Book Reviews From The Bookbag

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a book review 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.

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First Novel by Nicholas Royle

General Fiction

Paul Kinder lectures in first novels at a Manchester university and, coincidentally, he's also published a novel. Yes, just the one. When not working he enjoys various pursuits, including sex in car parks when offered the opportunity (i.e. not very often at all). (If the car park is on a flight path, all the better.) He personally doesn't see it as a problem, although not all his life has been problem free. No, indeed it hasn't! Full review...

Live At the Brixton Academy: A riotous life in the music business by Simon Parkes and J S Rafaeli

Entertainment

Who on earth would want to buy and run a live music venue in deepest Brixton, and manage to keep it running for fifteen years, transforming it against all the odds into what becomes one of Britain’s most iconic establishments of its kind? Such an undertaking calls for somebody with special managerial skills who can keep one step ahead of the game, walking a precarious tightrope, keeping gangsters, punters, promoters and the local authorities onside. It also requires a good deal of luck. Full review...

Best Counting Book Ever by Richard Scarry

For Sharing

There are a number of things I like about this book. One is the illustrations which are reminiscent of the Richard Scarry books of my youth, not surprising since this is a reissue of a book that first hit the shelves in 1975. They are bright and colourful, but simple too and the restrained plain colour pallet is refreshing in a world of patterns and glitter. Full review...

This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash

Crime

Easter Quilby is twelve years old. She and her sister Ruth are in a children's home. Not so long ago they woke up to find their mother slouched across the bed, dead. Drink and drugs and a hard, sad life had finally got to her, or maybe her body just gave up on it. Their father, Wade Chesterfield, sometime baseball star, had lit out on them three years earlier. Full review...

The Virgins by Pamela Erens

Literary Fiction

Set in 1979-80 in an elite boarding school on the east coast of the USA The Virgins tells the story of two young people. The story is mainly narrated by Bruce Bennett-Jones who would have liked to have a close relationship with Aviva Rossner but her unlikely choice was Seung Jung. They're not shy about flaunting their relationship and it's the talk of Auburn Academy, but whilst the watchers believe that the relationship is one of unalloyed passion, the truth is rather different and the couple are set on a path to an inevitable tragedy. Full review...

A Book is a Book by Jenny Bornholdt and Sarah Wilkins

Emerging Readers

Yes, children – adults lie to you. Sometimes, even in the titles of the books they make for you, like this one. A book is a door, it's great for boredom, it's fine for time up a tree, or in the bath (just not the shower). It can be borrowed, and then lent if it's a great one you enjoyed. It's certainly never the case that a book is just a book, as the title of this book would have you believe. Full review...

I am Cat (mini edition) by Jackie Morris

Emerging Readers

You're always supposed to tell when a dog is dreaming – the twitching limbs and jerking joints allegedly proving the sleeping Fido is imagining himself on the chase. Cats are, as always, a bit more secretive, but Jackie Morris offers evidence here that they are more or less thinking the same thing – even the domestic moggy, curled up and closed in, is picturing a different self – one sleeking through snows, relaxing on the savannah or alertly moving through its territory. It's a very pleasant view into the mindset of cats. Full review...

Snowpiercer Vol.1 - The Escape by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette

Graphic Novels

All of humankind is living on a single train. I know British commuters feel that way at times, but this is a much different circumstance – it is a train miles long, running non-stop as a self-contained unit across tracks circling a desolately frozen Earth, moving on endlessly until, perhaps some time in the distant future, the planet can recover from the cataclysm that froze it. It's certainly been going on long enough for it to have a culture – a hierarchical society from the rich and leisured classes near the front, through the orgiasts, past the useful carriages set aside for producing food, to the underclass at the end. It's all set in its routine, set in motion. But there are two fishes out of water – a man from the rear who escaped, and a middle-class woman working with civil rights campaigners. Full review...

The Forbidden Stone (The Copernicus Legacy) by Tony Abbott

Confident Readers

If you like your fiction full of heart-stopping adventures, mysterious cults and constant danger, then you'll love this book. Codes, puzzles and ancient secrets abound, and there is no doubt that the publisher's comparison with the novels for adults written by Dan Brown is justified. There's drama and deadly peril on pretty well every page. Full review...

