Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
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| + | |author=Edward Pearce | ||
| + | |title=Pitt the Elder: Man of War | ||
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| + | |genre=Biography | ||
| + | |summary=William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768, has come down to us through the ages as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of the great men of the British Empire in its earlier days, and the man who led England triumphantly through the Seven Years War of 1756-63. During the 'year of victories' in 1759, Quebec was captured, the combined English and Prussian forces defeated the French at Minden, and the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations of historians – much of the credit. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845951433</amazonuk> | ||
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|author=Julie Kagawa | |author=Julie Kagawa | ||
Revision as of 12:53, 27 December 2010
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.
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Pitt the Elder: Man of War by Edward Pearce
William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768, has come down to us through the ages as the great eighteenth century equivalent of Winston Churchill, one of the great men of the British Empire in its earlier days, and the man who led England triumphantly through the Seven Years War of 1756-63. During the 'year of victories' in 1759, Quebec was captured, the combined English and Prussian forces defeated the French at Minden, and the army won a famous victory at Quiberon Bay. For this, Pitt took – or was accorded by generations of historians – much of the credit. Full review...
The Iron Fey: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Meghan Chase has always found her life slightly odd. She's never fitted in at school, where bullies relentlessly target her, nor at home, where her family always seem slightly surprised to find her there – except her little brother, Ethan, they barely remember her as soon as she leaves the room. Her only friend in the world is Robbie, her happy-go-lucky next door neighbour, who can always make her laugh. Meghan thinks turning sixteen will signal a change in their fortunes – she'll be able to drive, get them out of hickville once in a while. Full review...
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Dr Paul Farmer has dedicated his life to helping the poorest and neediest in society. He works tirelessly to help people less fortunate than him. Dedicated his life and works tirelessly - phrases we've heard many times about many wonderful people, but when reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, you'll realise there's not a shred of hyperbole about these claims. Farmer began working with tuberculosis and AIDS patients in Haiti, and then worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them, and worked for them, and worked with them. In an area where treating the disease is just one part of the problem, where poverty is rife, he has transformed an area, saved countless lives, and made an incredible difference to many people. Partners In Health, the healthcare organisation he set up with his colleagues, takes this work worldwide. Full review...
Crusade by Linda Press Wulf
The Children's Crusade is one of those extraordinary stories of the Middle Ages which have caught the imagination of historians and preachers. A young shepherd, who believed he was called by God to save the city of Jerusalem, managed to collect together an enormous horde of children and lead them all the way to the southern coast of France. There, he assured them, the seas would part; they would march straight to the Holy Land and take back the city where Jesus had died. It is hard to say how much or how little of this story is true as records are sketchy — after all, the children concerned were mostly illiterate — but the spectacle, hardship and faith of the enterprise make for a dramatic tale. Full review...
Devoured by D E Meredith
It is the 1850s, and religion and science are at war. Hatton and Roumonde carry out investigations in the morgue, and even at crime scenes, but their findings are seen as of little value in Victorian England. Indeed, to many of their colleagues, what they do to the human body is downright blasphemous. They struggle on, sending begging letters to rich patrons so they can buy equipment, and trying to persuade the police to accept the findings of their autopsies, but they make slow progress. In this engrossing case, their efforts are rewarded and they are called in by Inspector Adams of Scotland Yard to help with the murder of Lady Blessingham, who has had her head smashed in with a fossil. This immediately plunges them into a series of murders, each more bizarre and horrible than the last, which are all connected to theories of evolution and the creation of the world. Full review...
A Study in Crimson by Molly Carr
As soon as I read the blurb on the back cover I thought there's no doubting that this book is going to be one of those delightful romps, shall we say. Carr takes the famous and much-loved and much-read detective Holmes along with his trusty, if rather dull and plodding side-kick Watson and decides to have a bit of fun. But will it work? Full review...
Bar Balto by Faiza Guene and Sarah Ardizzone
Joel, 'The Rink', is the owner of the local bar in town and has been found murdered, stabbed and naked in a pool of blood. He's an opinionated, racist, lecherous busy-body, so there's no shortage of suspects. Faiza Guene creates an intriguing, interesting murder-mystery as we hear from each suspect in their own voice and follow the story through to its conclusion to discover who really murdered 'The Rink'. Full review...
The Wombles at Work by Elizabeth Beresford
Bloomsbury have re-issued another tranche of the original Womble books, following the release of the first titles in late 2010. This brings the total to six available titles for you to have a Wombling good time with. And quite frankly, what's not to love here? Any story featuring Elisabeth Beresford's environmentally-minded, charming characters is a delight, for young and old alike. Full review...
