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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Magus of Stonewylde by Kit Berry
Stonewylde is a mysterious self-contained community that exists in the heart of modern England but operates in isolation from the rest of the world, offering a very alternative lifestyle. Pagan culture is an intrinsic part of Stonewylde, with its various seasonal festivals, unique style of living, and most importantly its reverence of nature. Society in the community is also pretty unorthodox, being based upon an autocracy ruled by the Magus, a figure who is blessed with Earth Magic, during each of the eight seasonal festivals, that gives him the power to run Stonewylde. Full review...
Polar Bear Pirates and Their Quest to Engage the Sleepwalkers: Motivate Everyday People to Deliver Extraordinary Results by Adrian Webster
I'd like to introduce you to the polar bear pirates. They're the people who believe in life before death – the people who can deliver extraordinary results despite being just ordinary people like you and me. Well, me anyway. They're the manager who can motivate their staff to achieve those extraordinary results – even if their staff are sleepwalkers who live on planet complacency, amps or vamps. We won't mention the potholers. This is a management book like no other – you're going to laugh, cry just occasionally when you realise that you've been seen through and come away with plenty to think about. Full review...
Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
Amy hasn't got in a car for months, since her dad died in the crash, so she can't believe it when her mother tells her she needs to take it from California to the East Coast, even if she has arranged for Roger, the seriously cute son of a family friend, to drive. She thinks the trip will be a four day nightmare, as scheduled by her mother. Except Roger's not keen on overly regimented trips, and Amy's so upset at being forced into doing this that she's happy to go off track… so the pair decide to take the scenic route and explore America on the way there. Full review...
Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz and Joanne Gordon
For nearly thirty years Starbucks had measured its success by its rate of expansion. In 2007 anyone looking at the accounts might have realised that there were odd areas which weren't quite so good, but overall the results continued to improve as they had done for many years. If it wasn't broke what needed to be mended? Former Chief Executive Officer, Howard Schultz, then watched as the share price started to tumble and it suddenly seemed that the very existence of the company was in doubt. He did what no one expected him to do – after eight years away from the job he returned as CEO. Full review...
Run, Mummy, Run by Cathy Glass
Aisha is a young, beautiful and successful woman who has worked hard to get where she is. But there is one thing missing in her life: a man. Still living with her parents at the age of thirty and inexperienced when it comes to men, Aisha wonders if she will ever find a husband. But then she spots an ad in the paper and plucking up all her courage and determination, she decides to reply. This could be her only chance at love and she doesn't want to waste it. Full review...
Tales From The Deep by Cerys Matthews and Fran Evans
Cerys Matthews has adapted two Welsh legends - Cantre'r Gwaelod and The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach - for a young and modern audience. The first tale from the deep, The Ghost Bells of the Lowlands, tells of a drunken watchmen whose carelessness leads to the destruction of a village. The second tale, Myddfai Magic, sees a man marry a beautiful lady of a lake, with the promise that she will leave him if he hits her three times. Full review...
The Last Weekend by Blake Morrison
The book opens in the sunny month of June when the invitation is given, via telephone, from Ollie and Daisy to Ian and Emily. Or Em as she's called throughout - there's a lovely explanation of why Ian insists on shortening his wife's name. And even with this generous and seemingly innocent phone call, all hell seems to break loose as Ian decides to de-cipher the call. Did they mean this? Did they really mean that? And lots of undercurrents and negative feelings start to bubble up. Full review...
The Hummingbird and the Bear by Nicholas Hogg
Sam Taylor seems to have a charmed life – a City job that brings him wealth and prestige, a wonderful fiancée and a lovely London home. But all this can't compensate for a childhood that contained great sorrow; he is haunted by a sense of being somehow incomplete. When a chance encounter at a wedding brings a new woman into this life, he begins to hope that he has found everything he really needs. Full review...
