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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Rod: The autobiography by Rod Stewart
There is only one Rod. One of the first things I noticed about this book was that his surname did not appear on the spine or the front cover of the dust jacket – only on the inside flaps. However, as someone whose career has kept him a household name for over four decades, it is probably superfluous anyway. Full review...
Angel of Mons by Robin Bennett
Ben Bartops is surprised and horrified about what he sees in the trenches of Belgium in August 1914. So is Sam Lyle, but at least he has the experience of being a career soldier – Ben is a schoolkid from the 21st Century, and shouldn't by rights be in the warzone at all. But something is putting, or taking, or sending, him to the front, and somehow the two lives will intertwine, in very dramatic ways… Full review...
Professor Gargoyle: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman
Let's be honest – starting a new series with a boy alone in a new school, apart from his bullying nemesis, does not particularly strike one as original, or even interesting. But behind all the fabulous LCD message boards and technology, the brand new Lovecraft Middle actually holds some very interesting and ancient secrets. A host of children find a white rat waiting for them in their lockers when they're opened for the first time. The library seems to have a very unusual labyrinth of secret passages in, appropriately enough, the paranormal fiction section. And no-one, from the pupils to the staff, seem to be acting quite as they should… Full review...
Monster Mountains: Raven Boy and Elf Girl 2 by Marcus Sedgwick
Meet, if you didn't last time, Raven Boy and Elf Girl. He's got a rat in his pocket, and can communicate with animals and birds, while she has a magical bow, but doesn't know how to use it properly. They don't have a home forest any more, as the Goblin King sent an ogre to demolish it. This is the first sequel amongst the series of six volumes, as they encounter different landscapes in turn on their way to confront him and put him to rights – somehow. Here they face the freezing cold, a giant yeti, the three evil trolls chasing them since book one for their supper – and Jeremy. Full review...
The Feathered Man by Jeremy de Quidt
Klaus is a street kid who has been taken in by Kusselman, the tooth-puller. Kusselman is a hard taskmaster, fond of using a belt to discipline and control his young apprentice, and he isn't fussy where he finds teeth to sell to the rich of the town. So there's nothing unusual in a trip to Frau Drecht's miserable boarding house, home to those with no money and no other place to go. When her residents die off, as they tend to do with depressing regularity, Frau Drecht sells their teeth to Kusselman and their poor, wasted bodies to the School of Anatomy for dissection. Frau Drecht has also taken a street child for a servant. But to keep Liesel in line, Frau Drecht uses a hot iron, not a belt. Full review...
The Haunted Book by Jeremy Dyson
Typically atypical noises faced by someone alone in an empty house… a rock group reuniting at their old studios and finding there are more haunting traces of their passage than just their unremembered recordings… a nightmare for a round-the-world solo yachtsman when he gains a passenger… These could possibly count as entrants in any compendium of ghost stories. But what of their author, tasked to transfer reportage into readable non-fiction? Should he not know better about dabbling with the occult, in any shape or form? How long will it be before he finds himself staring at a ghost himself – one that has not confined itself to just the pages of the book he is currently writing, but has made itself known in volumes past? Full review...
The Nolympics: One Man's Struggle Against Sporting Hysteria by Nicholas Lezard
Confession: I was always going to be attracted to this book. I was planning for the Olympics since London won them – planning my escape, that is. And to add insult to athletics-hysteria induced injury, I then fell ill, missed my holiday, couldn’t get the money back on insurance, and found the predicted horrifically heaving horror of a city to be a complete myth. So after losing money on a holiday that I planned for years and didn’t need to be on anyway, I thought reading this would be a form of therapy for my anger! Full review...
The Dead are Rising (MetaWars) by Jeff Norton
Jonah's father died in the battle for control of the Metasphere. He was a Guardian - a terrorist or freedom fighter, depending how you see things - and he had infiltrated himself into a position of trust with the Millenials, the group supporting the billionaire inventor who created and controlled an online world in which people living in a post peak-oil and devasted Earth spend most of their time. But before he died, Jason Delacroix's memories had been uploaded to the Metasphere as an avatar. Full review...
