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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Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville: A True Romance by Amy Licence
Given the current resurgence in popularity of biographies dealing with the Yorkists, the time is right for an account of the marriage of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, a union that proved so divisive in the era of York vs Lancaster. With several of the great nobility declaring allegiance to one side and then another in turn during the Wars of the Roses, it was a divisive era to start with. Full review...
Mog and the Baby and Other Stories by Judith Kerr
I've never been a fan of cats. I'm more of a dog person. Mog, however, has weaseled her way into my heart, and although I certainly wouldn't want her as a pet in my house, we love reading her stories. This collection of Mog and the Baby, Mog's Bad Thing, and Mog on Fox Night is perfect for a nice afternoon bumper storytime together with your little one, or you can just read them one by one over three nights. Full review...
Spring According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney
Spring, of all things, is a dead end. The class, given the homework task of finding signs of spring, are just failing and failing, what with the bad weather. And nobody can come up with any useful ideas for the class theme at the school's Family Fun Day, as being clowns has been nicked by someone else. How can a humble classroom pet hamster help everyone and everything – especially when he has been gazumped himself? For the very child tasked with looking after Humphrey for the weekend has been sent a package containing what is alleged to be a sign of spring – although to our hero the two tiny tadpoles in a tank look like two specks in gunk… Full review...
The Reluctant Journal of Henry K Larsen by Susin Nielsen
Susin Nielsen is adept at conveying how you shouldn't judge someone on a first impression and how it's who you are that matters not what you look like. When we first meet Henry he is in counselling and dealing with an emotional trauma by speaking in a monotonous robot voice. His family has been fragmented by the cataclysmic 'IT' which he refuses to talk about. Ripped away from his comfortable life in Port Salish, Henry is struggling to readjust whilst living with his dad in a cramped apartment in Kitsilano, Vancouver, Canada. Gradually he starts to come out of his shell as he discovers new friends and interests but the road to recovery is not straightforward. Luckily he has his journal, albeit reluctantly. Full review...
The Seriously Extraordinary Diary of Pig by Emer Stamp
Hello. I is very happy to be giving a positive verdict on a third adventure for Pig, who speaks Pig, his best friend Duck, who speaks Pig but in a Duck font, and their best friend Cow who speaks bad. This time the Chickens who was the evil ones is not hardly even mentioned, and the Cat that scared Pig and everyone else in his second book is barely thought of, but there is another bad character to make up for it. But first I is having to report that Pig and Cow and Duck are making a big trouble for themselves, which is causing them to try and save the day and by mistake making the bad character notice Cow. And when I tells you the big trouble happens because Cow tries to hide Cow on the Farmer's roof you will knows just what a silly diary this series is. Full review...
Waltzing in Vienna by C G Metts
Filmmaker C G Metts has written four nonfiction books, several of them of local interest to South Carolina natives and visitors. This is his first novel, however, and you may be surprised to learn that it is an enjoyable chick lit/women's fiction romp. Three girlfriends meet up again in Charleston; in their early forties, they're facing turning points in their professional and personal lives. As they reminisce about summers spent together at Folly Beach during college and resume their communal marijuana smoking habit, they summon the courage to decide what they want from middle age and refresh their sex lives. Full review...
Strictly No Crocs by Heather Pindar and Susan Batori
You can’t go wrong with a good crocodile story. Not that these crocodiles are good, oh no, after being banned from attending Zebra’s party they have grand plans to sneak in and eat everyone there! Once they are secretly dressed up as a leopard, a parrot and a bee (!) their plans don’t go quite as they’d wished… Full review...
Those Above by Daniel Polansky
For three thousand years Those Above have ruled over their human subjects. From the glittering palaces of their eternal city, they enforce their will with fire and sword. Twenty-five years ago, mankind mustered an army and rose up against them, only to be slaughtered in a terrible battle. Whilst hope died that day, hatred survived. Whispers of another revolt begin to stir throughout the oppressed: a widowed woman, dedicated to revenge: a general, the only to defeat one of Those Above; and a boy killer, who rises from the gutter to lead an uprising. Full review...
When We Were Very Young by A A Milne and E H Shepard
I've never been fond of poetry: there's something missing in my soul as I cannot see the benefits of saying something in verse form when it could be expressed more simply. I often wish that I was different and just occasionally some verse will touch me: it has happened with Wendy Cope and now with this delightful volume from A A Milne. As I read there was a curious mixture of good memories from childhood (and they were all too rare) and new material which struck a chord. The 'decorations' by E H Shepard didn't do any harm either! Full review...
Dylan's Amazing Dinosaurs - The Triceratops by E T Harper and Dan Taylor
Imagination is one thing; what wonderful adventures you could have should you be able to travel to the distant past and walk amongst the dinosaurs. Reality is different; running around in bone shaking terror as various man-eating dinos crave your flesh. This has not stopped Dylan embarking on another amazing adventure – will he survive a velociraptor attack and why does he keep doing back? Full review...
