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 Glass Bird Girl by Esme Kerr
Edie is a new student at Knight’s Haddon boarding school – but not just any new student. Planted there by her uncle, who can fix anything, she’s been given a mission – to investigate the problems his client’s daughter, Russian princess Anastasia is having. But what seems like it’ll be a straightforward case of schoolgirl bullying is actually much more complicated, and dangerous. Full review...
How to be Well Read: A guide to 500 great novels and a handful of literary curiosities by John Sutherland
Being well read is rather like having good manners: it's something that we all aspire to but there's always a nagging doubt that there's something lacking in what we've achieved. That is, of course, why a book with the title How to be Well Read pulled me in so successfully with its promise of being a guide to five hundred great novels and a handful of literary curiosities. Was I going to find that ultimate list of books which I would have to read to ensure that I could think of myself as well read? No - I was going to find something far more useful and interesting. Full review...
The Abduction by Jonathan Holt
The teenage daughter of a US Army Major is kidnapped when off basecamp at a Venetian nightclub. She is abducted by a masked team during the carnevale celebrations, when people not wearing masks are more conspicuous than those whose identities are hidden. Everything about the abduction seems perfectly orchestrated leaving very little in the way of clues apart from the very fact that it is carried out with such military precision. Full review...
Waterfire Saga: Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly
Four thousand years after Orfeo defected as one of the six magical leaders of Atlantis, created the most evil of monsters, and the island sank below the sea, Serafina is preparing for a ceremony that will confirm her as the heir to a Mer realm. Sera will sing a songspell to her people and become betrothed to the prince of another Mer realm. But Sera is plagued by a strange dream, in which witches of Mer legend warn her of terrible danger to come. And when her friend Neela arrives for the occasion, she confesses that she has had the same dream. Full review...
Red Shadow by Paul Dowswell
It's Moscow in 1940. Misha's life transformed when his father was offered a job in the Kremlin by his old revolutionary comrade, Stalin. Misha's life is easier in many ways than those of his peers - he lives in a spacious and comfortable flat, and he has plenty of good food to eat.
But Russia is at war - currently allied to Hitler's Germany but about to be betrayed by them. And Stalin is both paranoid and unstable - this is the time of the purges and nobody is safe from denunciation. Full review...
Judges by Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli and Giancarlo De Cataldo
I'll confess that it was the name of Andrea Camilleri which brought me to this book. I'm a long-time fan of his Inspector Montalbano series and a recent reading of a spin-off novella had proved to me that the concise nature of his full-length novels was no fluke. In Judges we had another novella - worth buying for its own sake - and the bonus of two more stories from better-than-decent Italian authors. All that was needed was a glass of wine and a comfortable chair. Did the book live up to expectation? Full review...
The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation by Roy Hattersley
According to the back of this book, ‘the story of the Devonshires is the story of Britain’. That’s an extravagant claim, but it contains more than a germ of truth. Certainly one would be hard-pushed to find an aristocratic, non-royal British family who has more consistently been central to our history since medieval times, as this detailed chronicle demonstrates. From the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII presided over in part by Sir William Cavendish, father of the first Earl, to the big business that their ancestral home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has now become, the somewhat inaccurately geographically-named Devonshires have often been, or helped to, contribute to, part of the fabric of Britain’s past and present. Full review...
Eric the Boy Who Lost His Gravity by Jenni Desmond
Everyone gets angry sometimes. Maybe all it takes is someone queue-jumping, or in the case of my toddler, all it takes is the wrong colour cup, or someone playing with the one toy in the world that he wants right at that moment! The challenge for children growing up (and for adults too sometimes!) is how to deal with that anger. This story is about what happens when a little boy called Eric gets angry. Full review...
How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
The boy makes various attempts to catch his star. He spends most of the day waiting for a star to appear, and when one finally does he tries climbing a tree, or dragging his father's lifebelt to lasso the star down. Each attempt, however, fails. Finally, down by the shore, he sees a star that has fallen into the sea. He walks along the beach, hoping that the star will wash up on the sand and, finally, it does! They boy and the star walk away together, hand in hand. Full review...
Those Magnificent Sheep In Their Flying Machine by Peter Bently and David Roberts
The sheep on the hillside live a pretty sedate lifestyle, grazing on green grass day after day. One morning they hear a mighty ZOOM overhead and go to check out where the noise is coming from. To their delight, they see rows of aeroplanes lined up in the field below, ready for a race. The inquisitive sheep decide to hop inside a big yellow aeroplane and before they know it, they have accidentally pressed the start button and are flying high above the hills! Full review...
