Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
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| + | |title=The Ugly Duckling | ||
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| + | |summary=There are certain fairy tales that you need to know as a child, not only because they are fun stories themselves, but because they inform other stories too. How are you going to know what is happening in future books when they play off a classic; unless you know the classic? Therefore, before embarking on Meta novels that reimagine old stories, get the basics down pat first. How about the story of an unfortunate duckling who was incredibly ugly? | ||
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|summary=Hester and Harriet are two respectable widowed sisters in their sixties, living a life of pleasant routine in their cottage in a quiet village. Known to all their neighbours, they play bridge, do good turns, and in short are everything two ladies of their age and station should be. It's no surprise, then, that their first thought upon seeing a frightened young woman with a baby in a disused bus shelter on Christmas morning is to take her home and feed her. But not everyone in the world, or even in their village, has such good intentions. Life is about to get terribly complicated. | |summary=Hester and Harriet are two respectable widowed sisters in their sixties, living a life of pleasant routine in their cottage in a quiet village. Known to all their neighbours, they play bridge, do good turns, and in short are everything two ladies of their age and station should be. It's no surprise, then, that their first thought upon seeing a frightened young woman with a baby in a disused bus shelter on Christmas morning is to take her home and feed her. But not everyone in the world, or even in their village, has such good intentions. Life is about to get terribly complicated. | ||
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Revision as of 16:55, 24 March 2016
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.
There are currently 16,119 reviews at TheBookbag.
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The Ugly Duckling by Mara Alperin and Sue Eastland
There are certain fairy tales that you need to know as a child, not only because they are fun stories themselves, but because they inform other stories too. How are you going to know what is happening in future books when they play off a classic; unless you know the classic? Therefore, before embarking on Meta novels that reimagine old stories, get the basics down pat first. How about the story of an unfortunate duckling who was incredibly ugly? Full review...
Eeyore Loses a Tail (Winnie the Pooh Classics) by A A Milne and E H Shepard
Eeyore, the Old Grey Donkey stood in the thistly corner of the forest and thought about things. He was quite a philosopher in his own way, but his most profound thought occured when Winnie-the-Pooh came along and enquired as to how he was.
Not very how, he said. I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time. Full review...
When We Collided by Emery Lord
Jonah's father died. His mother has locked herself away in grief, leaving Jonah and his two older siblings to not only run their own lives but also take care of their three younger siblings. It's a lot and Jonah is grieving, too. Unsurprisingly, he has fallen into the fog of depression. And then Vivi comes along. Vivi and her artist mother are spending the summer in Jonah's town. And Vivi is bright and beautiful and vivid and amazing and ever-so-slightly eccentric. She bursts into Jonah's life like a shower of meteors and changes everything. But Vivi has her own problems... Full review...
Penguins and Other Sea Birds by Matt Sewell
I've always been fascinated by Penguins: I think it's because they look so smart and striking, yet survive in extreme conditions, so the opportunity to review a book which contains fifty penguins and other seabirds was too good to miss. Just the pictures would have been enough - the minimalist watercolours of street artist and ornithologist Matt Sewell - but Sewell's whimsical wit and ability to teach without being preachy makes this a book to treasure. Full review...
Brief Lives by John Aubrey
John Aubrey was a modest man, an antiquarian and the inventor of modern biography. His lives of the prominent figures of his generation include Shakespeare, Milton, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Funny, illuminating and full of historical details, they have been plundered by historians for centuries. Here Aubrey's biographical writings are collected, painting a series of unforgettable portraits of the characters of his day – all more alive and kicking than in a conventional history book. Full review...
Nancy Parker's Diary of Detection by Julia Lee
Nancy is a bit of a dreamer. At fourteen years old she's happy to leave school (although she never quite mastered the fine art of spelling) and finds herself as a lowly housemaid to the very modern Mrs Bryce– a far cry from her plan to star in the movies, solve mysteries or even, if the worst comes to the worst, work in a shop that sells interesting things. Full review...
Song of the Skylark by Erica James
'Song of the Skylark' has quite a cast of characters, and I found it a little difficult, at first, to keep track of everyone. Lizzie is the main protagonist; we meet her trying in vain to apply for new jobs after losing her previous one. We quickly learn that she was sacked for rather blatant immoral behaviour with her boss, a married man. Full review...