Bartolome: the Infanta's Pet by Rachel van Kooj and Siobhan Parkinson (translator)
In 17th century Spain, life is run by a strict code of conduct and appearances dictated by the Royal House. It is not a place of kindness or understanding, especially for a dwarf like Bartolome Carrasco. When his father, coachman to the Infanta Margarita, moves his family to Madrid for a better life; Bartolome is kept hidden from the world in a back room. But Bartolome is clever. He hears that a dwarf, just like him, has a position in the Royal household, he begins to educate himself in order to follow his dream and make his family proud. A sudden coach accident brings Bartolome to the attention of the young Infanta, and she demands that he be brought into the court as her pet. Forced to dress and behave as a dog, it seems life is destined to be one humiliation after another. Then, Bartolome meets the artist, Diego Velazquez, court painter who is working on Las Meninas, a portrait of the Royal family centring on the Infanta. A plan is hatched that may free Bartolome from his life of servitude and fear forever. Full review...
Mindfulness for Black Dogs and Blue Days: Finding a Path Through Depression by Richard Gilpin
Richard Gilpin is a counsellor, cognitive behavioural psychotherapist and mindfulness instructor. He's also suffered from depression since his teens and is well aware of just how debilitating it can be. In 'Mindfulness and Black Dogs' ( a nod to Churchill who referred to his depression as his black dog) he shares his own experiences with the illness and offers insights as to how a sufferer can find a way through the weight which descends upon them. He looks particularly at how mindfulness can help. Full review...
Why? by Joel Levy
Why does the Titanic float but a brick sink? And that water they’re sinking or floating in, why is it wet? And what colour is it, ‘cos it ain’t clear? These questions and many more are answered in this book which may not be a new concept but which is executed extremely well. Full review...
Puzzled by David Astle
Words are wonderful enough when they’re just telling you things straight up, but who can resist them when they’re really being playful? Not David Astle, the author of this new title that blows the lid on it all with what he calls 'secrets and clues from a life in words'. Full review...
Short Christmas Stories by Maggie Pearson
The latest offering in the successful Short Series from Oxford University Press, this book contains a selection of very short stories, none more than two pages long, on a Christmas theme. There are over forty tales in this collection, some are derived from traditional tales from different countries, some are more current and the wide variety of funny, thought-provoking, spooky and occasionally scary stories provides something to suit all tastes. Full review...
A Palace Full of Princesses by Sally Gardner
Early readers are the stepping stones between picture books and 'real' books. They've still got plenty of pictures (very useful if you need the odd clue about a big word) but they've got more structure about them. Chapters give the emerging reader a sense of achievement and the end of a chapter is a useful point to aim for when you're just starting out. Above all they're stories which appeal to the reader so that it's not 'something you have to do at school' but an activity you really look forward to. If children get that idea in the early years at school then they have a pleasure which will stay with them all their lives. Full review...
Horrid Henry's Fearsome Four by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
Recently I was talking to the teacher of a class of seven-year-olds about books. It was, she said, very easy to find books for girls, but much more of a challenge to find something suitable for the boys. And by 'something suitable' she meant the sort of books which boys like to read, something 'edgy' which appealed to their inner racal. The early reading stage is important for all children, but it's the boys who are most likely to be 'lost' at this stage if the books they see don't feel relevant to their lives. So what does appeal? Well, Tom Gates always goes down well and so does Horrid Henry. Full review...
The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift
In Restoration England, Sadie Appleby and her older sister Ella flee their home in Westmorland to try to lose themselves in London. They're forced to try and avoid the relatives of the dead man who Ella robbed and build a new life, but things aren't always what they seem in the capital and they're left trying to work out just who they can trust. Full review...
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Charlie is very bright but also very shy, introspective and socially awkward. He has a loving and close family who, by and large, support him and give him good advice. But this life lark is a tricky thing. High school is particularly tricky. Having been told to try to participate more, Charlie approaches Patrick and Sam at a football match. They're a couple of school years above him, but they take to him nevertheless and introduce him to their group. He writes about his experiences with his new friends, his family, his favourite teacher and his therapist in letters to a person he's heard about but never met. Full review...
