Book Reviews From The Bookbag
The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a 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. We can even direct you to help for custom book reviews! Visit www.everychildareader.org to get free writing tips and www.genecaresearchreports.com will help you get your paper written for free.
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Killing for Company by Brian Masters
Killing for Company is a detailed criminal study of Dennis Nilsen, unique in that it was produced with Nilsen's full cooperation and includes material from Nilsen's prison diaries. Covering Nilsen's early life, his career and subsequent murders, this is a detailed analysis of the man behind the murder and an attempt, on Masters' part, to understand what shaped Nilsen and what could have caused such apparently senseless violence. Full review...
The Prime of Ms Dolly Greene by E V Harte
I love reading full stop so I was excited to have the chance to read the first crime novel from established, well-regarded author Daisy Waugh, writing under a pseudonym. But, as a self-confessed chicklit fan, who's never read a crime novel before, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it....turns out I absolutely loved it! Full review...
Juan Altamiras' New Art of Cookery: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen Notebook by Vicky Hayward
In 1745 a Spanish friary cook, Juan Altamiras, published the first edition of his New Art of Cookery, Drawn From the School of Economic Experience. It contained more than two hundred recipes for meat, poultry, game, salted and fresh fish, vegetables and desserts. The style was informal, chatty and humorous on occasions and it was aimed, not at those who could afford to cook on a grand scale, but at those with more modest budgets, who sometimes needed to cook for large numbers. Whilst the ingredients were - for the most part - modestly priced there is a stress on the careful combination of flavours and aromas. Spices are used conservatively and the bluntness of some Moorish cooking is eschewed in favour of something much more subtle and we see influences from Altamiras' own region, Aragon, the Iberian court and the New World. Full review...
Rain Falls On Everyone by Clar Ni Chonghaile
It's a cliché that the Irish have a picturesque turn of phrase, but clichés only exist because they're true. Roddy Doyle put it differently in a recent interview with Writing magazine, when he said that With Irish, there's another language bubbling under the English. However you express it, that art of expression is woven into every other line of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random and you'll find something like the sickness that had come to roost in her home like a cursed owl or like he was God, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one or a low sobbing, slow and inevitable as rain on a Sunday: expressions that catch your smile unawares, or tear at your heart in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes both. Full review...
Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar
The first chapter of Salt Creek opens in Chichester, England, in 1874. Hester Finch is a respected and reasonably wealthy member of her community. But she can't stop her thoughts wandering back to her adolescence, spent on Salt Creek Station in the remote South Australian Coorong region. Hester feels has never felt so alive as then, when we had so little. Full review...
Tales from India by Bali Rai
Fairy stories, folk tales and fables are a rite of passage for an inquiring mind. They open the door to enchantment, magic and moral lessons. Many European collections exist, some of the most notable being that of Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang and Perrault. Tales can also originate from exotic climes. An endless source of delight for me as a child was my great grandmother's much cherished copy of The Arabian Nights. Full of mystery, imagination and charm, it communicated to me the power of storytelling and transported me to different worlds. This is what Bali Rai aims to do for young readers with his latest offering. Inspired by the collected tales of the C19th Sydney-born English folklorist Joseph Jacob, Rai has lovingly created a tribute to the traditional stories of India. Full review...
The Red Ribbon by Lucy Adlington
Ella is rushing to her audition for a job in fashion, as are several other young women. Thrown in at the deep end in the high-pressure workplace, she is tasked with creating a dress from scratch for an important client before four pm that day. But she manages it, even working through the non-existent lunch break, to design a silk wonder worthy of any environment. But this is no typical make-or-break-'em fashion design house, and this is no normal environment for the recipient to be wearing the frock. This is Birchwood – or Auschwitz-Birkenau to you and I. Full review...
The DIY Investor: How to take control of your investments and plan for a financially secure future by Andy Bell
Investments are confusing. They're also rather frightening unless you have a background in finance: you could invest in equities which seem likely to make your fortune, only to find that you've lost all your money. On the other hand you could put all your savings into a nice, safe building society or bank account only to find that the interest is so derisory that your capital doesn't actually have the same buying power that it did when you opened the account. You could, of course, spend the money, but what about when you want to buy a house, replace the roof or retire? The roof might be relatively cheap but the other two are going to need a substantial investment pot. Full review...
Genuine Fraud by E Lockhart
I'm going to straight up say that I'm not going to mention the plot in this review, because I can't without inevitably spoiling something in this twisting, turning, great suspense of a novel. All I will say is that I felt like I was watching a proper thriller movie while I was reading it; I feel like I might see this advertised as a film on the side of a bus any time soon, and if that happens, then it will have an excellent female lead that kicks some serious backside. Full review...