Superhero Street by Phil Earle and Sara Ogilvie
Having really enjoyed the first book about the children on Storey street, Demolition Dad by Phil Earle and Sara Ogilvie I was looking forward to this follow up. This time the focus is on Mouse who lives in a rather manic household since after having Mouse his mother had twin boys, and then triplets! Whilst his father is exhausted from trying to earn a living as a magician, his mother is, as you can imagine, run ragged with all the children, and Mouse feels rather neglected. Mouse has a secret means of escape, however, because he leads an imaginary double life and his secret identity is Mouse the Mighty! But what happens when he is forced to become a hero in real life? Full review...
Shakespeare and the Stuff of Life: Treasures from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust by Delia Garratt and Tara Hamling (editors)
You remember that thing the British Museum did a few years back, where they picked the best of the best they owned – 100 objects that most epitomised both the riches of the place and the cultures it was designed to represent? Well, it seems that idea has legs. It’s been repeated, even, for the purpose of illuminating just one man – and you can probably guess that man was Mr Shakespeare. There has indeed been a project to pick a hundred limelights to illuminate his texts and his times, although for the purpose of this book they have been whittled down to fifty – and arranged by theme according to Jaques' 'Seven Ages of Man' speech from As You Like It. And the chances are, seeing as the results are almost more powerful here than in the best museum, you will like it very much indeed. Full review...
The Shadow Keeper by Abi Elphinstone
Moll and the rest of her tribe have been forced to move from the ancient forest and they are now hidden in a secret cave by the sea. They must find the secret amulet of truth to overcome the evil Shadowmasks and to achieve this they must slip past fierce smugglers, defeat horrific creatures and solve challenging clues. The threats mount and their courage is tested as Moll and her loyal wildcat Gryff, together with her friends Alfie and Sid battle to find the amulet before it is too late. Full review...
The Lost Tudor Princess: A Life of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox by Alison Weir
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was one of the more shadowy, lesser known personalities among the Tudor royal family. She was the daughter of King Henry VIII's sister Margaret, by her second marriage to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and like so many others who were closely related to King Henry VIII and his children, she led what was at times quite a precarious life in that she was on occasion suspected of treasonable activities, and also experienced no little personal tragedy Full review...
The Double Life of Mistress Kit Kavanagh by Marina Fiorato
In early eighteenth century Ireland, young Irish beauty Kit Kavanagh lives a quiet, settled life in a Dublin alehouse with her husband, Richard. When Richard is suddenly whisked away to join the British army, Kit disguises herself as a man and enlists as a soldier, determined to follow and find her husband across war-torn Europe. Full review...
You Sent Me A Letter by Lucy Dawson
It's scary enough turning 40 (I've heard) without being awoken on the eve of your birthday by a strange man who has broken into your bedroom with a rather bizarre message. Emerging from the shadows, he hands Sophie an envelope with strict instructions to open it that evening as her party is in full swing. She has no idea what is inside, but it can't be good. Full review...
Outside: A Guide to Discovering Nature by Maria Ana Peixe Dias, Ines Teixeira do Rosario, Bernardo P Carvalho and Lucy Greaves (translator)
I'm on a mission: I want children - adults too - to spend a lot more time outside. I want them to have the benefits of fresh air, increasing their levels of vitamin D and the knowledge of what nature can offer them. I'd like the television, computers, mobile phones, video games and even books to be laid aside and attention given to what is available for free, but which - if we don't care for it - might not always be there. Fortunately the authors of Outside: A Guide to discovering Nature have the same ideas. Full review...
The Shore by Sara Taylor
The first story we hear from the Shore, a group of isolated islands off the coast of Virginia, is from Chloe, who's telling her sister about what she overheard in the store. She'd been there buying chicken necks so that they could go crabbing. Normally they used bacon rinds, but they'd already eaten those. Cabel Bloxom had been murdered and they done cut his thang clean off. The girls are motherless and Chloe is fiercely protective of her little sister Renee. She's the first of the strong women we'll encounter in these stories, which interlink to give a greater picture. Full review...
The Dyslexic Hearts Club by Hanneke Hendrix and David Doherty (translator)
I recently reviewed a novel by another Scandinavian novelist, Helle Helle, This Should be Written in the Present Tense, and I expected this novel by Hanneke Hendrix to be very similar. It wasn't. That's not totally a bad thing – many people will enjoy the fast-paced, dialogue driven novel that The Dyslexic Hearts Club is. It just wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Full review...
Blackheath by Adam Baron
Househusband James is happy in Blackheath. He's started doing stand-up again so that he too has an achievement in his life to balance wife Alice's award winning poetry. Children Ida and Dominic are doing well so all is great. Elsewhere in the area Amelia is equally happy with her actor husband Richard, her own career and children Niamh and teenage Michael. Sometimes happiness isn't enough though and, as the worlds of the two families start to mingle, things start changing for each of them. Full review...
