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.
There are currently 16,117 reviews at TheBookbag.
Want to find out more about us?
New Reviews
Read new reviews by genre.
Read the latest features.
Crumbs by Miha Mazzini
We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seems. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealing. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number one. He has several friendships on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more… Full review...
My Little French Kitchen by Rachel Khoo
France is Rachel Khoo's adopted country. She lives in Paris and to write this book she travelled to the four corners of the country to sample the local dishes and special ingredients to be found there. It's a look at local markets, shops, villages and towns, farms and homes - and the local customs and quirks to be found in each area. You get over a hundred recipes and plenty of images which set the scene or illustrate the finished dish. In more complicated dishes you even get a series of pictures to help you understand what you're doing - and all the pictures are of excellent quality. It's not just a coffee table book - if you've an interest in French cooking then you're going to get it sauce splattered. Full review...
A Commonplace Killing by Sian Busby
In July 1946 two schoolboys found the body of a woman on a bombsite in north London. It's a while before she's identified as Lillian Frobisher, but that produces more problems. Lillian was - apparently - a respectably married woman but the encounter on the bomb site had been sexual and almost certainly consensual. And why was her husband not aware that his wife was missing? His position looks even worse when it emerges that the body was lying on an expensive mackintosh sold in the store where he's a doorman. But was Lillian quite as respectable as she would have had everyone think? Full review...
East of Innocence by David Thorne
'What's the difference between God and a lawyer? The man sitting across the desk from me, eyes fixed on my face, doesn't look like he'd appreciate the punch line.'
Terry Campion wouldn't even understand the punch line, but then his lawyer, Daniel Connell knows just how untrue it is. He should. He's a lawyer who has somehow lost is ability to mete out his own salvation let alone anyone else's. Full review...
Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York by Gail Parent
Oy vey! Sheila Levine is down on her luck. Try as she might to meet a nice, Jewish boy to marry, she just keeps ending up with schmucks. The wrong side of 30, single and living in Manhattan, well if only she’d taken her mother’s advice at the time. Now it’s too late. There is no hope. The only thing Sheila can do is respectfully take her own life (having made all the arrangements and tied up the loose ends beforehand, of course. Nice girls always clean up after themselves). Full review...
Born in Siberia by Tamara Astafieva, Michael Darlow and Debbie Slater
I tend to shy away from reviewing book titles, but this time it seems appropriate – here it's a title that doesn't tell you the half of the story. As much as Tamara Astafieva was born in Siberia, and returned there several times, for many different reasons and with many very different outcomes, this is much more of a picture of the Soviet Union as we in Britain think of it – Moscow, a bit of Saint Petersburg, and little else. That's not a fault – and again it's not half of the story. The story here is so complex, so rich with detail and incident, and itself came about in such an unusual way, that any summary of the book has its work cut out in defining its many qualities. Full review...
The Affairs of Others by Amy Grace Loyd
Five years ago Celia Cassill's husband died leaving her the owner of the Brooklyn apartment block in which she lives. She's fastidious as to whom she lets and is understandably hesitant when George (one of her longstanding tenants) wants to temporarily sub-let to a friend while he goes abroad. Celia eventually agrees and so in moves Hope, a lady who has just left her husband and for whom life is as complicated as she makes Celia's. Full review...
Emily's Quest: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery
When I read this book as a teenager (many times over!) I loved Emily's passion for writing, I loved the excitement of all the different events through the story and I loved the happy ending. Coming to the story now, twenty-plus years later, I found the book had a rather different flavour to it. It is, at times, terribly, desperately sad. I was surprised, by a book that is widely regarded as a children's story, at just how bleak Emily's life appears to be, and how traumatic the events in her life are. It is very well written, and I still experienced the same compulsion to read it as I used to find when I was younger, yet even with the final, desperate happy ending that Montgomery manages to squeeze in I was left feeling rather contemplative. Full review...
The Diary of Dennis the Menace by Steven Butler
Wimpy Kid-styled books, from those by Jeff Kinney right down to those by Jim Smith have always served as a bridge for the reluctant reader, taking him or her into a world halfway between a comic book and an actual novel. With careful design and a healthy picture-to-word ratio the child only used to reading speech bubbles and cartoon captions has managed a proper book before they've realised it. So it makes perfect sense for publishers to allow a franchise to cross over from one format to the other – and this example is the first one to come to my attention. Even if, when you think about it, it seems a very unlikely book in the first place… Full review...
