store and would have loved to be able to buy it but didn't have the money. Thirteen-year olds didn't in those days unless it was a birthday or Christmas and you couldn't get a part-time job until you were fifteen. There would be a few of those badly-paid jobs before he finished his A levels and went to New York for three months. It's this trip which Nicholson feels turned him from being a boy into a man and allowed him to see the bigger picture. Full review...
Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo (editor)
I might have started this review by saying something like 'only reading can give your world such wonder'. But that's wrong – meeting a selkie can, being sent to sleep for a century can, guessing the name of a dwarven spinner maestro can, and so can so much more in the world of children's narrative. This delightful book is jam-packed with quickly-told classic delights, from Norse-based fable to the purest source of pantomime. And everywhere you turn you find something full of wonder. Full review...
We Travel So Far by Laura Knowles and Chris Madden
The lead singer of Foreigner said I've travelled so far to change this lonely life. Well, he's gone nowhere in comparison to many of these creatures, who probably wouldn't call their life lonely, either. Masses of animals gather, herd, school, and fly in unison, and all make their migration to change their lives. Some hide from the danger of winter storms, many seek the food they need before hibernation or their first meals after breeding, some just trot up a volcano to lay eggs in the one place they know will keep them warm. It might seem to be an unusual approach – having a sparsely-texted book solely about one aspect of animal nature, but on this evidence it's an approach that certainly works. Full review...
Mr Penguin and the Lost Treasure by Alex T Smith
Mr Penguin is a brand new Professional Adventurer. He has a dashing hat, a large magnifying glass and an important looking office in his igloo to prove it. All he needs now is an adventure to go on. Just as he is beginning to despair of ever being asked to solve a mystery Boudicca Bones from the museum phones and asks for help. Can he and his trusty sidekick, Colin (the spider with expertise in martial arts!) find her missing treasure? Will the adventure become too dangerous for them? And will Mr Penguin ever have time to eat his fish finger sandwich packed lunch? Full review...
Devil's Cut by J R Ward
I feel as though I came to this book under false pretenses. I requested the book thinking I was getting a murder mystery and instead I was thrown head first into a roaring family saga. Indeed, said murder mystery though pivotal in the history of the family, is more of a quiet subplot and catalyst from where to begin the storytelling for the book. And so it was I was met with the Baldwine family and the Bradford Bourbon Company. The initial meeting is a romantic one as the family are presented high up in their castle on the hill - or in this case from their beautiful Kentuckian Bradford Family Estate replete with tea roses, fruit trees and hazy Southern sunshine. It isn't long however before Ward transports the reader from such rolling splendour to the darkest corners of human psychology wherein fathers and sons may share the same lover, brothers are divided by suspicion and jealousy and women are used as trophies and commodities. Full review...
Madge Eekal's Christmas by Colleen Jacey and Zed Jacey
It was nearly Christmas and all the witches except Madge Eekal were busy putting up their festive lights. Madge's pet dragon, Ashon, wanted to know what had happened to their fairy lights. The truth was that Madge had tried to get them to work, but it seemed that the fairies were on strike: she couldn't get them to work. Ashon knew that it would, of course, have been much easier if they had electricity, like everyone else and that decided Madge - they would make their own electricity. She knew the perfect spell. Ashon was doubtful... and rightly so as it turned out Full review...
I Can't Sleep! by Stephanie Blake
Simon the little rabbit is back! He's not so little now, and his baby brother (from Stupid Baby by Stephanie Blake) has grown up into a toddler. This time we see Simon and Caspar playing happily together but then, in the night, poor Caspar realises that he's forgotten his blanket outside! What will the two brothers do? Caspar says he can't sleep without his blanket...will Simon be able to help him? Full review...
Waterloo Voices 1815: The Battle at First Hand by Martyn Beardsley
The battle of Waterloo, fought on a midsummer day on a muddy field in Belgium, brought an end to two decades of war in Europe. As one of the pivotal events of the nineteenth century, it has inevitably been the focus of many accounts over the last two hundred years. Full review...
Worzel says hello! Will you be my friend? by Catherine Pickles and Chantal Bourgonje
I'd like you to meet Worzel, but you'll need to do exactly what I say. Worzel is quite a big dog, but that doesn't mean that he's fierce, or even very brave. In fact, he's frightened, and little as you are, he's frightened of you. He'd like to meet you though: can you see that nose just poking out from the side of the sofa? Now he's peering over the cushion - and finally he's risking leaving that very safe place he's found, behind the sofa. Full review...
