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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. There are also lots of author interviews and top tens.</metadesc>
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<metadesc>Expert, full book reviews from most walks of literary life; fiction, non-fiction, children's books & self-published books plus author interviews & top tens.</metadesc>
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.
 
  
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
  
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]?
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==New Reviews==
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews]] at TheBookbag.
'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by genre]].'''
 
  
'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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Want to learn more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
__NOTOC__
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeff Somers
 
|title=The Final Evolution
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Don't assume too much when starting this book.  Certainly, do not assume you can jump straight into this series at this, part five - start much nearer [[The Electric Church by Jeff Somers|the beginning]], as I did.  Don't assume the first person narrative means the narrator survives, for this is a world of cyborgs, and psychic human intelligences stored in robot hardware, and more.  Don't assume the lulling opening chapters herald a simple revenge actioner, as Avery Cates lives in a tangled web of vengeful villains, and nothing is very straightforward.  And don't assume the unremarkable opening is from an author low on ideas, for when Cates is proven to be the one man to save the world, we find it suitably meaty, and gripping, despite that old saw - and it's a rich nightmare of post-apocalypse for him to be saving, as well...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499439</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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==The Best New Books==
|author=Daniel H Wilson
 
|title=Robopocalypse
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Rob is out to kill us all, and is going to take some beating.  He already has many advantages, and can adapt easily where he finds a fault in his plans.  He already has most of us dead, or in concentration camps.  Rob is the generic nickname for all robot-kind, all controlled by one supreme Artificial Intelligence, who is set on eradication of our species.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857204122</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by category]]. '''<br>
|author=Ernesto Mallo and Katherine Silver
 
|title=Sweet Money
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=A man whose nickname is Mole (and it suits him just perfectly) is released from prison.  He's described as your average Joe Public, your man in the street so normal in every way that no one would look twice at him.  And that's the point.  He's clever and resourceful enough to blend into any crowd and in any situation. Now that he's served his time behind bars, has he become a reformed man?  Is he going to opt for a lawful way of life from now on?  You'd perhaps think so, wouldn't you?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904738737</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
|author=Duncan Hamilton
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel Thief
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|isbn=0241636604
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|title=The Trading Game: A Confession
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|author=Gary Stevenson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=The story of Harry the Valet may not be particularly familiar to modern readers, but he was something of a celebrity in the Victorian age. He achieved notoriety by stealing thousands of pounds worth of jewels from the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland - much to the delight of many people who disliked the lady, which appears to have been pretty much everyone who ever met her. Having pulled off this audacious theft, Harry seemed to be invincible - but he was brought down by his love for a Gaiety Girl, and ended up facing a trial which the papers fell over themselves to report on.
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|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envyHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058139</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alain Mabanckou
 
|title=Memoirs of a Porcupine
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', and transforms him into his son's harmful double. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes on, and sends his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened by, a process whereby that person's life essence is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later and following his master's death at the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessional.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
 
|title=The Nanny Goat's Kid
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Nanny Goat really wanted a kid – more than anything else in the world, but it wasn't possibleHer sisters told her kids weren't all they were cracked up to be and she should be grateful. Eventually she decided that she would adopt a kid. Now, we all noticed that the kid didn't really look like a kid at all. In fact he looks suspiciously like a tiger and as Nanny Goat struggled to bring him up the differences became more and more obvious. Matters came to a head when Nanny Goat's sisters' kids went missing and the sisters blamed Nanny Goat's kid. Nanny goat might not have given birth to the kid but she still saw him as her child and when the sisters said that he should leave the herd she decided to go with him.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390789</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Leanne Egan
|author=Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop
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|title=Lover Birds
|title=Just One More
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=What happened when a dragon moved into the town's library?  Or when Cowgirl Katie's horse went shopping and rode on the escalator?  This fun collection of short stories is unusual, odd and very entertaining!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1877467677</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Chris Van Allsburg
 
|title=Queen of the Falls
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Teens
|summary=Annie Edson Taylor was sixty-two years old and a widow.  She didn't have very much money saved and she was worried about her future - until she had an inspirationShe would have a barrel made - a very stout and water-tight barrel - and she would be the first person to brave the thundering waters of Niagra Falls in this barrel.  Chris Van Allsburgh tells us her story from the moment of inspiration right through to the times after the epic trip, but in truth the words are simpy there to eleborate on his wonderful drawings.  They're so good that you could be forgiven for thinking that they're black and white photographs on occasions.
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|summary=When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her.  A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it?  Because Lou is straight, isn't she?  Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392722</amazonuk>
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|isbn=000862657X
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michaela Morgan and Katherine Lodge
 