The Voyage of the Dolphin by Kevin Smith
Dublin 1916: Among the unrest and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat of conscription into a war seen as nothing to do with the Irish, Trinity College faculty has other distractions. They'd like a trophy; the skeleton of an Irish 'giant' to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeill's skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be hope though. They turn to Fitzmaurice, a student not good enough for anything else. Fitzmaurice agrees, picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with him. So… Gentlemen, lace up your strongest boots and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off to the bloody Arctic! Whether battle cry or epitaph, three men and a dog… and an iguana… are going anyway. Full review...
Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
If the point of literature - as opposed to the less exalted though just-as-worthwhile forms of writing - is to force you to think about the real world, the political world, the painful life-as-we-know-it world, whilst catching you up in a story about something that never really happened, but, you know, might well have done so…and if you think that matters, then you must read this book. Full review...
A Man of Genius by Janet Todd
Ann St Clair is determined not to follow the ways of her Georgian contemporaries into marriage. She earns enough as a writer of Gothic romances to keep the wolf from the door and believes that's how it will always be. Then she meets Robert James, writer, self-acclaimed genius and popular raconteur, becoming totally besotted. However Ann still thinks she can retain her independence, even when she goes to Venice with Robert to escape the boredom of English life. However there's a darker side to this man, the unforeseen consequences of which will unlock the mysteries of Ann's own childhood. Full review...
The Four Books by Yan Lianke
The Four Books is a difficult, challenging novel and not for the feint hearted, or for someone looking for a page-turner. It really challenges the reader's perceptions and opens up a gateway to an era that is difficult to imagine for anyone brought up in a western culture. Set in Maoist China it tells the story of four protagonists and a memorable antagonist. The four, found guilty of anti-revolutionary crimes are undergoing re-education in a work camp governed by the child. With an Orwellian feel, The Four Books will come to be regarded as an undoubted masterpiece. Full review...
Mango and Bambang: Tapir All At Sea by Polly Faber and Clara Vulliamy
Mango is a sensible, resourceful little girl who is good at a great many things including playing the clarinet and karate. Most importantly she is good at being kind, especially to her best friend, Bambang, a slightly timid Malaysian tapir. In this second book in the series Bambang learns to become a little braver. He has to really, as he becomes involved in a series of daring escapades involving dancing classes, a diamond ring, time spent behind bars and a particularly dangerous enemy. Throughout all of this Bambang is accompanied by his faithful friend, Mango. Sometimes, even the closest friendship may be taken for granted. Will Bambang remember what matters most? Full review...
Zom-B Goddess (Zom B 12) by Darren Shan
REPEATING STANDARD WARNING!
If you haven't read the first book in this series, STOP READING NOW! NOW! Spoilers ahoy!
Go on. Run along
Full review...
John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
John Aubrey, the seventeenth-century antiquary, writer and archaeologist, occupies a peculiar, even unique place in English literature. When he died, the work for which he is most famous, 'Brief Lives', was a disorganised collection of manuscripts which remained unpublished for over a century. Only in the last hundred years or so has be become more widely recognised as an interesting character and perceptive commentator on society, scholarship and on his contemporaries during the post-restoration era. Full review...
Under Ground by S L Grey
When a devastating super-flu hits, a collection of the paranoid and super-wealthy decide to hole up in a state of the art, luxury underground bunker complex. It doesn't get off to a great start. The separate families don't gel together, the 'luxury' isn't at all what they'd been promised and soon they realise that they would be safer on the outside. When the owner dies mysteriously, the residents of the sanctum are locked in and are being picked off one by one ... but is it a series of fluke accidents, or is there a killer among them? They are trapped together, with no outside communication and with no choice but to rely on those they mistrust. With tension high and food and water low, luxury civilisation has turned into the rules of the jungle. The question is, who will survive? (If anyone ...) Full review...
The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation by David Crystal
Language changes, not only in the way that it's written, but also in the way that it's pronounced. I've seen changes over my lifetime and even more substantial changes have occurred in the four hundred years since Shakespeare died. For someone watching or reading a play the differences are not usually material: we can generally understand what is being said, but occasionally we're going to miss jokes which rely on a certain pronunciation, or the fine nuances of what is being said. What's required is a dictionary of the original pronunciation and that's exactly what David Crystal has provided. I'm only surprised that it's taken so long for such a book to appear. Full review...
