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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Wobble Bear Gets Busy by Ian Whybrow and Caroline Jayne Church
Wobble is a very busy little bear who has just learned to walk and now, of course, wants to walk everywhere. We see him here walking in to wake up his parents, treading on the cat, dancing and falling over, walking on a wall, splashing in a puddle until, of course, by the end of the day he has worn himself out and is too tired to walk up the stairs to bed! Full review...
Wobble Bear Says Yellow by Ian Whybrow and Caroline Jayne Church
Wobble Bear is a delightful little bear who is just starting to learn about colours. He insists through the book on calling everything 'yellow', whether it is or not, much to his mummy's frustration and my daughter's delight! Full review...
Eat Me!: The Stupendous, Self-raising World of Cupcakes and Bakes According to Cookie Girl by Xanthe Milton
What a stunning book this is. The inside, that is. I was almost stunned in a less positive way by the brightness of the front cover. I don't like pink at the best of times, and this book is very, very pink. Full review...
A Change of Fortune by Sandra Wilson
Leonie Conyngham seemed to have everything going for her. She was beautiful and set to be the belle of the forthcoming season, but a family disaster stripped her of her position as the most important pupil in her school and placed her there as the lowliest teacher, there to do the bidding of those above her. Her possessions stolen and in debt she had little choice in the matter. Her physical attractions have not left her though, but now the young rakes of London are not looking at her as a possible wife, but to see who can be the first to deprive her of her virtue. Full review...
Love, Peace and Chocolate (Pocket Money Puffins) by Cathy Cassidy
Jess and Kady have been best friends since they were three years old and now they're in year eight at Parkway Community School. They're on the edge of puberty but things have been a bit slow on the boyfriend front – not that either of them is looking to rush things, particularly as there isn't a single Y8 boy who can make their eyes light up. They've a good, solid friendship which means a lot to both of them and they both think that nothing can come between the girls. Unfortunately they hadn't taken the arrival of Jack Somers into account. Full review...
Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido
Josh and Caroline and their daughter Zoe live on an old red bus in Oxford, even though both have quite well paid jobs as an academic and headteacher. Caroline has spent her adult life deferring her plans for the future in order to support her widowed mother who lives in a house nearby. Josh’s job in the drama department of Bristol University does offer him some opportunities to escape abroad though, this time to a conference in his native South Africa. Full review...
Fifteen Minute Bob by Catherine Forde
For years, conscientious student Rory and his hard-working mother have struggled to cope with his father, an eyeliner wearing struggling singer-songwriter unable to hold down a job, and obsessed with a star called Bob Blade. While Rory finds his father's unreliability a nightmare to live with, his two friends Smiler and Barry think he's cool and spend more time hanging out with him than with Rory. As the trio of Smiler, Barry, and Rory's dad team up to make a music video that goes viral on the internet, Rory gets unwittingly involved and, in the words of the blurb from the back, 'everything flips'. Full review...
25 Chapters of My Life: The Memoirs of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna by Olga Alexandrovna, Paul Kulikovsky, Sue Woolmans and Karen Roth-Nicholls
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was born in 1882, youngest child of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and thus sister of the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II. Her first marriage to Prince Peter Oldenburg, who was probably gay, ended in an amicable divorce, and in 1916 she married Colonel Nicholas Kulikovsky. They escaped from Russia after the revolution, and settled in Denmark for nearly thirty years until, feeling threatened by Stalin’s regime, they moved to Canada. She outlived him by two years, dying in 1960. Full review...
Salt Blue by Gillian Morgan
I always judge a book by its cover. The eyes in the pretty face on the cover of Salt Blue are arresting, but difficult to assign to a period, though it’s clearly women’s or teen fiction. I imagine that the cover might attract fiction readers of mainstream women’s magazines such as Women’s Weekly or Woman’s Own, so it’s spot on for the story inside. Full review...
