Book Reviews From The Bookbag
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 Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton and Shirley Hughes (Illustrator)
Since her mother’s death Annaple Kitson, the oldest child in the family, looks after her father, brothers and sister. The family are none too happy about this arrangement since Annaple is a dreadful cook and nags her younger siblings about tidiness, cleanliness and doing things in a proper manner. Annaple dreams of romance and being swept of her feet by a dashing suitor and as Christmas approaches her father, when asked what he would like for a present, rather rashly, says, 'A husband for your sister.' Unfortunately Annaple’s sweetheart, the wealthy Francis Vere, does not match her romantic expectations so the children plan to help Francis win their sister’s hand in marriage. Francis agrees to their plan with enthusiasm and as the days pass the Kitson family home becomes the setting for an amusing and chaotic version of the carol 'The Twelve Days of Christmas.' Full review...
Couture Prairie And Flea Market Treasures by Rachel Ashwell
Shabby Chic has always appealed to me: it fits neatly with my views on recycling, upcycling and generally refusing to replace anything which still looks good and has life left in it. Rachel Ashwell takes this to a whole new level, but her most glorious moment must have been when - on her regular yearly visit to the flea markets of Round Top in Texas - she decided on a whim to buy The Outpost at Cedar Creek and she turned this into The Prairie, a group of buildings which would house her retail store and a B&B which exhibited some of her most treasured finds. As she said herself, her cowboy boots, jeans and love of poetry in country music had come home. Full review...
Tudor Monastery Farm: Life in rural England 500 years ago by Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold
Think of it as time travel. Three professional historians have travelled back some five hundred years to put what they've learned into practice. On a monastery farm they've experienced what it was really like in rural Tudor England. It's a book to accompany the BBC television series but it's still a rich and rewarding experience if - like me - you missed the show. There's a wealth of experience between the three authors and they write about what they each know best and it's all supplemented by some sumptuous photographs of Bayleaf Farm in west Sussex and the surrounding farmland. Full review...
Young Knights: Pendragon by Julia Golding
What's the best place to hide a bunch of unruly and somewhat excitable pixies on earth? How about the Notting Hill Carnival? Mischief and mayhem abound in a highly amusing scene as a group of changelings, stolen and taken to Avalon over centuries by the Fey, flee with their magical friends from the murderous clutches of Oberon and Morgan and make their way to twenty-first century Britain. In fact this second instalment of the gripping tale about the re-forming of the Round Table abounds with hilarious scenes (Fey royalty on an intercity train, anyone?) but it also has generous helpings of peril, exploits and thrills. Full review...
High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain by Simon Heffer
Between 1840 and 1880 British life and society underwent a gradual but major change. Young adults in the latter year would have seen a very different country from that in which an earlier generation came to maturity. The land in which poverty, disease, squalor and injustice were endemic, and in which the Chartists had agitated for fairer rights for all, had been largely transformed by the modernising factors of social upheaval and industrial change. Full review...
The Con Men: A History of Financial Fraud and the Lessons You Can Learn by Leo Gough
Most people will recognise the now-infamous Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford as crooks who swindled thousands of investors of their hard-earned savings but at one time these individuals had gained stellar reputations in the financial world. In fact Madoff was a former chairman of NASDAQ (originally the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations - now the second-largest stock market comparing to official stock exchanges by market capitalization in the world) and well respected. He’s currently serving 150 in prison for running a 65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, whilst Stanford was sentenced to 110 years for the same offence. How did they get away with it? This book will tell you how. Full review...
Butterfly Grave (Murder Notebooks) by Anne Cassidy
Just before Christmas, Josh's uncle Stuart falls from a cliff in an horrific accident. Determined to help, Josh, Rose and friend Skeggsie head up to Newcastle for the festive season. Things are awkward between the three. Josh is becoming increasingly paranoid and is convinced they are being followed. Rose is becoming more and more withdrawn, fixating on the deaths she has witnessed. And Skeggsie is resentful at being forever embroiled in other people's problems when he has challenges of his own. Full review...
