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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The Age of Doubt by Andrea Camilleri
The rain was dreadful and when he left for work Montalbano had only driven a matter of yards before he found that part of the road had been washed away, but it led to an encounter with a strange young woman, who - in turn - made Montalbano curious about a yacht in the harbour. He should have been concentrating on the corpse found floating in a dinghy at the harbour mouth but it was the Vanna which seemed to keep surfacing in his thoughts. Well, when he wasn't thinking about Lieutenant Belladonna - Laura - at the Harbour authority that is. She wasn't strange at all. Full review...
The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech
Naomi lives with her foster parents, Nula and Joe. She is afraid of dogs - one of her arms is useless after the dog attack that killed her father when she was just a baby. Nula and Joe aren't demonstrative, but Nula knows deep in her soul that she is loved and wanted. Best friend Lizzie is a perfect foil for Naomi. She's garrulous while Naomi is introspective. Outgoing while Naomi is reserved. She's openhearted while Naomi is cautious. Their friendship is the whole made by two very disparate halves. And then, one day, a boy falls out of a tree. Finn is nothing like anyone either girl has met before. And before she knows it, Naomi is beginning to question her friendship with Lizzie. Full review...
Elmer, Rose and Super El by David McKee
Elmer, the patchwork elephant, his cousin Wilbur and some of their friends were listening to a distant noise. Elmer agreed that it sounded like a herd of elephants but it wasn't his herd. He and Wilbur set off to find out what was happening. It was the herd of pink elephants, which included Elmer's friend, Rose and Old who was celebrating his hundredth birthday. As Old stood at the top of the cliff all the other elephants began stamping their feet - and the cliff gave way. Old was left stranded on a column of rock which was crumbling ominously. This was a job for Super El. Full review...
The Cook by Wayne Macauley
Frasier’s Law states that if you flick through the TV channels long enough, no matter what time of day or night you will eventually stumble across Kelsey Grammar enjoying a cappuccino in Café Nervosa in the greatest sitcom spin off of them all. Full review...
The Valentine's Card by Juliet Ashton
Orla, a primary school teacher, is still at home in Ireland while actor boyfriend Sim works over in London, but although it’s hard to be apart, there are some benefits to doing the long distance thing, not least Sim’s awesome card writing skills. So when Valentine’s day comes around, Orla is excited for what the day might bring. She’s expecting a little something in the post, but she’s not expecting the phone call that comes, nor the news that comes with it. Sim has died, suddenly. And it’s not just his life that is over. On the verge of a proposal, Orla feels her life is finished too. She flees to London to recover some of Sim’s possessions, taking with her the as yet unopened Valentine’s card he sent, with its unfulfilled promises. Full review...
It's Time For Bed by Adele Geras and Sophy Williams
It's bedtime for Little Hare but in the way of all small children he looks for ways to delay THAT moment. Mouse isn't in bed yet and a lullaby has to be sung to him. Then it's Bird who also needs a lullaby, as does Frog... Eventually Little Hare gets to bathtime - but then the ducks need a lullaby too. And when nearly EVERYONE - animals and toys - has had their lullaby - there's the inevitable drink of water and the last lullaby is for Little Hare. Full review...
Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War by Harry Ricketts
The majority of recent books on the War Poets tend to focus on their lives during and immediately after the conflict. This enterprising account, borrowing its name from the poem by Wilfred Owen, takes a different approach in spanning a full fifty years or more. It begins with the first meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke at one of Eddie Marsh’s breakfasts in July 1914. Marsh was a tireless supporter of modern painters and after that promising new writers, particularly poets. The journey, or rather account of meetings, takes us to the western front and back to England, culminating in a reunion of two of the longest-lived, Sassoon and David Jones, in 1964. Full review...
Esme's Egg by Neil Griffith and Chistine Grove
Every day in the laying season Esme the hen laid an egg and every day Farmer Ferguson came along and removed it. Esme tried being a little bit devious but wherever she laid her egg Farmer Ferguson came along and took it away. Nothing daunted, Esme decided that she was going to follow her egg and so began a trip which involved a van and a warehouse and another van and finally a supermarket before Farmer Ferguson arrived to take Esme and six chicks back to the farm. Full review...