|title=Kitty Kool's Beauty School
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Kitty Kool has a new beauty school, and she's very excited about her opening day. However, when her makeovers for a grumpy crocodile, messy rabbit and spider don't go quite as they expected she worries that perhaps her beauty school isn't as fabulous as she'd first thought!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989920</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sally Rooney
|author=Sue Moorcroft
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|title=Intermezzo
|title=Love and Freedom
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction  
|summary=Honor Sontag left her home in the States and came to the UK. Her career had hit a sticky patch but she was determined to take a four-month break in Brighton to think things over and get herself back together again. She needed a job that would help to supplement the money she had - and she definitely didn't want anything 'heavy'. The other thing that she didn't want was any sort of romantic entanglement.  She's not even that tempted by the brother of her landlady, who's good looking, but his sister can't stop commenting about how irregularly he works although someone else mentions that he's on the buses.  Not much of a starter there then.
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|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931666</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571365469
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1009473085
|author=Sharon Rentta
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|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024
|title=A Day with the Animal Doctors
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|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It is going to be a very busy day for the animal doctorsThere's a snake that needs unknotting, a leopard who has lost his spots and the inevitable dog who has swallowed an alarm clockBut today is going to be an important day for Terence too as he's going to be a doctor – just like his Mummy, who is a doctor every day. Terence packs his first aid kit (some VERY useful toys in there!) and off he goes to the hospital with Mummy.
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|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''.  If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for youIf that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years.  It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast.  It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407116444</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Mark Lingane
 +
|title=Chimera
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.''
  
{{newreview
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''Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.''
|author=Quintin Jardine
 
|title=Grievous Angel
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=I recently read (and reviewed) Jardine's [[The Loner by Quintin Jardine|The Loner]] and found it an engaging work of fiction, so I was looking forward to dipping into my first ''Bob Skinner Mystery.'' I think the front cover alone may very well tempt readers with its attention-grabbing graphics which shouts out 'read me'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755356934</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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''There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.''
|author=Richard Holmes
 
|title=Churchill's Bunker: The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's Victory
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=Nowadays, when there is a security threat it seems to be mandatory to whisk the leader and other important personages off to a secret location deep inside a mountain or in a distant forest, but Churchill fought his war – our war – from a series of basement rooms right in the heart of London and within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet War Rooms didn't have their own air supply, were infested with vermin and lacked proper toilet facilities, but they were Churchill's choice.  He spent a few nights down in the CWR but usually lived in the No 10 Annex upstairs – throughout the worst of the bombing.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682312</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive.
|author=Julie Myerson
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|isbn=B0DNVWMYP2
|title=Then
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=The front cover is graphic and telling.  A frozen London with its skyscrapers emitting black smoke and random fires across a desolate landscape.  As early as the second paragraph we see that something is wrong, something cataclysmic has happened with the lines  ''People are eating the birds ... fighting over a handful of scorched sparrows.''  The story is told in the first person by the central character which gives it immediacy and draws the reader straight in.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093754</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Sue Gee
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Last Fling
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=Sue Gee is well known for her novels, but this is her first collection of short stories.  Short story collections are not for everyone.  I've always enjoyed them since they fit easily into a busy life, leaving you feeling as if you've lived through a whole story in just a short space of time.  It's easier to find the time for a quick story sometimes than to sit down with a four hundred page novel!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773061</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Suzannah Dunn
 
|title=The Confession of Katherine Howard
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Katherine Howard was Henry VIII's fifth wife. She was perhaps the most seductive of his wives and a considerable contrast to her predecessor, Anna of Cleves. She's been consigned to history as a silly girl, but careful reading gives the lie to this. Suzannah Dunn begins her story when Katherine was twelve years old and went to live in her step-grandmother's household. There she met Cathryn – generally known as Cat – Tilney, but the two girls were very different and didn't hit it off initially. Cat was quietly ambitious, aware that she needed to make a good marriage, whilst Katherine was image-conscious and very interested in the boys.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007258305</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Liz Miles (Editor)
 
|title=Truth and Dare
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=I love anthologies, especially ones containing a host of unfamiliar authors, so when I was given the chance to get my hands on a collection of twenty stories by writers who, in the main, I hadn't encountered before, I jumped at it. The selection, however, of
 
