Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
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| + | |title=The Dream Thieves | ||
| + | |author=Maggie Stiefvater | ||
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| + | |summary=With the ley lines waking, things are changing around Cabeswater. Ronan is getting more and more adept at bringing his dreams to life, Gansey is needed at home, and Adam has made some mysterious new friends. At the centre of it all, Blue has to try to cope with her curse and her feelings for the Raven Boys. | ||
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|summary=Fourteen-year-old Miriam Booth is a Romany gypsy from the Newcastle slums who, like the titular waif in [[:Category:Charles Dickens|Charles Dickens]]'s ''Oliver Twist'', is an orphan who lives by her wits but becomes drawn into a ring of house-breaking crime. In 1842 she is caught and sentenced to seven years' transportation to a convict colony in Australia. | |summary=Fourteen-year-old Miriam Booth is a Romany gypsy from the Newcastle slums who, like the titular waif in [[:Category:Charles Dickens|Charles Dickens]]'s ''Oliver Twist'', is an orphan who lives by her wits but becomes drawn into a ring of house-breaking crime. In 1842 she is caught and sentenced to seven years' transportation to a convict colony in Australia. | ||
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Revision as of 15:57, 17 September 2013
The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.
There are currently 16,117 reviews at TheBookbag.
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The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
With the ley lines waking, things are changing around Cabeswater. Ronan is getting more and more adept at bringing his dreams to life, Gansey is needed at home, and Adam has made some mysterious new friends. At the centre of it all, Blue has to try to cope with her curse and her feelings for the Raven Boys. Full review...
The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer
This sequel to The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell sees twins Alex and Conner Bailey once again magically transported to the fairy-tale realm, this time with the hope of rescuing their mother. She has been kidnapped by the evil Enchantress, the powerful and wicked entity who cursed Sleeping Beauty. The Enchantress is spreading a dark curse over all of the kingdoms and the fairies seem powerless to stop it. Will Alex and Conner find a way to stop her and save their mother before time runs out? Full review...
Freedom from Bosses Forever by Tony Robinson OBE
When we first meet Canadian businesswoman Leonora Soculitherz (don't struggle - it's pronounced 'so cool it hurts') she's on her way from Manchester Airport to Scarborough, the home of her agent, Tony Robinson OBE. You get the measure of the woman straight away as she lets her irritation show about the problems you find in the First Class carriage on the train. (She is so right - I was once grateful to spend the journey perched on a luggage rack.) Her mission is a piece of investigative journalism that's going to introduce her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people in small businesses don't get the help they need. Full review...
Resist (Breathe) by Sarah Crossan
Resist carries on where Breathe left off. To catch you up: deforestation has resulted in environmental catastrophe and the world is a ravaged place in which there isn't enough oxygen to fully sustain human life. A corporation, Breathe, runs the Pod, whose inhabitants are divided into Premiums (plenty of oxygen) and Auxiliaries (barely enough). Outside, drifters struggle to survive. With one alternative to the Pod - The Grove - destroyed by the Pod Ministry, Alina, Bea and Quinn, our three central characters, set out on separate, but equally perilous, journeys to find the other, Sequoia. And back in the Pod, Ronan is rethinking the world he thought he lived in but didn't. Full review...
Ninja 2: Death Touch (Ninja Trilogy) by Chris Bradford and Sonia Leong
Ninja Death Touch is the second book in this series. It was however, the first book we read. We had no problem reading this as a stand alone book, but the minute we had finished I was on Amazon to buy the first book, and if the third book had been available I would have bought that one as well. In fact if the author had had twenty books in this series, I'd have tried to buy them all. This book features the two main characters of the first story, Tata and Cho, as well as Tata's rival Renzo and sworn enemy Lord Oda. The book begins with the young Ninja put to what appears to be senseless tasks at the whims of their masters. None are too happy about it, and tensions erupt between the young Ninja. All too soon the reason for these tasks becomes apparent as Lord Oda leads an attack meant to destroy the entire clan. Full review...
