Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
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| + | |summary=We are devotees of the [[The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson|Gruffalo]]. We have books, noisy books, costumes, jigsaws, sleepsuits and green nail polish. We have scoured coppices for Gruffalo-shaped twigs and bakers’ shops for Gruffalo birthday cakes. We have done the Gruffalo, if not to death, but to the shallow depths of my granddaughter’s infant imagination. We love the Gruffalo for his unique and appealing simplicity, and because he is the most wonderful debunker of monster-fear ever invented. | ||
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|summary=Lazlo is afraid of the dark. Each night he takes a torch to bed as he knows that the dark shares the house with him, lurking in all the corners of his home. Usually though, the dark lives in the basement and each morning Lazlo builds up the courage to go to the door of the basement and say ''hi'' to the dark. But then one night the dark does something different and visits Lazlo in his bedroom and speaks to him! It has something that it wants to show Lazlo and it is something that will help Lazlo to overcome his fear. | |summary=Lazlo is afraid of the dark. Each night he takes a torch to bed as he knows that the dark shares the house with him, lurking in all the corners of his home. Usually though, the dark lives in the basement and each morning Lazlo builds up the courage to go to the door of the basement and say ''hi'' to the dark. But then one night the dark does something different and visits Lazlo in his bedroom and speaks to him! It has something that it wants to show Lazlo and it is something that will help Lazlo to overcome his fear. | ||
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Revision as of 14:44, 11 April 2013
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.
There are currently 16,117 reviews at TheBookbag.
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Zog by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
We are devotees of the Gruffalo. We have books, noisy books, costumes, jigsaws, sleepsuits and green nail polish. We have scoured coppices for Gruffalo-shaped twigs and bakers’ shops for Gruffalo birthday cakes. We have done the Gruffalo, if not to death, but to the shallow depths of my granddaughter’s infant imagination. We love the Gruffalo for his unique and appealing simplicity, and because he is the most wonderful debunker of monster-fear ever invented. Full review...
The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen
Ella and Micha haven’t seen each other for months, quite unusual for a couple who have been best friends forever. Ella’s been away at college, in Vegas, but Micha didn’t know this as she upped and left without so much as a wave goodbye, so he’s been trying to track her down. But, just as he does so, she shows up back home anyway as it’s summer break and she’s back at her dad’s, the house she grew up in, the house next door to Micha. Full review...
Dodger by James Benmore
That loveable rogue, the Artful Dodger, is one of the most memorable and amusing characters in all of English literature. Oliver Twist ended with Dodger Jack Dawkins arrested for the theft of a silver snuff box and transported to Australia. But what happened next? James Benmore explores that idea in Dodger, which takes up the story six years after the events of Oliver Twist. Full review...
Too Small for my Big Bed by Amber Stewart and Layn Marlow
This book is for kids graduating from the cot to their first big bed. Even more, it’s for all those parents who didn’t anticipate that once in the bed, there’s no going back to the security of the cot ... the child can now appear in your bedroom, night after night after night. So this is the universal problem, and here is a supportive and tactful way of addressing it. Full review...
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
As Therese Anne Fowler points out in her acknowledgements, views on the relationship between F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife and muse, Zelda, tend to split into 'Team Scott' and 'Team Zelda'. The former believe that it was Zelda's instability and possessiveness that limited Scott's creative output while the latter argue that it was Scott's debauched behaviour that led to Zelda's mental problems. Z takes a more balanced view - the truth of the matter is that they needed each other but were tragically, mutually destructive. Getting the fact-based fiction tone right is always a challenge, and this is exacerbated when the author gives a writer the narrative voice, and Zelda was a talented writer in her own right as well as a dancer, artist and general social phenomenon. However Fowler pulls it off with aplomb in what is a sensitive and engrossing story of Zelda - 'the First Flapper'. Full review...
How Dinosaurs Really Work by Alan Snow
It’s sometimes difficult to find books which appeal to reluctant readers, particularly boys. Three cheers, then, for Alan Snow who has produced a really smashing book about those ever-popular dinosaurs. Here is a book which will appeal not only to bright kids during their inevitable dinosaur phase, and also to more struggling readers, a little later on. This is exactly the sort of book kids can pore over for several weeks on end in order to become something of an authority on prehistoric animals in front of their mates. Full review...
Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant
When household name Gaby Mortimer finds a body in the common near her London home, it is horrible and shocking, but the one thing she doesn’t expect is to become the main suspect in the murder case. After all, she was just the one who found the poor woman’s body. Surely the Police should be spending their time searching for a more likely assailant than a perhaps past her prime TV presenter? But it soon becomes clear that Gaby is the one they are fixating on, the one to whom they will try to make the limited evidence fit. And it’s going to take everything she’s got to convince them otherwise. Full review...
