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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Sex and Violence by Carrie Mesrobian
Seventeen-year-old Evan is a player who, when he moves to a new town, has always found it easy to find a girl to have sex with. Then he ends up in the wrong place, with the wrong girl, at the wrong time, and suffers a brutal assault. Retreating to a quiet community in Minnesota with his father, he meets many new people, including a girl who may be there for more than 'just' sex. But can he recover from the trauma he's suffered? Full review...
Head Over Heart by Colette Victor
Like many other British thirteen-year-olds, Zeyneb is struggling with her feelings as she grows up, and with juggling her friends and family. However, she has an extra dilemma - she's a Muslim girl who's attracted to a non-Muslim boy whom her family would never approve of. Additionally, she needs to decide whether to wear a headscarf or not. What should she do? Full review...
A Big Day for Migs by Jo Hodgkinson
It's summer which means new school uniforms are in the shops, new stationery is on every shelf, and for those starting school for the first time, there's a wealth of Starting school books to ease the transition. This is a fun new addition to the shelves that ticks all the boxes: colourful, inventive, sweet and, best of all, told in rhyme. I love rhyme. Full review...
The Flying Bath by Julia Donaldson and David Roberts
It’s long been accepted that when you go to school and your parents are at work, your toys come alive and have adventures until you return. EVERYBODY knows that. But have you ever thought about the other things in your house and whether they have a second life? Here’s a hint: they DO. Welcome to the Flying Bath. Full review...
Breaking Light by Karin Altenberg
Gabriel Askew retires to the village of Mortford, the place in which he grew up and from where childhood ghosts haunt him to this day. It’s a conscious decision: Gabe, ostracised as a child due to his hair lip, returns to face these demons that have controlled his life and forced him to do the unthinkable but now he wants peace… if it's not too late. Full review...
Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti
There are lots of things you wonder when you grow up with just one parent, but whether you also have a bunch of half-siblings, all with the same name as you, all dotted around the continent, is not normally high on the list. Gabriel Delacruz has 4 boys by 4 different women in 4 parts of Europe. None of them know of the others’ existence but when Gabriel disappears, his incredulous life is uncovered and Christof, Christophe, Christopher and Cristofol meet. Full review...
Train That Carried The Girl: 2 (Riccarton Junction) by W Scott Beaven
A few years have passed since we last met Kikarin, the then teenager growing up in the wilds of the Scottish borders surrounded by some pretty wild people. Her parents have gone back to live in Japan while her brother has fled abroad as a result of the family's near fatal brush with the criminal underworld. This leaves Kiri to continue her life with her friends Ainslie and Melanie filling the void. Although disappointed to have missed out on her honours degree in archaeology, Kiri finds alternative employment selling double glazing for commercial premises. Some things change but Kiri is still scarred by the past. She wants to settle down but will this past let her? Full review...
50 Things You Should Know About The First World War by Jim Eldridge
It's a non-fiction book certainly for the primary school audience, and as a result is fully pictorial and not terribly wordy. The '50 Things' idea is a hook to draw one in, and that leads to fifty more salient paragraphs being given us in bold print, mostly but not all given a double-page spread. But there are other boxed-out paragraphs, timelines, factoids written up the edge of the page, illuminating captions and more, so there is certainly a welter of detail. Said diversity of detail can be delivered at times in awkward fashion – even with three paragraphs at most per page it can still be a test to read them in the right order – but it does mean this book covers the gamut of the War, pretty much in chronological order, and more or less in perfectly-judged depth. Full review...
ZOM-B Clans by Darren Shan
WARNING! If you haven't read the first book in this series, STOP READING NOW! NOW! Spoilers ahoy!
Go on. Run along. Full review...
Harry's Last Stand by Harry Leslie Smith
RAF veteran Harry Leslie Smith rose to prominence last year with a famous Guardian article 'This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time' about the way in which the remembrance of those who died in the great wars has been co-opted to justify today’s military conflicts. Here, he tackles themes of poverty, political corruption, unemployment, and a lack of hope felt by so many people today. Full review...
A Corner of Paradise: A love story (with the usual reservations) by Brian Thompson
In the early seventies Brian Thompson met Elizabeth North, both of them part of failing marriages which would have died without any intervention on their parts. They became friends, they fell in love but they never felt the need to marry and would be together until Liz's death in 2010 at the age of seventy eight. Both are authors - Thompson would maintain that North was the better writer - and North would perhaps have said that she should have made that clear. A Corner of Paradise tells the story - not of the homes they lived in - but of the joy of their relationship. Full review...
