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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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E L Konigsburg
Eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid is tired of being taken for granted. As the oldest of four children, she suffers many an injustice, and the interplay of school and home life is becoming monotonous. She decides to run away from her home in Greenwich, Connecticut to live in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle brother Jamie, 9, is her chosen companion, not least because he can fund their venture. By cheating his friend Bruce at card games, Jamie has accumulated more than $24 – which, in 1967 when this classic children's novel first appeared, was not an insignificant amount. Full review...
Go to Sleep, Monty! by Kim Geyer
For some children, it does not take them long to decide that they want a pet. This means that the next few months and years consist of them slowly breaking down their parents’ resistance until finally a pet enters the home. For some lucky adults this may take the form of a goldfish or a hamster, but for many it will be a dog. You may feel like you have only just managed to get your own child potty trained, but now you have to start all over again with a puppy. Full review...
The Woman Who Fell in Love for a Week by Fiona Walker
Jenny is a teacher who sometimes spends her school holidays housesitting, and that’s just what she’s up to now, spending a couple of weeks in the country. It’s a happy coincidence that the house she’s placed at is a grand manor, owned by two well-known writers, because she herself is into literature, teaches the subject, and also works a bit as a proof reader. It’s a match made in housesitting heaven. Full review...
The Lodger by Louisa Treger
A writer writing about writers writing. What more could a reader, a book reviewer, a tentative writer and lover of words want from a book? Not forgetting the setting – England, early 1900s, clear class divisions and social expectations – and the characters – fascinating, colourful, and above all, real. This book has everything I look for in a story. Full review...
Mungo Monkey goes on a Train by Lydia Monks
I have spent quite a lot of time on public transport and, believe you me, I have seen a few odd things in my time, but I have yet to see a family of monkeys catch the train. However, Mungo is no ordinary monkey as he lives in a curious world where you can lift flaps and see what is going on. What can be behind the next one? Perhaps a photo of me looking puzzled as I see a monkey on the train! Full review...
Sixty Years a Nurse by Mary Hazard
“Sixty Years a Nurse” is the remarkable true story of Mary Hazard, who travelled from Ireland as a naïve teenager in 1952 to start life as a nurse in an NHS hospital. From a strict Catholic background, Mary's lifestyle choice had alienated her family, her mother in particular, who viewed the whole decision as doomed to failure. However, Mary proved her mother wrong and went on to become one of the longest serving nurses in the NHS with an interesting and varied career. Full review...
Remix by Non Pratt
Kaz and Ruby have been best friends for a long time but their lives are about to change irrevocably. Ruby has a sassy, devil may care outer shell that hides her vulnerability but where do her loyalties really lie? Kaz, short for Karizma, thinks she knows what she wants but what does she really need? Stu longs to shake off his bad reputation and win back the love of his life while Tom is unsure of what he wants and takes the coward’s way out. Meanwhile Ruby’s brother Lee and his boyfriend Owen have some of their own decisions to make. Throw into the mix an arrogant pop star, secrets, betrayal, jealousy, misunderstandings, new faces and some bad choices and the ingredients are there for an explosive weekend. Full review...
Where, Oh Where, is Rosie's Chick? by Pat Hutchins
Rosie's not the sharpest chuck in the hen house. She made her debut over forty years ago in the 1968 publication, 'Rosie's Walk' when she stepped out alone blithely unaware of always being a hairs breadth away from calamity. Well, she's back, and this time she has a chick. Uh-oh as my toddler would say…let's have a look at 'Where, Oh Where, is Rosie's Chick?' Full review...
Out of the Woods: the armchair guide to trees by Will Cohu
Most people probably accept trees as, well, trees. They're there and they're green. Some are lighter, some darker. Some are taller and other go for width, but as for telling them apart there were few that I could identify until recently. I knew that the big tree at the bottom of next door's garden is a sycamore, but only because I heard someone say 'that sycamore is going to cause problems with the drains of the flats at the back'. I was OK on white horse chestnuts too, but only when the kids were collecting conkers, so I was rather pleased when Will Cohu's book landed on my desk and I opened it expecting to find lots of pictures with all the details which I probably wouldn't remember. Full review...
