Book Reviews From 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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Summer at Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs
Olivia Bellamy does not seem to have a lot of luck with men. When we meet her she's just about to put her third broken engagement under her belt and head of into the wilderness of the Catskills with Freddy. Don't get excited – he really is just a friend. They're going to revamp the family's old summer camp in readiness for her grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary celebrations and right now it seems like the best way to forget about her love life. Things turn from bad to worse though when she finds herself not only stuck up a flagpole but having to be rescued by the man who was her first boyfriend some nine years before. Full review...
Notes From the Teenage Underground by Simmone Howell
Gem, only child of arty mother Bev and an absent haiku-obsessed father always found fitting in difficult until the mysterious Lo turned up at school. The trio of her, Lo and Mira have been inseparable for a while now but as they plan their summer project – an Andy Warhol inspired underground film – she starts to feel pushed out by the other two. Can she deal with exams, romance co-worker Dodgy, save her friendship with Mira and Lo and cope with her father’s reappearance? Full review...
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
Mary Beth Latham is contemplating her average, ordinary life where every day is more of less the same. Would things be better if life were more exciting, varied, newsworthy? Is that a legitimate thing to hope for? They say to be careful what you wish for, and Mary Beth never comes right out and says this is what she wants, but there are hints to this effect. Full review...
Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family by Jeremy Lewis
Graham Greene's father actually had six children, and his brother six of his own. (Well, there were nine in their generation for a start...) The surprising and joyous thing about this book is that it can show that Graham Greene's remarkable life is by no means the only standout in that whole generation of family history. It can continuously throw up surprises - we know Hugh Greene was high up in the BBC, but it wasn't him who helped found Canadian public service broadcasting. We are familiar with Graham himself traipsing around the world, reporting back in fact and fiction from unusual circumstances and exotic climes with dubious systems of government, but it wasn't he who was noted for being an ardently public supporter of pro-Communist China. Full review...
The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club by Lauren Liebenberg
Best friends Tommy and Chris are 12 years old. It is 1958 and they are growing up in a small mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. They are learning to box and to dance to rock and roll music. Full review...
A Lily of the Field by John Lawton
The book opens in the early 1930s in Vienna where we meet one of the main characters; ten year old Meret. She's gifted musically and in particular in playing the cello. Even at this tender age, people are talking about her starry future on the world stage. She is the apple of her father's eye and soon she's being given extra musical tuition by a kind but much older man. He's old enough to be her grandfather but nevertheless they strike up a rather unusual friendship with music being the common denominator. But some of their conversations are serious and quite grown-up for a young girl, not yet into puberty. The tutor, Viktor Rosen is Jewish and has already suffered at the hands of the Germans. Meret progresses at such a pace that before you know it, she's performing in public. Her life appears to be wonderful and full of future promise. Full review...
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare wrote,'Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherin he puts alms for oblivion'. This fully accords with the discoveries of modern brain science. Proust in his famous novel, 'In Search of Lost Time' anticipates such discoveries by neuroscientists, such as Rachel Hertz, that smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus. Thus the taste of a petit madeleine evokes a rediscovery by Proust of Combray and a flow of associations - it is the part of the brain in which long term memory is centred. Lehrer in ' Proust was a Neuroscientist' weaves an intriguing argument about the relationship between recent neuroscientific discoveries and the novels of George Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. A scientist, who has researched with Nobel Prize-winning, Eric Kandel, has a taste for philosophy; Lehrer intends to heal the rift between what C.P.Snow termed the 'Two Cultures'. He wishes to accord respect to the truths and the intuitive discoveries, especially of modernist writers and painters. Full review...
For the Record by Ellie Irving
Luke is obsessed with records. He's so busy planning on breaking world records when he grows up, and playing world records DVD games, that he doesn't take much of an interest in what's going on around him. But that's about to change, because when the village of Port Bren is chosen to host a waste-incinerator plant his house will be demolished and the graveyard where his dad's buried will be destroyed – unless the village is too historically important for this to happen. How can they put themselves on the map in one week? Luke comes up with the idea to break 50 world records… but why won't his mum let him take part? Full review...
While We Sleep... the Dream Snatchers Cometh! by Wolfren Riverstick
You could be forgiven for thinking that the Jackson family was unimaginative. Jack Jackson, the head of the household was generally known as Pa, even before he had any children to call him by that name. His wife, Jacqueline, was known as Ma. You could put all this down to accident but naming their first child Jackie (after a comic which Ma had enjoyed in her youth) and their second child Jacques might confirm your fears. It was a few years before they acquired a pet, but the cat was to be called Jackson and the Dutch Hamster Sjaak. Guess what their house was called? Yup – it was Jacksonville. Full review...
Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
The story begins in London. It is 1888 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. She has recently remarried, taking as her husband the infamous vampire Count Dracula. Dracula's influence is all around London as more and more of its citizens turn willingly to vampirism, whilst others resist its temptations. A distinct sense of social and political unrest is in the air as factions speak out against the race of vampires, somehow spurred on by the serial killer at large. Known at first as the Silver Knife, but later as Jack the Ripper, this killer targets young vampire women in Whitechapel, prostitutes who have recently turned to vampirism, known as new-borns. Full review...
There's No Home by Alexander Baron
It's the year 1943 and Sicily has been invaded (along with other parts of Europe). The menfolk have gone (will they return?) and the women, children and old people left behind are a sorry sight. Impoverished, ragged and with barely enough food to eat. A British company of soldiers rolls into town ... and everything changes. The men are foot-sore, exhausted and dirty. They are also glassy-eyed with the horrors of war. And as if that were not enough, the Sicilian sun beats down on them mercilessly. But there's some good news - they're here to rest and recuperate for a while. Full review...
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
The Rabbis say that all the signs are there from the birth of Ben Zion Avrohom that he is the Messiah. That's a lot of anyone to cope with and, like Jesus, there's much of Ben's early life that is untold here. When he is involved in an horrific accident on a building site that he miraculously survives, albeit with terrible scaring, the prophecies appear to be true. He develops a form of epilepsy during which he appears to speak to God. He is fluent in ancient languages despite never learning them, knows all the Holy books by heart and yet distains all forms of religion, instead spreading his message of love to all who meet him in modern day New York. Full review...
My Ballet Dream by Adele Geras and Shelagh McNicholas
Tutu Tilly really loves ballet. She's been learning for about a year now, and her ballet school is about to put on its end of year show. She is both excited and nervous. But, of course, disaster strikes...the wrong costumes are sent and the tutus and shoes aren't pink...they're blue! Full review...
Sharaf by Raj Kumar
With its subtitle "Forbidden love in the kingdom of faith and honour", I expected something entirely different from Sharaf to what it delivered. For the second time in as many weeks I had misjudged a book by, if not its cover exactly, certainly by its setting and its blurb. Full review...
Bride Price by Ian Mathie
'Bride Price' has proved an even more absorbing book than I anticipated from its Amazon write-up. I read it in a single sitting; the issues it raised overwhelming my thoughts for the next couple of days. In terms of its overall flavour, quality and impact value, I'd bracket it with the classic 'Walkabout' by James Vance Marshall. Full review...
Little Grey Donkey by Nicole Snitselaar and Coralie Saudo
Little Grey Donkey lives on a small island in the middle of the big blue sea. As he is the only inhabitant on the island things could possibly get quite lonely for him. They do not, however, because he has a friend called Serafina, a small girl who rows across the ocean every day in order to play with him. One day though, the little girl does not come and visit and little Grey Donkey is sad. He waits all that day, and many more days to come, but she does not appear. Eventually he is so worried about his friend that he decides to go and find her even if that means going on a tricky journey. The path is narrow and terribly steep; he is scared of going in a boat and he is worried that the rusty brown lift might fall or get stuck. However, each time that he feels afraid, he thinks of Serafina and that spurs him on until eventually he finds her and realises that she has been ill. She is so pleased to see him and that makes everything that he has been through worth while. Full review...
Escape from the Nazis: The Incredible and Inspiring Saga of Two Young Jews on the Run in World War II Poland by Benjamin Mandelkern
Do we all have it in us? Would you as a Pole in 1940s Poland, who like as not had been 'educated' in the horrendous evil of Jews by your church - would you ignore Nazi death threats and countless opportunities for the wrong thing to be said, for the truth to be let out, for betrayal - would you help a Jewish life survive? Full review...
Eleven by Mark Watson
The book's title has been well thought out. Xavier Ireland, the main character has the number Eleven if you take his initials as Roman numbers (XI) and there are eleven individuals who are involved in this chain reaction of events. When I read the blurb on the back cover, what caught my eye above all else was the line 'whether the choices we don't make affect us just as powerfully as those we do.' And of course, when we take no action about something in our lives, it's a form of action in effect. Full review...
Betrayal at Lisson Grove by Anne Perry
After recently reading Perry's Acceptable Loss and thoroughly enjoying it, I was looking forward to reading this book and hoping it would be as good as read. The novel opens with Pitt, Special Branch, in the midst of frenzied action trying to catch a suspect. Suspected of murder, it's imperative that he's caught. They weave between crowds, duck through alleys, but their best efforts are simply not good enough. The man is not caught. He's free to strike again. This all makes for a good, old-fashioned chase as Pitt makes up his mind to board a ferry for France, believing that's where the suspect could be heading. Pitt is extremely thorough and meticulous in all matters of policing but this may very well bode ill later on in the story. We learn of deep unrest in parts of the world: Europe and Ireland in particular. And Perry is good at giving her readers a little palatable history here and there, to keep us all in the loop. Full review...