Grace: Her Lives - Her Loves: The startling royal exposé by Robert Lacey
Twenty-five years before another so-called fairytale royal romance which turned out to be anything but, one of America’s most beloved screen goddesses crossed the Atlantic and married into the principality of Monaco. The ceremony in 1956 was hailed as the wedding of the year, but like the later and similar event, it was not the happiest of unions. Full review...
The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson
Germany may be defeated as the embers of World War II grow cold but Kasper Meier is making the most of it. His trade in black market goods and casual private investigation work augment the meagre rations for him and his dying father. When a woman asks him to find a missing British airman he refuses – it's not really his line. She blackmails Kasper and still he refuses but then the note arrives: This is bigger than you. You don't have a choice. Queers still die in Berlin. Find the pilot. It seems that he's been seen with another man and now he has a decision to make that will either cost or save his life. Full review...
Decay: 2 (Tesla) by Mark Lingane
The city has been rebuilt for war. The waves of cyborg attacks are just the beginning – what follows is more devastating. Not only that but also the flood of refugees surging in daily is as much of a problem as a resource. Actually in one or two cases the word 'problem' is a bit of an understatement. In the middle of this hell Seb and Melanie are doing their best to fight and survive, although survival doesn't look like an option once they realise they have to go into the enemy's hive and bring the battle to the cyborgs. Full review...
Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski
Something weird happens after 10B get their flu shots - they develop telepathy. There are good points - they know what other people think of them, they can cheat on tests, and they have the upper hand in conversations with others. But there are some drawbacks as well - not only do they no longer have any secrets from each other, but also, knowing what other people think of them can be a two-edged sword! High school is hard enough to survive when you're normal - will being an Espie make it even more difficult? Full review...
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Ove (pronounced 'Oo-veh') is a man of principle who tries to do the right thing, ensure the no parking area remains so, is a good Swedish citizen and tries to be civil to his neighbours (even the foreign ones). However he comes over as a total grump. He was even ousted from his position as Chairman of the Residents Association by a vicious coup. Indeed, he's the sort of person who, when life gives him lemons, finds that they're rotting in the middle. There's so much more to his story than that though; a story that started a long time ago. Full review...
Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson
Sloane and Emily are best friends. Until Sloane disappears. She and her parents have vanished. There’s been no phone call, text, or e-mail. Then, two weeks later, Emily gets a list in the mail from Sloane, giving her tasks to do. If she does them all, can she find her way back to Sloane? Full review...
Dragon Shield by Charlie Fletcher
"Dragons don't exist,"whispered Jo. But even those three short words sounded more like a wish than a statement of fact.
Something dark and sinister is going on at the British Museum. An ancient power has awoken and it has stopped time. People are frozen like statues. Only Will and his sister Jo are still moving. The only humans still moving, that is. The dragons are moving. They're spitting real fire, too. And they're attacking Will and Jo. A glorious golden girl comes to their rescue, followed by an angel and a muse. And Will and Joe are plunged into a world where statues are alive and where good battles evil. Why are they still moving? Who is behind the stopping of time? And will they ever get Mum back? Full review...
Milly and the Mermaids by Maudie Smith and Antonia Woodward
Mermaids are a great way to stretch young imaginations. Imagine living in an underwater world, swimming with the fishes in a pleasant way (rather than in a Mafioso way). This is exactly the type of excitement that Milly longs for in ‘Milly and the Mermaids’ by Maudie Smith and Antonia Woodward. When her parents take her on a trip to the seaside, all she can think of is finding a Mermaid, but do they really exist? Full review...
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Georgie McCool has always known what she's wanted and pursued it until she has it. She got her dream job writing comedy, she's about to get her own show, and she got her dream guy, Neal.
Only, she's not so sure she has him anymore. Full review...
The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy) by Marie Rutkoski
Kestrel has two alternative futures ahead of her. As the daughter of a general of a vast, expansionist empire, she can make a politically advantageous marriage or she can enlist in the military. Kestrel doesn't want either and her life is spent in a delicate game of manoeuvres with her father as she tries to put off the decision. Full review...