this score of tales about ''slipping on the stepping stones of life'' left me feeling curiously unsatisfied in many cases.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015864</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Mayor and Hilary James
 
|title=I'm A Parrot
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=I think that most small children will love the friendly, chatty parrot who speaks to them in 'I'm a Parrot'. From the very start of the book, the parrot chatters on, talking what can only be described as nonsense – but it is very amusing nonsense even though he claims to enjoy intelligent conversation. He talks about the different places he would or wouldn't live and the things that he might do. There are many puns and some play on words such as living in 'Polly-nesia' and becoming a 'parrot-trooper'. My daughter also found it quite comical the way the parrot keeps repeating particular words, although I can imagine that if we were to read the book a few times, it might become a little annoying to say the least.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849563187</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James Craig
 
|title=London Calling: An Inspector Carlyle Novel
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=The current government had been looking a little sickly in the polls for a while and it seemed that Edgar Carlton – charismatic and ruthless – had only to get to the finish line to be the next Prime Minister.  His twin brother, Xavier, would be the next Foreign Secretary.  Then a murderer targets former members of the Merrion Club – an exclusive, hedonistic group of undergraduates at Cambridge University – and this includes Edgar, Xavier and the current mayor of London, Christian Holyrod.  Inspector John Carlyle of the Metropolitan Police doesn't take that long to work out why this is happening and who is at risk – but ''who'' is doing it is an entirely different matter.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849019665</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Back Dated
 
|author=Chris Niblock
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=
 
Sci-fi writer Ray Flaxman returns home from a weekend away with his fiancee with a dealine to meet. But he finds his flat broken to into and trashed. Nothing of value has been taken. So Ray suspects his stalker is to blame. Serena has been calling and writing, declaring her love for Ray and her urgent desire to have his child. But Ray has never met her. Even so, he is keen to keep this mystery girl a secret because his fiancee, Frankie, has huge jealousy issues.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B004W0JR7G</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Monica Dickens
 
|title=Dora at Follyfoot
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Follyfoot Home of Rest for Horses is owned by the Colonel, but he's been very ill in hospital and now he has to go away to a warm climate to recuperateIt's not ''quite '' certain who is in charge of the farm in his absence.  It might be Dora or it might be Steve – but there's one thing that is quite clear: they're both under strict instructions not to buy any horses.  What's Dora to do though, when she realises that unless she buys the cream-coloured, lame horse, Amigo, it will end its days pulling a log cart? Well, obviously she ''has'' to buy the horse with money she borrows from the shady Ron StrykerHow's she to pay it back though?
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tamperingWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393265</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky
|title=The Wolf & Taurus
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|title=White Nights
|author=Joseph Smith
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A combined edition of [[The Wolf by Joseph Smith|The Wolf]] and [[Taurus by Joseph Smith|Taurus]], each taking the reader into the mind of animal. Superb, intense writing that is sometimes quite painful to read.
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|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546728</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241619785
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0008385068
|author=Julie Fulton and Jona Jung
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|title=The Midnight Feast
|title=Mrs MacCready Was Ever So Greedy
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|author=Lucy Foley
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Mrs McCready ''was'' ever so greedyShe was a cheerful, red-headed lady who simply loved her foodShe would eat absolutely anything – sometimes it was quite healthy, such as the berries, especially cherries, but she didn't even worry if there were ''worms'' insideShe didn't even worry too much about whether the foods she ate tasted good together – she just loved to ''eat''.  This caused something of a problem with clothes, as absolutely nothing would fit her – not even the wedding marquee or the hot air balloon. Eventually she met her fate…
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|summary=It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor.  It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised.  It's all headed up by Francesca MeadowsThe Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famousHer husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the siteThe heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends.  Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184886065X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Baldwin
|title=Wall of Days
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|title=Giovanni's Room
|author=Alastair Bruce
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Literary Fiction  
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|summary=The front cover of this debut novel caught my full and undivided attention with ''Alone, ten years on an island, until one day...'' I couldn't wait to start reading.  We meet the central character - we don't know his name just yet and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. He's living alone on an island, somewhere in the world.  Is it the past, the present or even the future?  As the story developed I decided on the former.
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|isbn=0141186356
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688000</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Ashley Hickson-Lovence
|author=Avril Lethbridge, Diana Mather and Mary-Ann Mackenzie
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|title=Wild East
|title=Please Bear's Birthday
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3
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|genre=Teens
|genre=For Sharing
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|summary=Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school.  The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble.  He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words.
|summary=Please Bear is having a birthday party and all the bears, both the nice ones and the naughty ones, are invited. In a delightful sing-song rhyme we see Please Bear writing his invitations, the preparations for the party, and the party itself. Some bears are very good, helping other bears if they are a little shy or helping mummy Bear to set the table. Unfortunately, other bears are not so good. They boast, they scream, their greedy and downright unreasonable.
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|isbn=0241645441
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848860676</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1635866847
|title=Ember and Ash
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|title=The Lavender Companion
|author=Pamela Freeman
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|author=Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=Ember is about to be married. It's not just a romantic day for her personally, it's exciting because her wedding will seal the alliance of the Far South Domain and the Last Domain in the north, making a new kingdom which is a shining example of justice and peace. By fantasy standards, this sounds too good to be true. And so, of course, it is. Barely have the words which bind Ember to new husband Osfrid been spoken before he is consumed by flames, murdered by an elemental god her mother once angered. Soon after that, nearly every fire in the kingdom is extinguished. Shocked to learn that the world is controlled by elemental powers she knew nothing about, Ember enlists her cousins Ash and Cedar to go with her to Fire Mountain to bring back a piece of the mountain and relight their lost fires.
+
|summary=It's strange, the things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the book for you.  Before I started reading ''The Lavender Companion'', I visited the author's [https://www.pinelavenderfarm.com/ website] and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage.  I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally.  (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned.  You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem.  I ''loved'' this book already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498270</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Han Kang
|author=Julia Stagg
+
|title=The Vegetarian
|title=L'Auberge
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=L'Auberge des Deux Vallees was sadly neglected but it had been bought, not as everyone expected, by a relative of the mayor, but by an English couple who, by all accounts, had little French and not a lot of experience in running a restaurant. Obviously, such a travesty cannot be allowed to continue, and within hours of hearing the news, mayor Serge Papon has called an emergency council meeting to ensure that the newcomers are forced out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately he hadn't reckoned on Christian Dupuy, whose politics are guided by his conscience rather than his wallet. When it comes down to it are quite a few other people in Fogas who don't see what's happening in quite the same way as the mayor.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444708236</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Fetish Room
 