Weasels by Elys Dolan
I chose 'Weasels' because my sons enjoy books with a bit of wicked wit. Books are my passion, and something my children greatly enjoy as well. We have several hundred children's books, and we really value ones that are a bit different from the norm. 'Weasels' most certainly qualifies as different. The premise of the story is that weasels are secretly plotting to take over the world. My boys call it World War Weasel. A slight but very humorous mishap really throws a spanner in the works. The weasels have built a massive machine to secure their quest for world domination, but just as the countdown begins the lights go off and the machine status screen clearly tells us It's broken. Full review...
The Great Mathematical Problems by Ian Stewart
I joked with a friend when I first got the book that The Great Problems may be a step too far for me, and perhaps I should wait for Stewart to release a book called The Fairly Good Mathematical Problems as it would be closer to my level. While I originally said it in jest, by chapter four or so I was starting to think I'd been closer to the truth than I'd realised - Stewart seems, somewhat surprisingly given his past success with books like the brilliant Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, to have pitched this book about the 'really big questions in mathematics' at an extremely high level. With just a degree in mathematics and nearly ten years worth of experience teaching the subject, I found it something of a slog to get through, with many concepts being difficult to grasp, in particular the Mordell conjecture. Full review...
The Hit by Melvin Burgess
Manchester. About thirty years from now. Hardly anyone has a job that pays enough to live on. Life is mean and limited for most people. And then a rock star gives his final concert. Jimmy Earles dies on stage after taking Death, a new drug that gives the ultimate high at an equally high price - it kills you after seven days and there is no antidote. Full review...
Lost, Stolen or Shredded: Stories of missing works of art and literature by Rick Gekoski
Over the centuries, many works of art have disappeared and then come back, or been returned almost as if they had never been away. Others, less fortunate, were simply destroyed. A very few never really existed at all. That is the basis of this unusual and very intriguing read from rare book dealer, writer and broadcaster Rick Gekoski. Full review...
The Joy of X by Steven Strogatz
Steven Strogatz, award-winning professor, takes us on a tour of mathematics, and how it relates to our everyday life, in this fascinating book. Split into six sections, 'Numbers', 'Relationships', 'Shapes', 'Change', 'Data' and 'Frontiers', it's an engaging and well-presented read, with short chapters which make it easy to dip into. Full review...
Good Husband Material by Trisha Ashley
Fergal is part of a popular pop band. Regularly in the news for various scandals, he is introduced in the prologue to this novel when he recalls his first, somewhat dramatic meeting with 17-year-old Tish, and the year-long romance which followed. Full review...
How Puzzles Improve Your Brain: The Surprising Science of the Playful Brain by Richard Restak and Scott Kim
Many people in the first flush of youth will read this book to find ways of increasing their brain power. Others - like me - at the other end of the age continuum will read because they're looking for ways to restrict or even reverse what they see as deterioration. Both groups might initially be disappointed as the title suggests that the book is about puzzles, but don't give up as the reality is far more useful. This is a book about how our brains work, how the different parts interact or come into play in certain circumstances - and then there are some puzzles directed at improving performance in those areas. Full review...
How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti
Much has been made in the media about the similarity in approach of Sheila Heti's fictionalised autobiographical How Should A Person Be? and Lena Dunham's HBO television series Girls. They certainly share a similarly bleak and introspective view of life, both are apparently based on the writer's own experience, both have a somewhat knowingly shock factor particularly when it comes to sex and both leave me somewhat depressed and sad. And both have been critical successes in the US. Indeed, How Should A Person Be? also features on the 2013 long list for the Women's Prize for Fiction, although it's not easy to assess where the fiction starts and the reality stops. In fact, the conceit is also somewhat similar to the scripted reality shows that dominate certain television channels. The effect is something that is interesting as a concept and exercise but less than enjoyable to read. Full review...
Circulation: William Harvey's Revolutionary Idea by Thomas Wright
'Circulation' by Thomas Wright is a biography of English physician William Harvey’s life, and the story of the 'birth of a theory'. It takes the reader through time before, during and after the creation and completion of De Motu Cordis, in which Harvey famously outlines the most comprehensive antecedent of the mechanism of blood circulation as we know it today. The combination of the writer's aptitude for storytelling and the intriguing life of the individual about whom he writes makes for a fascinating read, allowing one to course through chronologically arranged chapters on Harvey’s life and works, mixed with briefer essays on subject matters ranging from the history of vivisection to the philosophical underpinnings of Harvey’s work. Full review...
Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt
After finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a girl he met online, Mallory decides that the best way to make her life less complicated is to get rid of the boy, and of the new technology that's the cause of her woes. Finding a list her grandmother wrote as a teen in the Sixties, she decides to go vintage, and live as her grandmother did. Will she find the answer to her modern-day problems in the past? Full review...
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Australian Professor of Genetics Don Tillman is passably good looking, successful and tall. If he were an animal he'd be highly sought after for breeding purposes. Unfortunately he's human and although popular (well… he has two friends anyway) he can't get a second date… from anyone… at all. Being a scientist he sets out on a logical quest for a mate. The Wife Project begins and seems to be progressing… until Rosie. Full review...
Last Snow (Jack McClure Trilogy) by Eric Van Lustbader
Jack McClure, aide and friend to the US president, is back at work after the death of his daughter and the resolved kidnapping of President Carson's own daughter, Alli. However, Jack hasn't fully recovered; he's still in mourning and full of self-recrimination but the show must go on. When an American senator is killed in Capri Jack's on hand to investigate, starting a mission that will take him into the Ukraine and the seamier side of power on both sides of the Atlantic. Apparently not all the President's closest advisors can be trusted and that's not Jack's only complication. After Alli's traumatic experiences at the hands of Morgan Herr Jack is the only person she trusts, so she's coming along for the ride, through hell, high water and a few murders. Full review...
Dreams and Shadows by C Robert Cargill
Once upon a time, a sweet boy met a sweet girl and they fell perfectly in love. Their love is rich and fulfilling and true. They did what people in love do: moved in together, got married, had a baby. And then something most people don't believe exists crawls into their house through an open window and exchanges their perfect baby for a changeling. It's the start of something bigger than even the switcher can begin to imagine. Full review...
You, Me and Thing 4: The Mummy That Went Moo by Karen McCombie
Do you remember Thing? Yes, that's right, he's that funny little creature who's a bit like a troll or a fairy or a squirrel or a, well, a something and he lives in the woods at the bottom of Ruby's garden. Ruby and Jackson became friends thanks to discovering Thing, and now they try to take care of him as best they can, and keep him out of trouble if at all possible. Unfortunately with Thing's wayward magical powers it isn't always easy to do! Full review...
Baksheesh (Kati Hirschel Murder Mysteries) by Esmahan Aykol and Ruth Whitehouse (translator)
Kati Hirschel, daughter of German parents, still runs the only crime fiction bookshop in Istanbul and, when good's measured against bad, seems to be having a rough time. Good that she's about to buy her first apartment. However, looking at the bad, she's just split up with her boyfriend (albeit after a very good dinner), is strangled in a car park (though not to death… which is good) and is about to be arrested for her strangler's murder occurring, as it did, while she was eating strawberry ice cream. The only way she can exonerate herself is to emulate her fictional heroes once again and do some sleuthing. Full review...
Jack Hunter: The French Connection by Martin King
After solving the ancient secret of the King, Jack Hunter's life has been brilliant. Finding a centuries-old key and unlocking mysteries dating back to the time of King Richard, as well as being integral in unveiling dangerous criminal activities and rescuing long-lost treasure have earned Jack and his friends a French holiday. But nothing is ever easy. Jack finds himself in the middle of a robbery, and nothing is what it seems. Russian gangsters, stolen jewels, a famous movie star.... and another historical secret pull Jack and his friends even deeper into the secrets of The Four Corners. What is going on? And how do they even know about Jack? With his family in danger, Jack can't even be sure who the good guys are. Full review...
Don't Look Back by S B Hayes
Ever since they were children, Sinead has been taunted by her older brother Patrick. Always their mother's favourite, he constantly plays games with her, trying to force her to follow him. When he goes missing, it seems to be his most sinister game yet - as he leaves a trail of clues which lead to Benedict House, a strange place where time seems to stand still. Full review...
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick
Charlie Beale returned from the war in Europe and 1948 found him in Brownsburg, Virginia. He'd been driving around looking for somewhere to settle and all he had with him were two suitcases. One contained an excellent set of butchers' knives - and the other was full of money. Brownsburg seemed like a fine place to stay and before long he had a job with Will Haislett and the Haislett family became his family. He'd never hankered after children but their five-year-old son, Sam found a place in his heart. Life might have been good if it had continued in this vein, but Charlie Beale met Sylvan Glass.s Full review...
The Dark by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen
Lazlo is afraid of the dark. Each night he takes a torch to bed as he knows that the dark shares the house with him, lurking in all the corners of his home. Usually though, the dark lives in the basement and each morning Lazlo builds up the courage to go to the door of the basement and say hi to the dark. But then one night the dark does something different and visits Lazlo in his bedroom and speaks to him! It has something that it wants to show Lazlo and it is something that will help Lazlo to overcome his fear. Full review...