Mrs Noah's Pockets by Jackie Morris and James Mayhew
The heavy rains, Noah building his ark and the animals going in two by two to be saved. This most familiar of stories has been retold time and time again but not like this. This time there is twist and someone else quietly takes centre stage. When Mr Noah builds the ark, he makes two lists - one for all the animals who will come on board and one for those troublesome creatures he will leave behind. Meanwhile, Mrs Noah gets out her sewing machine and makes a coat with very deep pockets. Lots of pockets. Full review...
A Cat Called Dog 2 - The One with the Kittens by Jem Vanston
George, Dog the cat and Eric the stray were indulging themselves with a philosophical discussion when they heard some strange mewing. Three kittens had found their way into the garden and told the resident cats that their mother had told them to run away when a two-legs cat catcher came for them all. Mother couldn't run as she had a sore paw, but Daisy, Maisie and Boo had run and run and run. They'd no idea what happened to her - or how to get back home again. George is getting on in years and wouldn't like to upset his two legs, The Lady, by being away from home for too long, so he appoints Dog as leader of an expedition to reunite the kittens and their Mother. Full review...
The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell
Xar and Wish only meet because they are both where they are not supposed to be. Xar is an impetuous young wizard keen to prove his magical prowess. Wish is a young warrior desperate to demonstrate her worth. They live in a world in which Iron vanquishes Magic - and the Magic of the witches is pretty evil stuff. Thankfully, the warriors have used Iron to keep the witches at bay. And now, they are turning their attention to the wizards. But what if not all Magic is bad? What if the witches are a threat to warrior and wizard alike? What then? Full review...
Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell
The first of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accident. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people in and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002 he went for the Fastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Need. Full review...
What Have the Germans Ever Done for Us?: A History of the German Population of Great Britain by Susan Duxbury-Neumann
The adapted Monty Pythonesque rhetorical question takes some time to provide a full answer, and this slim but useful volume does so very well. Full review...
The Picture House by the Sea by Holly Hepburn
So as another typically dreary British summer is drawing to a close, I found myself craving a fix of literary sunshine and sea kissed romance. In such a mood it was then, that I came across the cover for The Picture House by the Sea. Perfect blue skies, glistening sea, a beautiful Art Deco building and to top it off an old fashioned ice-cream cart. Consider me sold! Full review...
Pug-a-Doodle-Do! by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
I was reading a book so utterly different to this the other day, it has to bear mention. It was an exceedingly academic book about graphic novels and comics for the YA audience, and it featured an essay picking up on the way books like the fill-in-bits-yourself entries in the Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries series (such as this one) let you interact with the franchise, and also to create your own content. There was some weird high-falutin' academic language to describe such books – but you know what? I say (redacted) to that – let's just hang it and have fun. And this book, spinning off from the four books this partnership has so far been responsible for, is certainly a provider of that. Full review...
Nellie Choc-Ice, Penguin Explorer (Little Gems) by Jeremy Strong and Jamie Smith
Meet Nellie Choc-Ice. Thus named by her grandparents (and grandparents have a habit in this book of making unusual names for their grandchildren, whichever species they belong to), she is a pretty little Macaroni penguin, complete with pink feet, bright yellow eyebrows and a woolly hat with the world's biggest pompom on the end. She has a habit of going exploring and finding out what's over the next ridge in the ice, and the next, and the next. But when disaster happens and the ice she is on is knocked off Antarctica by a submarine, even she can have no idea as to where she will end up… Full review...
Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls
Things a Bright Girl Can Do tells the story of three teenage girls, all of whom are fighting for women's suffrage, despite coming from very different backgrounds. There's Evelyn, an upper-class girl expected to marry at a young age, May, a middle-class girl with an opinionated Mother, and Nell, a working-class girl who does what she can to help her large family scrape by. The novel chronicles both their contributions to the fight for suffrage, and the way their lives change when World War One begins. Full review...
From The Shadows by Neil White
I'm a bit old-fashioned and therefore not a great fan of stories that can't keep their timeline straight. I'll go with a prologue – even if it's becoming a bit of clichéd way of creating a mystery at the beginning of a story – but switching between 'now' and 'a fortnight ago' – just feels a little lazy, a way of creating tension when all else fails. That, however, is my only little gripe about From The Shadows and I admit, whether I like it or not, it does more or less work. Full review...