Respect by Mandasue Heller

Crime

Growing up is difficult in the best of circumstances. The council estate where Chantelle has grown up in isn't decaying - it is dead and rotten. It has become a holding place for those who are condemned to a life of crime, at least when they aren't serving time. It is the type of place that saps ambition and hope from its unlucky inhabitants. But Chantelle is determined to break out. She has avoided all the pitfalls waiting for children in her situation, avoiding drugs, alcohol, crime and dead end relationships. Full review...

Crumbs by Miha Mazzini

Literary Fiction

We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seems. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealing. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number one. He has several friendships on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more… Full review...

My Little French Kitchen by Rachel Khoo

Cookery

France is Rachel Khoo's adopted country. She lives in Paris and to write this book she travelled to the four corners of the country to sample the local dishes and special ingredients to be found there. It's a look at local markets, shops, villages and towns, farms and homes - and the local customs and quirks to be found in each area. You get over a hundred recipes and plenty of images which set the scene or illustrate the finished dish. In more complicated dishes you even get a series of pictures to help you understand what you're doing - and all the pictures are of excellent quality. It's not just a coffee table book - if you've an interest in French cooking then you're going to get it sauce splattered. Full review...

A Commonplace Killing by Sian Busby

Crime (Historical)

In July 1946 two schoolboys found the body of a woman on a bombsite in north London. It's a while before she's identified as Lillian Frobisher, but that produces more problems. Lillian was - apparently - a respectably married woman but the encounter on the bomb site had been sexual and almost certainly consensual. And why was her husband not aware that his wife was missing? His position looks even worse when it emerges that the body was lying on an expensive mackintosh sold in the store where he's a doorman. But was Lillian quite as respectable as she would have had everyone think? Full review...

East of Innocence by David Thorne

Crime

'What's the difference between God and a lawyer? The man sitting across the desk from me, eyes fixed on my face, doesn't look like he'd appreciate the punch line.'

Terry Campion wouldn't even understand the punch line, but then his lawyer, Daniel Connell knows just how untrue it is. He should. He's a lawyer who has somehow lost is ability to mete out his own salvation let alone anyone else's. Full review...

Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York by Gail Parent

Women's Fiction

Oy vey! Sheila Levine is down on her luck. Try as she might to meet a nice, Jewish boy to marry, she just keeps ending up with schmucks. The wrong side of 30, single and living in Manhattan, well if only she’d taken her mother’s advice at the time. Now it’s too late. There is no hope. The only thing Sheila can do is respectfully take her own life (having made all the arrangements and tied up the loose ends beforehand, of course. Nice girls always clean up after themselves). Full review...

Born in Siberia by Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater

Autobiography

I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's a title that doesn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual way, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities. Full review...

The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd

Literary Fiction

Five years ago Celia Cassill's husband died leaving her the owner of the Brooklyn apartment block in which she lives. She's fastidious as to whom she lets and is understandably hesitant when George (one of her longstanding tenants) wants to temporarily sub-let to a friend while he goes abroad. Celia eventually agrees and so in moves Hope, a lady who has just left her husband and for whom life is as complicated as she makes Celia's. Full review...

Emily's Quest: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery

Teens

When I read this book as a teenager (many times over!) I loved Emily's passion for writing, I loved the excitement of all the different events through the story and I loved the happy ending. Coming to the story now, twenty-plus years later, I found the book had a rather different flavour to it. It is, at times, terribly, desperately sad. I was surprised, by a book that is widely regarded as a children's story, at just how bleak Emily's life appears to be, and how traumatic the events in her life are. It is very well written, and I still experienced the same compulsion to read it as I used to find when I was younger, yet even with the final, desperate happy ending that Montgomery manages to squeeze in I was left feeling rather contemplative. Full review...

The Diary of Dennis the Menace by Steven Butler

Confident Readers

Wimpy Kid-styled books, from those by Jeff Kinney right down to those by Jim Smith have always served as a bridge for the reluctant reader, taking him or her into a world halfway between a comic book and an actual novel. With careful design and a healthy picture-to-word ratio the child only used to reading speech bubbles and cartoon captions has managed a proper book before they've realised it. So it makes perfect sense for publishers to allow a franchise to cross over from one format to the other – and this example is the first one to come to my attention. Even if, when you think about it, it seems a very unlikely book in the first place… Full review...