Krent Able's Big Book of Mischief by Krent Able
It's come to my attention recently that Knockabout books, with their growing library of graphic titles, have no intention in being at all literary – not for them the gently observant characterisation of some original graphic novels. Instead they seem to have a wilful regard for going even further than their house name suggests – wild, wacky and not afraid to present an upsetting image. With Krent Able they have the collaborator who will surely help them live up to that ethos like no other. Taken from the Stool Pigeon musical magazine, with some extra cartoons, are these strips of depravity, death in unlikely ways and revolting selections of body parts and fluids. Full review...
Where's the Meerkat? Journey Through Time by Paul Moran
It seems that one way for creators to keep kids poring over the pages of their books is to do what the people behind this have done – take most of the words out. There are a few hundred, giving us some brief story about a bunch of meerkats using a time machine, partly by accident, and therefore visiting several different major historical points in time, but one can ignore them, for it is the artwork that one has to scour for ten meerkats, a squirrel and a hawk. And that search is what is going to keep the young of all ages engaged in for quite some time… Full review...
Andy Bates: Modern Twists on Classic Dishes by Andy Bates
I do tire of cook books which regurgitate what are essentially the same recipes time after time. Sometimes food writers rework their own recipes - a tweak here, a change of emphasis there and you can have the same dish many times over, so it's a real breath of fresh air when you find a book which seems to have new ideas, or genuinely new approaches to classic dishes. Andy Bates has a classical background (working in a Michelin starred restaurant by the time he was seventeen and time in France to hone his skills) but his business is a stall in London's Whitecross street market. So - a perfect combination of technical knowledge, experience and knowing what people really want to eat. Full review...
Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor by Simon Callow
Once a towering presence on stage and screen, the star of fifty films and forty plays, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these days. As an actor of a younger generation and keen admirer of his work, Callow is well placed to bring him back to the fore. He notes in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped out of public consciousness, and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of forty Full review...
Dominion by C J Sansom
It's 1952 and twelve years since Churchill became Minister of War and Halifax took over from Chamberlain as Prime Minister. Churchill had thought that he might be able to run the war from that position but, Halifax, the appeaser, held sway and Britain surrendered to Germany in the aftermath of Dunkirk. Russia fought on, but it was a war of attrition rather than one which looked to come to a clear conclusion. The British people are under a violent, authoritarian rule and British Jews face a grim future. Winston Churchill - aged and possibly infirm - is the head of the Resistance organisation, but he's forced to live his life in hiding and on the run. Full review...
Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights by Marina Warner
'Arabesque' is, these days, a term little used outside ballet. However, in its original meaning it conveyed the idea of an intricate pattern, constantly and exuberantly multiplying in countless new twists and turns, like the interlinked curves on a Middle Eastern carpet. That notion of arabesque – things spreading and connecting gorgeously – is pretty much crucial to both the theory and the design of Marina Warner's fantastical and fantastic new exploration of the rich intercultural history of the Arabian Nights, Stranger Magic. Full review...
Trains and Lovers: The Heart's Journey by Alexander McCall Smith
Do you have a train journey to make? Will it take you several hours? If so, then I can't think of a better place to sit and read Alexander McCall Smith's new, standalone novel. It's all about four people travelling on a train you see, and it's all about love. I gorged on it one evening, reading it all in one go without stopping, and it's really rather lovely! Full review...
Llama Llama Red Pyjama by Anna Dewdney
Every parent will know the bedtime game: it looks as though we're all settled down, on the edge of sleep and it's time for Mummy to slip away and get on with all that has to be done, but then... There's a call: a drink of water still seems to be the favourite and Baby Llama is no exception. Like most children he just wants to hang on to his mother for that little bit longer. Only Llama Mama is busy washing up and then the phone rings... She's distracted but Baby Llama is distraught and works himself up into something of a tizzy. Full review...
Business Continuity For Dummies by Stuart Sterling, Brian Duddridge, Andrew Elliott, Michael Conway and Anna Payne
When you build a business you set off with unbridled enthusiasm and if you're lucky it does seem as though the Gods are flying along with and you holding your hands. But they have other calls on their time and at some point something will go wrong. It's inevitable. It might be something unforeseeable, something outside of your control, or an event which you really should have prepared for. In addition to growing this fledgling business you're now trying to troubleshoot, to second guess and eventually you stop moving forward and do little but worry about what can go wrong. There's a temptation to try and put it out of your mind: why give your nightmares an outing during the day? What you need is a plan - a structured, unthreatening way of looking at what can fail and how you would deal with it. Full review...
