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 Ottoman Motel by Christopher Currie
Simon Sawyer is 11 years old, forced on a road-trip with his parents to visit his grandmother, Iris. Iris is living in some backwater town hemmed in on three sides by corn fields, and on the fourth by the sea. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at irony, as we learn the town actually has no reception for mobile phones and is pretty much isolated from the rest of the world but for a few dirt tracks leading out. Full review...
Homecoming by Susie Steiner
Ann and Joe Hartle are approaching their sixties and hoping to slow down a little. Their sheep farming life is starting to take its toll and it’s an enticing thought that they may be able to pass the farm on to their son Max. The only problem is that the farm is hardly making any profit and Max is not the most capable person in the world. Added to that, Max’s wife Primrose is expecting a baby and that is not without its difficulties. The Hartle’s other son, Bartholomew, is far away in London trying to run his own business and also scared about committing to his girlfriend, Ruby. The family has started to fall apart over the years but when things go badly wrong on the farm including a barn fire and a virus that spreads through the sheep and newborn lambs, there is the opportunity to pull together and start anew. Is this something that the family can do or will they fall apart even more? Full review...
The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris
Some time has passed since we last saw the Moon family. Charlie Moon has been released from prison. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in Cornwall, where she's turned the family home into a B&B. Their father Brendan is a reformed character and he's moved to Looe, where he's a partner in an art gallery. But everyone's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant and the only logical move is back to the UK. Then Brendan overhears a conversation and realises that his business partner is deep in an art fraud. Full review...
Happy Families by Janey Fraser
Happy families are, contrary to popular belief, not all alike. Bobbie is a working mum of two children who we’ll call ‘spirited’ for want of a better phrase. Her husband works late a lot so she’s the one left trying to juggle running the house with wrangling the children and still fitting in her own job. Andy is dad to two teens who are perfectly behaved, or at least they are during the rare moments he spends at home. His wife Pamela is a goddess, and a Perfect Parent to boot. He’s a very lucky guy. And then there’s Vanessa, who feels her mothering days are behind her until her young grand-daughter comes to stay…and doesn’t leave. Full review...
Promise of Blood (Powder Mage Trilogy) by Brian McClellan
Adamat, investigator and ex-police inspector, is summoned to the Skyline Palace for, he assumes, an audience with the king. However, when he arrives, the grounds are in darkness and a greater darkness lurks within. The King's Hielman bodyguard are all dead and the royal family won't be around for much longer as Field Marshal Tamas of the home-grown Adros Military has led a coup. Tamas wants to hire Adamat for his investigating prowess but neither Adamat, Tamas nor the mages and sorcerers under Tamas' command realise what will be unleashed as a result… or perhaps Tamas does. Meanwhile a servant girl starts the fight for the survival of herself and a small but very important child. Full review...
Open Very Carefully: A Book with Bite! by Nicola O'Byrne and Nick Bromley
Here's another brilliant picture book from Nosy Crow. If you haven't already heard of them, these newish publishers are ones to watch. They seem to be nurturing artists and writers with an ability to think outside the box, in a children's field already replete with creative talent. Full review...
Dear Thing by Julie Cohen
Everyone hopes for the happily ever after, and Claire and Ben expected that once they were married, once they had the house with a garden big enough for a swing, that the babies would naturally follow afterwards. So what happens when the babies don't? How long do you try to get pregnant? How long do you endure IVF? At what point do you say enough is enough, and let go of the dream? And what if, at that moment of feeling you simply cannot take any more, your best friend offered to be a surrogate mother, and carry your baby? Full review...
The Spark by O H Robsson
Kristoffer lives in a house on the edge of a lake in Western Norway with his dog and occasional company from his friend Mats. By profession he’s a photographer and enough business comes his way to keep him the way he wishes to live. He’s relaxed - too much so at times when you’re relying on him (always a mistake) to be punctual. There has been the occasional girlfriend - some of them pretty stunning - but none of them ever came up to Eva whom he met when they were both in their teens and working in the local hotel to earn some money. His grandfather has a summer cabin up in the mountains and Kristoffer’s happy to go up to spend time with him and take him his supplies. You might think that’s pretty idyllic - and it is. Full review...