The Home-Made Cat Cafe (Poppy's Place) by Katrina Charman
Eleven year old Isla is cat crazy. She longs for a pet cat but her mum works as a veterinary nurse and has no desire to bring her work home with her. Luck, however, is on Isla's side when they find the cat sanctuary is full and Mum reluctantly agrees that unwanted cat – Poppy – can stay with them on a temporary basis. Only it turns out to be a little less than temporary and Poppy is soon joined by Roo, Benny and a litter of kittens. Isla's thrilled but she's going to have to do some quick thinking if she's going to persuade mum to let the cats stay. Full review...
Too Close to the Edge by Pascal Garnier and Emily Boyce (translator)
Meet Pascal Garnier. Normally, in starting a review that way, I'm on about the main character of the book, but it could be said the biggest character of any Pascal Garnier book is Pascal Garnier, not that that's a flaw. Over a half-dozen titles I've come to know the pattern of his output, and it's fair to say this example fits it very well. Again, not a fault. His thrillers have a small cast list of characters, trapped somehow in a small community, cut off by weather, season or remoteness. Here we are with Eliette, and just a handful of others, and watching her as she celebrates the return of spring to her remote home, an ex-silk farm in southern France. All characters have a darkness about them, including Eliette – she had wanted to retire to the place with her loving, long-term husband, but he died of cancer months before retirement. And the final piece of the Garnier pattern is that that darkness, the black surrounding the night stars to use one of the more memorable lines here, is that things – said situation, other people, life itself – cause people to do some equally black and stupid acts… Full review...
How Music Got Free: The Inventor, the Music Man, and the Thief by Stephen Witt
In the digital age, new technology made recorded music a free-for-all. It was good news for the consumer, but dealt a major blow to the beleaguered music industry. Where people once amassed physical collections, they now had the choice of file-sharing instead. This book describes how everything changed from the mid-1990s onwards. It is however written more with the computer enthusiast or business student than the music lover in mind. Full review...
Worlds Elsewhere by Andrew Dickson
From the sixteenth-century Baltic to the American Revolution, from colonial India to the skyscrapers of modern-day Shanghai, Shakespeare's plays appear at the most fascinating of times in the most unexpected of places. But what is it about Shakespeare – a man who never once left England, which has made him an icon across the globe? Travelling across four continents, six countries and 400 years, Worlds Elsewhere attempts to understand Shakespeare in his role as an international phenomenon. Full review...
The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat
A child's imagination can be a powerful tool, so their imaginary friend could be absolutely anything. How about a giant panda or an octopus that likes to build sandcastles? But what of those forgotten creatures; if an imaginary friend sits in the dark and no one thinks about them, do they exist? An audacious animal may just buck up the courage to stop waiting around for someone to imagine them and instead seek out their friend. Full review...
The Forgotten Summer by Carol Drinkwater
It is time for the annual grape harvest at Les Cigales, and Jane is preparing herself for a busy day, overseeing the work. At this moment in time, Jane's life seems as perfect as it gets: living in a stunning location with a husband who adores her and a job that allows her the freedom to travel. There is, however, a significant cloud hanging over Jane's perfect world: a vindictive mother in law who despises her and is determined to make her as miserable as possible. Clarrisse Cambon is a woman with an axe to grind and poor Jane is the unwilling recipient of her vitriol. Full review...
Where's Wally: The Colouring Book by Martin Handford
Are you looking for something relaxing, easy to complete and which will allow your mind to wander freely as you gently colour in a pleasing design? Do you want to indulge your imagination and use the colours which tempt you at the moment, content that it will not affect the finished creation? Would you like large spaces which you can shade in large swoops as it pleases you? Are you aiming for a soothing finished product which is easy on the eye?
Sorry: you've got the wrong book. Full review...
The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
Tomas is being thrust into the twentieth Century, and he doesn't like it. He has given himself the job of seeking something out in the High Mountains of Portugal, based on an ancient religious diary he found working in an archive, and to do so he needs the use of his uncle's brand new car to get him there and back in time. His jaw drops when he learns he will have to do the driving himself, for he cannot make head nor tail of what anything on the infernal machine does and why. It is of course a certain kind of progress, a looking forward, which has become quite anathema to him – for ever since he lost his beloved wife, beloved child and father, all in the space of a week, he has walked everywhere backwards – shielding himself from what really is ahead with a padded behind, and never letting sight of what he has lost. Full review...
