Frank Sinatra: An Extraordinary Life by Spencer Leigh
Frank Sinatra was undoubtedly a legend. In a notoriously precarious profession, he managed to stay at the top, or very close to it, for a remarkably long time. Despite a few half-hearted flirtations with other styles which may have strayed a little from his comfort zone, he remained true to his musical style, won the respect of younger generations, and never really went out of fashion. Full review...
The All New University Challenge Quiz Book: Questions, Answers, Facts, Figures and everything in between by Steve Tribe
[Cue theme music. Lights up on presenter, who waffles on about establishments providing contestants – De Montfort University, local pub, family unit. Contestants don't, for once, introduce themselves as it's probably a given that they know each other. Contestants imbibe nervous sips of 'water', and settle back.] You all know the rules, so let's not waste time – here's your first starter for ten.
Yes, this book throws no punches and attempts to put you in the spotlight of one of the nation's most superlative televisual institutions – but does it manage it? Full review...
Harry Potter: The Character Vault by Jody Revenson
Unlock new information about your favourite characters from the Harry Potter film series. This coffeetable book profiles the good, bad, and everything in between – from Harry and Ron to Voldemort and Umbridge. Hugely detailed and filled with beautiful illustrations, images, and never before seen glimpses into the design process – this book will answer your questions about character design in the Harry Potter series. Full review...
Jeff Lynne: The Electric Light Orchestra - Before and After by John Van der Kiste
Jeff Lynne grew up in a Birmingham suburb right at the end of 1947: even as a child he was passionate about music and was a much respected guitarist as a teenager. He was a member of various semi-professional groups - critical acclaim came when he fronted Idle Race in the late sixties and popularity and a degree of commercial success arrived when he joined the popular group The Move. Whilst still playing with that group he co-founded, along with Roy Wood, the groundbreaking Electric Light Orchestra, but it was with Wood's departure that Lynne turned what had been an occasionally uneasy fusion of classical and rock into a successful and popular act. Full review...
Thunderbirds are Go Official Guide
It's time to admit that I am old. I remember the first series of Thunderbirds from Saturday morning kids' cinema – an episode of that, then a second-run film, both for a quid. They were only ten years old or so then, but at least that proved the franchise was durable. Nothing did that quite as much, however, as the news a couple of years ago that the Anderson estate was to allow a CG updating, bringing a new generation of people to the massed audience. Amid the usual worries about it losing everything that made it special, it actually did pretty well when it aired in 2015 – even with a breakfast time transmission slot. This small(ish) format hardback is, bar the annual, the very first chance to look at an official book concerning the series, and inasmuch as it inspired me to research the return, and certainly accept it as looking a worthy addition to the canon, it succeeds on all fronts. Full review...
The Adventure Game: A Cameraman's Tales from Films at the Edge by Keith Partridge
Keith Partridge has been one of the world’s leading adventure cameramen for over twenty years. The award winning Touching the Void, Beckoning Silence and Human Planet are just some of the films that have taken him all over the earth, from the caves of Papua New Guinea to the summit of Mount Everest. No location has been too dangerous, no environment too wild, and if you have ever seen a climber or explorer in some outrageous position, chances are that Keith Partridge was there with his camera. Here Keith discusses the challenges that have faced him in the daring adventures has taken part in, with personalities such as Steve Backshall, Joe Simpson and Stephen Venables. Full review...
English Gothic: Classic Horror Cinema 1897-2015 by Jonathan Rigby
Wow. Every once in a while you come across a book such as this, which represents in two covers the complete sine qua non of its subject and type. There is little vital to say about this book except it is essential for anyone with any remote interest in British horror in motion picture form – yes, it covers cinema to a minute level but also regards TV in an addendum that will bring back equal memories to those who watch it. A book as long and detailed as this – and boy, is it long and detailed – is immediately marked out as a sterling, five-star read, and yet the humble reviewer (like perhaps a victim of one of these gothic fictions) has an exhaustive and exhausting time ahead. Yes, we here at The Bookbag do read every word of the books we cover, even if the only verdict regarding them is blatantly evident from the first hour's perusal. Full review...
The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them by Antonia Fraser (editor)
There has been a trend for lists in recent years, with numerous websites and books cashing in on this craze for cataloguing must-see films, favourite foods, and things to do before you die. ‘’The Pleasure of Reading’’, edited by Antonia Fraser, may be, then, the most sophisticated and erudite result of this fascination for listography, since its premise is straightforwardly based around the top ten books chosen by famous authors. Behind this book is the curiosity readers feel for each other or the question, as Fraser puts it, ‘What ‘’do’’ other people read?’ But these people are some of the greatest writers working in recent years, with contributions from Margaret Atwood, Doris Lessing, and Tom Stoppard and others. The book, however, returns us to those early moments in their lives – before fame and prizes – when reading was a hobby like it is for so many people. Full review...
