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.
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Good Mood Food: Unlock the Power of Diet to Think and Feel Well by Charlotte Watts and Natalie SavonaI thought I was getting a cookbook: I liked the idea of a series of recipes which would make me feel happy. For once this isn't a case of 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is' - it's a case of getting something which could change your life for the better - for good - rather than a quick fix. Full Review |
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The Last by Hanna JamesonJon Keller is in a hotel in Switzerland in the remote countryside when the world ends. He has no idea if his family is alive, he has no idea what's going on in the nearest city, or if the nearest city has been obliterated. Shocked, amid the mass hysteria and exodus, Jon decides to stay at the hotel rather than attempt to get to the airport and home. He's not alone, twenty other people also stay and gradually form a small community. One day, when helping the hotel manager, Jon finds the body of a girl deemed to have been killed before the world ended. The community descends into a deep mistrust as Jon becomes fixated on finding this girl's killer and finding the truth about what is possibly the last community on earth. Full Review |
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Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)
For those of you who have read books of life in the Nazi camps – and of course, for those of you who have not – this can be considered a next step. It begins, after all, with someone escaping Dachau and fleeing her work assignment during a bombing raid, and you'd not blame her one minute, as her career was deemed to be cess-tank cleaner and sewage unblocker by the Germans. In Munich, she stumbles on help to get her to what seems to be a camp for non-native civilians to look for work, or company, or transport elsewhere, either official or otherwise. But then the next chapter sees her going back into the camp next to Dachau once more, and by then eyebrows are being raised. Full Review |
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Fast-track the I.T Journey - How to move from Supplier to Partner by Alok Ranjan TripathySo, what brought me to this book? As the owner of a small business and a buyer of IT services I should be the senior partner in the relationship with my suppliers, but I've frequently found myself the junior partner and I've regularly been let down by them. I needed to know where I could improve that relationship and, by looking at the situation from the supplier's point of view, what steps I needed to take. Alok Tripathy's book looked as though it might provide help and possibly some of the answers as to how my suppliers could better help me. Full Review |
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A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid KemmererHarper's life is pretty disastrous at the moment, through no fault of her own. Her mother has cancer and not long to live. Her father has scarpered but not taken his debts with him. And her brother is forever getting into trouble. But Harper soldiers on nonetheless, despite coping with her own cerebral palsy. One day, she sees an attempted abduction of young girl and intercedes, only to find herself kidnapped in the girl's place. But even an imaginative girl like Harper couldn't have guessed where she was being taken... Full Review
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Loved to Bits by Teresa Heapy and Katie CleminsonLoved to Bits is the heartwarming story of a boy's love for his bear. Bear's adventures with boy take him to all kinds of places and together they fight and defeat every obstacle put in their way, from the jungle to the sea. Inevitably mishaps occur on the way . The loss of an arm, a leg, an ear or an eye are nothing to Stripy Ted who shrugs off all injuries with a cheery don't worry, I've got one more. But boy loves him just as he is and won't hear of him being mended. His place, after all, is in Boy's bed. Full Review |
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Louis and Louise by Julie CohenWhat would you be like, right now, if you'd been born a different gender? Would it simply be a matter of genetics, and your life would still have unfolded in the same way? Or would the way you had been raised affect who you became in life? This latest novel by Julie Cohen looks at all of the above, covering the stories of Louis and Louise, born on the same day, to the same parents, but in one storyline Lou is a boy, and in the other a girl. Does it really make a difference, the gender box that is ticked when we arrive in this world? We all know that men and women are treated differently, but this story really highlights how things have been in the past, how they still are, and prompts you to think about how they could be... Full Review |
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The Closest Thing to Flying by Gill LewisSemira is an Eritraen refugee, living in the UK with her mum and Robel, a man who controls their money, their food, and their every move in the UK. He threatens them that if they don't do what he says, they'll be sent home. One day, Semira finds herself buying an old hat on a market stall, strangely drawn to the bird that decorates the hat. When she takes it home she discovers there is an old diary hidden inside the hat box, written by a young girl called Hen over 100 years ago. Semira finds herself caught up in Hen's story, finding in it an escape from her own life that is full of hunger and loss. She finds that she is challenged by the girl in the diary, to speak up in her own life and fight for her place in the world. Full Review |
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The Stone Circle (Dr Ruth Galloway) by Elly GriffithsDCI Harry Nelson's life is complicated. His two oldest daughters are either living away from home or really should be. His youngest daughter was conceived in a (very) brief affair (let's not call it a one-night stand: there's more emotion in their relationship) with archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway. Michelle, Nelson's wife, knows about Kate and has been very understanding, but then there's the matter of her affair with a black policeman which she'd rather not have to discuss with her daughters. Nelson knows about it and knows that the baby which Michelle is about to deliver, could be Tim's. That's a lot to cope with - and that's before he gets to work. Full Review |