Boris Saves the Show by Carrie Weston and Tim Warnes
Bookbag has enjoyed Boris' previous adventures in Oh, Boris! and Bravo, Boris! so I was keen to see what Boris was up to this time around. We're back amongst familiar faces, in Miss Cluck's school, and this time Miss Cluck has decided the class will put on an end of term show, and that there will be special guests from the Pond Side Nursery coming to watch too! But what role will Boris take in the show? Full review...
The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
Ella Fox's life would never have been described as easy. Her parents divorced when she was young and not long after, her father was killed in a light aircraft crash. Her mother remarried and although Ella loved her new and funny stepbrother, Charlie, she could not stem her feelings of jealousy when her half sister Jess is born not long after the marriage. Although she lived halfway across the world from him, she always turned to her Uncle Lucas in her lowest moments. It's hardly surprising then, that years later, after the tragic death of her twenty month old son, Felix, she ultimately runs to her uncle in London. Full review...
Rain or Shine (Snip and Snap) by Diane Fox and Christyan Fox
It's an important lesson to learn, if you're growing up in the UK - the perils of planning an outdoor picnic! Snip and Snap have decided to have a picnic, but as poor Snip tries to get ready he finds that the changeable weather thwarts his plans at every step! Will he ever manage to eat his picnic with his friend Snap? Full review...
Really Weird Removals.Com by Daniela Sacerdoti
Twelve-year-old Luca and his younger sister Valentina don't know their Uncle Alistair, who had a row with their father about a decade ago. When Alistair returns to the Scottish island of Eilean to try to put things right, their dad doesn't want to have anything to do with him - but when Luca and Valentina meet him and the ghost he's brought with him, they're desperate to help their uncle with his Really Weird Removals Company. While their parents think they're helping to exterminate ants and cockroaches, they're actually relocating mermaids, sea serpents and trolls - but not everything out there is friendly. Can Alistair keep them safe? And what exactly did cause his row with their father? Full review...
Fans Not Customers: How to create growth companies in a no growth world by Vernon Hill
Vernon Hill is the man behind Metro Bank in the UK, the founder of Commerce Bank in the US and the holder of the North American franchise of PetPlan. When Metro Bank opened in the UK in July 2010 I remember wondering if the world really needed another Bank and the truth was that it didn't need another Bank-just-like-every-other-Bank-you've-encountered, but it did need a fresh approach to the business and a sweeping away of all the old rules and prejudices. Hill had proved that it could be done with Commerce Bank and in the last two years he's made a similar impact with Metro. Full review...
Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom and Laura Watkinson (Translator)
'Whoever controls Berlin controls Germany and whoever controls Germany controls Europe' is a remark which is attributed to Lenin. Until November 1989, the Berlin Wall bisected the historic city and divided its citizens from each other. Berlin was occupied, militarised and yet its people carried on with their daily lives amongst the ruins. Cees Nooteboom, a distinguished Dutch travel writer, knew something of the devastation of the past. He is old enough to have experienced, and at impressionable age, the Nazi Blitzkreig and occupation of Holland. A sensitive and susceptible person, he meditates upon the various strata of meaning, history, heroism and time itself. The result is a prose poem on a unique city that is condemned to be constantly developing, becoming rather than just being. Full review...
Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
Joe is a salesman on the verge of giving up. Having lost all confidence in his ability to sell vacuum cleaners to Middle America, he creates and elaborates on a fantasy just for fun. It includes a woman being 'serviced' from behind, her partner obscured by a waist high wall. The only thing any over-the-wall voyeur sees is an innocent activity e.g. she may manicure her nails. Full review...
A Mediocre Man by A K Hill
Francis James Humbleton, the 'mediocre man' of the title is quiet and reserved, hardworking and a man of such regular habits that his neighbours can set their clocks by his departure to work each morning. His life was unassuming, unnoticed by all but a very few and his death only came to light because his employers knew that something must be wrong when he didn't return to work after the Christmas break. Mr Humbleton had been murdered, at precisely (what else could it be?) 3am in what looked to be a burglary gone wrong. Only Mr Humbleton had nothing that was worth stealing and it's down to Detective Inspector Johnson and Detective Constable Smith to investigate his life as well as his death. Full review...