|author=Redmond O'Hanlon and Rudi Rotthier
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An ongoing debate in our family has centred on the value of biographies, particularly of writers. I've always loved the touchstone of the places people lived and wrote, the banality of their lives, the detail, the insight, and the fact that it can tell you everything or nothing at all about the work. My Dad held that the work was what mattered; the rest is just social history. He said that almost disparagingly, which is odd, because if you presented it as social history rather than biography, he'd lap it up. I guess I just don't make the distinction.  
+
|summary=This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684145</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1803510056
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Candle Man: Society of Dread
+
|title=Us in the Before and After
|author=Glenn Dakin
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Teens
 
|genre=Teens
|summary=We left Theo after he had discovered his true identity as the Candle Man and defeated his evil ex-guardian, Dr Saint. The young boy is still ambivalent about his superhero status and conflicted over his ability to use tripudon energy to melt his - and London's - enemies. But the fight against evil pays no attention to inexperience or moral ambiguity and Theo is about to find himself down in the Network again. This time, his attempts to return The Society of Good Works to its original benevolence are thwarted by the renaissance of an old, and even more terrifying, villain - Dr Pyre. With his friends abducted and enslaved, Theo must use his Candle Man abilities once again...  
+
|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable.   Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405246774</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1471196585
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1787333175
|title=You Are Very Special
+
|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here
|author=Su Box and Susie Poole
+
|author=Benji Waterhouse
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Popular Science
|summary=''You Are Very Special'' introduces the idea of individuality, of how we're all different and how we're all special. This isn't really a story as such, but rather a book that invites further discussion. Written in occasionally clunky rhyme, it investigates how everyone is different, all different shapes and sizes. It suggests how miraculous our bodies are, breathing and working through the day and also through the night, even when we're asleep!
+
|summary=I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography.  ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist.  I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0745963005</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mariana Enriquez
|title=From the Day You Were Born
+
|title=A Sunny Place for Shady People
|author=Sophie Piper and Kristina Stephenson
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Short Stories
|genre=For Sharing
+
|summary=Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.  
|summary=This lovely little story looks at parental love, of that special bond that grows between parents and children, how babies grow and develop as they get older, and how that love is ''for ever and for always.''
+
|isbn=1803511230
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0745962378</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Play With Colours (The Happets)
 