In The Rooms by Tom Shone
The book jacket for this novel is of New York by night, a cityscape par excellence. It also boasts Toby Young's comment as laugh-out-loud funny. I have a lot of time for Toby Young. I find him witty and entertaining. But I usually approach claims such as this with a healthy dose of 'we'll-wait-and-see' scepticism. However, he was right. And I am truly impressed with Shone's ability to make me laugh out loud and at the very beginning of the novel too. A very good sign of delights to come, I thought. Full review...
The Maharajah's Monkey: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan
Kit Salter has a nose for adventure. Somehow she always finds trouble, or it finds her, and this latest episode is no exception as she finds herself travelling from the home comforts of Oxford all the way to India, then on to the freezing mountains of Tibet. What has happened to Monsieur Champlon? Has he abandoned poor Aunt Hilda? Why is the mysterious monkey leaving threatening messages for Kit? And what does it all have to do with the Maharajah? Kit and her friends set off on a fantastic journey to investigate. Full review...
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel by Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie story. Before you can say the risen undead it will become a series of books, inspiring others, and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guises. Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the manky unmentionables – at least she is until the hidden truths open up to her, just as the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remains. And this time it’s in graphic novel form. Full review...
The Poison Throne: Moorehawke Trilogy by Celine Kiernan
After years away from her childhood home at the court, Wynter Moorhawke – now an apprentice carpenter to her seriously ill father Lorcan – returns, desperate to see her childhood friends Prince Alberon and his half-brother Razi. But Alberon is in exile, and his father King Jonathon, far from being the kind ruler Wynter remembers, reigns with an iron fist. As Razi, Jonathon’s illegitimate son, is appointed the unwilling heir to the throne, Wynter must help him and his friend Christopher survive in increasingly dangerous times. Full review...
Mother of the Bride by Kate Lawson
This is the story of Jess Foster who is busily preparing for her forthcoming marriage to Max Porter, willingly aided by her mum, Molly, and her stepmother, Marnie. It soon becomes apparent though that the women have different ideas, particularly opinionated Marnie who seems set on Jess having the society wedding of the year and even goes as far as hiring a wedding planner. Molly, on the other hand, agrees with Jess that things should really be kept simple. Thus the scene is well set for all the moods and mayhem which occurs when arranging a wedding. Will Jess be able to stick to her guns and arrange the type of wedding that she wants or will it just be easier to give in to other suggestions? Full review...
The Last Seal by Richard Denning
In 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the demon Dantalion from the Abyss, only for his nemesis Cornelius Silver to banish him straight away. Dantalion has nursed his wounds for nearly 300 years – and in 1666, descendants of the original pair clash as he aims to return to the world, and burn down London by starting the Great Fire. While the fire rages around London, and Dantalion’s followers try to break the seals which hold him in the Abyss, four unlikely heroes join forces to stop them from being destroyed – and to save the world. Full review...
Would You Believe...two cyclists invented the aeroplane?! by Richard Platt
Where can you find a welter of trivia and facts about transport from the ages, from the first use of Shanks’s pony, to the latest holidays to the edge of space? What has so much detail it can fit in the reasons for Mark Twain’s pen-name? Where can the adult browsing their child’s non-fiction library find a 'Glamorous Glennis' going 'kinda screwy' and see how it refers to the breaking of the sound barrier? In these tidy 48 pages, for one. Full review...
Now by Morris Gleitzman
We first met Felix in Once. He thought he was the luckiest child in the orphanage, since he was the only one whose parents weren't dead. Sadly, he was wrong about that. We followed his story in Then, in which he and his dear friend Zelda are on the run from the Nazis at the height of the Holocaust and its terrifying Final Solution. In Now, we catch up with Felix many years later. He's built a good life as a surgeon in Australia, and is now frustratingly retired, unable to operate because of his shaky hands. He's looking after his granddaughter, Zelda's namesake, whose parents are doctors volunteering in Darfur. Full review...
In the Valley of Mist: Kashmir's Long War - One Family's Extraordinary Story by Justine Hardy
Kashmir. Is that not the most romantic of names? To those of us entranced by tales from the East, it echoes with the same essence of myth as Shang-ri-la – and for good reason. Geographically situated in the Himalaya but with the abundant fertility of the valley, lakes and meadows, it should be a kind of paradise. To the people who live there, it once was. Full review...