Finale (Hush Hush) by Becca Fitzpatrick
We left Patch and Nora were finally happily together and in love but with a big problem: Nora's vow to her dead father, Hank. Nora must lead the Nephilim in the upcoming war against the fallen angels who possess their bodies each year. If she doesn't, both she and her mother will die. She won't be accepted as leader by the Nephilim if her own boyfriend is a fallen angel, so once again their relationship has to go underground. Nora agrees to a fake relationship with Dante, the second-in-command Nephilim. The scam is easy enough to pull off - they need to spend a lot of time together anyway, as Dante trains Nora's newly Nephilim body for war. Full review...
The Racketeer by John Grisham
Malcolm Bannister is forty-three years old and a lawyer. He's also in prison for a crime he didn't know he was committing and in which he had no criminal intent. Halfway through a ten-year stretch he's the only black man in the prison serving time for a white collar crime: that's what happens when you're just a bit naive and what looks like a genuine real estate deal turns out to be part of a massive money laundering operation. The prison he's in is relatively relaxed and he's the librarian, but he's lost his job, his wife's divorced him and he wonders if he'll ever see his young son again. Other than that, life's pretty much of a muchness. Full review...
Red Cat, Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond
Red Cat and Blue Cat don't get on. They don't get on at all. They hiss and scratch and stumble and thwump. They fight like... well, cat and cat. Each cat has a secret, though: each cat would quite like to be like the other. Blue Cat would like to be fast and bouncy like Red Cat, and Red Cat would like to be smart and quick-witted like Blue Cat. Blue Cat tries to turn red, by eating red things. Red Cat copies him. Neither changes colour, and neither takes on the characteristics of the other. Who'd have thunk it? They're going to have to come up with another plan. Full review...
A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown
Once upon a time, there was a dark, dark moor. On that moor was a dark, dark wood. That wood has a dark, dark... well, you get the idea. Darkness is compounded by darkness, and we delve deeper and deeper into this spooky story, to find what lies at the heart of it. Full review...
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin
When I look back on my school days it didn't seem terribly complicated, but when I see what my grandchildren are coping with I'm amazed at all that they have to remember. They need to have methods of jogging their memories. 'Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy' gives them lots of ways of remembering a rich variety of facts, but also shows them how they can develop their own ways of helping their memory. It's a book about mnemonics such as rhymes, acrostics, stories, grouping, linking, pictures, acronyms and wordplay. It's not just the methods of remembering that are there - there are all sorts of facts in with the methods. Full review...
Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French
When Dawn French wrote her first novel A Tiny Bit Marvellous I was eager to read it, looking forward to plenty of silly humour and those elusive-when-reading out loud laughs. I was disappointed unfortunately, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters and quite discouraged and depressed somehow. So, I approached her new novel with a little trepidation, unsure as to whether she deserved a second chance. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt! Full review...
The Vintage Teacup Club by Vanessa Greene
Jenny, Maggie and Alison meet at a car boot sale. Jenny is looking for vintage tea sets to serve tea at her wedding to Dan in a few month's time. She spots four cups and saucers that would be ideal but at the same time, the cups are also spotted by Maggie and Alison who also want them. Over a cup of tea, they realise that each of them needs them at a different time so it could be possible to buy them and then share them. Jenny will have them first at her wedding, then Maggie will use them in the 'Alice in Wonderland' garden she is creating, before finally passing them on to Alison who will use them as scented candle holders. It's a good solution and one that will lead to a strong and lasting friendship between the three of them. Full review...
Edisto by Padgett Powell
Welcome to the household of the Duchess and our narrator, Simons (pronounced as with two Ms), a luxurious building set in the Carolinian coastal town of Edisto, and a white household in a friendly black neighbourhood. Our story starts when a man arrives, trying to serve a court order to the maid's daughter, an act which drives the maid to flee, and which leads to the man replacing her in her shack. He doesn't exactly do the housework as she did, but he does help the household out, for the Duchess is quite Bohemian in attitude, and wants her twelve year old boy to be a dazzling authorial prodigy. He already has a stool with his name on at the local black bar, but the man – who Simons decides to call Taurus – is going to be a peculiar father figure, opening his world up into that of adulthood. Full review...
Nelson: A Dream of Glory by John Sugden
I will admit that I didn't know what I was letting myself in for when I saw 'Nelson: A Dream of Glory' sitting on the Bookbag shelf, but I had just come back from Portsmouth and a wander around on the Victory, so it was a bit hard to resist. Full review...