Rex by Simon James
Tyrannosaurus Rex is the scariest dinosaur around. He can pull whole trees out of the ground, crush boulders with his bare claws and chase away the other dinosaurs with his mighty roar! Everything changes one night when he finds an abandoned egg in a cave. A baby dinosaur pops out and decides that T.Rex is his Dadda. Full review...
August Folly by Angela Thirkell
Richard Tebben came down from Oxford in June with an undistinguished Third and little idea of what he wanted to do with himself. It was a pity that money dictated the need to remain in the Barsetshire village of Worsted (just a little way from Winter Overcotes) with his family and others who were not really up to scratch (his mother had taken a First...) particularly as there was little in the way of diversion other than Mrs Palmer's Greek play, into which everyone was roped willy-nilly. Then the Dean family arrived for the summer, impossibly glamorous and accompanied by six of their nine children and Richard was immediately smitten by Rachel Dean, mother of the family and more than twice his age. Full review...
Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor
Zoe and Olivia are best friends. They do everything together - until Olivia is diagnosed with a terminal illness. As she tries to fight against death, Zoe wants to support her. But how can you adjust to a life where you might have to be without one of the people you love most in the world? Full review...
A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux
After spending two years in an old people's home, Annie Ernaux's mother finally succumbs to Alzheimer's Disease. It has been a terrifyingly protracted end, and one that has spawned feelings of absolute helplessness in her daughter, who watched as her mother's life crumbled before an 'imagination' that bore 'no relation to reality'. Yet Ernaux's distress is also fuelled by the realisation that she'll 'never hear the sound of her [mother's] voice again', and by the fact that the fraying bond between the present and the past has finally been 'severed'. Impulsively, Ernaux decides to recreate that past, hoping to 'bring her [mother back] into the world' through a piece of writing. In short, she is 'incapable of doing anything else'. Full review...
The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
1943: In the US a group of men, women and children are uprooted from their homes with hardly any notice and after being sworn to total secrecy. Their destination is a hastily knocked up, unfinished small town in the New Mexico desert; a place where muddy water drips from the taps and their lives are turned upside down for nearly 3 years. This isn't mass abduction by a malevolent power but the US government's plan to end WWII. The men (and some of the women) are scientists, the place is Los Alamos, the site of the project that will result in Robert Oppenheimer stating Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." His story has been well documented in the past; now the voices belong to the Los Alamos Wives. Full review...
Keep The Faith by Candy Harper
Faith is back, and trying to pick between the awesomely wonderful Ethan and the gorgeous but not all-that-interesting Finn (my bias, not hers!) Other stuff is happening but there's little point going into details about it because let's face it, with characters like Candy Harper's they could be doing ANYTHING and it would still be amazingly good. Full review...
Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando
Roomies tells the story of two girls, EB and Lauren, who are about to move into college together to share a room. It's not a college tale, though - it takes place before they get there, as they get in touch and start to open up to a stranger about their lives, hopes and fears, while always remembering this is someone they're going to be meeting in real life and spending a lot of time with very soon. Full review...
Marooned in Manhattan by Sheila Agnew
After her mother's death, Evie has to move to Manhattan to live with her uncle Scott, who she doesn't know too well. Initially she's convinced that she'll take him up on his offer to let her return to Ireland and move in with her godmother at the end of the summer. Between helping him out in his veterinary practice, making new friends, and getting to know the city, though, Evie starts to wonder whether she should stay in New York - but one person wants to take the decision out of her hands. Will she be able to make the choice for herself, and if so, where will she end up living? Full review...
Ash Road by Ivan Southall
The North Wind is blowing. It's churned its way across two thousand miles of Australia, and it brings with it ferocity, and an endless dryness. Above, below, to either side of it, and in front of and behind it, is heat. This is a summer in the early 1960s and the land is suffering above-century heat. Unfortunately, through pure accident, three young lads out camping in the bush have started a fire, and it's getting worse and worse under the conditions that are ideal for it. Although in the leeward side of a large reservoir, the small community of Ash Road would surely suffer if the conflagration were to become big enough to threaten them – and it is, it is… Full review...
Solo by William Boyd
Like Sherlock Holmes, Alice, or even the characters from the Bible, James Bond is no longer just the property of its original author. Ian Fleming may have had the imagination to create Bond, but since Casino Royale rolled onto the scene Bond has been a changing man who mimics the times he currently finds himself in. William Boyd’s Solo reverts back to Fleming’s original timeline and continues the story of that Bond, but is this a reflection of the past or today? Full review...