For Everything a Reason by Paul Cave
Meet Joseph Ruebins. He is one second away from a very satisfying climax to his boxing career, and winding up for his ultimate punch, when he freezes, and suffers a stroke, and ends up in hospital. Overnight someone kills the elderly man in the next bed. Meanwhile, a policeman hunts down the man who killed his son. Where are the connecting links - and how could the fact that Joseph was put in the wrong ward due to a mishap with the forms imperil the rest of his close-knit family? Full review...
The Fortunes of Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge
The short prologue shares with the reader a childhood incident in the life of Grace Hammer. It had a dramatic effect on her and her life thereafter. She is a changed person. She's also driven. She grows into a desirable woman and turns men's heads wherever she goes. But she's also smart. Some would perhaps think at this point, why not go 'up west', bag a sugar-daddy and live in luxury for the rest of her days? But life is not as simple as that. Full review...
Repeat After Me by Rachel DeWoskin
September 1989: It is a few months after the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China. Aysha is teaching English at a private language school in New York City. She makes friends with some of her students. Da Ge is angry and disruptive yet attractive and interesting at the same time, and they quickly become involved, although his interest in her is not as romantic as, perhaps, she would like it to be. He asks her to marry him so he can stay in the country. Aysha agrees, although there is still a lot she does not know about the mysterious, unstable Da Ge. Full review...
Wasted by Nicola Morgan
Jess wants to study music. She's a wonderful singer. And so a chance encounter with Jack, who needs a singer for his band, is exactly the happenstance she'd hoped for. Even better that Jack is so charming and handsome and charismatic. And still better that he feels the same attraction to her. How lucky can a girl get? Jack believes in luck. In fact, he lives his life by it. He doesn't do a thing unless his coin says he can. Newly in love, Jess is slowly drawn into his game of chance. Although it worries her a little, she can't know that a time will come when the toss of a coin is the difference between life and death. Full review...
Monsters of Men (Chaos Walking) by Patrick Ness
Noise - visible thought - dominates the lives of everyone on this settler planet. Noise is used as a tool of oppression and as a weapon. There's a cure, but the Machiavellian President Prentiss reserves it only for the most loyal. The Answer are fighting back against his authoritarian regime, but they've had to make some terrible choices. Between the President's torture and the Answer's terrorist bomb attacks stand Todd and Viola - trying to prevent civil war, trying to hold on long enough for the second wave of settlers to arrive. And then, in the wake of the President's genocide of slaves, the Spackle attack. A scout ship finally arrives, but it may be too late to prevent a catastrophic war... Full review...
The Funniest Football Joke Book Ever by Carl McInerney
Who scored the most goals in the Greek Mythology League? The centaur forward. Badoom boom tshhhh. It's a football joke book, packed to the gills with all sorts of cheesiness and silliness. Funniest ever? Perhaps not, but it's not too bad. Full review...
Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat by Chris Stewart
Books about sailing fall into two sorts: those written by authors who know what they are talking about, (though sometimes they don't convey it too well) and those who don't have a clue, but like to think they do. Well, Chris Stewart may have started the book with a light and frothy touch as a novice sailor, but he ends up with the credentials of an Ancient Mariner. Full review...
Della Says: OMG! by Keris Stainton
Ever since she was four, Della has had a secret crush on Dan, the good-looking and gentle boy who once shared his brand new crayons with her. And now, more than ten years later, he wants to kiss her. It seems too good to be true, and for a while Della fears the whole thing is a joke, set up by mean girl Gemima. After all, Gemima is Dan's best friend. And then disaster strikes: Della's very private and confidential diary goes missing. The diary with all the excruciatingly embarrassing entries about Dan, her family, her friends... Full review...