The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd
Teenager Juliet Moreau has had a hard life since her father was vilified by Victorian society. Thinking him long dead, she scrapes a living as best she can – but a chance discovery at a macabre event leads to her to learn that he is alive and her life is cast into chaos. Full review...
The Mummy Shop by Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard
One small boy is feeling very cross with his mummy. She has told him to tidy his room, to help at the supermarket and then has made him go to bed when he has only just started playing. He is so cross that when he reads this advert in the paper: Full review...
The Poison Boy by Fletcher Moss
Life in the city of Highlions has suddenly become a lot more dangerous, even for a 'poison boy'. Dalton and Bennie were sent to a banquet to check the food, and when the book opens our hero has just recovered consciousness to find himself lying on the floor covered in Bennie's blood. His friend has been poisoned and died horribly, having literally vomited up his stomach (apologies if you're eating your tea, but this is not a book for sensitive souls), and the same poison has caused Dalton to lose his memory of the whole event. Unfortunately this is by no means the end of his troubles, as the murderer is determined to remove all witnesses. Full review...
The Antenatal Group by Amy Bratley
Five women are all looking forward to meeting their new babies in a few weeks time. Part of their preparations involve joining the local antenatal group where they get to meet each other. Little do they realise, when they turn up for their first session, how much they are going to come to rely on and care for each other. This book is partly a testament to all those lasting friendships that are formed in groups just like this all over the country. Full review...
May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes
May We Be Forgiven is not an easy book to summarise. The book is narrated by Harold, a fairly pedestrian academic teacher and aspiring writer of history and particularly the Nixon era. We don't have to wait long for the catalyst that changes his life fundamentally over the course of a year. His high flying, younger brother, George, is involved in a car accident shortly after Thanksgiving and an adulterous encounter will change the lives of Harold and George forever. AM Homes offers a biting satire of the American Dream, taking swipes at materialism, families that are more nuclear fallout than nuclear, Internet sex sites and the dependence on drugs and psychiatrists to keep people on the straight and narrow. Full review...
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
Anna has been working as a supervisor and taster at a chocolate factory. She’s 30, never much cared about school, and recently split with her boyfriend. Life isn’t particularly exciting, but she’s reasonably content with her lot. Then a freak accident at work, followed by a nasty infection in hospital leaves her unemployed, apathetic and with no idea what her future holds. Full review...
Zog by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
We are devotees of the Gruffalo. We have books, noisy books, costumes, jigsaws, sleepsuits and green nail polish. We have scoured coppices for Gruffalo-shaped twigs and bakers’ shops for Gruffalo birthday cakes. We have done the Gruffalo, if not to death, but to the shallow depths of my granddaughter’s infant imagination. We love the Gruffalo for his unique and appealing simplicity, and because he is the most wonderful debunker of monster-fear ever invented. Full review...
The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
Ella and Micha haven’t seen each other for months, quite unusual for a couple who have been best friends forever. Ella’s been away at college, in Vegas, but Micha didn’t know this as she upped and left without so much as a wave goodbye, so he’s been trying to track her down. But, just as he does so, she shows up back home anyway as it’s summer break and she’s back at her dad’s, the house she grew up in, the house next door to Micha. Full review...
Dodger by James Benmore
That loveable rogue, the Artful Dodger, is one of the most memorable and amusing characters in all of English literature. Oliver Twist ended with Dodger Jack Dawkins arrested for the theft of a silver snuff box and transported to Australia. But what happened next? James Benmore explores that idea in Dodger, which takes up the story six years after the events of Oliver Twist. Full review...
Too Small for my Big Bed by Amber Stewart and Layn Marlow
This book is for kids graduating from the cot to their first big bed. Even more, it’s for all those parents who didn’t anticipate that once in the bed, there’s no going back to the security of the cot ... the child can now appear in your bedroom, night after night after night. So this is the universal problem, and here is a supportive and tactful way of addressing it. Full review...
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
As Therese Anne Fowler points out in her acknowledgements, views on the relationship between F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife and muse, Zelda, tend to split into 'Team Scott' and 'Team Zelda'. The former believe that it was Zelda's instability and possessiveness that limited Scott's creative output while the latter argue that it was Scott's debauched behaviour that led to Zelda's mental problems. Z takes a more balanced view - the truth of the matter is that they needed each other but were tragically, mutually destructive. Getting the fact-based fiction tone right is always a challenge, and this is exacerbated when the author gives a writer the narrative voice, and Zelda was a talented writer in her own right as well as a dancer, artist and general social phenomenon. However Fowler pulls it off with aplomb in what is a sensitive and engrossing story of Zelda - 'the First Flapper'. Full review...