The Making of Us by Lisa Jewell
Lydia, Robyn and Dean are three completely different people with only one thing in common. According to an online donor registry, they were all fathered by the same sperm donor. Some have known of their heritage for a while, others are just finding out, but none of them knew the other two existed. Until now. At the same time, their donor father's life is slipping away. His last wish is to know of the impact his 'noble' act may have had, the legacy it is leaving on the world. And in this information age it's not that hard to trace your roots, unless, that is, you're searching for people who don't want to be found. Full review...
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
In the late eighteen thirties the father of an English gentleman conspires to marry him off to a landed Jamaican Creole as a means of giving his second son an estate and stopping him being a burden on the family. Written in the nineteen sixties, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' was inspired by Rochester's first wife in Jane Eyre, and is an impressionistic, hallucinatory account of that woman's alienation and subsequent descent into madness that can be read as a prequel to the Bronte novel. The book covers Antoinette's childhood in Jamaica and her honeymoon on a small Caribbean island with her new husband and their domestic servants, and the point of view shifts between Antoinette and her husband. Full review...
The Golden Chain by Margaret James
It's 1931 and teenager Daisy Denham, along with her parents Alex and Rose, and two brothers have left their life in India and moved to Melbury House in Dorset, a place full of history for Alex and Rose. Daisy is not keen on her new life and surroundings and is desperate to escape, particularly when she discovers a long held family secret that casts a shadow across her past. She soon meets handsome Ewan Fraser, a young man forced to spend his holidays in Dorset thanks to his overbearing mother, and the two strike up an instant friendship that soon turns to love, spurred on by their joint interest in working on the stage. Ewan soon gives Daisy a golden chain and Daisy promises never to take it off. Full review...
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8 by Maxim Jakubowski
The latest in the annual series of short story collections edited by Maxim Jakubowski gives readers a wide range of stories from authors as diverse as the much-acclaimed Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson, newwcomers such as Nigel Bird and Jay Stringer, and father and son combination Peter and Phil Lovesey. Full review...
The Moment by Douglas Kennedy
After I'd read the blurb on the back cover I gave a bit of a shrug as if to say, well, I've read quite a number of books recently where undying love has been found in war-torn Europe, so was this book going to be different, or better? Thomas Nesbitt, middle-aged, disillusioned with love and more than a tad world-weary is trying to move on in his life. His marriage of more than twenty years is dissolving before his very eyes. But rather than being upset, he's feeling as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He and his wife were never really in love in the true sense of the phrase, despite having a daughter together. And there's a very good reason as to why Thomas is like this and the rest of the book tells us why, warts and all. Full review...
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
The setting for this story is a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, soon after the government has declared an end to an 11 year civil war. How can people come to terms with the terrible things that have happened? Actually, can they come to terms with those things? Full review...
The Good Thief's Guide to Venice by Chris Ewan
'I'd never met a female burglar before, let alone one with the credentials to model lingerie, and I confess that I was more than a little intrigued.' So says Charlie Howard before he realises that the lady in question has stolen his most prized possession. A talisman that he thinks is essential to his writing is the framed first edition of The Maltese Falcon that hangs above his desk. All his mysterious visitor leaves in this spot is empty space. The explosive and chaotic events that follow are fuelled by Charlie's determination to get his book back. Full review...
Die For Me by Amy Plum
Ever since Kate's parents died, she's been living life on pause – moving from day to day without actually ever living. She's moved with her sister to Paris to live with their grandparents, but even the beautiful city of love can't shake her out of her apathy. At least, not until she meets Vincent. Full review...
Daisy Plays Hide-and-Seek by Ellie Sandall
Jake's friend, Daisy, is a cow. In fact, she's a very special cow. If we were a little older than Jake we'd call her a chameleon because she's not black, or black and white, or brown. Wherever Daisy goes she can take on the colours of what's around her. So when she stands in front of the stone wall she's a mottled grey colour but when she's in the field of corn she turns golden. Funniest of all is when she stands in front Mum's washing and is the colour of the sheets which she has hung out on the line. Full review...
