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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The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter
When Kate's mother makes a dying wish to return to her home town, Eden, Kate drops what's left of her life and goes with her. She doesn't want to make friends – she's here for her mum and nothing else – so she's not very interested when popular girl Ava, with her jock boyfriend Dylan, invites her to a party. Full review...
Nemesis by Philip Roth
1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there is, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun? Full review...
Wave Hunter: The Book of Water by Beth Webb
As the Iron Age comes to a close, Romans are sweeping across the British countryside destroying anyone who stands in their way. The druids are a particular target - the Romans understand all too well that the society they seek to subdue revolves around its religion and its sacred places. Tegen is determined to stop them. As the Star Dancer, the young druid girl's destiny is to avert a great evil, and she believes that evil is the Roman invasion. Full review...
The Empty Nesters by Nina Bell
With their children all off to university (most from the same school year, plus an erroneous one who took a handy-for-the-sake-of-the-story gap year), it's all change for the parents in this book – for Clover and George, and Laura and Tim, and Alice. Though some of the fathers are present, as you'd expect this is a tale told mainly from the eyes of the mothers. Clover and Laura have been friends forever, while Clover and Alice's relationship is more recent. As for Laura and Alice, well they really don't get on, making life a little tricky at times for Clover, stuck somewhere in the middle. Full review...
Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher
Cat Manno and her grandfather Victor have a long-held ambition: to one day take the subway and ride it right the way to the very end, to Far Rockaway. Just for the sheer hell of it. But when the day comes, Cat's brother doesn't show. This is more than a disappointment to Cat - it's an utter betrayal. She needed Joe on the trip because she has a guilty secret. She hasn't read the latest book Victor gave her - he sends her a classic adventure every year on her birthday - and she knows he'll want to discuss as it they ride the train. Without Joe, Cat has no chance of concealing her sin. Full review...
A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
I'll hold my hands up right now and say that no, I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed The Bonfire of the Vanities. I've heard a lot about it, over the years, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I have read it, mind you. So I'm really pleased to have the chance to read this much-awaited novel. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of prose, It's a veritable feast for readers. Full review...
You, Me and Thing: The Curse of the Jelly Babies by Karen McCombie
At the bottom of Ruby's garden there lives a Thing. He's a strange creature, a little like a squirrel (only don't suggest that to him because you'll make him very angry! But he has wings, and huge bush baby eyes. Ruby and Jackson discover him together and decide to keep his existence secret which is all well and good until the magic starts, and then there's the curse and a bit of a problem with jelly babies! Full review...
The Lore of the Playground: The Children's World - Then and Now by Steve Roud
Like many reviewers of the hardback edition, I thoroughy enjoyed reading this book, a nostalgic excursion into my own childhood games and rhymes. It's quite fun to identify the regional context of childhood lore. It cleared up for me, as a South-East Londoner, the exact nature of a hitherto mysterious game called tag. If you have already delved into the classic The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren by Iona and Peter Opie (1959), you might find this book adds little for a general readership. For the specialist, I'm sure this book will take its rightful place in the scholarly literature on childhood culture. Full review...
The Haunted by Niki Valentine
Valentine's novel opens with a sinister tale that has nothing to do with haunted boths – but everything to do with rotting relationships. Susan and Martin are attempting to have a second honeymoon but the dynamic between them is clearly flawed from the very start. Susan seems to be experiencing feelings of seemingly hysteria-driven love, continually alternating with resentment. The opening scenes are played out in the relative calm of a smart hotel, but the tension and irritations between the couple are painfully clear. Full review...
Velvet by Mary Hooper
The opening chapter of this book is a roller-coaster of a read. Velvet has fainted while doing back-breaking, gruelling work in a laundry, and risks being sent to the workhouse. Quick thinking saves her job, and the reader relaxes, only to learn a shocking and shameful secret about the heroine we have already begun to like. Her fortunes soon change, in true Dickensian style, but her troubles are not over: this same secret will come back to haunt her (please excuse the pun) and put her in the power of one of the other characters. Full review...
The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley
The phrase 'jack of all trades and master of none' can apply to writers as well as anything else and I've always been suspicious of authors who switch genres, as they often prove less effective when they do so. Sometimes, however, it does work and having enjoyed Brian Ruckley's fantasy writings such as Fall of Thanes, I found that he's equally as enjoyable when writing a crime thriller. Full review...
The Story of the Olympics by Richard Brassey
It's the story of the Olympics from earliest times – 776 BC and the first Games at Olympia right through to the 2012 Games in London and even a few hints about how things might be different for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. It's told in the form which seems to appeal to every child – the comic strip – but don't be mislead into thinking that this is light-weight or superficial. It's anything but. Full review...
Scenes From Provincial Life by J M Coetzee
'Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published in 1997, 'Youth' published in 2002 and Summertime published in 2009. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition and yet they were initially published separately. What strikes the reader of this compilation is the change in style and focus of the third book in the series. Full review...