Gate of the Dead (Master of War) by David Gilman
Tuscany 1358: A dying man brings an enigmatic message to Thomas Blackstone, the exiled English archer and current mercenary leader. It appears to be a royal command to return home but is it an invitation to his own death? Thomas can't take the risk of ignoring it, especially since his life is in just as much danger where he is. It seems that he's more valuable dead than alive in many countries; it's just a case of deducing the paymaster – or paymasters - behind the assassination attempts before he runs out of time. Full review...
Grey Island Red Boat by Ian Beck
Princess Opal lived with her father, the king, on the Island of Ashes. It was a grey island, set in a grey sea and Opal lived in a grey castle surrounded by a cold grey moat. The gardens were grey and so were the trees and flowers. Princess Opal even sat on a grey granite throne in a grey granite room - and she wished that her life could be different. She couldn't help but think that something was missing. Full review...
The Nature Explorer's Scrapbook by Caz Buckingham and Andrea Pinnington
An activity book, but not as you know it is what it says on the back cover - and I have to agree. Here at Bookbag we tend to avoid 'activity books' as they usually have soft covers, lots of stickers and they're the sort of thing you pick up at the supermarket checkout in the hope that it will buy you an hour or two's peace in the school holidays. The Nature Explorer's Handbook is a different beast altogether. It's part album in which you're going to collect and store your own finds, part explanation of the best practices of how you should go about this and part nature guide. It's a substantial hardback book with an elastic band to keep it shut - as it's really going to get quite bulky when your collection grows. Production values for the book are high - this really is something which will be treasured for years. Full review...
Blue Moon by Jenny Oldfield
Anna thought that life was just about perfect. She was home-schooled for much of the time, but spent quite a lot of time riding her horse, Blue Moon, with her friend Lee and his horse, Stormy. There was even a secret meadow which the two twelve-year olds used to visit. Then one evening, Anna dashed in late for supper at the ranch and realised that something was wrong - badly wrong. Anna's mother had a tumour in her stomach which would require surgery. As if that wasn't bad enough, her father was going to have to sell some of the horses to pay for the surgery. Worried as she was about her mother there was one thought uppermost in Anna's mind: the best-trained horse on the ranch - and the one that was worth the most money - was Blue Moon. Anna could not bear the thought of losing the animal who had known her since she was two years old. She and Lee came up with a plan. Full review...
My First Mr Men 123 by Roger Hargreaves
As first books go, board books are good because they withstand a bit of biting, a bit of dribbling, a bit of roughness induced by not quite there yet hand-eye coordination. And as topics go, counting is great when you're trying to teach the skill and just need repetition. Plus it doesn't require the focus of attention that a proper story might. So a board book for counting? Perfect. Full review...
Marooned in the Arctic by Peggy Caravantes
Misogynists are manmade. And if anyone was in a position to hate men and the lot they put on their shoulders, it was Ava Blackjack. Her surname spoke of an abusive man she had a son by, but it was her time with four other men that made for one of the last century's more remarkable stories. An Inuit native, but one brought up in a city and with English lessons, she was invited on an excursion alongside many other 'Eskimo' and four intrepid Westerners, to the uninhabited Wrangel Island, perched off the northern Siberian coast. They were there just to stick a flag in it and call it British, even if they were pretty much fully American and Canadian, and the chap whose ideas these all were bore an Icelandic name; she was along to provide native expertise, especially waterproof fur clothing. And that was it – none of her kin joined her, leaving her in one tent and four men in another, in one of the world's most remote and inhospitable places. And that was just the start of her worries… Full review...
The Murdered Banker by Augusto De Angelis and Jill Foulston (translator)
Inspector De Vincenzi is working against the clock. A body was found in his old school-friend Giannetto Aurigi's apartment in the early hours of this morning and the investigating magistrate wants to take over as quickly as possible. The trouble is, Aurigi owed the dead man money, has been acting strangely, and isn't trying to defend himself. Unless De Vincenzi finds strong evidence to the contrary today, the investigating magistrate will see it as an open and shut case, and that will be the end of Aurigi. But none of the evidence seems to add up. Full review...
Where Love Begins by Judith Hermann
Stella lives an ordinary life in a small town in Germany. While her young daughter is at kindergarten, she works as a domiciliary nurse. After school and at the weekend she is for all intents and purposes a single mother, for her husband Jason works away a lot. We don't know if she is happy, per se, but she doesn't seem unhappy. Full review...
The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Think of iconic novels, and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" will be near the top of your list. From the rabbit hole to the Mad Hatter's tea party and the Queen's cricket ground, Lewis Carroll's imagination has established itself firmly in Western cultural heritage: with a parade of characters ranging from the weird to the wonderful and a constant play with logic and language, Carroll's masterpiece has earned its place among classics. Full review...