The First Third Wish (Little Gems) by Ian Beck
This is a lovely story of a lost wish. Cobweb has bungled her very first assignment, losing the third wish meant for a kindly woodcutter. She managed to replace it with a spare, but her job will not be complete until the missing wish is found and returned. It seems a lost wish is very dangerous indeed as it gives the finder an unlimited supply of wishes - and not all people are careful what they wish for. As luck would have it though, the wish has found its way just to the place where it most needed, where it will result in a true happily ever after, not only for the young man who finds it, but for many others as well. Full review...
Bronze Gods by A A Aguire
One of the many reasons I love fantasy is discovering the new worlds that the authors have created. Where is the world? What kind creatures inhabit it? What are the customs, et cetera, et cetera. Steampunk novels are especially fascinating and steampunk mixed with fantasy is the double hit. Throw in some murder most frighteningly horrid and we have the makings of a really good time. Full review...
What a Wonderful World by Marcus Chown
We all wonder about the Big Stuff at one time or another. How does the brain work? How does electricity actually get into our homes and power stuff? Who thought it was sensible to have a soft cheese, a Ferengi and an elementary particle all share the same name? Because that’s not at all confusing. Rather than just think about these things, Marcus Chown has decided to examine and explore them, and share his research. Or, as the subtitle puts it, this is 'One man’s attempt to explain the big stuff'. Full review...
My Friend's a Gris-Kwok (Little Gems) by Malorie Blackman and Andy Rowland
When Mike discovers that his best friend Alex is a Gris Kwok or shape shifter it looks like they are in for some real fun. Not only can Alex change into any creature he wants, he can change anyone touching him as well. There are only three hitches. The first is that Alex can only change three times a day. The second is that his sister has the same powers. The third is that Alex is babysitting and if you think babysitting ordinary siblings is difficult just wait until you see all the mischief a shape shifting toddler can get into. Full review...
Tales from the Dead of Night: Thirteen Classic Ghost Stories by Cecily Gayford (editor)
This collection of classic ghost stories covers all kinds of chilling tales. There are physical ghosts, emotional ghosts, ghosts that are never seen but merely sensed, and even the odd entity that just seems ghostly, even though it might be an ordinary everyday thing - but still makes you feel as if you’ve, well, seen a ghost. Each story is preceded with some information on the author. The stories are from are from several different periods and the settings range from winter nights in England to sultry summers in India. This combines to make for an excellent overview of all kinds of spooky sagas. Full review...
Blackberry Blue and Other Fairy Tales by Jamila Gavin
We never tire of fairy tales, do we? We dream of being carried off into one. We read them over and over. We love the old ones but they do need renewing and retelling every now and again. That's what makes them timeless. And in Blackberry Blue and Other Fairy Tales, the wonderful Jamila Gavin gives us her own take on wicked witches, enchanted forests, talking animals and heroes and heroines who triumph against adversity. Full review...
Alphabet (My First Bob Books) by Sue Hendra and John R Maslen
BOB Books are designed to teach children to read through phonics. I do own several different phonics programmes, and this is one of the best. I feel it is comparable to Hooked On Phonics at a fraction of the price. Another advantage to these books is that you do not need to buy the whole programme in one go. You can buy each set as you need it, and most sets will take at least one term to complete. Full review...
The Secret Kingdom: Leopards' Gold by Jenny Nimmo
Many years after the conclusion to Stones of Ravenglass, Timoken the Red King and his wife have settled down and live with their nine children in a castle which wizards Llyr and Eri turn invisible whenever danger approaches. When the castle bellman disappears and blood is found, though, the children realise that the danger could come from inside the majestic castle. Can brothers Petrello and Tolomeo solve the mystery of the disappearance and protect their family? Full review...