Paddington Goes for Gold by Michael Bond and R W Alley
Rather like a young child, Paddington is a wide-eyed innocent who leaves devastation wherever he goes, yet somehow always manages to land on his feet. I am very fond of literary bears, and he is one of my favourites. I love his enthusiasm, in everything he does, and that he always has a snack to hand. In this particular adventure, Paddington manages to entice the entire Brown family, and Mrs Bird, to come to a local sports day. There’s everything from the shotput to a three-legged race and even a knitting race. You can probably imagine the trouble he gets into… Full review...
Dork Diaries: Drama Queen (Dork Diaries 9) by Rachel Renee Russell
Meet Mackenzie Hollister. She's a typical American tweenager – concerned in popularity, looks, the hot guys like Brandon, and getting one over on all those around her. That's made a lot more easy by her parents being spoilingly rich – if Mackenzie, say, wants a new cover for her diary she will just rip up a new $220 leopard print designer blouse and use that. But the problem is, what she's reading back over, and what she's writing in, isn't exactly her diary – it's the diary belonging to our beloved heroine, Nikki, and Mackenzie has managed to purloin it for evil deeds. Can Nikki get it back – or live at all without her beloved journal? And could there actually be something worse than her biggest enemy of, like, all time, being the person reading it? Full review...
Modesty Blaise - The Killing Distance by Peter O'Donnell and Enric Badia Romero
Oh, such things just HAPPEN to that pair, Sir. The pair referred to, of course, are Modesty Blaise, sexy femme fatale with a head full of morals and a pair of legs full of kicking power, and Willy Garvin, the only man to call her Princess and get away with it – intelligent, practical and yet equally resilient in a fight with a baddy. The things that happen to them are legion, over many novels and 95 daily newspaper comic strips, and this is one of the better examples of the current collections of the latter. Where else can you get movie stunts going wrong, pregnant women in danger on the high seas, and people escaping from bomb-laden planes, all in a Jolly Hockey Sticks mood that smacks of pastiche and vintage ribaldry, were it not from the heady days of the mid-'90s? Full review...
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Sir John Tenniel
It can hardly have escaped anyone's attention that 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and we've seen numerous anniversary editions. Full review...
The Man With The Overcoat by David Finkle
Why would anyone - he was soon to ask himself innumerable times - take a coat from a complete stranger only because it had been offered? Skip Gerber steps off the elevator after a long day at work; the foyer of his office building is busy and buzzy and he does not notice the man holding the overcoat until the man hands it to Skip telling him to take very good care of it. Skip unthinkingly grasps the coat and before he has the chance to realise what he is doing - and that he is now holding an overcoat of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door to the building. Full review...
British Bulldog by Sara Sheridan
As a decade, the fifties doesn't attract much attention from authors and scriptwriters - it's dull and grey in comparison with the vivid horrors of war and the colourful extravagance of the sixties. But World War II left a long shadow, and this, the fourth instalment in this excellent series, takes us deep into past life of ex-intelligence agent Mirabelle Bevan, and the sorrow and the blighted love she has so desperately fought to hide from public gaze soon becomes hopelessly entangled with present deaths and danger. Full review...
The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson
A few months after we left Tom in the 1720s we return to find him living in sin and love with Kitty. Or it would be sin if they ever get round to the bed bit. Just as he promised underworld gang leader James Fleet, Tom has taken in James' son Sam to train him in the ways of being a gentleman. All seems to be going well in that department until Tom receives a visit from an old enemy and a brush with the country's ultimate power. Then both collide to create fear and an offer that Tom isn't able to refuse, no matter how hard he tries. Full review...
Scout, Atticus and Boo by Mary McDonagh Murphy
First published in 1960, ‘’To Kill a Mockingbird’’ is not only a beloved classic, but a touchstone in literary and social history. ‘’Scout, Atticus & Boo’’ commorates the fifty years plus since ‘’To Kill a Mockingbird’’ was published, and discusses its impact with contributions from Oprah Winfrey, James Patterson, Adriana Trigiani and Wally Lamb amongst others – particularly Alice Finch Lee, Harper Lee’s older sister who passed away last year. Full review...
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman
Every 7-year-old needs a superhero. That's just how it is… and for Elsa it's her Gran. When Gran dies, Elsa is surprised and devastated. Granny can't be old - Elsa has only known her for 7 years! Elsa still has to carry out Gran's last wish though; there are letters to be delivered and with each delivery Elsa learns something more about Gran the person behind Gran the superhero. Will it enforce her hero status or destroy it? Full review...