Senseless by Steve Cole
16 year old Kenzie Mitchell, otherwise known as K-Boy, thinks his every dream has come true when he's wins the chance to attend a top gaming tournament at Sensia HQ on a remote tropical island. The contestants are flown in on their own private jet and transferred by limo to the swankiest of hotels. It all seems too good to be true – which of course it is. Within hours, events start to take a sinister turn. Kenzie wakes in the night unable to see and one by one his other senses – touch, hearing, smell and taste – flicker in and out. And he's not on his own. It's happening to the other contestants too, sometimes with fatal consequences. Kenzie wants to believe it isn't really happening. He wants to believe it's just a really good virtual reality game. But with Sensia in control, the line between realities has almost entirely disappeared. Full review...
The Science of Food: An exploration of what we eat and how we cook by Marty Jopson
I've always believed that if you understood why something worked in a particular way it was very easy to remember how it worked and what you needed to do. The food we eat is no exception to this rule and The One Show resident scientist Marty Jopson has undertaken to explain how things work in the kitchen - and he covers everything from the type of knives we use through to the food of the future. Best of all, he does it in language that even a science illiterate like me can understand. Full review...
Paradise Girl by Phill Featherstone
Kerryl Shaw lives on a Yorkshire farm – a somewhat idealised one that survives on a few hens and two or three cows and a few sheep. The kind of farm that might have been profitable in the 1950s but by the time Kerryl has arrived should have been struggling. A teenage boy not pulling his weight, now that the grandparents are old and the father is dead, would not be met with exasperated indulgence. There are no stock-hands, no farm managers, no applications for subsidies, or worries about the tax return. Maybe the unwelcome wind turbine covers the costs of the rest of it. Already, in setting, it's feeling a little unreal. But maybe we can forgive that… Full review...
Landscape Gardens by Sarah Rutherford
My first experience of a big garden was Versailles as a teenager and whilst I was impressed, I didn't really like it. I felt stifled and strangely underwhelmed by the flatness of it all. As luck would have it I then saw Hampton Court and it was official: I was off big gardens. It would be many years before I revised my opinion. On a trip to Harewood House it was too hot a day to be corralled into the house, so I wandered the gardens and found they were delightful. I felt uplifted. Then a cricket match at Stowe gave me the opportunity to walk the grounds for over an hour. I was completely won over and a devotee of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Sarah Rutherford's Landscape Gardens was an opportunity to put him in context. Full review...
Dragons: Father and Son by Alexandre Lacroix and Ronan Badel
You know dragons. They're there to look splendid and fierce, and to burn down human villages in rampages, with or without treasure in mind. But they need to be trained in that. And our father dragon has just tasked his son dragon with that very errand - to go and torch a human house. The lad is reluctant to cook anything more severe than lunch - what could possibly happen? Full review...
A Roman Adventure (The Histronauts) by Frances Durkin and Grace Cooke
I have studied propaganda in my time and as a rule of thumb the most persuasive arguments are those people don't notice. The same can be said when educating kids. Some children lap up textbooks and non-fiction, but others need to be eased in. Tricking them is perhaps a harsh term, but would you rather learn about Ancient Rome via a dry fact book or an adventure title written in the form of a cartoon and packed full of puzzles and activities? Full review...
Elmer and the Tune by David McKee
Everybody loves a catchy tune, but sometimes you come across one that you just can't get out of your head, no matter how hard you try. And that's what has happened to Elmer and his friends – all over the jungle, folk are humming the same tune, over and over and over again, and passing it on to their friends and neighbours like a musical virus. Anyone who has heard about how the wheels on that wretched bus go round and round eleventy-seven gazillion times on a long car journey will know what we mean. Full review...
Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona
Sarah is married to Giorgio and when we first meet them he's Something Very Senior in the foreign ministry in Rome, much to the disappointment of his mother who thought that he'd be there for her (in Sicily), but not only does he go and marry a foreigner, he has a job which will take him all over the world. Such is the life of the diplomat. Their two daughters have to lead a pretty peripatetic life too, but when the family comes into our lives they're all in Rome - for the time being - and just back from Nigeria. To add to the confusion there's Beagle, just about as undiplomatic a dog as you'll encounter. Full review...
Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic
Caleb Zelic has just found his colleague and lifelong friend murdered. The two – and a female police officer – were working as a private investigative group, tracking security flaws that led to a hugely costly warehouse robbery, and all have training in the industry, so they should have seen anything coming. Caleb won't have heard it coming, however – he's pretty much deaf, getting a cadence of speech and noise from hearing aids but needing to lipread or sign. The first signs that this murder is connected to the case are impossible to ignore – as indeed are hints that something really serious is going on, when Caleb finds he can't even trust the police looking into the murder. The case will cause him to go a lot further than he would ever want – which includes to the door of his errant brother, and into the home of his recently-made-ex wife… Full review...
The Land of Neverendings by Kate Saunders
The best fantasy books for children rely on escapism, books like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the Harry Potter series and Peter Pan. Central to each of these stories is the real world: the dryness that permeates the everyday. The children involved are often bored of their lives, or of school and their parents: the world of reality. So when they get to escape into a world that is much more interesting they are enamoured by a sense of magic and adventure that comes their way. For Kate Saunders' heroine Emily, the bizarre and eerily familiar world of Smockeroon awaits. Full review...
Strange Sight: An Essex Witch Museum Mystery (Essex Witches Mystery 2) by Syd Moore
Rosie Strange is back - recovering after her last escapade with curator Sam Stone, and figuring out what on earth to do with the Essex Witch Museum she's recently inherited. If Rosie had her way she'd be selling the museum and heading back to her flat in London - but when her Auntie Babs recommends Rosie and Sam to a local businessman, they find themselves embroiled in dark events once again. Something is wrong at Le Fleur Restaurant - blood leaking from chandeliers, scrawled messages on the walls and apparitions walking through the walls. Before Rosie and Sam can start to look into these possibly supernatural occurrences though, events take an even darker turn when a very real body is found in the restaurant - and the owner's daughter swears that a ghost was to blame... Full review...
China in Drag: Travels with a Cross-dresser by Michael Bristow
Having worked for nine years in Bejing as a journalist for the BBC, author Michael Bristow decided to write about Chinese history. Having been learning the local language for several years, Bristow asked his language teacher for guidance - the language teacher, born in the early fifties, offered Bristow a compelling picture of life in Communist China - but added to that, Bristow was greatly surprised to find that his language teacher also enjoyed spending his spare time in ladies clothing. It soon becomes clear that the tale told here is immensely personal - yet also paints a fascinating portrait of one of the world's most intriguing nations. Full review...
Gift Boxes to Colour and Make: A Year of Celebrations by Eilidh Muldoon
Have you ever tried wrapping a small gift, or those handmade sweets or biscuits you've prepared for a friend? It's not easy is it? If you use wrapping paper the gift tends to lose presence and once you start to use glass jars the gift becomes really quite expensive and less easy to transport. Do you find colouring relaxing and rewarding but somehow it feels just a little bit too indulgent if all you do is turn to the next page and start colouring that? Would you get more out of it if you could use what you've coloured for a practical purpose? The ideal solution to both problems is Gift Boxes to Colour and Make: A Year of Celebrations by Eilidh Muldoon. Full review...
Talking to Gina by Ottilie Hainsworth
This is what happened. An artist decided she needed a dog – so drove the length of the country, Brighton to Grimsby, to pick up an Eastern European immigrant street dog with some mange and one working eye. Why not? The first night at home, Gina – the dog – eats something she shouldn't and causes a mess, so it's not a great start, but then begin the tribulations of training, status and behaviour all humans must go through with their dogs. And then, the life with Gina begins to feel like too much – I felt weird about you, because you were always there. My thoughts were taken over by you, and I felt sick, as if I was in love. Slowly, however, everyone – our artist/author, her husband, two children and two cats – gets to form the family they and Gina all would have wanted. Full review...
Free Lance and the Field of Blood (Free Lance Trilogy 2) by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
The world of jousting is a fierce one – survive the minor battles with the lance, either as a bonded employed Knight or as a Free Lance, and you might try your hands at the major league. There the men are stronger, the horses faster, and the ground hurts more when you hit it. But the big time also offers more that can put a humble Knight at risk – such as evil hosts, beautiful princess-types in pickles, and mysteriously successful strangers. Our nameless hero and his loyal horse, Jed, are going to be up against a lot more than they expected here… Full review...