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
'This wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her…it was just the most ridiculous' laments thirty nine year old mother of three, Alice, who has had the last ten years of her life struck from her memory by a blow to the head in her step aerobics class. Alice now thinks she's twenty nine, newly pregnant with her first child and happily married to Nick and furthermore she hasn't a clue what she's doing at an aerobics class in the first place. Full review...
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe
Meet Maxwell Sim. Actually, perhaps I should rephrase that so that it doesn't sound like an imperative instruction - for if you do meet him, you might not like the experience. An ex-salesman, he's now in after sales (ie he's stuck on a customer returns counter in a department store); however he is completely awful with regards to other people. His wife has run off with their daughter, all his few friends have forsaken him (and his Facebook wall). We start the book with him trying to patch things up with his father, who's safely in Australia. He finds all those who know of him are already aware he's depressed. Those who don't know him can find him painfully shy, or able to talk away their will to live, gabbling on and on about Watford. But a lot is about to change. He's about to be combined with some people excited about green toothbrushes. Full review...
The Seas by Samantha Hunt
The Seas follows the story of a nameless nineteen-year old girl who is lonely and adrift in a cruel coastal town so far to the north of the USA that the roads only run south. She misses her father, an absent alcoholic sailor, while her silence-loving mother, who grew up on an isolated island with deaf parents, worries deeply about her. Early on in the story we get the distinct impression that our narrator is not deemed 'normal' by her peers, who call her all sorts of unflattering things. With nothing to do in her small town, and no one to do it with, she spends her time pining for a local alcoholic called Jude who is fifteen years her senior, and who refuses her amorous advances on the grounds that it would be wrong. As the story unfolds, Jude and the girl's relationship grows and changes, sometimes in unexpected ways. Full review...
Miss Understanding: My Summer on the Shelf by Lara Fox
Anya Buxton is back. It's the summer holidays and her mum is keen for her to find a summer job rather than waste her days lounging around at home. After the brief, worrying possibility that she might just end up as a newspaper delivery girl she lands a dream position gaining work experience with a London publishing house. She finds herself simultaneously editing a dishy, though slightly disturbed teen author, struggling with a long distance relationship with Al, wondering if 'The Boy' really has turned over a new leaf and being wooed by the boss's son. And, of course, she's blogging it all for her dedicated followers. Full review...
What Small Rabbit Heard by Sheryl Webster and Tim Warnes
It's cold and windy. Small Rabbit just wants to stay inside, but Big Rabbit insists that it's fresh, not cold, and they're going on a walk. He's a bit of a cheeky scamp is Small Rabbit, so when Big Rabbit says try to keep up, Small Rabbit somehow mishears it as jump in the mud. As the walk goes on, Small Rabbit mishears Big Rabbit time and time again, getting up to all sorts of shenanigans. Full review...
Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking by Michael Booth
Japanese food has a tendency to sound a bit freakish or even controversial. Raw fish? Octopus ice cream? Whale meat? Yet it is slowly infiltrating the UK with sushi conveyor belt restaurants popping up everywhere and noodle bars offering Westernised bowls of steaming noodles. In this book Michael Booth takes his wife and two young children to experience the real thing, travelling across the whole of Japan tasting an enormous range of foods and learning about their history, how the foods have been produced and are cooked and eaten. Full review...
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Politicians continue to argue that the solution to social issues lies with the family, so it is timely that at the heart of Lionel Shriver's 2005 Orange Prize winning novel is the issue of nature vs nurture - what makes a person like he or she is? Is the eponymous Kevin born evil or is he influenced by his mother's coldness towards him. There are no clear answers and that's what gives this brave book, which tackles the taboos that some mothers don't bond with their children, such power. Full review...
The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand
On the island of Nantucket, four couples have forged strong bonds of friendship. Together they live and love, raise their children, share their dreams. It's an idyllic existence and at the same time a very purposeful one. The couples have worked hard to create the quality of life they now enjoy and nothing can take it away from them. Until now. Greg and Tess are dead, the result of what appears to be a sailing accident. They leave behind two young children, and six devastated friends, all of whom have to come to terms with what has happened. For some there is guilt over final words said or final warnings left unsaid. For others, there is the knowledge that secret relationships will now have to stay that way evermore. 'The Castaways' is the book of that fateful summer, the accident and its aftermath, but it's more than just that. It's a look at the precious role friends and family play in our lives, and how innocent actions or words can change the course of history forever. Full review...