|author=Laurence Jammes and Marc Clamens
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=The Happets are a friendly looking bunch of animal friends all made of different coloured fabrics.  In this story we're introduced to each character and told about its colour, for example Milo is green like ''gorgeous green apples, gorgeous green clover, gorgeous green balls.''  Each page has a fabric tab, to match the character in question, making it a lovely book for babies to touch and play with.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444904078</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=The Storm at the Door
+
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|author=Stefan Merrill Block
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author, Stefan Merrill Block, is writing about members of his own family in ''The Storm at the Door''.  The story opens at the end, if you get my driftWe see the elderly grandmother Katherine in a bit of a spot, wondering whether to open and then read a bunch of papers.  These papers (these red-hot papers) are the words and thoughts of her husband Frederick from his time in a mental institutionIf she opens them, then it will be opening a veritable can of worms.  Does she or doesn't she?
+
|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gainNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her.  Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571269591</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0861546873
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=House of Exile: War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angeles
 
|author=Evelyn Juers
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kröger-Mann were in a constant state of hazardous exile after the rise of fascism in Germany in 1933. He became like Zola, his favourite author, a socially committed novelist and political activist and fierce critic of militarism. He was convivial, having a wide circle of friends that contained many creative artists, playwrights, socialists. He seemed drawn to the bohemians and the demi-monde. This elegant and sometimes formal gentleman came from the Hanseatic town of Lubeck where his father belonged to a renowned grain merchant family. These might be described as the haute-bourgeoisie. There was an unusual degree of sibling rivalry between him and his less robust brother, the famous author of ''The Magic Mountain'', Thomas Mann. Hendrick possessed a sensual nature and fell passionately and easily in love with a number of women. Of these his relationship with Nelly, a fascinating woman, a seamstress and nightclub hostess, as full of contradictions as himself, was the most successful and long lasting. She followed him on the long painful journey into exile at first in Nice and later to the United States.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846144612</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=David Chadwick
|title=A Conspiracy Of Friends
+
|title=Headload of Napalm
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=So, here we are again back with our friends in Corduroy Mansions in this, their third book. I found ''A Conspiracy Of Friends'' a little slow to start with, and I worried that perhaps I had tired of the characters, but a few chapters later the pace picked up and once again I was thoroughly entertained by the quirky characters, interesting thoughts and ideas.
+
|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971829</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=Bang Bang You're Dead
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Narinder Dhami
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mia is holding her family together. She's never known her father, her mother is suffering from manic depression which she refuses to seek help for, and her twin brother Jamie is causing
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
her real concern. So when the fire alarm is set off at school and rumours fly around that there's a pupil with a gun on the loose, she starts to worry that Jamie has done the unthinkable. Ignoring all common sense, she desperately tries to see for herself whether he could be the one with the gun...
+
|isbn=1398527122
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>055256043X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|title=In The Sea There Are Crocodiles
+
|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|author=Fabio Geda
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''In The Sea There Are Crocoiles'' is based on a true story about a young boy left by his mother to fend for himselfAs if that wasn't difficult enough, he's stranded in Pakistan while the rest of his family are in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It's a collaboration between Afghan Enaiatollah and his Italian translator, Fabio - this book is already a big hit with Italian readers (it says so on the back cover blurb). Enaiatollah eventually claimed political asylum in Italy.
+
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560085</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 0356522776
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1786482126
 +
|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)
 +
|author=Elly Griffiths
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway.  There was no skullWas this a ritual killing or murder?  Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Joan Didion
|title=My Name is Rose
+
|title=The Year of Magical Thinking
|author=Sally Grindley
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Autobiography
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear.
|summary=Rosa comes from a Romany gypsy community. She travels around Eastern Europe with her family, only stopping occasionally for school. Her father says her education comes from her family's connection with the land and the Roma traditions. And Rose agrees. She is happy and never happier than when her parents are playing music and there is noise and laughter and gaiety.  
+
|isbn=0007216858
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408814021</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008551324
|title=Momentum
+
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Saci Lloyd
+
|author=Neil Lancaster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=London, 2030. Energy wars are consuming the globe now peak oil is past. Britain creaks on with ever-declining influence and is now partly dependent on aid from China. The gap between rich and poor is now so great that the poor (the Outsiders) live in dreadful slums while the rich (the Citizens) spend most of their time plugged into the net, experiencing life as a fantasy. Civil unrest is springing up, only to be ruthlessly put down by the Kossacks, the new security force.  
+
|summary=It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death.  This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date.  Not much to ask, is it?  The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444900811</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0241678412
|title=Asylum
+