The End by Salvatore Scibona
Salvatore Scibona is one of a new breed of American authors who in his first book has decided to take on the great American literary novel. Has he succeeded?
The End is a novel that while being a part of a modern burgeoning literary movement very much looks back at the great American literature tradition of the last century. In Scibona's beautifully crafted prose we see glimpses of Saul Bellow, the vibrancy of Kerouac and the sensibilities of Updike, a heady mix to be sure. Full review...
Gladiator: Fight for Freedom by Simon Scarrow
Marcus's father was a centurion in the Roman legions. After the slave revolt led by Spartacus was finally put down, he retired from the army and bought a farm on a small Greek island. Marcus has spent most of his boyhood on the farm, learning to train dogs, shoot his sling accurately and dreaming of one day becoming a fighter like his father. But the farm is in debt and Marcus's life is about to crumble... Full review...
Almost True by Keren David
My usual warning when reviewing sequels, there's no way on earth I can avoid some spoilers for the breathtaking When I Was Joe so bear that in mind when reading. Full review...
The Leopard by Jo Nesbo and Don Bartlett
Still completely traumatised by 'The Snowman' investigation, Inspector Harry Hole has fled Norway for the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong where he is happy to lose himself to debt and drugs. Back in Norway, two women are found murdered by the same gruesome means and Crime Squad believe they have another serial killer on their hands. Harry's boss, Gunner Hagen wants his best detective back, as he believes Harry is the only person who can find the killer, after two months with no leads. Despite being persuaded to return to Oslo due to his father's illness and with no apparent interest in the case, Harry's detective instincts take him straight to the murder scene when a third woman is found dead and he cannot resist getting involved, especially when the current investigative team seem to be making such a mess of it. Full review...
The Lost Stories of Sherlock Holmes by John H Watson, Tony Reynolds and Chris Coady
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a successful detective character will have far too many cases in his career for it to be at all realistic. The worst case in point are the Hardy Boys, who have had two hundred or more adventures and are still not 20. Slightly more literary, but no less busy it can seem, was Sherlock Holmes, for Watson declaimed many times that he did not write down all that man's exploits. Tony Reynolds here gives us eight more cases, making Holmes' workload even more impressive. Full review...
The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate
Natalie Hargrove is one half of the It couple of Palmetto High, destined to become Palmetto Princess. Her boyfriend Mike King should be a shoo-in for Prince alongside her - except Mike doesn't seem too bothered, in contrast to the loathsome - but hunky - Justin Balmer. So when she's given a chance to knock JB out of the running for the crown, who can blame Natalie for pulling a harmless prank? Except when the prank turns out to be much less harmless than she'd have expected, the It couple are left frantically trying to cover their tracks before they lose everything. Full review...
Inside Out by Maria V Snyder
Through the narrative of the brilliantly gutsy, yet bitter Trella, Inside Out describes the unlikely revolution provoked by the mission undertaken by our protagonists to discover the legendary Gateway – a rumoured pathway between the self-contained Inside and a utopia known only as Outside. Originally reluctant to be drawn into what she considers to be a hoax, Trella, due to her particular proficiency when it comes to travelling through the piping and ventilation system that separates the various levels of Inside, somehow becomes the figurehead of the rebellion of the Lowers against the Uppers. However, there are some people who don't approve of this newfound hope, and are keen to stifle the revolution before it even begins. Full review...
In Search of Dr Watson - A Sherlockian Investigation by Molly Carr
The old saying that behind every great man there is a great woman has one major exception - Sherlock Holmes. Behind him is the figure of Dr John Watson, his biographer, the man who shares his Baker St lodgings, and the man eternally flummoxed by his deductions. This biography successfully shows how the superior Holmes walked over Watson in investigative skills, and also how Conan Doyle needed Watson, if only to help us admire Holmes more by making him less insufferably smug. Full review...
0.4 by Mike Lancaster
Kyle Straker's taped testimony begins with an editor's note:
The peculiar format that you are holding - a book - was still the dominant form of information storage at the time the tapes were made. There is a reason why I insisted on this archaic format which will, I hope, become apparent as the narrative progresses.
Kyle lives in the early 21st century in a quiet village full of ordinary people. Full review...
The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken
Although the story related here is a work of fiction, the situation is based on fact. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides (usually young and invariably pretty). Official statistics put the number of murders at 400 since 1993 while, we are told, residents believe that the true number of disappeared women is closer to 5000. But attention to this problem is diverted by drug crime, although the two may not be entirely unrelated. Anything that raises public awareness of this terrible situation, such as Hawken's book, is to be encouraged.
So much for the fact, what about the fiction? Full review...