Wintercraft by Jenna Burtenshaw
The wardens raid villages and cities for people competent to fight in the war, a war nobody knows anything about other than if you’re sent to fight you don’t come back. The last time they raided Morvane was ten years ago, taking Kate’s parents with them. Kate is taken in by her uncle, Artemis, and grows up in the book shop with him and her friend, Edgar. But now the wardens are back, and looking for more people to fight. However, they are also looking for the Skilled – a dying breed of people who can see through the veil of life and death. They want to build an army of the dead. Full review...
Infinity (Pocket Money Puffins) by Sarah Dessen
Girl is a teen from small town America. We don't know where exactly, but it's somewhere people drive (which rules out the likes of NYC) and it's somewhere that has a roundabout. Most of America doesn't have these – instead they have much more sensible crossings and lights and T-junctions – so it's a source of intrigue for many of the town's residents. For new driver Girl the roundabout is joint top on her List Of Things To Master, along with sleeping with her boyfriend Anthony. They might seem entirely unrelated to the likes of you and me, but to Girl the links are clear. They're both things she will have to deal with for a first time eventually, but she still can't decide whether to rush ahead in order to get them out of the way quickly, or put them off for just a little longer. Full review...
The Magic Thief: Found by Sarah Prineas
When we last saw Conn, he had blown up his wizard master's house, was exiled from the city of Wellmet, and lost his locus magicalus (it's like a magic wand, just it's a stone). He's been unable to do magic ever since, which is rough because he needs his powers now more than ever. A terrible evil is blazing a trail towards Wellmet, intent on destroying the city, and Conn's only hope to defeat it is to somehow get a new locus magicalus. He sets out on a quest to find one, but the journey is long and dangerous, and time is running out. Full review...
The Eloquence of Desire by Amanda Sington-Williams
The novel starts in the post-war austerity years in England and centres around a middle-class, traditional family unit. Sington-Williams gives the reader a detailed description of that period - the bland food, the monotony of commuting to London (some things don't change) and of course, the rain. George, his wife Dorothy and their teenage daughter Susan don't really talk to each other. They tend to skirt round issues and walk on eggshells. Appearances are everything. So a suitably fabricated story is told to their small, family circle of George's company move. George has no choice in the matter. So he does what he always has done up till now, he puts a brave face on for the world and grins and bears it. It's a huge change in their domestic situation. Uprooted to a strange, foreign, tropical country they've only glimpsed in National Geographic. Full review...
Ellipsis by Nikki Dudley
Both the title and book cover are slick and glossy. Can the contents live up to this positive image? Straight away the reader is drawn into Daniel's life ... but the clock is ticking. He will soon be spoken about in the past tense. He dies and leaves many, many questions that his immediate family struggle to answer. But as the story progresses we discover that secrets have been kept for a long time. Why? Too disturbing to reveal? Full review...
Animal Gallery by Brian Wildsmith
Starting off with a crash of rhinoceroses, through a corps of giraffes, a hover of trout, and ending up with a dray of squirrels, Brian Wildsmith treats us to a beautiful look at collections of animals. Full review...
Kraken by China Mieville
Meet Billy Harrow, curator of molluscs and other pickled creatures. Imagine if you will Billy's thoughts on entering the chamber that houses the highlight of his museum's tour - an immense squid, housed in a glass crate - only to find the entire thing - animal and tank - impossibly removed. Imagine, too, the more esoteric kind of policeman and -woman needed to arrive, to tell him that his exhibit was the keystone of a mysterious cult with the end of times on their mind, and that they might just like Billy to infiltrate it and see what was precisely what. Just consider - is Billy, the man who bottled the giant squid, a John the Baptist to this cult, or a Judas? Full review...