Book Reviews From 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.
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The Fear Index by Robert Harris
With the FTSE recording its biggest quarterly drop in years, turmoil on the bond markets and the prospect of economic meltdown and the possible disintegration of the euro zone, Robert Harris' new thriller couldn't be more timely. Full review...
A History of England in 100 Places: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin by John Julius Norwich
There are many different ways of telling the history of England (indeed just England, not Wales and Scotland, as the author makes clear). This takes a very simple and very effective approach to the matter, by focusing on a hundred specific places which somehow illustrate the nation's progress from prehistoric times to today, in chronological order. Full review...
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 2, 1941-1956 by Samuel Beckett, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Lois More Overbeck, George Craig and Dan Gunn
Despite the title, Volume 2 really begins in 1945. During the war, Beckett was working with the French Resistance, and had to go into hiding. In order to keep the picture reasonably complete, there is a chronology of the war years, and the introduction includes a lettercard sent to James Joyce in February 1941, a pre-printed postcard presenting prefabricated phrases which the sender could strike out as appropriate. During the war only the mildest of family news could be sent through the mail, and even this was subject to censorship. Joyce never received the card, as he died the day after it was written. Full review...
Blood Falls by Tom Bale
I read and reviewed Bale's Terror's Reachand enjoyed it. What would I think of his latest? Joe is doing his level best to live an unremarkable (almost invisible) life in Bristol. He uses his brawn to pay his modest bills for rent, food etc. But you could say, once a copper, always a copper so his brain is not idle, it's in constant use. Whirring away in the background and it's just as well. Joe soon senses imminent danger when a couple of blokes stroll by, stop and ask his gaffer a couple of questions. Joe needs to be somewhere else - and fast. Full review...
Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Those of you who've been hooked on this series already will remember where we left off. A choice was made. Everything seems to have been changed. And now, we find, the End of Days is near… Dark characters lurk. Some who we thought (or hoped) were gone, have returned. Other things we’ve not seen before are starting to tear the small town of Gatlin apart. The shorthand way of summing up how terrible things are is to note that Mrs Lincoln may be one of the good guys now… Full review...
The Baskerville Legacy: A Novel by John O'Connell
1900, and a man on a ship coming back from the Boer War to edit the Daily Express meets one of his heroes in the form of Arthur Conan Doyle. With similar experiences and interests yet different enough to bounce off each other they take up the idea of collaborating on a plot. When they do fix on time to do so, it leads to literary prospects, which lead to a week's research together on Dartmoor, which leads to The Hound of the Baskervilles. But perhaps in a way that only one of them intended. Full review...
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe
Featuring rioting and looting of corporate supermarkets and anger against immigrants, this is a timely re-issue of Nobel Prize for Literature winner’s Kenzaburo Óe’s 1967 classic The Silent Cry which was cited by the Nobel committee as his key work. Full review...
Start It Up: Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think by Luke Johnson
Luke Johnson is one of our busiest tycoons, with a personal fortune which runs into nine figures. He's been the driving force behind Pizza Express and Channel 4 and has a renowned column in the 'Financial Times'. He's done all this over a couple of decades, so he obviously knows what the score is in terms of getting businesses up and running – and then turning a profit. So, 'Start It Up: Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think' is going to be perfect for my friends Mr and Mrs Cook, who want to open a restaurant, Mr Plumb, who's been havering about splitting from the builder who employs him and Miss Baker who think that our prosperous village is ripe for an artisan bread shop? Well, perhaps… Full review...
Under the Sun. The Letters of Bruce Chatwin by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare (ed)
Bruce Chatwin was best known as a travel writer – this collection both confirms his 'wanderlust' but also clearly establishes that his writing was far more of a creative process than the usual journalistic approach to travel writing. Nicholas Shakespeare’s selection and passages of narration makes this a mix of the biographical and the autobiographical, a fascinating insight into a restless spirit, but also into the experimentation and literary reflection that made him outstanding amongst his peers. Full review...
Humphrey's World of Pets by Betty G Birney
The verb to pet means to cosset, pay loving attention to, to have loving, touching time with. It might as well mean to have in your household while spending a lot of money on, and being duty-bound and beholden to. Fish (which you can't even properly pet, of course) need a permanent power supply for their water's thermometer. Chinchillas need a special sand for their bathing in. There's even pet-friendly detergents for washing out your hamster cages. Wherever you look there's time and money expenditure in owning a pet. Full review...