Bad Tuesdays 4: The Nonsuch King by Benjamin J Myers
With Chess teaching herself the skills she'll need when time reaches the fifth node and with Box stuck on a distant planet fighting for his life with the other Fleshlings, it's time to see what Splinter is doing... Full review...
Dark Woods by Steve Voake
Cal has been taken on holiday to America by the latest in a long line of foster families. Despite the trip, there are tensions. Cal has been let down so many times that he refuses to trust in anyone and he rejects any overtures his foster mother makes. He knows they'll send him back to the children's home - the only question is when. So when he meets Eden - vital, funny, exciting - at a campsite and she suggests a walk in the woods, Cal snatches at the chance to get away with someone who doesn't know anything about him or his past. Full review...
Pandamonium by Dan Crisp and Mark Chambers
At the start of 'Pandamonium' by Dan Crisp and Mark Chambers, everything is very quiet at the zoo. In fact, it is so quiet that the zoo keeper is taking the opportunity to put his feet up and to have forty winks. Once the octopus spots this though, he reaches over with one of his long tentacles and borrows the keys that have been left on the table. Before long, he has opened all the cages and freed the animals who decide that it is time to have a party. Soon there is a lot of noise and partying but somehow the zoo keeper manages to sleep through it all. That is until the skunk disgraces himself by making an extremely nasty pong to all of the animals' eyes. It even rouses the zoo keeper who surprisingly does not realise that all of animals have been out partying because the awful smell has made them all return to their cages. As far as he is concerned, it's just another quiet night at the zoo. Full review...
Intrepid Woman: Betty Lussier's Secret War, 1942-1945 by Betty Lussier
Betty Lussier was born in Alberta, Canada. At the height of the depression her father bought a Maryland farm at a bank foreclosure sale, they crossed the border to the States and settled down to the hard life of raising dairy cattle and the crops needed to feed them. Full review...
Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth
Cold Light is the story of three teenage girls who become involved in a predatory adult world. As the story opens we're looking back on what happened from a decade later and we know that one of the girls, Chloë, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pact. The town council has finally decided on a memorial to Chloë – it's to be a summerhouse at the side of the pond where she drowned, although it's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The ground-breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who it is. Full review...
Cinderella by Sally Gardner
Most little girls must surely know the story of Cinderella by heart. My little girl likes nothing better than putting on her princess dress and parading around the house talking about pumpkins and lost shoes. This version of the familiar story is written specifically for early readers and manages to capture the magic of this wonderful fairy tale. I once got to be Cinderella, in my very last year at school before I left for University (surely just on the verge of being too old!) It is a wonderful, magical story and I never get tired of hearing it and it is, fortunately, my daughter's favourite too so we both sat down eagerly to try out this new retelling by Sally Gardner. Full review...
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
In the Congolese bar of Credit Gone West, the owner Stubborn Snail wants a record of the lives of those who drink there. The man he chooses to write it? Disgraced schoolteacher Broken Glass, who fills up a notebook with the stories of the bar’s patrons – or at least their versions of those tales. Full review...
In-Flight Entertainment by Helen Simpson
I am always thrilled to see that Helen Simpson has brought out a new book. I am a big fan of her crisp, funny, observant short stories. So I picked up 'In Flight Entertainment' with some anticipation. I was not disappointed. Full review...
An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons
Chris and Imran were childhood friends. Blood brothers. They swore it when they played together in the wilderness behind the estate where they lived. But not any more. The riots put paid to that. 9/11 put paid to that. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan put paid to that. Ten years on, Chris is a veteran of Afghanistan, waiting to receive a medal from the country for which he lost a leg. Imran is angry and rebellious, flirting with extremism. Terrorism has wrecked their friendship and sent them in different directions. And now, terrorism is threatening to end their very lives... Full review...