Distant Light by Antonio Moresco and Richard Dixon (translator)
Our unnamed narrator might as well be the only person alive. He knows he's not – he still goes down to the nearest inhabited village to buy things to eat and other necessities, and he sees planes spreading their contrails over the remote area he lives in – but he might as well be. A lot of his thoughts are about life, however, for he has little to do except notice the nature around him, from the smell of lilies burgeoning with nobody else to see them in this deserted village, to the swallows darting across the ravines of the countryside. Life – and the nature of a light that he sees spring into activity every night at what he thought was a totally lifeless, empty forest area on land separated from his lookout post in his back garden by a deep, wooded gorge… Full review...
This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison
The cruise to Alaska came as something of a surprise to Harriet Chance. It had been booked by her husband, Bernard, before his death and almost on a whim Harriet decided that she would go and take her best friend Mildred along with her. She might be seventy eight, but when she thought about it there didn't seem to be any reason not to go and it might give them both a new lease of life. She and Bernard had been married for fifty-five years, but the cruise would not work out as she hoped and for some of the strangest of reasons. Full review...
Underwater by Marisa Reichardt
Morgan has a post-it note in her apartment:
1. Breathe
2. You are okay
3. You are not dying
And if you had escaped a school shooting alive, you might need a note like this too, right?
People died. Kids died. Friends died. And afterwards, Morgan's school closed for a while. Morgan started attending a new school but it was just too much for her. She retreated to her apartment, enrolled at an online high school and didn't leave. Morgan hasn't crossed the threshold for months. If she only stays inside then she's safe. And a shut-in's life has a rhythm. Morgan's day is predictable: daytime TV, online school, grilled cheese and soup for lunch, visits from her therapist. And Mom and little brother Ben to liven up the evenings. Full review...
Doctor Who: 365 Days of Memorable Moments and Impossible Things by Justin Richards
Is it any wonder that The Doctor's use of a diary is mentioned merely as a joke? Let alone the fact it would come in whatever time unit (if any) Time Lords actually use, there's the problem of it not ever being chronological, and the fact he would never seem to have the time to fill it in. O tempora, o mores indeed. But if the human observer of Doctor Who would want a full year book, completely filled in and annotated with everything they would want to know about the Doctor in relation to the human calendar, then they have it at last with this lovely hardback. It's a brick of a book, of course, given the depth of the subject, but well worth the time taken to read it. Full review...
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
At the age of thirty six Paul Kalanithi seemed to have a glittering career - and life - ahead of him. He had degrees in English literature, human biology and history and philosophy of science and medicine from Stanford and Cambridge universities, as well as the American Academy of Neurological Surgery's top award for research. His reflections on medicine had been published in the New York Times. The Washington Post as well as the Paris Review Daily. It had been hinted, as he came to the end of ten years training to be a neurosurgeon, that he'd have the pick of the jobs on offer. There was just one nagging problem. Well there was more than one. He had severe back pain and he knew that he was unwell. He had stage four (terminal) lung cancer. Full review...
Perijee & Me by Ross Montgomery
Forced to live on Middle Island with just her parents for company, Caitlin is lonely. The closest she's got to a friend is the grumpy fisherman, Frank, who takes her to school each day in his boat. But everything changes when Catlin finds a wriggling prawn on the beach and decides to keep it as a pet. Only it's not a prawn. It's soon the size and shape of a frog. By the next day it's the size and shape of a person and it keeps growing. And growing. What is it? Caitlin doesn't care – he's the friend she's always wanted. Full review...
Hester and Harriet by Hilary Spiers
Hester and Harriet are two respectable widowed sisters in their sixties, living a life of pleasant routine in their cottage in a quiet village. Known to all their neighbours, they play bridge, do good turns, and in short are everything two ladies of their age and station should be. It's no surprise, then, that their first thought upon seeing a frightened young woman with a baby in a disused bus shelter on Christmas morning is to take her home and feed her. But not everyone in the world, or even in their village, has such good intentions. Life is about to get terribly complicated. Full review...