The Castle in the Field (Little Gems) by Michael Morpurgo and Faye Hansen
I think all children love dens. It is almost a primal instinct for children, to find, construct and hide away in huts, dens, tents, or any other place that gives them that sense of their own private place, away from the world. Michael Morpurgo has captured the magic of a secret den perfectly in this story of three friends who find an abandoned WW2 Pillbox and make it into their own private castle. The children are not really meant to be in the pillbox. It is on private property, but they don't really have any place else to go. Two of the children are not allowed to go home until their parents finish work and the third will not leave his best friend out in the weather alone. At first the pillbox is just shelter from a storm, but it soon becomes an embodiment of all the wonder of childhood as the children transform it into a wonderful private retreat. But how long will they be able to keep their special hideout a secret? This is a lovely story with a heart warming theme of friendship, a confrontation with bullies, and the inevitable pangs of growing up. Full review...
Horrid Henry's Royal Riot (Horrid Henry Early Reader) by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
Horrid Henry has always been popular in our house. Horrid Henry's Early's Readers will always hold a special place in my heart as the books that gave my son the confidence to break into chapter books. The Early Readers have thicker pages, less text per page, more illustrations and the illustrations are in colour. But in many cases they are the exact same stories found in the older children's chapter books. Once my son gained confidence with the early readers, he was able to move up the chapter books, and then the whole world of reading was opened up to him. Full review...
Briony Hatch by Ginny Skinner and Penelope Skinner
Meet Briony Hatch. She's a fourteen year old schoolgirl, with a few too many curves for the trendy set, and want-away hair, who is fixated on the ghost who acts as romantic male lead in her favourite series of fantasy books, about a beautiful, feisty female, swashbuckling exorcist. But when the books finish, just at the same time as her parents divorce, it looks like the beginning of the end. Mum and Briony settle into the abandoned bungalow belonging to the latter's great-uncle and aunt, only for the girl to find a horrid malaise come over her. Has the books' conclusion done so much damage as to leave her wishing to retire from life, or can she find the ghost of a hope somewhere? Full review...
Close Your Pretty Eyes by Sally Nicholls
Olivia is trapped, in a world somewhat of her own making. She is living a life of endless switching from a set of foster parents, to would-be adoptive parents, to care homes. Whenever she fetches up with nice adults, she worries too much about making mistakes, being too violent, clumsy, needy, noisy, spiteful – and prefers then to go the whole hog and make them despair of ever liking her, of losing all kind of sympathy with her. That way she can relax, knowing the truth, knowing the hatred is there – just as it was when her alcoholic mother was abusing and abandoning her and her baby siblings. Olivia is eleven. But in this one new house, with Jim, and his children, and the fostered young-mother-of-a-babe-in-arms, something is different. Something is definitely older than Olivia, and certainly more evil, and most assuredly better at getting its own way… Full review...
The Case of the Love Commandos (Vish Puri Mysteries) by Tarquin Hall
Ram and Tulsi fell in love but their different castes meant that Tulsi's family were completely against their marrying, with Tulsi's father locking her up and saying that he would hunt down Ram. The Love Commandos - a group formed to help mixed-caste couples - came to their aid, but when they liberated Tulsi, Ram was snatched from his hiding place. For Vish Puri, India's 'Most Private Investigator', it was proving to be a difficult month. He'd failed to retrieve some stolen jewels, a pickpocket had removed his wallet (and he had to depend his Mummy-ji to retrieve it) and this case just made everything worse. He could see the problem - but Vish wasn't that convinced about love matches. Then he found that his arch rival, Hari Kumar, was also trying to find Ram - but for whom? Full review...
Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield
When he was a young boy William Bellman committed one cruel act - he used his catapult to kill a rook. He didn't believe he could do it - believed until the moment that the rook fell that it would fly away before the stone hit - but the rook was dead. It can't be said that the killing worried William and as he grew it seemed that he was a fortunate man. His work satisfied him. He loved his wife and his children, but then tragedy struck and the visits from the stranger in black began. William - now 'Bellman' to most of those who knew him - had a solution. He worked harder, obsessively and he founded a business which was decidedly macabre. And that business was Bellman and Black. Full review...