The Downstairs Cookbook: Recipes From A 1920s Household Cook by Margaret Powell
Margaret Powell began her life in service as a housemaid, but she had an interest in cooking (her mother wouldn't allow her to learn at home as food was too precious to waste) and by talking to cooks, watching what they did and making notes she eventually rose to be cook in the grand houses on the nineteen twenties. The Downstairs Cookbook is her collection of the recipes which she used, or which were current at the time. But it's more than that. Think of it as being rather like a visit to a good cookery school where you'd collect all those hints and tips which make recipes work and the anecdotes about life in a professional kitchen. Full review...
Raised from the Ground by Jose Saramago
Domingos is a feckless man, a man often neglecting his family, and hitting his wife due to too much drinking, a man often leaving everyone behind as he chases work and flees his debts. He calls himself a shoemaker but really he's little different from those around him, who actually do have to move about, chasing what seasonal agricultural work is available. Certainly his children and their children in turn will mostly be bound to the land they sprang from - the 'latifundio' – and the spirit of both all of them, and of it, throughout the Portuguese twentieth century, are the subjects of this early Jose Saramago novel, in English for the first time after a thirty-year wait. Full review...
Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad
A Christmastime in Norway. Spending his Christmas Eve alone, yet celebrating the age-old occasion the traditional way just by and for himself, is Professor Andersen. While taking time to muse on the party-hosting neighbours lit up in their own apartments across the way, he sees a young woman get roughly manhandled by what he thinks is a young man, after which their curtains are closed and suspicion is allowed to mount in the Professor's mind. He attends a dinner party – arriving far too early, to have the opportunity to talk the case over with his best friend – and goes away, spending many hours with his colleague, yet carries on doing nothing about reporting what he is sure was a murder. He and the relationship to the criminal in his mind are the basis of this short novel. Full review...
The Human Part by Kari Hotakainen and Owen F Witesman (translator)
Salme Malmikunnas attends a literary fair with her daughter, Helena but before going inside, Salme meets an author who offers her a small fortune in exchange for her story. He seeks inspiration and feels that Salme's biography is it. Salme agrees only after a fee increase and so their regular meetings begin. The author gets a story and Salme unloads her past and present onto this stranger. Meanwhile, Salme's family continues speeding towards a devastating event. Full review...
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
Karou and Akiva once dreamt of a peaceful world, but their dreams look further away from reality than ever. Is there any way that either of them can gain redemption? Full review...
Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy by Roger Osborne
Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theory. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that of Greece in the sixth century BC, to the present day. 'Humanity's finest achievement', as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of his prologue, comes from the Greek words demos (people) and kratos (rule). It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later. Full review...
The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers
Agnes is a mystery to the residents of Chartres, even as she goes about filling any shortfall in labour here, doing any odd job there, and cleaning for some of the people in and around the fabulous cathedral the town is so proud of – and, even in the end, cleaning the cathedral itself. There is an aged, dotty professor from Wales, two extremely curmudgeonly and bitter old gossips, and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsed. She seems perfectly willing to do anything one asks, so much so that one might ask why, although nobody seems to do so. The answers might be in the even-numbered chapters, which take us deeper into this character's extraordinary past, and to a linked series of quite tragic events… Full review...
Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Evie has always been plagued by horrific hallucinations and nightmares. After a stint in a psych clinic, Evie's desperate to get back to life as normal. Unfortunately, returning to her hometown triggers the hallucinations again and Evie starts to realise she is never going to be able to pass for normal. Adding to her problems, a new boy at school is destroying Evie's idea of the perfect relationship with her ideal boyfriend. Jackson is crass and a well known player - so why does Evie find him so tempting? Full review...
Hurricane Hole by John Kerr
In 1942 German U-boats were wreaking havoc with Allied shipping in the Caribbean. Tom Hamilton, a young American working undercover and posing as a rich playboy, was sent to the Bahamas to investigate Nils Ericsson, a Swedish industrialist. Sweden might have been neutral in the war but Ericsson was known to have ties to the Nazis. It wasn't long before Hamilton was certain that Ericsson was building a base for U-boats at Hurricane Hole on Hog Island. The problem was what to do about it. The Governor of the Bahamas was the Duke of Windsor, friend of Ericsson and himself a suspected Nazi sympathiser. As an added complication Hamilton was attracted to Evelyn Shawcross but as she was a friend of both the Governor and Ericsson, could he trust her? Full review...
