Book Reviews From 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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Zoe and Beans: Where Is Binky Boo? by Chloe Inkpen and Mick Inkpen
Zoe is a bit miffed with Beans: he keeps gnawing her doll, Molly. Beans misses his own doll, Binky Boo, so being just a dog he has no compunction about appropriating someone else's doll for his very own. When Molly ends up stinkier than anything, she goes into the washing machine with a whole box of Big 'N Bubbly, and now Beans turns his nose up at Molly, sulking. Where is Binky Boo? Full review...
Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay
The novel's structure goes back and forth from the past to the present day. The book opens with Nina, now elderly, in pain and in a wheelchair: waiting to die basically. And even although she's lived an interesting life, now all she has for company is a daily home-help. I was struck straight away by how prickly Nina is and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath the surface. So the question is - why has she decided to sell some of her exquisite jewellery. Is it to help pay the bills? Or some other reason? We find out by degrees. Full review...
Wolf Won't Bite by Emily Gravett
Those three little pigs have captured the big bad wolf and are showing off all the tricks they can get him to do. They make him stand on a stool, and wolf won't bite. They can ride him like a horse, but wolf won't bite. He jumps through hoops and dances, looking more and more frustrated with the pigs' shenanigans. Full review...
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
Ten-year-old Jamie Matthews has moved to the Lake District because his dad says they need a Fresh Start. With him are his sister Jas, who doesn't eat much, is painfully thin, and who has multiple piercings and hair dyed bright pink, his father, who should be starting a new job on a building site, but who is too hungover to make it to breakfast, let alone into his car and out to work, and his cat, Roger, who relishes the new hunting opportunities and who is the only one of the foursome to be completely happy in his new surroundings. Full review...
How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices Ahead by Dambisa Moyo
Moyo's first book, Dead Aid was a well regarded and oft discussed title when I worked in Development. In a country where it was hard to find any book at all, somehow every ex-pat household seemed to have at least one copy of this, and I followed the sheep and had a read. It was a great, insightful book that we could all identify with, and I was eager to read her second, if somewhat unrelated work. Full review...
Please Don't Stop the Music by Jane Lovering
Jemima Hutton makes jewelled belt buckles and she's determined to make a success of the business – and to keep a dark secret which she's shared with no one. She's camping out in her friend's spare room and another friend is allowing her workshop space. It is just working until the woman she supplies exclusively decides that she's not going to stock her any more. Jemima is down to walking the streets of York looking for someone who will stock her buckles. She's all but given up when she meets Ben who says that he'll stock the buckles in his guitar shop. But Ben has secrets too – and he's determined that, come what may, he's not going to share them. Full review...
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
So. The subprime mortgage crisis, the worldwide financial crisis, people losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their security. Unregulated greed, that went on and on and on. And the people who caused it all got rich during and after, very few felt any sort of consequences, and millions of other people worldwide suffered greatly. Strip away all the intentionally confusing terminology and it all amounts to bets with unbelievable amounts of money. How did it all come about and how did it play out? Michael Lewis explains the mess as only he can. Just as his earlier excellent work Liar's Poker encapsulated the excesses of Wall Street in the 1980s, so does The Big Short perfectly tell the tale of Wall Street in the 2000s. In fact, given the extent of the current global clusterfuck, it makes the shocking Liar's Poker look positively mild by comparison. Full review...
Rendezvous in Cannes by Jennifer Bohnet
It's the beginning of the Cannes Film Festival and for two women life is going to change completely in the coming weeks. Anna Carson has found the love that she thought would always elude her and can't quite believe her happiness. Daisy, here to cover the Festival as a journalist is coming to terms with being single. It's time for her to make some decisions, but what will she decide? The hurly-burly of the Festival is not the most peaceful time to make big decisions. Full review...
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and Carol Brown Janeway
It's West Germany, 1958. A 15-year-old schoolboy, Michael Berg, is suffering a long bout of hepatitis. When he recovers he returns to the flat of a tram conductor, 36-year-old Hanna Schmitz, to thank her for taking care of him the day he fell sick. The two of them begin a secret affair that becomes a routine for months: after school and work, Michael would read to her, and then they would make love and bathe each other. Both of them fall in love. Full review...
Code Lightfall and the Robot King by Daniel H Wilson
Code Lightfall is on a school trip to a prehistoric mound when he falls through a trap into another world, where everything is made of crystal, or metal, and the only living 'animals' are all robotic. It's a world under threat, so can he journey across its bizarre landscapes and save it all? And what is the truth of the mound, where his grandfather disappeared a year ago? Full review...