Silly Dizzy Dinosaur by Jack Tickle
Reading to children does not have to be a passive experience. Some of the best books have you interacting with the characters found between the pages. Dizzy Dinosaur is not the most sensible of chaps at the best of time, but his errors are only compounded when the reader gets involved. Can we help this clumsy Camarasaurus from falling over too much? Full review...
Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 by Louise Welsh
Magnus is a comedian but life isn't as funny as it was… not funny at all in fact. He's on the run from prison in a Britain that's in deadly dire trouble. But he must remain focused, his goal is to travel back to his native Scotland to be back with his family who may or may not have died of the Sweats; the deadly plague ravaging the world's population. On the other hand, the Sweats aren't the only threat to his life in a world where only the lucky survive. He may be lucky in some respects but luck has a habit of running out, the only question is when. Full review...
The Beast of Grubbers Nubbin (Stitch Head) by Guy Bass and Pete Williamson
It's all wrong in Castle Grotteskew. The very walls should be terrified by the monsters the Mad Professor in the basement is creating, out of various body parts and different animals. But no, the clamour of noise, the unlikely activities and horrendous appetite for food come from something else entirely – a hundred rescued human orphans. That appetite needs feeding – so it’s perfect timing for the village below the castle, Grubbers Nubbin, to have their annual podge-a-thon feast. But when Stitch Head and his human friend Arabella go to purloin some human food – there being no decent alternative – they're horrified to find something even worse than the monsters trapped in the castle above… Full review...
Kipper’s Little Friends by Mick Inkpen
Mick Inkpen has an enormous amount of talent, and he manages to somehow make the simplest of stories endearing and interesting. Here, on his 25th anniversary, Kipper is back with a new story in which he’s thinking about baby animals. He finds out what various different animal babies are called, and then he begins to wonder what he was when he was a baby. Full review...
Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley
Micah is an orphan who has been raised by his grandfather, but now Micah’s grandfather is dying. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his horrible great aunt has arrived to take care of him, cutting their limited time together further. But don’t worry all hope is not lost. When grandpa Ephraim was a child he visited the mysterious Circus Mirandus, where he was promised a miracle by the miraculous Man Who Bends Light. All Micah has to do is get a message to the Light Bender and his grandfather can have his miracle. With the help of Jenny Mendoza (the smartest girl in the class), Micah sets his sights on the circus, a task that requires unconditional love and faith. Aunt Gertrudis is wrong, Ephraim’s stories aren’t just stories ... are they? Full review...
The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein
Frances comes from a 'desperately artistic family', her father a medical illustrator and her mother an interior designer. Along with her younger sister Sarah, she grew up in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan: bunk beds for the girls and a fold-out sofa bed for the parents. The claustrophobic atmosphere has gotten to everyone and now, with Frances graduating from college, it looks like the family might fall apart. Her parents argue constantly and disapprove of Sarah's fiancé (not just because he isn't Jewish). Frances has her own romantic crisis: after a pregnancy scare, Robert breaks up with her. A high-flyer with a future in politics, he tells her that her art has no purpose; it isn't helping anyone. 'What does it matter if you do what you love, if what you love doesn't matter?' she asks her father. Still, she has no other prospects, so agrees to take up a painting apprenticeship in the furthest reaches of Norway; 'All I had was a direction, north.' Full review...
In The Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
How many planes have to crash, before people take notice? How often can an unlikely event occur before you have to stop calling it that? How horrible do things have to get before the adults are willing to talk to the children about their fears, their theories, their understanding of it all, rather than just glossing over the details? Full review...
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella
Audrey has been stuck at home for a while now, ever since that awful business at her last school. It left her suffering from social anxiety disorder and depression. Dr Sarah is impressed with Audrey's progress towards recovery, but Audrey still can't go out of the house, speak to strangers, or even make eye contact with her family. The painfully slow path to wellness is beginning to weight heavily on her. And then her brother's friend Linus shows up and begins to entice Audrey outside of herself again. He has a lovely orange-slice smile and writes funny notes and - to Audrey's disbelief - seems to like her. But Audrey really does need to heed Dr Sarah's warning that recovery is not a smooth progression: it's a series of two steps forward and one step back. Full review...