The Haunting by Alan Titchmarsh
We don't know whether or not Harry Flint was a good history teacher – but we do know that he's disenchanted with the job and determined to make a change. His marriage to a lawyer only lasted a few months and Harry feels – rightly or wrongly – that he needs a complete change. He buys a ramshackle cottage, determined to spend some time restoring it as well as investigating his family history and the lives of the saints. Honestly – I know what you're thinking – he is rather more fun than all that sounds. Well, he is - some of the time. Full review...
Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book by Tom Angleberger
In this follow up to The Strange Case of Origami Yoda there is a new paper finger puppet in school. Harvey has made himself a Darth Vader (Darth Paper) and it is, of course, turning him to the dark side! I hadn't read the original story to begin with, so I must admit that there were times when I wondered quite what was going on! It seems that one of the boys at school, Dwight, made an Origami Yoda finger puppet and this puppet gave his classmates amazing advice, advice that helped them in their school relationships and resolved various problems. Origami Yoda was, undoubtedly, using the force! Full review...
Orla Kiely Numbers by Orla Kiely
This counting book (from one to ten) makes a nice partner to Orla Kiely's book about colours if you're looking for a pretty gift to give to a new yummy mummy. The fabric cover is rather lovely to touch and feel, and the board book feels well constructed and able to withstand a bit of a chew from a teething baby. Full review...
Orla Kiely Colours by Orla Kiely
Orla Kiely is one of the UK's most popular designers at the moment. I seem to see her designs everywhere on everything from stationery to kitchen jugs, and now her graphics are available as a baby's book of colours. Full review...
Duels and Duets: Why Men and Women Talk So Differently by John L Locke
Locke's subtitle Why Men and Women Talk So Differently might lead you to think that this is just another self-help Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus tome. It's not. Rather than focussing upon what we all know from experience – that men and women do not communicate very well because of some fundamental difference in their respective approach to verbal expression – the New York City University Professor of Linguistics sets out to explain WHY that might be. Full review...
Furniture with Soul: Master Woodworkers and Their Craft by David Savage
David Savage is a master furniture maker and one of the artists featured in the book, so he is not – as he says himself – a neutral observer and nor can he be neutral in choosing who to include in the book. Having said that, the pictures alone will tell you that he has chosen people who create furniture of great beauty and – often – originality. It's the text that makes the book shine, though – as it seeks not to give a critical appreciation of each man and one woman's work, but to look at what makes them tick, what drives them on and how they have handled the good times as well as the bad. It is, if you like, ten in-depth biographies of artists who work in a common medium and ten shorter pieces about those we should look out for in the future. Full review...
Cavalier Queen by Fiona Mountain
We sweep back in time to a young Henrietta. Living the spoilt and pampered life of a pretty, little princess whom everyone (even her dog) loves and adores. She spends delightfully carefree days singing and dancing and playing with her little dog. But the subject of marriage is on the horizon. She's fourteen after all. Time to put away those childish things. Who has her family decided will be her future husband? The young princess has no say in the matter but hopes he will be just a little handsome and be gentle with her. It's not only a marriage of two individuals (that's almost inconsequential) it's a marriage of two nations - with strategy and long-term thinking in mind. In short, the French Royal Family want to do everything to appease other countries and hopefully keep war at bay. Full review...
Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry
Dust & Decay picks up the action six months after Rot & Ruin's climactic battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer. Benny and his friends have spent the time honing their self-defence and zombie-killing skills through some very intense training by Tom. And now, the time is finally right. They're about to head back out into the Ruin in search of the jet plane they saw in the sky after the battle at Gameland. There might, just might, be a real civilisation surviving somewhere on the continent. Full review...
D4rk Inside by Jeyn Roberts
4. Earthquakes shudder across the world.
3. SOMETHING is released.
2. Trust no one - not even yourself.
1. The killing game has begun...
Full review...
Maphead by Lesley Howarth
MapHead and his father Ran are of the Subtle World. Ran can travel through time, make things disappear and erase human memories. MapHead can flash the map of any place across his face and bald scalp. MapHead is a halfling and now he is almost 12, Ran has brought him to meet his human mother. As they need to pass for humans, they've taken new names - Boothe and Powers, from a random movie - practised their English, and enrolled MapHead at the same school as his half-brother. Full review...
The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories by Rob Keeley
Would aliens like custard creams? Can fake tan hide a big lie? Are TV remotes sinister objects? Do secrets make you popular?
Rob Keeley explores all these questions and more in a super collection of slightly spooky, blackly comic short stories. They're beautifully observed and you can see that Rob knows children well. He has the emotional landscape exactly right and is equally accurate when describing - and sometimes gently mocking - peer relationships. Full review...
Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan by D R Thorpe
The great-grandson of a crofter, and son-in-law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was born in London in 1894. Despite the well-to-do aristocratic background, his years as a young adult were marked by bad experiences in the trenches which left him with lifelong war wounds, and his early service as a Conservative Member of Parliament by the plight of the unemployed in his first constituency of Stockton. He had much in common with another future Prime Minister, Winston Churchill; both had American mothers, and both were mavericks who were elected as Conservatives but refused to toe the party line too steadfastly. Full review...