Forget Me Never by Gina Blaxill
Sophie's cousin Dani has never been particularly stable, but Sophie never expected her to commit suicide. When she finds a memory stick in Dani's jeans which suggests that there may have been rather more to her death than there seemed, she does the sensible thing and goes to the police. The police don't seem particularly bothered, though, so Sophie and her friend Reece decide to investigate for themselves - only to find they may be in over their heads. Can they expose the people who caused Dani's death, or will they have enough trouble avoiding becoming victims themselves? Full review...
Oisin the Brave: Moon Adventure by Derek Mulveen and Michelle Melville
After a long day of play Oisin and his friend Orane the Dragon were resting beside the old oak tree and watching the sun go down. They wondered which of the stars would be first to come out to play and it wasn't long before they saw the Big Dipper, the Milky Way and the North Star - that's the one that used to guide explorers home. But then Oisin spotted something very unusual: there was a flashing light coming from the surface of the moon. Before long the two friends had powered up their space ship and they were on their way to the moon. Full review...
Events, Dear Boy, Events: A Political Diary of Britain from Woolf to Campbell by Ruth Winstone (editor)
Choosing an anthology of this nature is bound to be something of a random, scattershot operation. Of the thousands of diarists who have left their written observations and commentaries of political events in, or affecting, the United Kingdom in the last hundred years or so, many are bound to be omitted, and an editor has a thankless task of choosing the best. However Ruth Winstone, a former Senior Clerk at the House of Commons and editor of published diaries by Tony Benn and Chris Mullin, has compiled an impressive volume bringing together extracts from politicians and other celebrities covering all shades of opinion and all major happenings. Full review...
Mister Whistler by Margaret Mahy and Gavin Bishop
Mister Whistler wakes up with his head full of singing and dancing. A phone call comes from his Aunt asking him to come over and help but the song is still humming away in his head and his feet are twitching to dance. Can he dress himself and get ready to go without the tune interrupting him too much? Full review...
House of Fun: 20 glorious years in parliament by Simon Hoggart
'House of Fun' is a selection of some of the best of the parliamentary sketches which Simon Hoggart has written for the Guardian. In time they range from the 1993 Liberal Conference (as as you're probably thinking it, it's worth quoting the 'Little changes... except, periodically, the name of the party') through to the G4S (another case where there have been name changes...) debacle just prior to the 2012 Olympics. So far as Prime Ministers are concerned, we start with John Major and wend our way through to Cameron, with the Conservatives book-ending the Blair/Brown war. But the point about parliamentary sketches is that they are under no obligation to record the major events: they illuminate the unusual, the usually unrecorded and the thought-provoking incidents of life in the political world. Full review...
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie's memoir of, predominantly, the fatwa years is completely gripping - albeit not necessarily in the way the author intended I suspect. For any lover of literature it's a fascinating insight into the man. People write memoirs largely to put their side of the story. Rushdie is of course supremely intelligent and a gifted wordsmith and yet while aspects of the story remain shocking and induce both anger and incredulity that the situation was allowed to go as far as it did and for so long, it's probably not a book that will change your views of Rushdie the man, not least as he displays many of the traits that the press ascribed to him. Oh why do our heroes always have to be so imperfect? Full review...
The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen
In the late nineteen sixties there was a child in a preschool class at Katrineholm in Sweden. He was the one most of the others turned on. It was more than teasing. In fact it was far more than bullying and in adults it would have been called torture, but everyone - including the teacher - looked the other way and that boy grew up to be the outsider, without friends or family. One day, nearly forty years later and in Stockholm he recognised one of his tormentors and followed him to his cheerful, prosperous family home. Hans Vannerberg was a partner in an estate agency which he'd helped to build himself. Not long afterwards he would be discovered - brutally murdered - on the kitchen floor of a woman with whom he seemed to have no connection and who found him when she returned home from hospital. It was the first in a series of brutal murders in and around Stockholm. Full review...