|title=The Proof of My Innocence
|author=Rachel Anderson
+
|author=Jonathan Coe
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Sunday arrived in the UK at Lowestoft. He'd have preferred Iceland, ''which, so he'd heard, was cold and treeless but democratic and respectful of human life''. Sent from a refugee camp by his Auntie Pru, Sunday is very religious and very respectful of human life, unlike the militia who destroyed his village. So it's difficult for Sunday to become a Muslim. But that's what he has to do. His papers confiscated by a shady people trafficker, Sunday finds himself the unpaid caretaker at Hawk Rise, a condemned London tower block. And his name isn't Sunday any more; it's Piet Ali.  
+
|summary=Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipated.  She's back home, living with her parents and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport. All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing.  The situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, Rashida.  Christopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980s.  It plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340997680</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|title=Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?
 +
|author=Claire Dederer
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Politics and Society
 +
|summary=Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a ''biography of the audience'' in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary ''cancel culture''. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of ''monstrous men'' as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice.
 +
|isbn=1399715070
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1739526910
|title=We Love Bears
+
|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|author=Catherine Anholt and Laurence Anholt
+
|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Two young children wake up one morning to find their teddy bear has come to life and is waiting to take them on an outing to a Teddy Bear Town. The simple text makes for a short and sweet bedtime read, always useful in our house. There are just a couple of lines of rhyming verse on each page, with a nice rhythm for easy reading aloud, and I think it could be enjoyed by quite young toddlers. However, I liked the amusing pictures, with lots of detail to look and discuss with slightly older siblings.
+
|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408311682</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0008405026
|title=Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East
+
|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)
|author=Martin Sixsmith
+
|author=Jane Casey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=History
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=As a former BBC correspondent in Moscow at the time that the Cold War was ending, Sixsmith is in a unique position to write a history of Russia, based partly on research and partly on his own experiences, after having witnessed at first hand some of the upheavals in recent years which play such an important part in the story.
+
|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night.  She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt.  Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed.  Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious.  What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder.  Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849900728</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1529077745
 +
|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
 +
|author=Ann Cleeves
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens.  The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up.  D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer.  Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1399613073
 +
|title=Moral Injuries
 +
|author=Christie Watson
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century.  Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.  Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor.  Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP.  When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy.  We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences.  Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends.  This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Forgetting Zoe
+
|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|author=Ray Robinson
+
|title=Nowhere Man
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Forgetting Zoe'' opens with Thurman, one of the two main characters.  We see that his home life is dreadful - with a violent and cruel father and a mother who is weak.  And as an only child (to rather elderly parents) Thurman hears his father's violence directed at his mother. Their home is out of the way and in an isolated spot, so really the three of them form a very unhappy threesome indeed. The reader is left in no doubt as to the nature of the father with lines such as, ''As a form of punishment Father would press one of his hands down on top of Thurman's head so forcefully that Thurman's legs would buckle... that blood would trickle down his forehead...''
+
|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953763X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 09:21, 19 December 2024

Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!

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Review of

The Trading Game: A Confession by Gary Stevenson

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. Full Review

000862657X.jpg

Review of

Lover Birds by Leanne Egan

4.5star.jpg Teens

When new girl, Isabel, moves to Lou's hometown of Liverpool from London Lou immediately feels Isabel's disdain for everything around her. A misunderstanding between them leaves them hating each other, but Lou feels her pulse racing every time she looks at Isabel or speaks with her, and that's definitely because Isabel makes her feel so cross, isn't it? Because Lou is straight, isn't she? Even though none of her relationships with boys have gone very well so far, and she's never had a good kiss with any of them? So she just finds herself watching Isabel, and wanting to hang out with her because fighting with her is fun, and she definitely just hates Isabel, doesn't she? Full Review

0571365469.jpg

Review of

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. Full Review

1009473085.jpg

Review of

The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024 by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)

5star.jpg Politics and Society

Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it isn't and that applies to The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what really happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, Johnson at 10, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. The Conservative Effect is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024. Full Review

B0DNVWMYP2.jpg

Review of

Chimera by Mark Lingane

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.

Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.

There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel. Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.

As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive. Full Review

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5star.jpg Short Stories

As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. Full Review

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Review of

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's midsummer on the Dorset coast and guests gather at The Manor. It's their opening weekend and splendid celebrations are promised. It's all headed up by Francesca Meadows. The Manor was her ancestral home and she's converted it into an impressive retreat for the wealthy and famous. Her husband, Owen, was the architect and work is still ongoing on parts of the site. The heat is oppressive and amongst the guests are enemies as well as friends. Old scores are going to be settled and it won't be long before a body is found. Full Review

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Review of

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Giovanni's Room follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. Full Review

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Review of

Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence

4.5star.jpg Teens

Written in verse, this is Ronny's story, a young black fourteen year old boy from Hackney who suddenly has to move to Norwich and start at a mostly white school. The move is initiated by Ronny's mum who is worried for Ronny's safety after a tragic event, and so Ronny finds himself trying to settle in a new town, a new school, and keep himself out of trouble. He listens to music constantly, and has always dreamed of being a rapper. But now, in this new school, his teacher encourages him to be part of a poetry writing workshop group and, slowly, Ronny begins to see the connections between rap and poetry, and the power of creativity and crafting your words. Full Review

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Review of

The Lavender Companion by Jessica Dunham and Terry Barlin Vesci

4.5star.jpg Lifestyle

It's strange, the things that make you immediately feel that this is the book for you. Before I started reading The Lavender Companion, I visited the author's website and there's a picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't eat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. (There's a recipe in the book, which I'm avoiding with some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was told to make a mess of it. Notes in the margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I loved this book already. Full Review

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Review of

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls. Full Review

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Review of

Us in the Before and After by Jenny Valentine

5star.jpg Teens

Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together. Full Review

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Review of

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here by Benji Waterhouse

5star.jpg Popular Science

I was tempted to read You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here after enjoying Adam Kay's first book This is Going to Hurt, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. You Don't Have to be Mad... promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. Full Review

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Review of

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

5star.jpg Short Stories

Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture. Full Review

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Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

Headload of Napalm by David Chadwick

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until.... Full Review

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

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Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

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Review of

The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

4.5star.jpg Crime

Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness. Full Review

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Review of

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

4.5star.jpg Autobiography

This book is Joan Didion's heartbreaking autobiographical account of the grief she endured following her husband's sudden death. Books that shed light on taboo topics like death are such a beautiful and necessary resource to help people feel less alone. Didion unpicks unpleasant feelings surrounding death like self-pity, denial and delusion and makes them utterly normal, lends them a human face to wear. Full Review

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Review of

The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie) by Neil Lancaster

4.5star.jpg Crime

It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening. Full Review

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Review of

The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

4star.jpg Thrillers

Life after university hasn't worked out quite the way that Phyl anticipated. She's back home, living with her parents and on a zero-hours contract serving sushi to tourists at terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport. All those ideas of becoming a writer seem to have come to nothing. The situation improves when 'Uncle' Chris comes to stay and introduces Phyl to his adopted daughter, Rashida. Christopher Swann (described by some as a lefty blogger) is investigating a think tank which originated at Cambridge University in the 1980s. It plans to push the government in a more extreme direction and is ready to act. Full Review

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Review of

Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People? by Claire Dederer

3star.jpg Politics and Society

Dederer sets out to unveil what she calls a biography of the audience in a deconstructed, thoroughly nitpicked, exploration of the old aphorism of separating the art from the artist in the context of contemporary cancel culture. Dederer's work is original and expressive. The reader gets the impression that the thoughts simply sprang and leapt from her brilliant mind and onto the page. In particular, the prologue packs a punch: she simultaneously condemns and exalts the director Roman Polanski, an artist she personally admires for his art, and yet despises for his actions. This model of monstrous men as she calls them, is consistent for the first few chapters, interrogating the likes of Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso. Her critical voice is acutely present throughout, never slipping into anonymity and maintaining her own subjectivity, as she holds it so dearly, and a personal, rather than collective voice. Full Review

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Review of

Where I've Not Been Lost by Glen Sibley

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. Full Review

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Review of

A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11) by Jane Casey

5star.jpg Crime

It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. Full Review

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Review of

The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves

4.5star.jpg Crime

A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. Full Review

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Review of

Moral Injuries by Christie Watson

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved. Full Review

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Review of

Nowhere Man by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. Full Review