Garbology Kids: Where Do Recyclable Materials Go? by Sabbithry Persad
I was once told that a lot of children think that milk comes out of a bottle or a carton and are disconcerted to find that it actually comes out of a cow. The thinking has been reversed in Sabbithry Persad's book 'Where Do Recyclable Materials Go?' It's all very well dividing up your waste but it doesn't make a lot of sense unless you actually know what happens to it after you put it out at the kerb. And it all started when Tiana and Peter went looking for their dog Bubbles who loved to go running after the recycle truck. Full review...
The Battle of the Styles: Society, Culture and the Design of a new Foreign Office, 1855 - 61 by Bernard Porter
Back in the 1850s it was mooted that Whitehall required some new public buildings, primarily in the form of a new Foreign Office. Such matters are never quite so simple as deciding on the need and arranging the construction and completion: there was to be debate, occasionally about the need for a new building but primarily about the form it should take and the style in which it should be built. This proved to be acrimonious and devious and came to be known as 'The Battle of the Styles'. Full review...
On The Slow Train Again by Michael Williams
A few years ago Michael Williams, the railway expert who's written for numerous newspapers and magazines on the subject, released a book called On The Slow Train about some of Britain's best railway trips. With far too many journeys to fit into one volume, he's given us a dozen more in this sequel. Full review...
42 - Douglas Adams' Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything by Peter Gill
A common question about Douglas Adams’ famous Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is just why Adams chose the number 42 as the answer to life, the universe and everything. In a charming trivia book, author Peter Gill takes 50 pages or so to look into the story of the book and the author and another 250 to find occurrences of 42 in the worlds of sport, crime, science and a wide range of other fields. Full review...
Devil-Devil by Graeme Kent
In the Solomon Islands in 1960, Sergeant Ben Kella stands out as an oddity in many ways. Trained since childhood as an aofia, the traditional peacemaker of the islands, he was mission educated and sent away and appears to belong completely to neither the modern age nor the old customs. Finding his place in the world, though, will have to wait – because there's a missing anthropologist to find, a rebellious nun to protect, and a murder to solve. Oh, and a magic man has just cursed him. All in a day's work… Full review...
The Lovers of Pound Hill by Mavis Cheek
Archaeologist Molly Bonner had something about her. She definitely wasn't dressed for the country when she arrived in Lufferton Boney and she'd captured the heart of one young man before she'd even walked down the street. She captured another when she offered money to work on the Gnome of Pound Hill, but Miles Whittington was ruled by his wallet and he was keen to make money out of the Gnome. The Gnome, you see, was what might euphemistically be called 'well endowed' and Miles had visions of charging visitors to make use of the, er, fertility rites. One thing was certain – none of the villagers of Lufferton Boney would be the same by the time that Molly Bonner (not only an archaeologist but also the archaeologist's granddaughter) had finished her work. Full review...
H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villanous Education by Mark Walden
Otto Malpense is one of the newest students at the Higher Institute of Villainous Education, better known as HIVE. So is his new friend Wing. As you'd expect, neither of them are keen to stay there – although this is less to do with moral scruples than with the thought of wasting six years studying how to be evil when they consider they're rather good at it already, thank you very much. A plot to escape is hatched… Full review...
Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany by Richard Lucas
Take one personable failed actress, embittered by lack of success at home in the USA, and conspire to land her living in Germany as WW2 breaks out. What chance her becoming an American, female Lord Haw-Haw, being paid by Germany to broadcast entertaining, dissuasive propaganda worldwide on shortwave radio? Anybody could guess it would take innumerable factors, circumstances and events, and they're all here in this entertaining, eye-opening and educational biography. Full review...
Laura Marlin Mysteries: Kidnap in the Caribbean by Lauren St John
ideal guardian for the crime-and-detection-obsessed young girl, because his job is swathed in secrecy and involves a great deal of creeping out of the house late at night to meet mysterious strangers. But for now they can both relax: Laura has won a holiday for two in the Caribbean, and all she and Calvin have to do is sunbathe and swim. Needless to say, that isn't how things turn out. Full review...
Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History by Nick Bunker
Using hundreds of previously overlooked documents, British historian Nick Bunker tells the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, starting from the religious climate in England which led to them leaving the country, and continuing through to show how they settled in America, trading beaver skins to let them settle in New England. Full review...
