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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Sisters on Bread Street by Frances Brody
Julia and Margaret are the Wood sisters, struggling to hoist themselves out of a life of poverty in Leeds just before the outbreak of the first world war. Well, Julia is struggling. Margaret sees her way out as being through marriage to a rich suffragette's son, Thomas. She's an apprentice milliner and beautiful, but both sisters have a disadvantage and it's one which grows bigger as war approaches: their father is German. Full review...
The Green Road by Anne Enright
The Green Road is the story of a family. If the author was anyone other than Anne Enright it would be stereotypically Irish, with all the appropriate characters in place: the boy who goes off to be a priest, the daughter who likes the bottle far too much, the son who does good works and the woman who stays back where she was born and marries a local man, the dead husband who was perhaps just a little bit beneath the wife who plays the grande dame and is perfect at being needy, whilst all the while maintaining that she needs nothing. But, of course, it is Anne Enright. Full review...
Confessions of an Imaginary Friend by Michelle Cuevas
These are the memoirs of Jacques Papier. Jacques is not a popular boy. He's not last to be picked in playground games. He's never picked at all! If he raises his hand in class, the teacher never calls on him. The school bus driver often forgets to stop and let him off. Sometimes, his mother even forgets to kiss him goodnight. If it weren't for Fleur, his twin sister, and the fabulous games they play together, Jacques would be very lonely indeed. Full review...
Pick Your Poison (Ruby Redfort Book 5) by Lauren Child
...the thing that you are forgetting here is that this isn't a thriller - this is real life.
...if this was a book, who would you most suspect of being the master criminal?
You, said Ruby.
Ruby Redfort is a teen who has it all: wealthy socialite parents, a luxurious home, great friends, a job at a top-secret spy agency and a seemingly unlimited supply of banana milk. She's smart, sassy, witty and surprisingly likeable for a rich kid. Pick Your Poison is book 5 in the series; the penultimate book before the big finale which promises to be explosive. Full review...
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Teddy Todd never really expected to survive the war. As a bomber pilot it wasn't something which you could rely on and he certainly knew the statistics. But - against all the odds, he came through it, albeit with some time spent as a prisoner of war. On balance he had a good war, but time will see him married to Nancy, father to Viola and grandfather to Sunny and Bertie - and left with the feeling that it's more difficult to have a good peace than a good war. Full review...
Rise of the Slippery Sea Monster (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates) by Gareth P Jones
The thing about pirates and their treasure is that once they have won it, they then have to keep control of it. Mutineers, enemy pirates, and those pesky good people, all step in with their say about what happens to it. Oh, and you can now add to that list a huge sea monster, that is capable of cutting its way through a perfectly circular porthole it makes in your treasure storage and helping itself. Is it any wonder that our heroic Steampunk Pirates need to combine forces with a returning character (last met in book two) to put paid to this new horror? Full review...
Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads by Benedict Rogers
Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and journalist with an expert insight into Burma, gathered first-hand on journeys to regions off the beaten track. Burma is a country under the iron rule of a succession of military regimes, struggling with over half a century of suffering, much unknown to the wider international audience. Full review...
Keep The Faith by Candy Harper
The basics of the plot here are that Faith is going on a French exchange, which best friend Megs is strangely reluctant to join her on. Meanwhile there's more boy trouble, while she's also trying to juggle revising for exams and applying to become a prefect (despite perhaps being a less than obvious choice in the minds of certain teachers!) The plot is never really the main point of a Faith book though - instead it's a welcome way to catch up with one of the best friendship groups in recent YA fiction. Full review...
The Map to Everywhere: City of Thirst by Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis
A delicate net for catching clouds, a talking frog and a stop sign with a personally addressed warning on it: items which are ordinary enough on the Pirate Stream, but definitely not in boring old Arizona USA. Marrill is immediately on the alert: why are items from the other world washing up in a disused lot on the far edge of her neighbourhood? That can't happen, mustn't happen – she knows only too well from her earlier adventure that it means something dreadful has happened there and that if the contact continues, it may just rip her world apart. Full review...
In America Travels with John Steinbeck by Geert Mak
If someone tells you they're going to write a book, and it will be based on someone else's book, and it's based on a trip they'll do, which that other person also did, you might be left confused about why exactly they would want to do that. Surely more fun to do your own thing, rather than re-trace the steps of someone who's been there, done that? In America Travels with John Steinbeck is this book, based on John Steinbeck's earlier adventure but taking place 50 years later. Full review...
Missing in Malmo (Anita Sundstrom Mysteries) by Torquil MacLeod
Anita Sundstrom wasn't best pleased when she was told to look into the disappearance of British heir hunter Graeme Todd: missing persons weren't really her thing and it seemed that it was only down to her because she was fluent in English. There was a similar reluctance when her ex-husband asked her to look into the disappearance of his girlfriend. But events took a sinister turn and Anita found herself deeply entangled in both cases. The first case seemed to be linked to a robbery which took place in Newcastle some twenty years earlier and in the second case it seemed that Bjorn Sundstrom hadn't been entirely truthful with her about his relationship with Greta Jansson. Full review...