May Contain Nuts (The World of Norm) by Jonathan Meres
Nothing, but nothing, is Norm's fault. If he virtually sleepwalks into weeing in his parent's wardrobe it's because they've downsized to a new, smaller home. If his best friend crashes Norm's own bike, it's his brother's fault. If his parents have had it up to there with him it's up to them to really state their mind and not be obtuse. When everything happens - lies, deceit, unhappiness and dog poo on the carpet - it's the world's fault for being so unfair. Full review...
It Could Have Been Yours: The enlightened person's guide to the year's most desirable things by Jolyon Fenwick and Marcus Husselby
In a world of diamond-encrusted skulls, gold-leafed iPhones and luxury yachts ten a penny, of blingy shit (or should that be shitty bling?) it's a relief to know people are still spending money on unique one-offs that are more worthwhile. The records for costliest photo, artwork, musical instrument and manuscript have all been broken in the twenty four months leading up to this book's release. Our collators have scoured the press for those and other, similarly noteworthy auctions, and found what other people paid for what you didn't know you would have wanted given the money. Full review...
Fiennders Abbey by Jean Marsh
In was the end of the nineteenth century and the family at Fiennders Abbey might lead much more leisurely lives than the staff who kept the house running as it should, but their fortunes were inextricably linked. Mary Bowden was the tweenie when we first met her – she did all the dirty jobs which were beneath those higher up the ladder – as well as being the daughter of the gamekeeper. She was also intelligent, ambitious and very attractive with her straight, milk-blonde hair. As a child she'd always been very friendly with Richard, the son of the house, but it's not a friendship which either of their mothers wishes to foster. Full review...
The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar
The Torres-Thompsons seem to have it all. A beautiful home, two healthy boys and enough money not to have to worry about practical matters. The cherry on the cake is their employment of their maid Araceli. She works like a trouper and keeps the large house spick and span. She is lucky enough to have her own private quarters (if small and rather basic) in the back garden area. She knows within herself that she should be grateful, should really be jumping up and down with glee and thanking her lucky stars to have this job. She's managed to escape the poverty and violence of Mexico after all. But as she goes about her daily housekeeping duties she feels like some alien living on another plant. Planet America. Araceli is young, single and childless and at times she misses the hustle and bustle of her old life. And here Tobar gives an excellent account of the affluent part of LA where the Torres-Thompson's live - ' ... in this house on a hill high above the ocean, on a cul-de-sac absent of pedestrians or playing children, absent of traffic ...' Full review...
Pevsner: The Early Life: Germany and Art by Stephen Games
Nikolai Pewsner – the minor changes of name came as a young adult - was born in Saxony in 1902 into a Russian-Jewish family. Just too young to avoid having to take part in the war, he had studied art history at no less than four universities by the age of 22. He then became an assistant keeper at the Dresden Gemaldegalerie, and four years later he was appointed lecturer at Gottingen University. Full review...
And Rocky Too by Jayne Woodhouse
We first met Rocky when Anna's father, the feckless Pete, brought him home as the latest in his many money-making schemes which inevitably cost the family dear. This one was to have a longer-lasting effect than most though – through his affection for Rocky, the retired racing greyhound, Pete realised that he had to support his family and Anna's brother Darren made a friend of another boy. Even Wilf, the pensioner who lived next door found hidden talents and it looked as though the family was set fair, right? Full review...
The Bex Factor by Simon Packham
Reality TV, especially the kind of talent competition where the backstory of the contestants is as much a part of the programme as their performance on stage, is a part of most young people's lives. A whole culture has grown up which dangles big breaks, lucrative contracts and happiness-ever-after to those talented few who can sing or dance, or, better still, do both at once. Fourteen-year-old Bex dreams of singing her way to stardom via the latest TV show, called 'The Tingle Factor'. All she needs to do is persuade geeky Year Ten Matthew to accompany her on the guitar. Full review...
Mr Bliss by J R R Tolkien
If you wanted to produce a classic of children's literature, it would probably look a lot like this. It would be written by a famous name as a private exercise for their children, with the author's own illustrations. It would feature a title character, with a typical Edwardian headstrong attitude, yet with an ability to create slapstick. It may well have fairytale characters as you've never seen them before. And it would be presented in a deluxe, pristine heritage edition such as this. Full review...
Babar's Celesteville Games by Laurent de Brunhoff
Babar the elephant is the king of Celesteville, and this year his country is hosting the Worldwide Games. Athletes come from all over the world to compete. There is a fairytale romance for one of Babar's children, now grown up, too. Full review...