Ninja: First Mission (Ninja Trilogy) by Chris Bradford and Sonia Leong
If you are looking for adventure, Ninja First Mission will certain come up trumps. This book never has a slow moment. But even as the story races along at breakneck speed, there is plenty to think about as well. This book has as much to offer the deep thinker as the adrenaline junky. Tata, a young Ninja in training, is desperate to prove himself. He has failed the test for his black belt three times, but this was just a simple test. The sacred scrolls of his clan have been stolen, and all of the fully fledged Ninja but one are away on another mission. Tata faces another test, but this time the stakes are life and death, not only for himself, but for his clan. In order to succeed Tata must learn to find victory in failure. Most of all he must learn to believe in himself. Full review...
Elysian Fields by Suzanne Johnson
Drusilla Jaco (DJ) is the sentinel for the preternatural community in the greater New Orleans area and is still recovering from bereavement, Katrina and broken ribs from her last adventure. No such luck as life taking things easy on her, however, as it is discovered that the copycat of a famous serial killer is not, in fact, a copycat. The Axeman of New Orleans himself has been raised from the dead by a necromancer or necromancers unknown. To make matters worse, her loup-garou fiend Jake bit her in a fit of pique and her best friend’s creepy boyfriend won’t leave her alone. She doesn’t know what he wants and she doesn’t know whether she’ll turn into a wolf at the next full moon but she does know that the Axeman is after her, specifically. Full review...
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen
We provide an irresistible opportunity for enterprising microbes by the ubiquity and abundance of our human bodies. This is a salient fact taken away from David Quammen's Spillover. The entire book is a most trenchant eye-opener to just how much of an impact animal infections have on people; approximately 60% of human infectious diseases are zoonoses, 'animal [infections] transmissible to humans'. Full review...
I Came To Say Goodbye by Caroline Overington
Sometimes when you have clear expectations of a book based on its blurb, and then you get an utterly different story, it can be frustrating. While I think ‘misleading’ is too strong a word for it, I really could not have predicted the story of this book from what I read on the back cover. It sounded like an excellent story about a baby snatched from a hospital ward but instead it was…an excellent story about something else entirely. Full review...
Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with a feather in her hair...
Tiger Lily tells the story of Neverland after Peter Pan arrived but before Wendy came. Our narrator is Tink, the silent, sometimes jealous, fairy. And our heroine is Tiger Lily, the native girl who is strange even to her fellow villagers. Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories but when she meets Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland, her heart burns with a fire she had never expected. Full review...
Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug by David Melling
The fun in Hugless Douglas Finds A Hug jumps out at you. Literally. In the form of a Douglas puppet who arrives poking his head through the centre of the book. He pops up on every page of the story, sporting his red scarf and his slightly dopey look, and as his body seems to grow with every page that’s turned, you just know there’s something special waiting for you on the last page. Can you guess what it is? Hint: the clue’s in the title. Full review...
Poppy Cat's Counting Adventure by Lara Jones
Just how much can you pack in one short book? That’s the question you’ll be asking when you pick up Poppy Cat’s Counting Adventure. How about: rhyme (check), flaps to lift (check), holes to peep through (check), bright colours, happy characters and a fun, educational aspect (check, check, check). This book really has it all. Full review...
United We Spy (Gallagher Girls) by Ally Carter
The Circle of Cavan are still on the hunt for Cammie Morgan. Their other plans, though, might be even more terrible than their hunt for the young spy. Can Cammie and her friends save themselves, and take down the Circle before they carry out their deadly mission? Full review...
The World is a Wedding by Wendy Jones
They say one door doesn't shut but for another opens. Wilfred Price, the most amenable 1920s Welsh undertaker in literature, is living proof of that. He took his beloved Flora Myffanwy to be his, after they both fell in love at her father's funeral. It did leave Grace alone and bereft, and forced out of town in a very unsavoury fashion, but for Wilfred and Flora married life is fine. Hesitant, but fine. He's finally got into the swing of things as regards calling her dear, and conjugal relations, and she has finally felt able to speak up about her place in the household of her husband and his father – and whoever happens to be left to settle in the workshop, having died on the loo and got stuck in a non-coffin-shaped pose. But do those doors stay firmly shut…? Full review...
Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking You're a Competent Granny or Grandpa by Paul Merrill
It seems to be accepted wisdom that being a grandparent is a great deal easier than being a parent. The trials and tribulations have largely been ignored by wrinklies grateful for contact with their children and grandchildren - and by the children who are grateful (or otherwise) for free childcare - or so Paul Merrill would have us believe. Published for Grandparents' Day his book takes us through a series of scientifically-questionable quizzes, flow charts (that's often of money, by the way - and you can guess which way it's flowing), checklists and advice from celebrities, some of whom you might even have heard of. Full review...
Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch by Barbara A Perry
It's about fifty years since the assassination of President John F Kennedy and it was he (and particularly his death) who brought the Kennedy family to the attention of a new generation. An earlier generation had been split about the virtues (or otherwise) of his father, Joe Kennedy, multi millionaire and United States Ambassador to Great Britain. But behind both of these men was mother and wife, Rose Kennedy and Barbara A Perry has produced a superb biography using letters, diaries and other archived material recently made available. Full review...
Fashion Beast by Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren
Meet Doll. She seems to fit in with the world she aspires to – she has an androgynous look and a sharp tongue, and doesn't seem to hold many of the people around her in much deference. However, as someone else is very quick to point out, she is only a cloakroom attendant, however swanky and in vogue the nightclub she works at might be. That same someone else gets her fired, however, yet for every door that shuts… As she becomes an overnight modelling sensation, and finds her new boss a very singular individual. Full review...
The Weirdo Years 1981-'91 by R Crumb
Books are better than magazines – discuss. Certainly for the connoisseur of the contents of culturally important titles from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s it must be a lively debate. I remember my collection of New Worlds editions and how often the editors would take us through a long novel over seven or eight parts, then dump a 'sorry, due to space requirements this last part of what you've cherished for months is abridged – but wait for the novel version soon' on us. Is it better to be a completist, and witness everything the original editors deemed worthy (or just had lying around) or should we cherry-pick and note the best? This hefty hunk of book goes for the latter, anyway, taking R Crumb's output for the Weirdo comic, as edited by R Crumb, then someone else, then Mrs R Crumb, and giving us everything, warts and all. Full review...
The Hartlepool Monkey by Wilfrid Lupano and Jeremie Moreau
OK, I'll get the obvious pun over and done with – this graphic novel features a lot of monkeying around. It focuses on the village of Hartlepool, and the people who populated the small settlement on low cliffs overlooking the North Sea, with its couple of pubs and not much else. It looks at what might have happened when, as folklore has it, a storm put paid to a French ship and when a monkey washed up ashore afterwards the natives took it for a Napoleonic spy, tried to find invasion plans from it, and hanged it as the enemy. Here the poor creature is even shaved so it shows respect to the court-martial. Here too are some lovely choice lines of vernacular delivered in spite about the French and the English, and here too is a guest appearance by someone with a much more modern outlook than the ridiculous Hartlepool residents. Full review...
A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks
Geoffrey swaps a career as a public school master for an existence as an English officer behind German lines during WWII, an experience that will take a lifetime to expunge. Billy is a child sent to the workhouse to give his family a chance of survival. Elena has to come to terms with an adopted brother, Jeanne the French nursemaid lives in the shadow of a one-off encounter and Jack? He bears the indelible heart print of a girl who travels with a guitar. Five lives, five stories, one human, emotional thread. Full review...
Football Crazy by Tony Bradman and Michael Broad
Football Crazy is about a group of friends who play on the worst team in the league. It can be difficult when your team loses every time you go on the pitch, but Danny, Jamil and Lewis love the sport and they stick with it - win or lose. They keep hoping the next game will be the game in which they finally win, or at least get on the scoreboard, but it never happens - not as long as Mr Perkins is coaching. When the coach finally packs it in - it looks like curtains for Rovers FC. But, luck seems to be on the children's side when a new coach, Jock Ramsay, with some history in the pro leagues is found. The new coach is tough, but he quickly gets the team into shape and the Rovers start climbing the league tables. Parents are delighted, the stands are full, but the children find they no longer love the sport. Everything is about winning. Things come to crisis point when Coach Ramsay orders Danny to take a dive. Full review...