Bella Broomstick by Lou Kuenzler and Kyan Cheng
Bella Broomstick has dark brown eyes, chocolate curls, absolutely no warts on her nose, an ability to talk to animals, a caring nature and a talent for sketching. So not your average witch at all. Aunt Hemlock decides Bella will never get the hang of spells and banishes her to the world of Persons where everyone is supposed to be stupid. But Bella discovers otherwise and soon finds herself loved and much wanted – and a style of magic all of her own. Full review...
Ultimate Reptileopedia by Christina Wilsdon
Have you ever wanted to know more about reptiles? Scratch that. Have you ever wanted to seemingly know everything that there ever was to know about reptiles? If so, you don't just need a normal encyclopaedia that will have a page or two on the subject, but a Reptileopedia that has more information and images of reptiles in it than you could shake a snake at. Full review...
If She Did It by Jessica Treadway
Hanna and Joe had two daughters. Iris, the elder, had done well at school and gone on to be a medical student, but Dawn had always struggled. Hanna worried that it was something to do with the birth when Dawn might have been starved of oxygen for a brief moment. She was never bright, bullied at school and suffered from amblyopia or lazy eye. Dawn called it 'lacy eye'. In her late teens she had a boyfriend - tall, good-looking Rud and was obviously besotted with him and brought him home for Thanksgiving, but the pair left the next morning under a cloud with Joe accusing Rud of having stolen from the house whilst everyone else was out. That night Hanna and Joe were attacked in their beds; Joe died from his injuries and Hanna was left severely scarred and with no memory of the events of that night. Full review...
Bertolt Brecht - A Literary Life by Stephen Parker
Drawing on letters, diaries, and unpublished material, Stephen Parker offers a rich and detailed account of Brecht's life and work, and paints a new picture of one of the twentieth century's most controversial cultural icons – a man whose plays are performed more in Germany than Shakespeare's. Examining Brecht's beginnings in Bavaria, through the First World War and onto the beginnings of a career. Then, Brecht's journey through Weimar Germany where he became a political artist, struggling with the fascists who would eventually drive him to exile in Denmark, and onto life in the US – suspected of being a Soviet agent, before the eventual return to Germany, and a later life plagued with illness. This is a fascinating book about the man, his work, and the climates in which he wrote and influenced his work, as well as providing insights into the thought processes, health, and women who filled the world of Brecht. Full review...
The Unfriended by Jane McLoughlin
The Unfriended lays its cards out on the table right from the first page: this is a novel all about feminism. It's going to have those conversations, and it's going to deliver some opinions, and it's not going to apologise for doing so. Full review...
The Killing of Polly Carter by Robert Thorogood
I'm a fan of old-school murder mysteries…think Agatha Christie, think Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers… These are stories as games. Usually on the very edge of plausibility, gruesomeness kept to a minimum, police procedure trodden all over in hobnailed enthusiasm of insight and flashes of inspiration. So it follows that I enjoy TV series in the same vein: Midsommer Murders, Poirot… and Death in Paradise. It was because my enjoyment of the series was known that The Killing of Polly Carter was sent my way. Full review...
One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness by Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter and Gillian Coutts
Have you ever worked at a task and found your mind wandering to something else? Do you find yourself breaking off what you're doing to answer an email? Do you try to multitask, thinking that you're being more efficient? Do you have far too much to attend to, to complete and nowhere near enough time to do it all?
You do? Me too. You need this book. Full review...
Skimbleshanks: The Railyway Cat by T S Eliot and Arthur Robins
I have to say, on opening this book I was tempted to break out into song! This is due to a lot of my teenage years spent listening to, and singing along with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals (I know...I do apologise!) You'd think being an English graduate I'd take a T.S. Eliot poem more seriously, wouldn't you? But no, it's the musical of Cats that leapt instantly to my mind. Anyway, if an Eliot poem seems an unlikely source for a children's picture book, think again, because this is a lovely book, both funny to read and listen to, and with lots to see and discuss. Full review...
Lockdown (Urban Outlaws) by Peter Jay Black
High-tech gadgets and gizmos, feats of daring that will have you chewing your nails down to the elbow, villains who just love to gloat, and then (because this isn't any old kids-beat-the-baddies saga) the well-established tradition of Random Acts of Kindness – New York style. This may be the third sortie for Jack and his rag-tag team, but somehow the author still manages to surprise and delight his readers by giving the characters even more complex back stories, and by ratcheting up the tension so high you'll need to nip outside and have a quick scream from time to time. Full review...