Boy In The Tower by Polly Ho-Yen
Wonderful, wonderful story about a lonely boy, his agoraphobic mother and building-eating plants. That could never work, right? Wrong! It's a must read and you won't ever have read anything quite like it before. Full review...
Secrets of the Tombs: The Phoenix Code by Helen Moss
Egypt – a land of mystery and beauty, where history surrounds you and death is always present. There are treasures to uncover, riddles to solve and a colourful and exotic world to explore. A perfect setting for this, the first in a new series of thrillers which combines intriguing landscapes, archaeology and adventure. Much of the architecture and scenery in this book really exists and can be visited, including some of the tombs and museums, and many readers will feel inspired to seek further information about this most exciting and dramatic of locations. Full review...
The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen
The professional criminal is the type of person who gets in, does the job and then gets out again. Sounds like the perfect way to stay undetected as a lifelong miscreant, but does not sound like the most exciting narrative for a story. Instead, take a bunch of young kidnappers who are drunk on their own success, whose racket goes wrong one day when they pick up the wrong mark. Watching their lives spiral out of control would be a much more thrilling read. A read just like The Professionals. Full review...
Borgon the Axeboy and the Dangerous Breakfast by Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve
A real Barbarian breakfast has to have two elements – fun, and danger. So when Borgon wakes up wanting to prove himself to be the last of the really crazy and brave savages in Golgarth Basin, it's not enough to just give his parents a batch of crocodile tails – especially when his mum Fulma can't eat them as it's her teeth-sharpening day. So off he goes in search of a ridiculously dangerous breakfast, such as a Barbarian might only eat once or twice. The mysterious food source certainly provides a lot of danger, and the book itself provides a lot of fun too. Full review...
My Teacher is a Monster! (No, I Am Not.) by Peter Brown
School can be a difficult place for children, especially if your teacher is a stomping, roaring monster like Miss Kirby. Bobby spends most of his time worrying about what to do about his monster of a teacher, and the best place for him to think about it is in the park. He goes there one day to contemplate the situation, but who does he meet? Miss Kirby! She isn't stomping or roaring though, she is feeding the ducks. Full review...
Wendy Quill is Full Up of Wrong by Wendy Meddour and Mina May
Meet Wendy Quill. She's a big-hearted and big-haired primary schoolgirl, and not everything goes right in her world. When she is allowed to use her brand-new, second-hand bike to go to the shops for the first time on her own, she slightly squishes an old lady, and has to worry about the police presence at school the following day. She feels anxious when she's compromised herself with flapjacks and not being in the right gang at school. The only good bits of her life are the best friend she has, how loyal her invisible dog is, and the fact that when she wants to read her older sister's diary a ghost gets it down from a too-high shelf for her. No, honestly it does. Hey, I've read this book and I know what happens if you lie – so it has to be the truth. Full review...
OMG! I'm in Love with a Geek! by Rae Earl
Hattie Moore is determined that this year she’ll find true love - could it be with Goose, the boy next door who she's starting to think of as more than just a geek, or will he only ever see her as a friend? If she finds another boy, will he get jealous? And now she's found her real dad, will she get to know him properly? Full review...
One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rainforest by Wade Davis
As someone who has always enjoyed learning about the Amazon, and with plans to travel to South America next year, this book practically screamed at me to be reviewed. And, although a little tough going and long-winded in parts, I'm glad I had the opportunity to get lost in Davis' incredible work of non-fiction. Difficult to describe in terms of genre, this book combines history, politics, science, botany and culture. It is delivered through a biographical account of Davis' own travels and as a memoir to Richard Evans Schultes, an ethnobotanist well known for his work and travels in the Amazon and Wade Davis' highly regarded mentor. Full review...
Stalemate by Alan Hamilton
In the summer of 1930 Walter Bruce was told that he had an incurable illness. With nursing care and an easier job he might have a few more years to live - but without them he had a matter of months. The solution would seem straightforward but Bruce had a wife - and she demanded to be kept and was far too selfish to be his nurse. Life might have continued much as it was, but Bruce discovered that his wife had been deceiving him about her age and background - and with two of his business colleagues. The solution was obvious: he would devise the perfect murder and then live out his final years in comfort. Bruce was a chess player and he approached the problem much as he would a game of chess - but even the best plans rarely survive contact with reality. Full review...