Choosing Crumble by Michael Rosen and Tony Ross (Illustrator)
Terri- Lee wants a dog. She is positive that a dog will be the perfect pet for her and will settle for nothing else. When Terri-Lee and her mum visit the pet shop together they think that they will be choosing a dog however, Crumble, the dog, has very different ideas. He wants to be sure that his prospective owner is the perfect match for him and has a few questions of his own. Will Terri- Lee be able to convince Crumble that she should be his owner? Full review...
A Room Full of Chocolate by Jane Elson
Sometimes family isn't the one you are born into but the people and pigs you collect along the way.
Grace doesn't want to leave her London home and go and live with misery guts Grandad while her mum goes into hospital to get a LUMP sorted out. Grace can't see why she couldn't look after her mum herself. After all, the LUMP was just caused by Mum dancing too much, wasn't it? WASN'T IT? But Mum won't hear of it and Grace must move away, start a new school, make new friends and miss her mum so much that even chocolate doesn't help. Things go from bad to worse when Grace upsets the resident school bully on her very first day. Full review...
Dirty Magic: Prospero's War: Book One by Jaye Wells
Gray Wolf is the new magic drug in town but it's a mite more evil than the usual sex potions and enchanted uppers and downers. Gray Wolf ensures that the user becomes a craven devourer of flesh - human flesh. Kate Prospero, cop seconded to the MEA (the government agency charged with clearing the streets of dirty, illegal magic) has her work cut out. Unfortunately this work includes having to go into the Cauldron, the dangerous underbelly of a town called Babylon. However Kate has a lot to prove, having been born an adept in that very underbelly and now having to face the forces that helped create the tragedy still haunting her. Also, if she didn't have enough to worry about, her ex-lover is implicated in Gray Wolf's manufacture and her kid brother is choosing his own way in life; not a good thing, not a good thing at all. Full review...
There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr Seuss
If you like made up creatures, this is the book you need, because virtually all of it is invented in a cuckoo, mixed up, doolally kind of way. Not only is there a wocket in a pocket, but there’s also a wasket in the basket, a yottle in the bottle and bofa on the sofa and so on. What a funny house this boy lives in! Full review...
The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson by Paige Toon
Jessie Jefferson isn't having a great time of it. Her mum died in a freak accident. On Jessie's birthday. While buying Jessie's birthday cake. Grief and anger at the loss of her mother has sent Jessie into a spiral of teenage rebellion. She's drinking and smoking and partying and stepfather Stu is at the end of his tether. So much so that he finally tells Jessie something she's always wanted to know: the identity of her biological father...
... it's Johnny Jefferson, global rock star. Full review...
Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C Morais
Seido Oda has lived all of his life in the shadow of the Head Temple of the Clearwater Sect of Mahayana Buddhism. His family home was an inn which catered to the pilgrims who flocked to the temple, and his mother a devout member of the sect. He seemed marked for the priesthood from an early age, and at age 11 was handed over to the guardianship of the priests to begin his apprenticeship. Seido's young life is blighted by tragedy, and a promise he could not keep, and although a devout follower of the Buddha, he seemed unable to achieve true peace, even in the beautiful tranquil surroundings of Mount Nagata. He was unable to relate to other humans and sought solace in poetry, art, 'the prayers' of the river and the beauty of his rural home. At age 42, he has spent almost all of his life in or near the temple, and expects to spend the remainder of it there when a very unwelcome appointment to America is offered to him. Seido accepts with a heavy heart, but only on the agreement that it must be temporary. Full review...
The Dog Nobody Loved by Jon Katz
When we first meet Jon Katz he's not in a good place: his marriage of thirty-five years was breaking up and he was close to a nervous breakdown. He didn't need any more problems. He particularly didn't need a young rescue dog, a Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, who'd been living wild, to contend with and to upset the fragile equilibrium of the life he lived with his animals on Bedlam Farm. Frieda was near feral but devoted to her rescuer, Maria Wulf and it was Maria who was at the centre of this conundrum. Katz was spectacularly disconnected from the world - and Maria was the only person to whom he seemed able to talk, but to connect with Maria he had to connect with Frieda too. Full review...