The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes
Marian Keyes can usually be relied upon for a funny, moving story full of life-like, likeable characters. I was eager to read her latest novel, although somewhat daunted by the 600 odd pages! Here she takes us to an old, multi-storey house in Dublin that is the home of a variety of different characters. An unknown, magical narrator takes us through the house as we meet each tenant and discover what's happening in their lives. Full review...
The Stranger in the Mirror: A Memoir of Middle Age by Jane Shilling
Middle-aged women disappear. They are not see on television, their lives do not appear in newspapers, the legions of novels that are written each year rarely feature them. At least, that is what the author Jane Shilling believes as she wakes up aged 47 to find the narrative of her contemporaries and their lives which she has been reading about and living in parallel with since leaving university has vanished. She looks in the mirror and sees a face she does not recognise. Even with a punishing regime of early bed, no alcohol and litres of water, it refuses to regain its youthful bloom. So she decides to take a magnifying glass to this particular moment in time, this journey between youth and old age. Full review...
Half of the Human Race by Anthony Quinn
At heart, 'Half of the Human Race' is a 'will they, won't they' love story featuring an upper class, emerging county cricketer, Will Maitland, and a middle class strong, educated, cricket-loving woman, Constance Callaway. But this is so much more than a question of will the cricketer bowl a maiden over? It's a novel about friendship, love, fighting for what you believe in and, also, surprisingly, about celebrity. Full review...
Blood Rush by Helen Black
Lilly has had the baby she was expecting in the last book, and daughter Alice is the child from hell. Sweet and angelic with just about anyone other than her mum, she won't sleep at night, is prone to screaming fits and about as disruptive to a previously one-parent, one-child household as a baby could be. Fortunately father Jack (copper, ex-boyfriend, current status indeterminate) is welcome to come and lend a hand whenever he can spare the time. Of course, Alice adores him. Equally fortunately, first-born and now teenage son, Sam, is unbelievably cool about his baby sis. Just to round it off, Lilly and Sam's father are also on speaking and son-sharing terms (and sod his new girlfriend!). Full review...
Buried Thunder by Tim Bowler
On a walk in the woods near the family's new home, Maya is suddenly compelled by a glinting pair of yellow eyes to run away from her brother and deep into the trees. What she finds is shocking - three dead bodies with a figure standing over the third. Terrified, Maya stumbles back and recounts the horror to her parents, who call the police. But the police can't find any bodies, and it's clear they think she's a prankster. Even Maya's parents don't really believe her. They think she's seeing things and they're worried that she's ill. Full review...
Will Gallows and the Snake-bellied Troll by Derek Keilty
Will Gallows is not your average boy. Finding out the name of the baddie who gunned down his policeman father, he takes it upon himself to get revenge, by bringing him in - even though he's the nastiest gunslinger around. Oh, and a troll with snakes coming from his belly. Will, being not your average boy, is half-elf, however, and can talk to his flying horse to help him on his way. But is there more to the story of his father's death than he thinks, and just what is it with all the earthquakes his town is suffering? Full review...
The Lost Relic by Scott Mariani
Ben Hope went to Italy to visit a former SAS comrade and offer him a job, but he's got marriage and happiness – and Ben's trade is far from the front of his mind. It's whilst he's driving away that Ben nearly runs down a small boy and unwittingly walks into a deadly heist which will see the boy and his mother – and many others – brutally murdered. It's only the beginning for Ben though as he find himself fleeing for his life and accused of murder. When the state needs to act people – even heroes – are disposable. Full review...
The Hammer by K J Parker
The met'Oc family have three sons. One is strong, super-industrious, but too busy to do more than patch up their farm. The second is a vicious thing, eager to ride roughshod over people like a western film's worst bandit, even when it belies the met'Oc's noble origins. And the youngest, Gig, is... not employed. Not thought highly of. Not allowed out of their compound, or to think too much. But he is courageous enough to try and leave, firm of mind to ignore something horrific that happened seven years before, and gutsy enough to succeed in escaping. Or is he? How far can he ever leave his destiny behind in this backward frontier town? Full review...
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson
It's the 70s, and 13 year old Petra is in love, and not with a silly boy at school, but with a man. He's not from Wales like she is, or even from Britain. He's much more mysterious and alluring. He comes from across the pond and his name is David Cassidy. The David Cassidy. Full review...
The Lonely Beast by Chris Judge
The beast likes to garden. And drink tea. And read. And bake cakes. But he lives by himself, and he is lonely. So one day he decides to go on a journey to try to discover whether there are any other beasts in the world. Full review...