Last Bus to Coffeeville by J Paul Henderson
Dr Eugene Chaney III promised Nancy one thing; a promise he hoped he'd never have to deliver. However, in the midst of their elderly years Nancy confirms that the time has come. So Eugene gathers together an unlikely fellowship and a bus that used to belong to Paul McCartney and plans a journey to Coffeeville, making it as much of a holiday as possible. Just one thing though: before they set out, they must spring Nancy and that may not be as easy as it sounds… even if it did sound easy. Full review...
The Big Splash! by A H Benjamin and Jon Lycett-Smith
The forest animals are all quietly minding their own business when:
DA-DUMP! DA-DUMP! DA-DUMP!
Something big causes the ground to shake, the trees to tremble and the rocks to rattle. It was a terrible noise! Full review...
When Angus Met Alvin by Sue Pickford
Angus is not like other aliens. He is a peace-loving little fellow, who likes nothing better than sitting in his garden watching the flowers grow and sipping a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, one day, a strange spaceship crash lands in his garden and out pops a cheeky, hyperactive green alien called Alvin who is rather a show-off. It’s time for Angus to teach Alvin a lesson about manners. Can the two aliens put their differences aside and become friends in the end? Full review...
Over The Line by Tom Palmer
Jack Cock made his debut as a professional footballer for Huddersfield Town and that fragile dream of playing for his country came just a little bit closer, but this was just before the beginning of the First World War, when there was immense pressure on young men to do the honourable thing and join the war to fight in France. Over the Line is the story of Jack's war, of joining the Footballers' Battalion, playing in the Flanders Cup, fighting in the trenches and not just surviving but being decorated for bravery. After the war he scored England's first international goal and was one of the first of the modern generation of 'professional footballers'. Full review...
Mars Evacuees by Sophia McDougall
If you want to know how the average young adolescent thinks and speaks, read this book. Yes, it's a sci-fi adventure with monsters and robots and space travel. And yes, it's a story of war to the death with invisible aliens. But kids are kids, no matter what the circumstances, and anyone brave enough to get on a ship for a week with three hundred young people and no parents is, frankly, asking for trouble. Full review...
The Quickening by Julie Myerson
Rachel and Dan are on holiday in the Caribbean, but soon after they arrive on the island of Antigua odd and disturbing things start to happen. Items seemingly move by themselves. Things break. People appear out of nowhere. And then, the attacks start. Rachel is petrified. Newly pregnant she is worrying for her baby’s safety as well as her own, and she has a nagging feeling in her stomach that the one person she should be able to trust is the one she simply cannot. Dan is acting strangely and though she begs him to let them go home early, he plays down her fears. Why won’t he believe what she’s saying, and take her seriously? Full review...
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Jonas lives in a world were sameness has prevailed over individuality. There are rules, so many rules, which are adhered to, and which allow society to live without pain, suffering or conflict. These rules are rarely questioned, merely accepted. When they turn twelve, children in this world are assigned their future role in society by the Elders, and start training for it. These assignments are based on years of observation of their characters and aptitudes, and whether they are assigned to be a nurturer of the young or a caregiver of the elderly, a labourer who keeps the streets clean or someone who prepares and provides food, they are usually a good match for the person. At the assignment ceremony, Jonas is not given a typical role, however. He is selected to be the Receiver of Memory, a position given out only once every few generations. He will receive and store all the memories of the past which the rest of society are no longer burdened with, but which may be needed from time to time to aid in decision making and law enforcement. Full review...
Orfeo by Richard Powers
'No one thinks twice about the quiet, older bohemian in the American Craftsman at 806 South Linden…people take up all kinds of hobbies in retirement.'
Seventy-year-old Peter Els is an out-of-work composer in Pennsylvania. He teaches music appreciation at a senior centre, but much of his spare time is devoted to chemistry experiments. As a college student he agonised over the choice between chemistry and music, in fact, and these days he wonders if he got it wrong. His avant-garde compositions, such as a three-hour opera based on medieval German history, were infrequent and never very well received. Should he have gone into biochemistry after all? Thus, thanks to a few thousand dollars' worth of semi-professional equipment purchased off the Internet, Els is now engaged in a new kind of composition – with bacterial DNA taking the place of musical notes. Full review...