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Widow, Ruth, lives alone in the isolated seaside house in New South Wales that was once their family holiday house. Her two adult sons now work abroad leaving her just her cats for company. Oh, and possibly a tiger who prowls the house at night. When Frida turns up unannounced claiming to have been sent by the government to care for her things get more and more mysterious. As Ruth reminisces and then meets up again with her former heartthrob from her youth in Fiji, it becomes clear that something isn't right, although with whom is a different matter. Full review...
The Shroud Maker by Kate Ellis
It's a year on since the last Palkin Festival when Jenny Bercival disappeared and this time D I Wesley Peterson is called in when the body of a young woman is discovered floating out to sea in a dinghy. The town is packed with visitors who've come to celebrate the life of the fourteenth century mayor of Tradmouth, but John Palkin was no saint either, having made his fortune in trade and the odd bit of piracy. Jenny Bercival's mother is convinced that her daughter is still alive - she's even received some letters which back this up - but Peterson is concerned that the two cases might be linked. If one woman has been brutally murdered the outlook for the one who has been missing for a year doesn't look good. Full review...
Wake by Anna Hope
Wake:
1 Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep
2 Ritual for the dead
3 Consequence or aftermath
We often hear the term Broken Britain in reference to modern society, but the Britain presented in Wake epitomises the term completely. This is a country reeling from the aftermath of the Great War. Unemployment is rife, food scarce and every family has been touched and scarred forever by the events of the preceding years. Full review...
Bird by Crystal Chan
Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.
That was also the day Jewel was born. Birthdays for Jewel are miserable affairs during which her parents' grief for their son trump their joy in their daughter. In fact, Jewel doesn't see that her parents have any joy in their daughter at all. She's quite certain that nobody will ever love her as much as Mom, Dad and Grandpa loved John. Until, one day, she finds a mysterious boy sitting in one of her favourite trees. Grandpa doesn't like this new John, but Jewel does. She finally has someone that she can really talk to, who really understands the way her mind works. But John isn't everything he says he is. And his arrival is about to change Jewel's life forever... Full review...
Looking at the Stars by Jo Cotterill
Amina and Jenna are sisters living under the Kwana regime. Because the Kwana have banned girls from going to school, they contribute to the family finances by weaving baskets and mats from reeds. Life under the Kwana is tough but Potta and Mamie tell their children to keep their heads down and get on with life as best they can. But fighting is breaking out across the country and when Amina sees a column of liberating soldiers, she begins to think life might get better soon. Full review...
The Fields by Kevin Maher
Jim Finnegan is embarking on his teens in 1980s Dublin but that's not all he's embarking on. A lad from an average Catholic family in many ways, he has five sisters, a mother who believes the supreme threat is a telling off from the parish priest and his father is understandably tired all the time. Between school and the cacophony of his mother's coffee mornings Jim learns a lot but nothing as useful as what happens when you become very friendly with a pair of pillows or what to do with the girls he and his mates ogle from afar. Then suddenly a lot of things change almost simultaneously and life doesn't seem so average any more. Full review...
My Brother's Shadow by Tom Avery
Kaia feels frozen after the death of her beloved older brother. With her mum not talking about it and both struggling to cope, she withdraws into a shell and stops spending time with her friends. Then a mysterious boy joins her school and she starts to spend time with him. Even though he never speaks, she slowly starts to come out of her shell. Can she ever rediscover happiness? Full review...
Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley
Running is awful. So starts Heminsley's book about running.
And she's not wrong. Full review...
Crayon by Simon Rickerty
Meet Red and Blue. They are colours who like to colour. Red colours with a blue crayon, and Blue with a red one. Are you keeping up? Red and Blue are usually friends, but when one colours on the other’s page, and then on the other colour himself, things get messy. And scribbly. And at one point, almost violent. Full review...
The Boat by Clara Salaman
This is a book that starts at the end, which saddened me a little. Sometimes it’s hard to get lost in the mystery of a story when you know how it ends. But a mystery this story is. Johnny and Clem are Brits abroad, traveling through Europe, sticking to the coast where the boats are. Johnny’s into all things nautical and as boat people, we understood this. The title is the first thing that caught my eye on this book, and the reason I picked it up. And it’s no lie: the vast majority of this book is set not just on boats generally, but on one specific boat. The Boat. It belongs to another expat couple, Frank and Annie, whose life is a series of ports and harbours, and they come to Johnny and Clem’s aid when they need it most. Full review...