Rapunzel by Jutta Ash
Rapunzel is the story of a young man and his wife who long for a child of their own. Unfortunately, the wife also yearns to eat the lush rapunzel that grows in the garden next door. She pleads with her husband to fetch her some which he does. However he is spotted by the witch who lives there who tells him that in return for the rapunzel they must give her their first born child. This is a baby girl who is given the name Rapunzel. The witch imprisons her at the top of a tall tower and she can only be reached by the witch climbing up her long golden tresses. Full review...
Between by Jessica Warman
Elisabeth Valcher, a spoilt, vain but popular girl, wakes up after a party to celebrate her 18th birthday on her father's yacht to discover herself dead, lying face down in the water. Luckily for Liz, who has trouble remembering exactly who she is and what happened in the run up to her death, she is soon joined by another ghost, Alex, one of the unpopular boys from her high school, who was killed a year earlier in a hit and run accident. Full review...
Of Boys, Men and Mountains - Life in the Rhondda Valley by Roy Tomkinson
Roy Tomkinson comes over as pretty sentimental about aspects of his childhood. He was born into a family of boys, and surrounded by an extended family spread along the valley. He was a child in the nineteen fifties, when post-War austerity was still a feature of life in Wales. Nevertheless, discipline, love and understanding were meted out by his parents in equal measures to provide a strong platform for his childhood adventures. Roy and his gang grew up free-ranging the valley, teaching their dogs and ferrets to catch rats, trespassing on industrial land, learning about girls, and entirely missing the growing affluence of central Britain. For them, it was idyllic, and the author makes it clear, many times, how lucky he feels to have enjoyed such a stable childhood environment. Full review...
The Sun King by Nancy Mitford
Nancy Mitford assumes that you'll need no introduction to Louis XIV, who ascended the throne when he was four years old and reigned for well over seventy two years. To put him in context his reign began before Charles I was executed in Whitehall, lasted through the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, the reigns of Charles I, James II, William III and into the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne. He bridged the gap between the middle ages and the early modern era. Full review...
The Drowning Pool by Syd Moore
The book opens with a group of young women out on the town, letting their hair down and having fun. Moore describes all of them in a fresh and modern voice which I really liked. It came across as a breath of fresh air. The story, Sarah's story is told by Sarah herself. But it's told from the perspective of looking back after it's all happened so there's lots of why-didn't-I-see-that-coming language. Hindsight, in a word. Full review...
The Girl on Paper by Guillaume Musso
This is a modern book for modern times. I loved the reader-friendly layout with big, bold type letting the reader know exactly where we were, in terms of storyline and location. But the story itself does jump about a lot and I suspect Musso wants to give a sense of urgency, a sense of frenetic energy at times. Full review...
Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
The Fractured Realm is a country existing in an uneasy peace. Each province is ruled by the craftsmen guilds which hold ultimate control, an ineffective Duke, and citizens who honour a multitude of demi-gods, 'The Beloved', who haunt them their entire life. This is the world Mosca Mye inhabits. An orphan, Mosca is fostered by her aunt and uncle, who think little of her and use her as a bookkeeper due to her unique, and quite illegal, ability to read and write. She runs away the night she burns their mill to the ground. Full review...
The Friar of Carcassonne: Revolt Against the Inquisition in the Last Days of the Cathars by Stephen O'Shea
It starts with a painting. The painting isn't the point: the subject is. In the Autumn of 1319 a Franciscan Friar stands before his accusers. Entitled L'Agitateur du Languedoc the artwork portrays the trial of Bernard Délicieux, the eponymous Friar of Carcassonne. Although O'Shea veers clear of telling us the outcome of the trial, one cannot help feeling that it wasn't an acquittal. Such things tended not to go down in history quite so resoundingly. Not in those days. Full review...
Playground by 50 Cent
When Butterball fills a sock with batteries and attacks geeky Maurice in the playground, his school sends him off to twice-weekly meetings with a therapist. Butterball is not impressed. It's a waste of his time and he will never, never, tell anyone the truth about that day. Besides, any problem could be easily fixed if his mother just gave up on this idea of nursing school and moved them out of the stifling suburbs and back to New York City.
But Liz has other ideas... Full review...
Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez
Carmen Bianchi plays the violin; in fact she might well be the best young violinist in the world. She plays a Stradivarius worth $1.2 million, provided by the grandparents who otherwise have little to do with her and she's managed by her mother, whose word is law. Schooling is provided by a home tutor – and she doesn't even get to knock on doors because of the possible damage to her hands: she kicks instead. So far she hasn't really minded that she doesn't have a life outside of violin, but then she meets Jeremy King – a fellow competitor in the world's most prestigious violin competition – and she has to think about her priorities. Full review...