Bree McCready and the Flame of Irenus by Hazel Allan
Bree is back! She and her best friends, Sandy and Honey, are enjoying the summer holidays until one day Mimi, Honey's little sister, goes missing. The three friends find themselves once more having to search out the old, mysterious book that fits with the heart locket in order to try to find and save Mimi. Back in the mysterious land they went to during the first of Bree's adventures the three friends face more challenges than ever before, and this time Mimi's life hangs in the balance so they must succeed! Full review...
Quarry by Ally Kennen
Scrappy's life is going absolutely nowhere. His mother has left his father. His sister is saving like mad for the deposit on a flat so that she can move out too. His grandfather is descending into senility. His school is about to be demolished. His best friend Silva gets all the girls and he's worried about the school villain, Judge, picking on him. His father, paranoid about a visit from tax inspectors, slaves over the scrapyard's books all night and so his temper is unpredictable. Very unpredictable. Full review...
Snapped by Pamela Klaffke
They say that a good idea is to write about what you know. Well, Klaffke seems to have heeded that piece of advice. She writes here about a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note the pretentious second capital letter) who is the central character. And although Sara B is now in her middle years, she's still acting like a teenager. She's got the younger boyfriend/lover, got the latest fashion look which she can deftly put her stamp on, got the invites to the best parties in the best venues with the must-be-seen-with minor celebrities. But - is she happy? I know, it seems a silly question, but is it? Full review...
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
When you summon a demon the last thing you want is for you to lose power over it - for the shoe to end up on the other foot. Especially when the demon shifts shape and is currently an eight-legged spider. That's what's happened to young Nathaniel, having summoned Bartimaeus for a task of vengeance. But perhaps it's worst of all when you have to rely on the same demon's help to protect you from an even greater evil - the wicked intent of a fellow man. Full review...
Breaking the Silence by Diane Chamberlain
As I've reviewed several of Chamberlain's previous books and enjoyed them, I was looking forward to getting stuck in to this one. We meet the central character; wife and mother to five-year-old Emma, Laura. She's distraught. Her father (Emma's grandfather) has just passed away but his dying wish has really upset Laura. It's a strange request and she doesn't know what to make of it. She confides in her husband thinking that two heads are better than one. He's a brilliant academic and could give some much-needed advice. But he doesn't. In fact, he behaves like a five-year-old himself and almost has a tantrum. Odd. Now poor Laura's doubly confused, upset and doesn't know how to handle her grief. Tough times. Full review...
Captivate by Carrie Jones
Zara, her werewolf boyfriend, Nick, and their friends Issie and Devyn think their pixie problems are over. They've trapped Zara's dad, a pixie king, and his followers in a house surrounded by iron to stop them getting out and killing more teenage boys. But, Zara's dad is growing weak in his iron prison, and his territory is ready for the taking. That's when Astley turns up, a pixie king himself, when he's around Zara's skin turns blue, the true colour of a pixie. Only being half pixie, and having not been turned, why is Zara reacting like this? But Astley isn't the only pixie king that's made his way to Maine to claim the territory, and he's certainly not the most evil. Full review...
Scaredy Squirrel at Night by Melanie Watt
Scaredy Squirrel is scared to go to sleep at night. He has all sorts of tricks to keep himself awake so that he doesn't have to face his night-time fears. But his sleeplessness is having a toll on his health. Can he find a solution to his problem? Full review...
A Sickness in the Family by Denise Mina and Antonio Fuso
In Eton Terrance there lives the Usher family, in a house above a basement flat where a gangster holds sway over a Polish "girlfriend". After a bloodbath in there, the Ushers expand downwards, clearing a cavernous hole in their home where a staircase is due to go. This is not the only crack in proceedings, however, as we soon discover while witnessing the fall of this House of Usher. Full review...
Undercover Boss: Inside the TV Phenomenon That is Changing Bosses and Employees Everywhere by Stephen Lambert and Eli Holzman
I guess I have to admit to a certain weakness for a certain type of reality TV – it's a long time since I watched Big Brother and I've not been sucked into watching talent contests – but I do quite like programmes in which the participants swap places and/or step out of their normal lives to, allegedly, see how someone else lives. Full review...
Witches War: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer
Calla Tor has always known where her life is heading. Grow up, become mated to Ren, lead the new pack formed of her packmates and his, serve the Keeper who they are assigned to serve. That's the way things are for alphas, and servitude is the sacred calling of the Guardians. Then Calla breaks one of the fundamental rules of her society – she saves the life of a human boy, Shay. She hopes to never see him again, but when it becomes clear that he's somehow important to the Keepers, and Calla is charged to look after him, she finds herself spending a lot of time with him. Full review...