How Dinosaurs Really Work by Alan Snow
It’s sometimes difficult to find books which appeal to reluctant readers, particularly boys. Three cheers, then, for Alan Snow who has produced a really smashing book about those ever-popular dinosaurs. Here is a book which will appeal not only to bright kids during their inevitable dinosaur phase, and also to more struggling readers, a little later on. This is exactly the sort of book kids can pore over for several weeks on end in order to become something of an authority on prehistoric animals in front of their mates. Full review...
Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant
When household name Gaby Mortimer finds a body in the common near her London home, it is horrible and shocking, but the one thing she doesn’t expect is to become the main suspect in the murder case. After all, she was just the one who found the poor woman’s body. Surely the Police should be spending their time searching for a more likely assailant than a perhaps past her prime TV presenter? But it soon becomes clear that Gaby is the one they are fixating on, the one to whom they will try to make the limited evidence fit. And it’s going to take everything she’s got to convince them otherwise. Full review...
Weasels by Elys Dolan
I chose 'Weasels' because my sons enjoy books with a bit of wicked wit. Books are my passion, and something my children greatly enjoy as well. We have several hundred children's books, and we really value ones that are a bit different from the norm. 'Weasels' most certainly qualifies as different. The premise of the story is that weasels are secretly plotting to take over the world. My boys call it World War Weasel. A slight but very humorous mishap really throws a spanner in the works. The weasels have built a massive machine to secure their quest for world domination, but just as the countdown begins the lights go off and the machine status screen clearly tells us It's broken. Full review...
The Great Mathematical Problems by Ian Stewart
I joked with a friend when I first got the book that The Great Problems may be a step too far for me, and perhaps I should wait for Stewart to release a book called The Fairly Good Mathematical Problems as it would be closer to my level. While I originally said it in jest, by chapter four or so I was starting to think I'd been closer to the truth than I'd realised - Stewart seems, somewhat surprisingly given his past success with books like the brilliant Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, to have pitched this book about the 'really big questions in mathematics' at an extremely high level. With just a degree in mathematics and nearly ten years worth of experience teaching the subject, I found it something of a slog to get through, with many concepts being difficult to grasp, in particular the Mordell conjecture. Full review...
The Hit by Melvin Burgess
Manchester. About thirty years from now. Hardly anyone has a job that pays enough to live on. Life is mean and limited for most people. And then a rock star gives his final concert. Jimmy Earles dies on stage after taking Death, a new drug that gives the ultimate high at an equally high price - it kills you after seven days and there is no antidote. Full review...
Lost, Stolen or Shredded: Stories of missing works of art and literature by Rick Gekoski
Over the centuries, many works of art have disappeared and then come back, or been returned almost as if they had never been away. Others, less fortunate, were simply destroyed. A very few never really existed at all. That is the basis of this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealer, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoski. Full review...
The Joy of X by Steven Strogatz
Steven Strogatz, award-winning professor, takes us on a tour of mathematics, and how it relates to our everyday life, in this fascinating book. Split into six sections, 'Numbers', 'Relationships', 'Shapes', 'Change', 'Data' and 'Frontiers', it's an engaging and well-presented read, with short chapters which make it easy to dip into. Full review...
Good Husband Material by Trisha Ashley
Fergal is part of a popular pop band. Regularly in the news for various scandals, he is introduced in the prologue to this novel when he recalls his first, somewhat dramatic meeting with 17-year-old Tish, and the year-long romance which followed. Full review...
How Puzzles Improve Your Brain: The Surprising Science of the Playful Brain by Richard Restak and Scott Kim
Many people in the first flush of youth will read this book to find ways of increasing their brain power. Others - like me - at the other end of the age continuum will read because they're looking for ways to restrict or even reverse what they see as deterioration. Both groups might initially be disappointed as the title suggests that the book is about puzzles, but don't give up as the reality is far more useful. This is a book about how our brains work, how the different parts interact or come into play in certain circumstances - and then there are some puzzles directed at improving performance in those areas. Full review...