Hic! by Jaclin Azoulay and Fenix
When Snuffletrump woke up on the morning of his birthday, he felt very sad. No one seemed to have remembered and he had been given no cards and no presents. The only thing he had got for his birthday was the hiccups. His mum and dad were very busy and told him to go off and play but that is a difficult thing to do when you have hiccups. He wondered off and went to visit Cow who was sympathetic and suggested drinking a glass of milk whilst standing on his head! Unsurprisingly, when he tried this, Snuffletrump was covered with milk and he still had the hiccups. Other farmyard animals offered well meaning suggestions too but nothing seemed to cure them and the poor little piglet became messier and messier as he juggled eggs and fell in mud and straw. Finally though, there was a very happy surprise in store for Snuffletrump and, as everyone knows, that really is the best cure for hiccups! Full review...
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed
The Collaborator of the title is our narrator, a sensitive bookish young man. He is the son of the headman of a small village in a side valley of the Kashmir. The heritage of the people is that of nomads. The village has been settled for less than a generation. Everything they have has been built by the sheer hard graft of the people themselves… including the recently completed mosque. Full review...
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by Yasutaka Tsutsui
Kazuko is clearing up her school science lab after hours when something strange happens. She appears to disturb an intruder busy doing some kind of chemistry experiment - one that leaves a lavender scent to the room. She faints, and comes to to find no trace of any disturbance. But things get weirder - she starts to see her and her schoolfriends enduring disaster after disaster. Has she now got powers of premonition, or is something odder at foot? Full review...
Swim the Fly by Don Calame
Matt and his friends, Coop and Sean, set themselves a challenge every summer. This year, with fifteenth birthdays under their belts and hormones a-go-go, their goal is to see a girl - any girl - naked. They know it won't be easy but, as Coop insists, it's step one in a very important and natural order of things. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to what the final step could be... Full review...
The Stars in the Bright Sky by Alan Warner
In 1999, Alan Warner introduced us to a wonderful set of characters in 'The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went on a trip to the big city. Much debauchery ensued. 'The Stars in the Bright Sky' once again reunites most of the original gang and there is no need to have read the first book to pick up on the diverse characters. Now though, they've grown up (or at least got older!) and are gathered at Gatwick Airport to set off on a girls' holiday. Full review...
The A-Men Return by John Trevillian
It's been several years since the Phoenix Tower came down and the A-Men split. Dead City is a shadow of its former self: an urban wasteland and the centre of the sort of gang warfare that finds and exploits drugs and hopelessness with a ruthless talent. Full review...
Dead Man's Grip by Peter James
What starts as a normal day for Tony Revere soon ends in his death after he is knocked from his cycle and is thrown under a truck. Carly Chase does not hit him but as she swerves to avoid him, her Audi smashes into a café window. A subsequent breathalyser test shows that she is still over the limit from the night before. Stuart Ferguson, the truck driver, is also not responsible for the accident but he was tired having driven for more hours than are legally permitted. The van driver who actually hits Tony first just doesn't stop. It seems like a tragic accident, especially as the weather was terrible and Tony was cycling on the wrong side of the road. Tony's mother, who has links with the Mafia, does not think so though and is set on revenge. Full review...
Just Business by Geraint Anderson
The inside cover blurb tells us that the author himself has worked in the square mile in London, so presumably he'll have first-hand experience in the world of finance. The book is bang up-to-date, as it mentions the first whiff of the sub-prime disaster which seemed to start the whole collapse of the (up till then) safe and often extremely well-paid banking sector. Full review...
The Radleys by Matt Haig
Rowan Radley is a freak who has to wear factor 60 sunblock. Clara is wasting away as she tries to turn vegan. Their parents are a normal suburban couple – aren't they? When a bully tries to take advantage of Clara in a secluded field, he finds he's bitten off rather more than he can chew – and she's bitten off rather more than he can survive without. Who do you call when you need a body to be buried? Abstainers Peter and Helen haven't had to deal with this sort of thing since they gave up drinking human blood – so in a moment of desperation they turn to Will, Peter's brother, who's rather more of a traditional vampire. Things are about to get messy… Full review...
Outside In by Maria V Snyder
Although the revelation that Inside, a society crammed into a self-contained cube-shaped metal hull, is actually floating through space came as a shock to the population of Inside, both the Uppers and the Lowers of society expected life to get better after the success of the revolution and the deposition of the tyrannical Travas. However, Trella learns that setting up a new society that smooths over the divides and prejudices that consumed the old one is a cumbersome process. When bombs start exploding and violence begins to flare, a new potent threat has to be confronted by the divided population of Inside, in the form of Outsiders. Full review...