Madeleine Finn and the Library Dog by Lisa Papp
Madeleine Finn doesn't like to read - not anything. It's not really her fault, you know. Her teacher tries to encourage her, but some of the other kids giggle when she makes mistakes. And they pull faces of the type which would have given me my head in my hands to play with when I was a child. The words just don't seem to come out right for her. The other children are getting gold stars (I've never liked that system) but all Madeleine gets is a heart sticker which tells her to keep trying. She's got plenty of those. All week she tries her best but doesn't get the star she longs for. Full review...
Going to School by Rose Blake
At the start of a new school year parents often ask for recommendations for books that would help make things a little easier for those about to start school for the first time or for slightly older children making the transition to Junior School. This vibrant and cheerful picture book contains much in both text and images that would be useful and encouraging for anxious children and equally anxious parents. Full review...
Water Memory by Mathieu Reynes, Valerie Vernay and Jeremy Melloul (translator)
Despite the title, it seems at first the memories here are much more earthy, for Caroline has brought her young daughter to the place she herself left as a toddler. The move has been caused by a break-up, and it's just the two of them in the family unit, making a fresh start (with the help of a kindly old neighbour) in an old house on a promontory of the Brittany coast. Young Marion soon discovers the clifftops are peppered with strange standing stones, with even stranger figures, initials and dates carved on to them. She also soon works out there is a way to get across a causeway at low tide to the local lighthouse, manned as it is by a gruff, surly old man. But while Caroline's beginning anew starts with a nice local job, things are slowly getting more creepy. Large sea creatures are beaching themselves, the stones' imagery is found in even stranger places - and the lighthousekeeper seems to hold darker secrets. What memory could possibly be in this storm-drenched land? Full review...
Kevin by Rob Biddulph
Sidney Gibbons is always in trouble and, to make matters worse, he insists on blaming the mess he makes on his invisible friend – Kevin. This, however, changes when Sidney actually meets Kevin and discovers what it is like to be on the receiving end of bad behaviour. In a magical world of make-believe, Sidney finally comes to realise that he's been selfish and resolves to put things right for both his invisible chum and his very own mum. Full review...
What Language Do I Dream In? by Elena Lappin
Speaking many languages fluently seems close to a superpower to most of us. Elena Lappin's memoir is about how she came to be at home in five or more languages, and what effect this has on her identity. Her family's history and the emigrations that led to her learning so many languages are caught up with European events. As a child she moved from Russia to Czechoslovakia and from there to Germany. Elena was encouraged by exchange holidays abroad to learn French and English too. Then she chose university in Israel and learnt Hebrew. So just as the rest of us might pick up bits of furniture or books from our various homes, Elena picked up a language every time. A clever member of an intellectual household, with parents who were translators and writers, there never seems to have been great effort involved in acquiring languages, it just happened. Full review...
Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano
I was a big fan of dinosaurs when I was a nipper. Since then the science regarding them has evolved leaps and bounds. We've got in touch with them perhaps being feathered, and have assumed colours and noises they made – we can even extrapolate from their remains what their eyesight, hearing and so much more may have been like. But science will never stop, and the next generation will need to be on board with the job of discovering them, analysing them, and presenting them to a world that never seems to get enough of the nasty, superlative beasties of Hollywood renown. As you're the kind of person to ask questions, you may well ask 'how do you get that next generation ready for their place in the field and in the laboratory?' I would put this as the answer – even if it is made itself of a hundred questions. Full review...
Dead Souls (D I Kim Stone) by Angela Marsons
It was a field trip, but to be honest a lot of the students didn't really look all that interested in the excavation and Dr A really rather hoped that none of them would go into forensics. There was more excitement when the skull was discovered but at that point the students were quickly escorted from the scene and D I Kim Stone came on site to begin her investigation. Unfortunately D I Tom Travis from the neighbouring force also arrived with the same intention: the burial site was right on the border between the two forces and no one was quite certain where one ended and the other began. Stone assumed that it would be her case and was shocked and bewildered when she found that it was to be run as a joint investigation. She nearly refused: she and Travis had history. Full review...
Life on Earth: Jungle: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps! by Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano
We're constantly being asked to save something. Save the hedgerows, save the elephant, save our seas. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those goals – some of them are larger than the others, and more demanding, but they are all worthy. But seeing as it's (a) the largest land feature we need to save, and (b) it's the most worthwhile to save, why not just go for the jugular – and try and save the Amazonian rainforest? Forget jugular, you'll be saving the jaguar; you'll be protecting the source of a lot of our food, spices and medicines – and when did a hedgerow near you have almost fifty different species of ant on a singular tree? The first step to saving anything is to understand it, to let us appreciate it, and this primer is how we get in touch with what's important about jungles so we can deem them worthwhile. Full review...