The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle
Eric Carle's latest story consists of just 50 words, 10 animal paintings and two pictures of the young artist at work. Simply, a child creates a series of vibrant paintings of animals in unusual, striking colours, including a blue horse, a green lion and a multi-coloured, polka-dotted donkey. My own favourite is the purple fox. The child says, I am a good artist. Full review...
Why Are Orangutans Orange? by Mick O'Hare
Another year has passed, and once again we're treated to another offering from New Scientist's Last Word column. We've been here before, with Penguins, Polar Bears, Tornadoes, Elephants and Hamsters. Now it's time for the orangutan to find out why he's orange. Full review...
Darkness Falls by Mia James
April's not had the best time of it lately. First her family up and moved her clear across the country and sent her to an exclusive college full of the smartest (and apparently most beautiful) kids in the country. Then, while April was struggling to fit in, she discovered Ravenwood school's terrible secret - it's run by vampires. Full review...
The Thread by Victoria Hislop
I read and enjoyed Hislop's 'The Island' so I was looking forward to reading this book. The Prologue is May 2007 and readers are treated to a vivid coastal description of the area which is to play such a big part in the novel. Lines such as 'With the lifting haze, Mount Olympus gradually emerged far away across the Thermaic Gulf and the restful blues of sea and sky shrugged off their pale shroud.' Full review...
WCS Ultimate Adventure: Mars! (Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure) by David Borgenicht
How many endings do you prefer your books to have? This claims 24, is the reason I ask. I can't be sure that the original Fighting Fantasy books of old didn't have a lot more, as well as the combat process, but in this style of choose-your-own-adventure franchise, two dozen isn't too bad at all. It's a younger-styled decision-making read, for the under-thirteens, and follows Borgenicht's seeming lifelong plan to get all sorts of survival info, either vital or trivial, into as many books as possible. Full review...
Watson's Choice by Gladys Mitchell
Sir Bohun (that's pronounced 'Boon', in case you're wondering) Chantrey is not the brightest or most sensitive of men, but Sherlock Holmes is one of his great passions in life is Sherlock Holmes. To celebrate the great man's anniversary he throws a party at which the guests are invited to come as characters from the stories. Our heroine, Mrs Bradley, and her secretary Laura Menzies are among the guests but not everyone there is interested in Sherlock Holmes. Quite a few are interested in Chantrey's money and his announcement that he is to marry his poverty-stricken nursery governess provokes anger in certain quarters. Then the Hound of the Baskervilles makes an unscheduled appearance... Full review...
A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively
Hunting for fossils on the Dorset coast is a pleasure which has delighted generations of families. And when Maria is taken by her father and mother to Lyme Regis for the summer holidays, she quickly becomes fascinated by the myriads of long-dead creatures which are still visible, fixed forever in the local grey-blue stone. Her interest in the history of the area leads her to make a friend – a rare occurrence for Maria, who can be painfully shy at times, and it involves her in a mystery. What sad event prevented Harriet from finishing the sampler? And how is it that Maria is aware of a dog barking, when no one else can hear it? Full review...
WCS Junior SurviveoPedia HC (Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook Junior Editions) by David Borgenicht
You probably recall all the Worst-Case Scenario books that were a big publishing phenomenon about a decade ago. They itemised things that might be a cause for concern, whether in the office, or the dating world, or the jungle. And then they seemed to run out of info, and vanish. But worry not, for the main instigator, David Borgenicht, is back, with a range of similar books for the junior audience. And here he offers a large format encyclopaedia pictorially warning us about dangers in the world around us, and offering advice for us to memorise so we can escape as best we can. Full review...
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
No Great Mischief is a novel which captures the essence of belonging and the need to be a part of one's history. This is the story of a small part of Clann Calum Ruadh, the people of Red Calum, emigrants to Canada. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton in the fifties and back to the clearances of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity and stature of an ancient myth, holding up to our gaze what it means to be a part of a race, a family and a place. Full review...
Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done by Sarah Mlynowski
April doesn't want to move to Cleveland with her dad and his new wife. She doesn't want to move to Paris with her mum either. So April decides the best thing to do is to move in with her best friend Vi, and Vi's mum. But, Vi's mum has recently landed herself the role as Mary Poppins in a travelling theatre, so she's not going to be home. That's not going to stop April from staying in Westport, armed with a couple of fake emails addresses the plan is set. Full review...