Ocean of Blood (The Saga of Larten Crepsley) by Darren Shan
In book two of this prequel series about the beloved orange-haired vampire from Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak series, we find Larten Crepsley and his friend Wester Flack finally free of the restrictions and privations imposed upon them by their master, Seba Nile. The young vampires have joined the Cubs, and are wandering the world enjoying all the "pleasures" human life can give them - wine, women, song, and a ringside seat at as many bloody wars as they could shake a stick at (plus a good supply of fresh blood in the aftermath of battle). Full review...
Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing Fields by Tim Butcher
Tim Butcher's day job from 1990 to 2009 was "journalist".
I wonder what today's school-kids imagine when they say they want to be a journalist… do they envisage writing about science, or economics, or celebrities, or do they see themselves as television reporters standing in flak jackets doing the obligatory piece-to-camera in the latest war zone? Do they even read newspapers any more? Do they realise that there are still also people out there in those war zones, without the glamour flak-jacket, just (if they're lucky) the ordinary pock-marked one, that they prefer not to wear because it's way too hot? People who still ply the classic trade of actually writing what they see and trusting that they can do it well enough for the words to stand alone without the sound effects, without (quite often) any pictures, to make it "real"? Full review...
Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party by Martin Pugh
Since the Labour Representation Committee came into existence in February 1900, the party in Britain which it spawned has had a chequered and often contrary existence. Ironically, as Pugh demonstrates, while it may have been formed to represent the workers, it never became a fully working class party. James Keir Hardie may have been a genuine socialist, but some of the senior figures who followed were recruited from middle and upper-class Conservative backgrounds. Full review...
No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko
India is fourteen and, like many teenagers, doesn't see much outside her own narrow sphere of interest. She's spiky and defensive and reacts to any setbacks with anger and aggression, usually turned against her family. But inside, like many teenagers, she's rather lonely and lost. Finn is twelve and not as good at basketball as he'd like. He's not as popular as he'd like either. But he is honest and loyal, and he longs for a chance to prove it. Mouse is six and a bit of an oddity. She has an imaginary friend and a brain the size of a planet. This doesn't always make her easy to get along with. Full review...
Queen Victoria's Knickers by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley
A message from the palace has arrived! It's from Queen Victoria, and as mum reads it she cries out 'The Queen wants my knickers!' Queen Victoria, ruler of the British Empire, has riches galore, but she has no knickers, so the dressmaker's family set about making her some. Full review...
Letters From Home by Kristina McMorris
Liz Stephens accompanies a couple of friends to a GI social occasion. She's content and already 'spoken for' so she wouldn't normally be here where essentially most people are foot-loose and fancy-free. But she's promised her good friend Betty to come along. As the evening progresses with lots of singing and dancing, things become both interesting and just a little dangerous. But for whom? Who are we talking about here? Liz bumps into one of the many GIs present. His name's Morgan. An instant spark is there - or so someone believes. But they both end the evening on a less-than-satisfactory note. Liz returns to her life with her soon-to-be-fiance and Morgan goes off to war. Full review...
Mixed Blood by Roger Smith
I reviewed Smith's Wake Up Dead and after reading the blurb on the back cover, this book would appear to be in a similar style. We meet Jack, his heavily-pregnant wife Susan and their young son as they relax in their smart suburban home. Smith paints a lovely picture: the setting sun, drinks on the balcony and views to die for (no pun intended here) over Table Mountain. What's not to like? But this idyll is about to take a nasty and unexpected turn for the worse as a couple of no-users, high on drugs, take their chance and break in to the Burns' home. And all this action is seen by a security guard nearby. Full review...
To My Best Friends by Sam Baker
Nicci Morrison had always been the first of the four friends to do everything: fall in love, marry, have children (and twins at that) and develop a successful business. Then, at thirty six, she was the first to die – of cancer. Nicci was an organiser and she couldn't let the opportunity pass to dress her friends for her funeral and to bequeath into their care her most treasured possessions. You're probably thinking in terms of jewellery, or something similar, but Nicci left her friends her garden, her three-year-old daughters and her husband. I mean – just how much more difficult than that can you get? Full review...
Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The Prologue intends to grab the reader's attention right from the first word. I liked that. A girl, or perhaps a woman (we don't know yet) is imprisoned somewhere, barely kept alive in some sort of dark, airless and smelly makeshift prison - but why? And by whom exactly? The story opens in 2007 and we learn that Copenhagen detective Carl is recovering from a near-death experience in the line of police duty. His colleagues were not so lucky. So we see a broken and rather vulnerable man trying to claw his way back to a normal life. Guilt, revenge, anger are perhaps some of the emotions coursing through his veins. His senior colleagues are at a loss as to what to do with him - he's a good copper, after all. The solution is that a fancy new title is invented along with a fancy new department, all for Carl. But will he cope? Full review...
Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling
Peal Buck, the 5th of 7 children, was born in 1892 to American missionary parents working in China, where she was then brought up. She learned Chinese before she learned English, and only realised that she was considered a foreigner when anti foreigner riots known to as the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 forced the family out of her childhood home. Later she became famous for her novels and short stories set in China, especially The Good Earth. She won America's most famous literary prize, the Pulitzer, in 1932, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Yet her work is mostly forgotten in the US and Europe, and in the country she loved, her books were banned by Mao's regime after they came to power in 1949. Full review...
How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist', this clearly isn't intended to be a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isn't my sort of humour, but equally, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done. Full review...
The Free World by David Bezmozgis
It's the late 1970's and a family of Latvian Jews, the Krasnanskys, are emigrating from the Soviet Union. They're made to stay in Rome whilst they apply to live in the States and they find themselves trapped in a strange migratory limbo, belonging nowhere and tied to no-one but each other. Full review...
The Dysfunctional Family by Paul Bress
Societies are constantly changing and sociology students are presented with theories to help them to comprehend what's happening. Here we have a different approach: a family has been paid a small amount of money to write diaries which they would keep secret from other members of the family and which would be available for publication. This book is the result and we follow Phil and Sue Brown and their two sons, Jack and Theo though a traumatic period which lasts for just over two months. The entries in the diaries are made daily and we read what has happened to each member of the 'dysfunctional family'. Full review...
Night on Terror Island by Philip Caveney
Kip is a real film buff, and because his dad runs the local independent cinema he gets to see all the latest films as a reward for making the popcorn and generally helping out each evening. But this happy state cannot continue for much longer: the big multiplexes on the edge of town are taking all their clients, and the Paramount Picture Palace may soon have to close for good. Things start to look up when the eccentric Mr Lazarus arrives, but Kip is suspicious: the new projectionist may have a gift for raising the quality of the films he shows to enviable standards, but he knows far more than he should about everyone who works at the cinema. And he talks about stars, films and cinemas of the past as if he had actually been there. Full review...
Piccadilly Love Stories: Don't Ask by Hilary Freeman
Lily thinks of herself as being about a 6 out of 10 on the scale of 'hideous gargoyle to Brad Pitt' and she knows her boyfriend Jack is an 8. So why would he want to be with her? Despite him seeming to be the perfect boy she's convinced there's something in his past and only gets more suspicious when he keeps clamming up about it. So when she finds his ex-girlfriend on a social networking site it seems like a great idea to create a fake profile and make friends with her. Is it worth telling this many lies just to find the truth? Full review...
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Apparently there's a saying that 'time's a goon' - no, I'd never heard of it and to be fair, neither had the first character to whom it is said in Jennifer Egan's 'A Visit from the Goon Squad', but together with a pair of epigraphs from Proust, it's clear that time is very definitely what is being explored here. Egan's subject area is all loosely based around the music world. Her central character, if one can be said to exist, is Bennie Salazar, a music mogul who we encounter both directly and tangentially at various stages of his up and down career. Goon Squad is also the title of an Elvis Costello track, continuing the music theme as Egan uses the music industry as a lens to examine time. Full review...