The Nutcracker by Jane Ray
There's something rather magical about Jane Ray's stories. The Doll's House Fairy continues to be one of my daughter's favourite stories, even though she's now a rather grown up nine year old, so we opened up this new story with a great deal of anticipation. It remains close to the traditional Nutcracker story, and there is a wonderful feel of Christmas throughout. I'm sure you can read it quite happily all year round (I know we will!) but it's particularly special in the run up to Christmas. Full review...
The Orchard Book of Bedtime Fairy Tales by Helen Craig
Fairy Tales have been around for centuries and reflect the tradition of oral history; stories spoken from one person's memory to another. This is why some Fairy Tales seem to have subtle differences depending upon where you were brought up. Did you hear that the three little pigs boiled the wolf alive, or perhaps you think he just walked away in frustration? Helen Craig is a talented illustrator who has decided to tackle the tricky Fairy Tale compilation. Will her retelling of classic stories match your own? Full review...
Eating Well Made Easy: Deliciously healthy recipes for everyone, every day by Lorraine Pascal
Lorraine Pascal specialises in no-nonsense, simple recipes that provide delicious results; a speciality that has afforded her a deserved space in today's crowded celeb chef culture. Lorrain's ethos in Eating Well Made Easy is to provide recipes for everyone, encompassing vegetarians, allergy sufferers and those who just want something delicious, all with a healthy spin. Full review...
Beneath The Lake by Christopher Ransom
The Mercer family are on the holiday of a lifetime at the somewhat remote Blundstone Lake in Nebraska. It is all the things a camping holiday should be; tranquillity and beautiful scenery in spades and lots of good old-fashioned family fun. When another family arrive, the Mercers try not to feel disappointed that their solitude has been encroached upon and do their best to keep out of the other family's way, but when the newcomers' family disharmony becomes violent and murderous, The Mercers have no option but to become rather more acquainted with them than they had bargained for. And so their lives are forever altered. Full review...
The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty) by Ken Liu
Mata Zyundu is on the way down in life having been born into an aristocratic family deposed and burdened with all the resentment that goes with it. Meanwhile the charming Kuni Gara finds fame and success as a bandit leader after a lifetime surviving on the streets. The two form an unlikely friendship that's torn asunder as the Empire crumbles and they find themselves on opposite sides for better or, indeed, for worse. Full review...
The Drop in My Drink by Meredith Hooper and Chris Coady
This brilliant book tells the story of where water comes from in a wonderfully captivating way. In full colour picture book style, it does far more than explain scientific facts about our planet, the way life has evolved and where our water comes from. It takes the reader on an inspiring, exciting and eye-opening journey through millions of years – the same journey one little drop of water in one child' cup may have taken! Full review...
Number 11 by Jonathan Coe
There's a great deal of significance in the title of Number 11. It's the common abbreviation for the home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as a bus route around the outskirts of Birmingham which provides a useful haven for those who can't afford to put the heating on at home. It's also Jonathan Coe's eleventh novel. On a level more personal to the characters in the book it's also the number of floors below ground which are being added to a house in Chelsea owned by an obscenely-rich family. Even more obscene is the fact that the owner of the house doesn't know what she wants that floor for - everything that could possibly be added (swimming pool with palm trees, wine cellar, bank vault, staff quarters...) is on the other floors or in the house itself. But Mrs Gunn wants it because she can have it. Full review...
Dark Sky by Mike Brooks
Making money is not easy, especially if you live life on the edges of known space scraping a living doing odd jobs with your crew; some legal, some not so legal. You may not have much money, a good ship or even adequate washing facilities, but what you do have is the friendship and comradery of your fellow crewmates. That is unless you have all just discovered that the captain used to be a space pirate who once suffocated his entire crew so that he could escape. Welcome to the jolly ship Keiko. Full review...
Time Travelling Toby and the Battle of Britain by Graham Jones and Neil Parkinson
Toby lives in an unremarkable village and goes to an unremarkable school - just like millions of other boys - but he has a secret. We're told it's humongous and I think that's right. You see, Toby has (wait for it...) two brother, a Mum and a Dad, a Nanma, two dogs, three fish and two rabbits as well as...
... a time machine that looks just like a sports car. Full review...
Murder at the Old Vicarage by Jill McGown
The vicar's daughter, Joanna, had mixed feelings when her husband called at the vicarage. The last time she'd seen him his violence had put her in hospital and she'd been living with her parents ever since. She had her reasons for deciding to see him, even though her parents would have preferred just to send him packing. George Wheeler had more problems than his daughter's marriage to worry about: he was strangely attracted to a young widow who had recently come to the parish and also had serious doubts about his vocation. It was only his wife, Marian who stopped the wheels from falling off his life. But Marian was always that sort of woman. Then - on Christmas Eve - his son in law was battered to death with a poker in his daughter's bedroom at the vicarage. Full review...