Choosing Crumble by Michael Rosen and Tony Ross (Illustrator)

Emerging Readers

Terri- Lee wants a dog. She is positive that a dog will be the perfect pet for her and will settle for nothing else. When Terri-Lee and her mum visit the pet shop together they think that they will be choosing a dog however, Crumble, the dog, has very different ideas. He wants to be sure that his prospective owner is the perfect match for him and has a few questions of his own. Will Terri- Lee be able to convince Crumble that she should be his owner? Full review...

A Room Full of Chocolate by Jane Elson

Confident Readers

Sometimes family isn't the one you are born into but the people and pigs you collect along the way.

Grace doesn't want to leave her London home and go and live with misery guts Grandad while her mum goes into hospital to get a LUMP sorted out. Grace can't see why she couldn't look after her mum herself. After all, the LUMP was just caused by Mum dancing too much, wasn't it? WASN'T IT? But Mum won't hear of it and Grace must move away, start a new school, make new friends and miss her mum so much that even chocolate doesn't help. Things go from bad to worse when Grace upsets the resident school bully on her very first day. Full review...

Dirty Magic: Prospero's War: Book One by Jaye Wells

Fantasy

Gray Wolf is the new magic drug in town but it's a mite more evil than the usual sex potions and enchanted uppers and downers. Gray Wolf ensures that the user becomes a craven devourer of flesh - human flesh. Kate Prospero, cop seconded to the MEA (the government agency charged with clearing the streets of dirty, illegal magic) has her work cut out. Unfortunately this work includes having to go into the Cauldron, the dangerous underbelly of a town called Babylon. However Kate has a lot to prove, having been born an adept in that very underbelly and now having to face the forces that helped create the tragedy still haunting her. Also, if she didn't have enough to worry about, her ex-lover is implicated in Gray Wolf's manufacture and her kid brother is choosing his own way in life; not a good thing, not a good thing at all. Full review...

There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr Seuss

For Sharing

If you like made up creatures, this is the book you need, because virtually all of it is invented in a cuckoo, mixed up, doolally kind of way. Not only is there a wocket in a pocket, but there’s also a wasket in the basket, a yottle in the bottle and bofa on the sofa and so on. What a funny house this boy lives in! Full review...

The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson by Paige Toon

Teens

Jessie Jefferson isn't having a great time of it. Her mum died in a freak accident. On Jessie's birthday. While buying Jessie's birthday cake. Grief and anger at the loss of her mother has sent Jessie into a spiral of teenage rebellion. She's drinking and smoking and partying and stepfather Stu is at the end of his tether. So much so that he finally tells Jessie something she's always wanted to know: the identity of her biological father...

... it's Johnny Jefferson, global rock star. Full review...

Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C Morais

General Fiction

Seido Oda has lived all of his life in the shadow of the Head Temple of the Clearwater Sect of Mahayana Buddhism. His family home was an inn which catered to the pilgrims who flocked to the temple, and his mother a devout member of the sect. He seemed marked for the priesthood from an early age, and at age 11 was handed over to the guardianship of the priests to begin his apprenticeship. Seido's young life is blighted by tragedy, and a promise he could not keep, and although a devout follower of the Buddha, he seemed unable to achieve true peace, even in the beautiful tranquil surroundings of Mount Nagata. He was unable to relate to other humans and sought solace in poetry, art, 'the prayers' of the river and the beauty of his rural home. At age 42, he has spent almost all of his life in or near the temple, and expects to spend the remainder of it there when a very unwelcome appointment to America is offered to him. Seido accepts with a heavy heart, but only on the agreement that it must be temporary. Full review...

The Dog Nobody Loved by Jon Katz

Autobiography

When we first meet Jon Katz he's not in a good place: his marriage of thirty-five years was breaking up and he was close to a nervous breakdown. He didn't need any more problems. He particularly didn't need a young rescue dog, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, who'd been living wild, to contend with and to upset the fragile equilibrium of the life he lived with his animals on Bedlam Farm. Frieda was near feral but devoted to her rescuer, Maria Wulf and it was Maria who was at the centre of this conundrum. Katz was spectacularly disconnected from the world - and Maria was the only person to whom he seemed able to talk, but to connect with Maria he had to connect with Frieda too. Full review...