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is one of those books that you read with a smile on your face. It's full of gloriously unsavoury characters caught in a terrible web of deceit. We are promised 'four women, one husband and a devastating secret' and it delivers on all three counts. Sure the secret is quite well signposted and Shoneyin doesn't really make much of an effort to divert the reader from putting two and two together, although it takes wife number four, Bolanle, an inordinate amount of time for the penny to drop, but it's not about discovering the deception - it's about the glorious journey of how things unfold. Full review...
Caroline: A Mystery by Cornelius Medvei
Meet Mr Shaw. He's an insurance worker who takes his wife and son off on their annual vacation one year, and finds himself indulging in a surprisingly platonic holiday romance. The subject of his infatuation, Caroline, has eyes, ears, hair and more that easily combine with Mr Shaw's fondness for classical Persian love poetry. At the end of the holiday he lets his wife and son depart while he takes a further week off to walk all the way home with Caroline. Who is, as it happens, a donkey. Full review...
Need by Carrie Jones
Zara's stepfather died in front of her after seeing a man at the window - it spooked him so much that his heart failed. Her mother is concerned about her, Zara's not herself, she's hollow after the sudden loss of the closest thing to a father she's ever had. So, she's sent away to live with her Grandmother, Betty, in Maine. However, Maine isn't the safe haven that Zara's mother thought it would be. People are going missing, young boys to be precise, the same thing that happened just before Zara, her mother and stepfather moved away from Maine to start with. Full review...
Griffin Mage: Law of the Broken Earth by Rachel Neumeier
Mienthe is living in her cousin's courtly household when a man arrives from the realms to the west, claiming to be an agent on the run with a great secret. It takes much time and effort to try and work out how duplicitous this man may or may not be, and what his bounty actually is (a singular, blank book, in fact). This effort begins to reveal a strange and unknown talent and possible destiny for Mienthe. But before this can be explored fully, worse news comes from out east. The peace wall keeping the evil griffins from laying waste to the world is crumbling. Full review...
Put Out The Light by Terry Deary
In 1940, Billy and Sally Thomas are living in Sheffield, a city which is well aware that German bombs will almost surely find their way there sooner or later. As the air raid sirens blare out, they help friendly Warden Crane to make sure the blackout is kept up - but when they find that people are having money stolen while they're in the shelters, they try to solve the crime. Meanwhile, in Germany, Manfred and Hansl are determined to do their bit for the war effort by getting into the bomb factory and writing an English soldier's name on a bomb. Then they meet Polish youngster Irena and become quickly embroiled in a frantic escape attempt. By December, the two sets of children will both have been thrust into the thick of the action, and we get a finale that's truly explosive – in more ways than one! Full review...
The Medusa Project: Hunted by Sophie McKenzie
Many teens (and older people, too!) wish they had a super-power or two: life would surely be easier if you could read other people's minds or move objects without touching them. But if this fascinating series about a team of crime-fighting teenagers shows us one clear thing, it is that psychic powers can bring as many problems as solutions. Dylan, the central character in this particular volume, is an angry, bad-tempered girl whose bristly exterior echoes her gift of protection her from physical harm. She is not well-liked by the other three, and this becomes a real problem when she finds herself having to deal not only with terrible revelations about her father, but with the appearance in her life of a mysterious boy, Harry. Why does he know so much about her? And can she trust him? Lonely, vulnerable Dylan is in the ideal position to make poor judgements and get herself into serious trouble. Full review...
Play Magic Golf - How to use self-hypnosis, meditation, Zen, universal laws, quantum energy, and the latest psychological and NLP techniques to be a better golfer by Dr Stephen Simpson
Do you find that when you're at the driving range or on the practice ground you're full of promise but once you translate this to the course all that promise drains away, leaving you stuck with the high handicappers? Do you know that you're better than this, but somehow you never seem to realise your potential? Yes? Then you need this book – and the probability is that you don't just need it on the golf course, but in 'real' life too. Maybe you're a more proficient golfer than that? You do quite well on the course? Then this book will show you how you can improve even more. Full review...
Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo and Edith Grossman
The very first sentence concerns the sudden discovery of a body. Judging by its dreadful state, not only some form of foul play but also some form of torture has been used. No one locally knows anything at all. Looks like a tough investigation looms for local Prosecutor by the name of Chacaltana. He is the central character in the novel. He comes across as a bit of a plodder, a bit of a dullard, someone who is methodical to a ridiculous level in his line of work. His line of work is also low-level. But, even so, he is a man who takes pride in what he does. So when he becomes involved in this macabre body incident, he gives it his full concentration. It becomes obvious he will leave no stone unturned to try and solve this crime. Full review...