Minecraft Beginners's Handbook: Updated Edition by Stephanie Milton
If you haven't heard of Minecraft, where on earth have you been? This popular construction/survival game has captured the imagination of almost 30 million people worldwide and the craze shows no signs of abating. If, like me, you are curious as to what all the fuss is about and wonder why you can no longer get near the computer until after the kids have gone to bed, then this new series of books by Egmont are just what you need. In no time at all, you will be happily chatting about mobs, redstone, endermen and zombie pigmen as if you were an expert... Full review...
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Martin Edwards has had such a good idea for this book. He takes the foundation of the Detection Club in the late 1920s and follows through into the postwar period, ending his account sometime in the mid-1950s, perhaps with the death of Dorothy L Sayers in 1957. I may sound tentative here because there is no entirely precise end date. The Detection Club itself still lives on, hosting three dinners a year for elected members. Edwards is its current archivist – yet there are no archives, unless you count the hundreds of books produced by its members, which of course he does. And he also explores their lives. Full review...
Charlie Chaplin by Peter Ackroyd
Charlie Chaplin dominated the formative years of the cinema, as actor and director, like no other. As we are told in an early chapter of this book, on his first visit to America in 1910, he is alleged to have shouted, ‘I am coming to conquer you. Every man woman and child shall have my name on their lips!’ Within a few years he had indeed conquered the entire movie-going world Full review...
A Wish Your Heart Makes : From the Grimm Brothers' Aschenputtel to Disney's Cinderella by Charles Solomon
It's not a useful thing, to have sniffy presumptions, when you're a humble book reviewer. The same applies of course in the world of cinema, and a lot else besides, but I do have to admit to be really quite dubious about the thought of a live action remake of Cinderella, even before seeing, reading or hearing anything on which to form a proper judgement. Did the world need it, I wondered – the original was great enough, and surely so much a sine qua non in animation history. What would some new young cast members, and Kenneth Branagh, add to – or possibly would they overlay – decades of cinema audiences' joint memory? Surely it would be a pig's ear. Well, if this luscious first book regarding the new film is any indication, it's actually going to be pretty good. The format of film tie-in guides itself doesn't always engender much hope in the likewise prejudiced – but I confirm this, too, is an item well worth bearing in mind. Full review...
Tom Jones - The Life by Sean Smith
Few singers have sustained a career over half a century and appealed to succeeding generations in the way that the former Thomas John Woodward of Treforest has managed to do. Almost written off during a lean period or two, he proved himself the master of re-invention, and now in his mid-70s he is loved and revered as something of a national treasure. Full review...
Big Nate: Laugh-O-Rama (Big Nate Activity Book 4) by Lincoln Peirce
This seems to be a firmly established publishing practise now – the enhanced readership experience offered to fans of a franchise by a tie-in activity book. This is yet another example – looking like a genuine entry in an on-going series, it instead offers the fan of the characters the chance to interact with them in new ways, as well as looking back through the shelves of their collection, and inwardly as well, at their own thoughts and tastes. Note I say it's for a fan – this example will alienate anyone else from the first page – but for the right audience it’s generally a good thing. And in this instance it's a very, very good thing indeed. Full review...
Clever Commuter: Puzzles, Tests and Problems to Solve on Your Journey by Dr Gareth Moore
The week before I reviewed this book I saw a newspaper article that said that so-called brain-training apps are a waste of time, that they merely replace what we should be doing anyway to keep our grey cells active (multi-tasking, observing, REAL LIFE etc). This is the puzzle book version of a brain training app, and so with all those electronic titles on the market it already had opposition, even before that news came in. But let's face it – who on earth would risk the science being wrong on this occasion? Surely this kind of book should be an inherently essential purchase? Full review...
The Avengers Vault by Peter A David
It's not just because the third richest take of any movie is about to get a sequel that we have this pictorial background guide. There have been decades of action featuring the main characters of The Avengers, and they themselves are fifty years old as a collective entity, so this book has a lot of ground to cover. To its benefit there are hardly any mentions of the global behemoth that are Marvel films these days, beyond a couple of references where relevant. Instead we're looking back, with bright and eager eyes, to see what we can find, what the beginner may need to know, and what the fan will have fond memories of. Full review...
Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry by Gareth Murphy
It’s not difficult to find a history of popular or recorded music, written around the musical names who made it happen. Cowboys and Indies takes a different approach. While there is plenty in these pages about several of the most important stars, there is just as much again if not sometimes more about the movers and shakers, the inventors, managers, impresarios, and record label founders without whom there would not have been a record industry. Full review...
Did We Meet on Grub Street? by Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David Elliott
Essentially, the three authors (all of whom have long careers in the book industry) revel in the idea of being whining old curmudgeons who miss the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides the focus of the book and allows the writers to recount numerous anecdotes from their days in the publishing business. Whilst the primary audience for this book may well be students of creative writing and media studies, it also serves as an interesting exploration of an aspect of modern history: how a once-burgeoning industry is now a shell of its former self, much like a lot of manufacturing. Because of this, I was disappointed that no space was given to a consideration of how the rise of the e-book and Kindle has directly damaged both the sale of books and the potential for new books to be written (fewer real books sold = fewer financial advances paid to writers = fewer books written). Also, given the clear love of books as treasured artifacts, the dismissal of the Harry Potter phenomenon seems truculent, given the impetus the series gave to reading amongst both the young and adults. Full review...
Lives in Writing by David Lodge
David Lodge Lives in Writing. So blares the cover of my edition, and it's not far wrong. When he's not entertaining us with his writing career (now in its third, more erudite and to me more serious stage, after the first third of comic light touches, before he found his metier – and fame with TV adaptations– with comedies about the social and sexual lives of academe) he's teaching about and around writing. When I was younger I also read around writing – literature books, in other words – and Lodge's were among those I turned to. So this book and its contents are a welcome step back down a very familiar road. Full review...
Sherlock: Chronicles by Steve Tribe
I still remember sitting down to watch the first episode of Sherlock. I was looking forward to it, certainly, but within minutes I realised this was going to become far more than just a television series. It also struck me that, of all the television and film versions I had seen, this felt like the most authentic interpretation of the original stories - but trying to work out exactly why would definitely be a three patch problem. Happily, this book provides all the explanations. Full review...
Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization by Greg Keyes
The Earth is dying – dust storms are ravaging the world and blight killing off all useful crops, meaning farmers are vital to keep the few people to have survived recent wars fed, even if they need to go further and use less arable lands to do so. Cooper is one such man, despite a history in a completely different career; he lives with the father of his deceased wife and their two children in amongst the corn. But when some mysterious happenings keep occurring in the bedroom that was his wife's as a young girl and is now their daughter's, a most unlikely chain of events leads him to find clues that could revive his past – that in fact of a highly trained astronaut, with the one last potential mission – that of a shortcut to the stars in the trails of prior manned probes to detect new habitable planets for what's left of mankind… Full review...
Interstellar: Beyond Time And Space by Mark Cotta Vaz
Christopher Nolan speaks here of two pertinent visits to the cinema to see sci-fi epics. The first time round it was Star Wars, and the young cinema craftsman in the making became an avid fan, who eventually found the story and nature of the film's construction almost as epic, invigorating and absorbing as the movie itself. After that came a chance to see a re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, upon which Nolan reports information about the making of Kubricks's masterpiece was harder to come by than Lucas's. You don't need me to tell you that nowadays information about making of movie magic is all around us – the trailers and camera diaries of set footage advertising upcoming blockbusters in parallel with each other, the DVD and Blu-Ray extras, and so on. And I'm sure a lot of that is evident with the example of Interstellar, Chris Nolan's attempt to bridge the gap between Star Wars and 2001 and create a thinking woman's emotional, family sci-fi epic. Likewise, too, this book, which is a happy ground between being told only the bare outlines, and the full-on, nothing-kept-sacred smorgasbord detail of a Blu-Ray. A very happy ground, indeed, that will leave many a happy reader. Full review...
Battlestar Galactica Vault: The Complete History Of The Series, 1978-2012 by Paul Ruditis
For those who don't know, or can't remember, Battlestar Galactica was a '70s piece of American sci-fi TV, launched to great acclaim as a parallel to the rather similar Star Wars with a full-on TV movie, then one lengthy season of hour-long adventures, that even had Fred Astaire playing a bit part before audiences dwindled and the show died out. It shot itself in the foot with a sort-of sequel soon afterwards, then languished for decades before two crafty creatives found a way to put more meat on the bones, and to marry the show with much more modern sensibilities. It's not a programme I would necessarily have entered a 'vault' for, as I was only a fan of the original, and possibly only then as opposed to now. I've not seen a BSG entity since my youth – but I know a heck of a lot about what I have pushed to the back of my mind since then, courtesy of these pages. Full review...