Conquest by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard
The Earth has been invaded by the Illyri, a vaguely humanoid race far in advance of humankind, who were able to conquer the planet gently by proving how futile it would be to resist. They are keen to ensure the human race remains compliant, but are mostly keen to avoid bloodshed. Humankind, however, is not a race to take conquest lying down. There is a very active resistance, particularly in Scotland, where the Scots come out of the Highlands to strike on the Illyri garrisons and power bases in cities like Edinburgh. Full review...
Dixon Grace: 1.9.7 Hamburg by Alexa Camouro
Dixon Grace is an Aussie living a complicated life in Hamburg. She juggles her live-in, ambitious, immature boyfriend with an older wealthy industrialist lover while teaching English to local company employees. But however complicated that seems, it's about to get worse. The police come for her in the early hours, although it's not till she's ensconced in the interrogation room that Dixon realises she's charged with espionage and murder. The problem is complex but the answer is simple: she must escape to prove her innocence. Having said that, 'simple' is a relative term. From the language school for which she works to the Indian corporation that keeps cropping up, nothing is what it seems, including Dixon Grace. Full review...
The Reluctant Bride by Beverly Eikli
Scarred soldier Major Angus McCartney cuts a lonely figure as he rides toward Micklen House bearing tragic news. He knows that his presence will be unwelcome and that the report he must deliver will devastate the entire household, especially the beautiful, unobtainable daughter of the family whom he has secretly been in love with for many years. Surely she will forever associate him with the bombshell that brought her world crashing down. There seems no way that she could ever love him the way that he loves her. Full review...
Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food by Nigel Slater
In my kitchen there's a battered (in both senses of the word) copy of Real Fast Food, Nigel Slater's first book. Twenty one years later he's revisited the idea and given us Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food. Now it's 'small' as any book containing over six hundred ideas for dinners (complete with lots of excellent photographs by Jonathan Lovekin) can be small - and the food is fast in the sense that you're talking about a maximum of an hour, although occasionally the cooking takes longer. I'm glad that we're moving away from the idea of getting food on the table as quickly as possible - it's not a race - as cooking can be a real pleasure and eating it an even bigger one. Full review...
Amber by Julie Sykes
Amber wakes up. And in a way, there is a case for that being all the plot summary I give you. So I'll be careful when I elaborate, and say she wakes up in a hospital, the day after a car crash, in a state where she remembers nothing. She can pick up emotions and so on, but she knows nothing about where the car was going, or who she is. And to be honest, my opening sentence is a lie. Because the girl has only two objects about her, and one is an amber necklace, she takes the word as her name – even that seems to be in the past. But she's not in the hospital for long, and even as she faces the blank slate of a new life, some things that might be deeply buried in her start to surface… Full review...
Saving Silence by Gina Blaxill
Sam moved to London fairly recently and has struggled to settle in. Imogen has never had problems making friends, she's a former head girl and a school sports star. She's tried to make friends with Sam, however, but he doesn't seem interested - until one night when he approaches her out of the blue, only for someone to speed towards him and try to knock him over. Imogen saves his life - but why would anyone try to kill him? And has she put herself in danger by getting involved? With Sam reluctantly telling Imogen a secret, the pair are left frantically trying to save themselves from some seriously nasty people. Full review...
A Heart Bent Out of Shape by Emylia Hall
Hadley Dunn is quite a fancy name for a girl like her. She has lived quite a nondescript life up until now, and even her university years look like they’ll be quite uneventful since she’s decided to live at home rather than move away. Then, out of the blue, an opportunity arises, and Hadley finds herself spending a year abroad in Switzerland. Away from the responsibilities of home, and surrounded by exciting new friends, Hadley becomes a much more appealing character. She is especially close to Danish student Kristina who is also there for a year in Lausanne, and the two soon grow close, even if each has secrets they keep to themselves and cannot share with even their closest of friends. Full review...