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The Wedding Guest by Jonathan KellermanIt was a bridesmaid who found the victim's body in a rather disreputable toilet at the wedding venue. She didn't know who she was and neither did the bride or groom. The bride wasn't particularly worried about the dead girl, but she was furious that someone had set out to disrupt her wedding. Baby (yes, that was what people called Brearley) didn't come across as being particularly likeable, despite the fact that she said that everyone liked her, and her groom, Garrett didn't inspire confidence either. Lt Milo Sturgis was the senior investigating officer and he called on the help of his friend, psychologist Dr Alex Delaware. Full Review |
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The Great Wide Open by Douglas KennedyDouglas Kennedy's The Great Wide Open has been described as epic by just about everyone, and it often feels as though that was the intention. Though the novel often feels like a pastiche of the great American novel – epic in scope, preoccupied with matters of money and literature, fixated with New York – it often feels more like Kennedy is trying to reverse-engineer the concept altogether. Initially, the novel presents itself as an intimate study of family drama, in the latter half of the novel it smoothly turns to examining the turn of American society since the 70s, and the rapid rise of the hyper-capitalist neoliberal values that have dominated the west since the election of Ronald Reagan. Though it takes place over a twenty-year period between the 70s and the 90s, it notably always keeps one an eye on the present day (Trump, of course, makes an inevitable and slightly incongruous cameo) such that what happens links subtly into current affairs without ever explicitly referencing them. Full Review |
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It Should Have Been Me by Susan WilkinsIt's seventeen years since DC Jo Boden's sister, Sarah, was murdered and her life since has been lived in the shadow of what happened. Jo was only eleven at the time and her parents' marriage broke up in the aftermath: her brother Carl opted to go and live with his father but Jo stayed with her mother who was mentally frail and not coping with everyday life. She wasn't pleased when Jo decided to join the police, but the job satisfies Jo. She's passed her sergeant's exams but in the Met these days it's a case of dead men's shoes and no one seems inclined to make way for the younger generation. Still, being a detective is better than being a PC and when the opportunity to go undercover comes up, Jo grabs it. Full Review |
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The Resurrection of Jesus by Yancey WilliamsIn March 1990 two police officers entered Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They left with thirteen famous paintings by Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeer. The frames remain empty to this day: whilst there might have been rumours about the whereabouts of the paintings, even promises that the case was about to be solved, the paintings are still missing. Yancey Williams has a theory, which he delaborates on in his novel The Resurrection of Jesus, and whilst his suspects might seem unlikely, who's to say that he's wrong? Forget the assertions that it was down to the Mafia and meet Jésus Ángel Escobar and Hiram Johnny Walker Quicksilver. Full Review |
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Cold Bones (DS McAvoy 8) by David MarkIt all began almost innocently: DS Aector McAvoy was told by a concerned stranger that she and her son had regularly seen an old woman who lived in a nearby cottage but she hadn't been for a few days. Perhaps McAvoy could check that she was alright? No - she wouldn't go with him, but she'd tell him where the house was. And so McAvoy went, only to find the windows open on a freezing cold day - and inside an old lady was in her bath encased in ice. It might have been a tragic accident, but McAvoy suspected murder - and he thought that someone had watched the woman die. Full Review |
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To Catch a Killer by Emma KavanaghIf you're a detective on a murder squad one of the first things you learn is detachment. You develop a distance from the victim: it allows you do do your job with the minimum amount of emotion. That's relatively easy when you encounter your victim when they're already dead but DS Alice Parr met the woman they would need to call Jane Doe when she was alive, albeit only just. She was being tended by an off-duty paramedic who was struggling to cope with the fact that the woman's throat had been cut and she'd been stabbed several times. The attack had been called in by a dog walker and Alice had been walking to work when the call came over her Airwave radio. Full Review |
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Fierce Fragile Hearts by Sara BarnardIt's two years since Suzanne hit rock bottom. She's had extensive therapy and a stint with a lovely foster family. And now she's eighteen and must leave the Looked After system. Suzanne is apprehensive but excited. She's found herself a job, a bedsit has been rented, and she's about to return to Brighton, the only place she's ever felt truly at home, and to Caddy and Rosie, her two best friends. Full Review |
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Atomic Habits by James ClearI've said this before but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! Atomic Habits is in the last category. Full Review |
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Marked for Death by Tony KentThe death of a retired Lord Chief Justice would have made the news: his crucifixion dominated it and Detective Chief Inspector Joelle Levy of the Met's Major Incident Team was the person whose job is was to find his killer. She never thought that it would be easy: the Lord Chief Justice had been making enemies in the course of his work for over half a century. It seems unreasonable to suggest that the crucifixion of retired solicitor Adam Blunt might have given her a ray of hope, but surely two such grisly killings cannot be random? All that's needed is to find out what connects the two cases. Full Review |
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Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan
Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. Full Review |
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Lark by Anthony McGowan
I'll warn you first. This is the fourth and last story about Nicky and Kenny. Try not to cry before you've even read the first page. Things have got tense at home - again - for Nicky and his learning-disabled brother Kenny. Their mum is coming to visit - the mum who abandoned them a long time ago. They haven't seen her for years and the impending visit is stirring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings. And Nicky's girlfriend has ended things. To take their minds off it all, Nicky and Kenny plan a day out, trekking across the moors. But it doesn't go to plan and an accident puts both boys - and their dog, Tina, in terrible danger. Full Review |