The Magic Book of Cookery by Danaan Elderhill
Back in the seventeenth century in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia there was a coven of witches. As was common at that time witches were hunted and they had to hide their beliefs. The Friends of Euphrosyne, as they called themselves, turned to this deity (she's one of the three graces and there to remind us to have fun) in their time of need and developed rituals which could be assimilated into social gatherings, allowing them to hide in plain sight. Their book - The Magic Book of Cookery - vanished along with the coven when they were discovered but Danaan Elderhill wants us to benefit from its ancient wisdom - and its fun. Full review...
Monkeyfarts: Wacky Jokes Every Kid Should Know by David Borgenicht
Do your children like telling jokes? My daughter loves jokes. The trouble is, she makes hers up and, sadly, they're not very funny! She's five years old and she understands the construction of jokes, especially knock knock jokes, but when it comes to finding the funny punch line...well, it's not her forte! So, when this book arrived she was keen to take a look. Full review...
Craft-A-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt
Looking back on my childhood the most useful skill I acquired was that of making things. I was the daughter of a man who made a greenhouse out of a derelict bus, so it was inevitable that something would rub off on me. Well over half a century later it still stands me in good stead: I can see how to make things, how to solve problems and my imagination was fired up at an early stage. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bus-to-greenhouse converter in-house, but the best start is being encouraged to make things regularly and learning that you don't always have to buy everything you need. A drum roll, please for Sarah Goldschadt's Craft-A-Day. Full review...
The Sultan's Tigers by Josh Lacey
Tom's dad is the black sheep of the family – the only one who isn't a thieving adventurer and dishonest chancer. Tom's granddad was like that, but has just died. Tom's uncle tends that way – and even Tom himself learnt the benefits of such a life in the first book in the series. With the passing of the granddad, Tom is alone in the empty house when a desperate burglar implies a family secret is worth a lot of money – which leads to Tom and Uncle Harvey disappearing tout suite to India on the trail of treasure. Out of eight gem-encrusted tiger statuettes, seven have been bought by the same oligarch – but the eighth was hidden by one of Tom's ancestors, and might be there still, and they might be first to the priceless object – but they are not the only people on the treasure hunt… Full review...
Alienography 2: Tips for Tiny Tyrants by Chris Riddell
As we found out at quite painful length and horrid detail, even Darth Vader was young once. Alright, he didn't start out that evil, but other space supremoes and galactic governors do – and chances are you know a child that would like nothing more than to romp around destroying planets and completely and utterly having their way, with no-one daring to call 'bedtime!' for fear of being grabbed by the unmentionables. With ten(-ish) tips for that child, and several asides, diversions and added frivolity, is this large book, all with the intention of filling the black hole of ignorance in the wannabe ruler of worlds. Full review...
Boobadoodle by Rosy Sherry
Boobadoodle is a book of doodles. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobs, some belonging to the author, some to her friends. Quite good friends, I imagine. Full review...
The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend by J F Roberts
If you need to know everything about the history of Blackadder and all who worked on it, this is probably the book for you. It has in-depth biographies of all of the main actors involved, lots of details about their prior achievements, and a huge amount of information which includes scripts of deleted scenes. That said, it's staggering that a book about one of the funniest TV programmes ever made can be anywhere near this dull. Full review...
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time by Frank Cottrell Boyce
There's nothing like a good villain to spice up a tale, and they come in all shapes and sizes in this, Frank Cottrell Boyce's second book about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The previous story ended with them trying to flee Tiny Jack, a nasty piece of work with a seriously horrid Nanny and a fondness for feeding people to his pet piranhas, and as this book opens they find themselves nose-to-nose with a dinosaur. A real, live one, with her mind firmly fixed on lunch. Full review...
The Story of English by Joseph Piercy
The Story of English sets out to be a potted history of the influences that have shaped our language, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to LOLcats.com. Starting with the pre-Roman Celts and their Ogham alphabet, it goes crashing through fifteen hundred years of linguistic history at a terrific pace to end with an almost audible sigh of relief at the internet age. Full review...
A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo
Michael never knew his father and so is content to live alone with his mother. In fact, he rather enjoys feeling different and special, partly because unlike most children at school he only has one parent, but also because Maman is French and looks, to Michael at least, like Joan of Arc. Full review...
Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke
Jon arrives at boarding school in a haze of angst, not looking forward to staying in an old-fashioned town, worried about dealing with new teachers and classmates, and furious at his mum's boyfriend, known only as The Beard, for his role in the banishment. Events take an unexpected turn for the worse when Jon finds himself being stalked by a pack of sinister ghosts with a vendetta against his family, borne out of a deadly conflict with his ancestor. With the help of Ella, whose grandmother specialises in ghost tours for tourists, Jon is successful in summoning the knight Longespee to protect him. However, the ghosts prove to be more resilient than he first thought, and when Jon discovers the terrible fate of the last boy who called Longespee for help, he realises that he is in more trouble than ever before. Full review...
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
The subject matter for Colm Tóibín's 'The Testament of Mary' is exactly what the title suggests in that it relates Mary's feelings about the death of her son, Jesus, whose name it hurts her too much to even mention. It's a curiously slight offering though. Its 100 odd pages lands it somewhere between short story and novella territory. Even so, with Tóibín's excellence as a writer and the emotive subject matter, I expected to be more engaged with the story than I was. Full review...
Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little by Christopher Johnson
Language changes and evolves all the time, but since the dawn of the internet that change seems to have accelerated. Not only that, the pervasion of the web into nearly every aspect of our daily lives means the written word has more power and relevance than perhaps at any other time in human history. Given its influence over us, it seems only prudent that we should try to understand something of how this new vernacular of the internet works. In Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little naming and verbal branding expert Christopher Johnson seeks to do just that, presenting us with 'a field guide to everyday verbal ingenuity'. Full review...
Battalion by Adam Hamdy
We're twenty years or so into the future and the world is desperately short of oil. Trouble always follows such a situation. There are energy shortages, economies are contracting and the threat from terrorism is constant. The CIA and the FBI were amalgamated some time ago and agent Scott Pierce of the FSA is hunting the man known as The Spider. He's been in deep cover - including a prison sentence - but this isn't just work to him. The Spider was responsible for the Eurostar bombing which cost Pierce his wife and he's determined to see the man dead. The fact that The Spider is determined to strike at the heart of America's democratic institutions and bring her to her knees is almost secondary. Full review...
The Dust Pups by Linda Cooper
It had been snowing and was very cold outside. Cosmo, Wizard Willoughby's cat wanted to play, but the Wizard was too tired - in fact he was so tired that he went off to bed leaving his magic wand on the table. Cosmo was in playful mood and so was his friend, Tilly Mouse and it was inevitable that something would get knocked over. It was, of course, Wizard Willoughby's magic wand and with a bang four coloured stars shot out of the wand and four piles of dust disappeared. In their place were the Dust Pups - Bluebell, Inky, Cherry and Sunny - for Cosmo and his friends to play with. Full review...
Miki and the Wishing Star by Stephen Mackey
Miki and penguin and polar bear all share the same birthday, and they're very excited about each getting a birthday wish when they blow out their candles. Penguin goes first, wishing that he were the biggest penguin of all! Just what will he get up to if his wish comes true? Full review...
The Greater Thief by Alexandra Carey
Shots ring out on a London street. Among those listening are three people for whom the effects will echo for a lot longer than the sound itself. Policeman's daughter and student Alice is sitting in a nearby pub doing uni work. Paul the local trainee vicar is on parish business. His connection is fancying Alice. They're friends and almost became an item but Paul is a lot older than she is, his hopes finally being dashed when she met Josh. Yes, Josh, a gang member with both a conscience and a heart, is the third person. The page from a book of poetry given to him by Alice is found on the resulting body. Did Josh commit the murder? Can Alice help him? And, if Paul is going to assist, how far dare he go? Full review...
Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin) by Jonathan Maberry
Having escaped the horrors of Gameland at the dreadful cost of losing Tom, Benny, Nix, Lilah and Chong must journey through the Rot & Ruin without his warrior smarts. They're in search of the jet they saw in the sky months ago. They hope to find hope, some remains of a civilisation lost after First Night, when the zombie virus spread through the population like wildfire. When life as it was ceased to be. When the undead started to walk... Full review...