Secret FC by Tom Palmer
Unlike many children, Lily, Zack and Khan can't wait for the school year to begin. They live in an overcrowded part of London with no room for outdoor sports and the school ground is the only place they can enjoy a friendly game of football. But their hopes for the new term are dashed when a new Head Teacher decides ball sports are too dangerous for children. Surprisingly, with an overly safety-conscious Head, while football is prohibited there is a wooded waste ground inside the school grounds - which just happens to be the perfect spot for the children to clear and create their own football pitch. But will they be able to keep the secret? Or will Mr Edwards blow the final whistle on all of their sports? Full review...
Diary Of Dorkius Maximus In Egypt by Tim Collins
Having enjoyed the first book in this series we were quite keen to try the sequel. Although this is part of what I hope will be a very long series, it is not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy this one. This book sees Dorkius Maximus rewarded for his activities by being asked to accompany Caesar on an important visit to Egypt. Ceasar hopes young Dorkius may be able to help negotiate a deal with the odious King Ptolemy, who happens to be about the same age as our hero. Full review...
Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human
Baxter Zevcenko is a sixteen year old student in South Africa who believes everything in life is business related and for the sole purpose of increasing his own power. Baxter deals porn at his school and is the leader of a gang of misfits who have carved a niche within the school’s hierarchy out of the student populations need for smut. The group is called the Spider and Baxter believes himself to be the arachnid at the centre of an impressive web with the ability to manipulate and scheme his way to power and riches. His heroes are Rasputin and Machiavelli and we are made aware very early on that as well as being a despicable power hungry megalomaniac he is also quite possibly insane. Full review...
The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P D Viner
There’s no good way to deal with the death of a child. When Dani Lancing is killed her parents react in different ways, but neither way is particularly helpful or healthy. And of course neither way will bring their daughter back. It’s now 20 years later and the mystery of whodunnit is still looming over Jim and Patty’s heads, though they’re no longer together. The murder of a child will do that to a marriage. Full review...
Counting Sheep: A Bedtime Adventure! by Kathryn Cave and Chris Riddell
Tom is supposed to be asleep. He’s been tucked up in bed for ages, so long in fact that it’s now mum and dad’s time to go to sleep, but he’s still wide awake. Just count some sheep, his mum says finally. But what should be a calming, boring, wind down activity that would put any sane person to sleep does not work for Tom. Because when the sheep come, they steal him off for a bedtime adventure. Full review...
The Crooked Timber Of Humanity by Isaiah Berlin
The Crooked Timber of Humanity is a collection of essays by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, born in Riga, to, later in life, become an Oxford student and one of the institution's more notable alumni, continuing to influence the university by, among other things, cofounding Wolfson College. Altogether, the collection presents Berlin's observations of Western thought. The history of morals in the West was of particular interest to Berlin, as well as how these morals informed the more obvious changes in philosophy, literature, culture and much more. Full review...
A Very British Murder: the Story of a National Obsession by Lucy Worsley
The British are an illogical race. Short of genocide, murder is the worst, most shocking crime an individual can commit, yet it has become a kind of commodity which over the last years has been endlessly packaged as a mass market entertainment industry. We buy newspapers and magazines with blow-by-blow accounts of dreadful true life cases, we read thrillers, watch TV drama series and documentaries, and we can take part in murder mystery evenings and weekends at pubs and hotels. Full review...
The Night Flower by Sarah Stovell
Fourteen-year-old Miriam Booth is a Romany gypsy from the Newcastle slums who, like the titular waif in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, is an orphan who lives by her wits but becomes drawn into a ring of house-breaking crime. In 1842 she is caught and sentenced to seven years' transportation to a convict colony in Australia. Full review...