The Heron and the Crane by John Yeoman and Quentin Blake
Heron and Crane live at opposite ends of the swamp. One day Crane decides that he is lonely and he would like to get married. Heron seems the only suitable potential mate, and so he makes his way over to propose. Heron, taken completely by surprise, reacts badly to this sudden proposal and rejects Crane, rather insultingly. Poor Crane. As he makes his way home, Heron is overcome with guilt and decides perhaps she would like to marry him after all. Full review...
Treason by Berlie Doherty
Forced by his power-hungry aunt and uncle to leave the comfort of his modest family home, Will Montague finds himself utterly overwhelmed, as he works as a page to Prince Edward under the keen eye of the temperamental King Henry, just as prone to unexpected bursts of compassion as he is to brutal cruelty. Just as he begins to find his feet in this new position, Will finds himself suddenly on the run, desperately trying to clear the name of his father, convicted of treason for failing to revert to the Protestantism led by the King, and simultaneously gaining more awareness of the world he lives in and the plights of the working class. Full review...
Neversuch House by Elliot Skell
Omnia is a girl who likes to know things, and when she sees something unusual she sets out to find out what is happening. It is a decision which almost kills her. Something is not right at the heart of Neversuch House, and at least one person is determined to stop her finding out what it is. Full review...
Norris is a bear – a large, brown bear. He's also a very wise bear because he knows something which will always be useful to him. He knows about sharing. It all began when he saw the plorringe on the tree and he knew that plorringes are the best fruit of all. All he had to do was to wait for the fruit to fall. In the meantime Tulip and Violet discovered the plorringe too. They had a sniff at it – and it was gorgeous – and even a squeeze which showed that it was soft and fluffy – but what were they to do about Norris who was much bigger than them and could easily run away with the fruit? Full review...
Gallipoli by Peter Hart
Early in 1915 the Allied Powers attempted to seize the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople and eliminate Turkey, who had joined the Central Powers, from the First World War. The campaign ended in failure and retreat, yet for many years it was portrayed as a brilliant strategy undermined by bad luck and incompetent commanders. This painstakingly-researched account shows that this was not the case. It was more a matter of a wild scheme which was poorly planned and doomed from the start, compounding the Allies' problems by diverting large numbers of troops from attacking Germans on the Western Front, where they would arguably have been better employed. In his introduction he calls the eight-month exercise 'an epic tragedy with an incredible heroic resilience displayed by the soldiers', yet ultimately 'a futile and costly sideshow for all the combatants.' It was a huge drain on Allied military resources, involving nearly half a million troops, with the British Empire losing about 205,000 – 115,000 killed, wounded or missing and 90,000 evacuated sick – while the French lost 47,000, and the Turkish over 251,000. Full review...
Why Don't You Come For Me? by Diane Janes
Over a decade ago Jo's daughter was abducted from in front of a shop whilst she and her husband were on holiday. The pushchair was found on a cliff edge but there was no trace of Lauren, even on the beach below. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Lauren. The police, the people who know what happened believe the cards to be a hoax. Jo believes differently. She also realises that as she has moved house and remarried and the story has faded from press attention someone is going to a great deal of trouble to keep track of her. Full review...
Sons and Fascination by G S Mattu
This book concentrates on emotions. Take an impressionable young man, add in a chance (?) encounter with an attractive older woman and then stand well back as the fireworks explode and as family, friends and colleagues get sucked in to their deepening relationship. I must say I'm not keen on the title (a little pretentious for a work of fiction in my opinion and more suited to poetry) and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in the book (twice) I still didn't warm to it. All in all, not off to the greatest of starts. Full review...
Cross Country Murder Song by Philip Wilding
The novel opens with the (unnamed) central character in a therapy session in downtown New York. The air is charged and tension is present, big-time. This is one troubled human being. And of course, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer session. We soon find out that this individual has secrets in his basement. It all becomes too much, he packs a bag and hits the road and so the story starts proper. Full review...
Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life's Milestones by Robert Rowland Smith
Driving with Plato is a companion book to Breakfast with Socrates, in which former Oxford Fellow Robert Roland Smith took various elements of a 'typical' day and provided insight into what a collection of thinkers might have to offer to make these mundane routines more interesting. Here, in the company of a similarly eclectic range of writers and thinkers, he considers the key aspects of a life, from birth, through school and riding a bike, to your first kiss, losing your virginity, having a family before a mid-life crisis, leading to divorce, old age and death. Montaigne said that to philosophise was to learn how to die, and here Roland Smith ensures that we think about each stage leading up to that moment. Full review...