Persuade Me by Juliet Archer
A decade before we meet Anna Elliott she had fallen in love with Rick Wentworth when they were both working in France. Her father, Sir Walter Elliott of Kellynch and Minty, a family friend persuaded her to give up the relationship and take up her place at Oxford. She now lectures about Russian literature, but it still unmarried and largely at the bidding of her father and her two elder sisters. Rick Wentworth, meanwhile, has been in Australia, but he's now returned to the UK on a tour to promote his best-selling book. It's an academic work about sea life, but the picture of a half-naked Rick on the cover and the title Sex in the Sea means that Rick – and his book- are in demand. Full review...
The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill
This is the fifth novel in Susan Hill's series about the detective Simon Serrailler. Although you could probably follow the story without knowing the previous books I think it does help to have some background on who all the characters are. I really love the way Hill weaves her story around some wonderful character studies. Simon is actually hardly in this novel, and the focus instead is on the 'extras', with a lot of details being put into characters who will only be around for this particular novel but who live and breathe through it wonderfully well. Full review...
Haunted by Susan Cooper, Joseph Delaney, Berlie Doherty, Jamila Gavin, Matt Haig, Robin Jarvis, Derek Landy, Sam Llewellyn, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve and Eleanor Updale
I've always enjoyed a good ghost story – whether at a sleepover when I was a teenager, or even now reading horror stories in bed in the middle of the night. As soon as I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it, and it did not disappoint; a group of excellent authors from all genres have come together and the result is a collection of brilliant stories not to be missed by any ghost hunters out there. Full review...
Marty Feldman: The Biography of a Comedy Legend by Robert Ross
Some years ago, I was given a Penguin edition of Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', with what looked like an uniquely fearsome face on the front cover. A year or two later, I saw a photograph of Marty Feldman and was convinced he must have inspired it if not actually been the model. Full review...
A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
This is a book set in the future, with hover-cars and eye-scans and travel to other planets. But make no mistake – that's not what this book is about. Sixteen-year-old Rose has been asleep for far longer than she intended; in the meantime the world has almost come to an end in a terrible plague, and her stasis tube has been abandoned in a basement. If Brendan had not come exploring, she might never have been found at all. But how is that possible? How could the daughter and heiress of the most powerful couple in the galaxy have been forgotten? This book is about her awakening, and the slow, painful unfurling of the real facts of her early life. Full review...
A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins
Most of us see history rather like a cloud. We're aware of the great mass of it, seeing some parts more clearly than others, but perhaps struggling to bring it into a straight line. Some parts we will have studied at school, or read about out of interest but these parts will be balanced by other periods when we will be woefully ignorant of some of the most basic facts. I've studied the Tudors in some depth at various points in my life – but I would struggle to tell you much about the Stuarts. What was needed was a concise history of England in one volume and written for the adult reader who would simply like to be more informed, but not over-burdened. Full review...
Daniel by Henning Mankell
A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dull, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friends. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost? Full review...
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life by Bettany Hughes
We don't know much about Socrates. For someone whose ideas are still so relevant so long after his death, his life is something of a mystery. He didn't like to write things down, and so Hughes begins this book by saying that it may have something of a 'Socrates-sized hole' in it. What we do see is the city of Athens, and the hugely important changes which were going on there while Socrates was alive. In Athens we see the beginnings of democracy, the seedlings of some of the ideas that we take for granted today, such as freedom of speech, and the right to a fair trial. This was an important time in the development of modern values, and Socrates was an important man. He was not only a brilliant thinker, he was also a man that didn't quite fit, infuriating to converse with, yet fascinating to be around. Full review...
Milly-Molly-Mandy's Friends by Joyce Lankester Brisley
Milly-Molly-Mandy doesn't much mind being an only child when she has people like Little Friend Susan, Billy Blunt and Miss Muggins's Jilly to play with. And what fun they have! With overnight guests, trips in the pony-trap, dressing up as Proper Ladies, running races and even forming secret clubs, there's never a dull moment. Full review...
Creative Parchment Cards: Incorporating Siesta Grids by Patricia Wing
Here at Bookbag we've long admired Patricia Wing's ability not just to produce beautiful hand-made cards but to guide us through the process of making them. We've seen her regularly in 'Crafts Beautiful' magazine, so we know that she's a name that you can rely on. Equally reassuring is the fact that she came to card making in middle age – giving hope to anyone who feels that they have left it too late to learn a new craft. We know that we're in a safe – and very creative – pair of hands. Full review...
Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
Alice is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shout. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc. Full review...
Into Dust by Jonathan Lewis
The front cover graphics leave the reader in no doubt that this is a thriller and the blurb on the back cover mentions the troubles in Afghanistan, deadly bombs, sniffer dogs, so the theme here is bang up to-date and many would possibly say, relevant. Full review...
Good Offices by Evelio Rosero
Here is a church in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it is a large group of the elderly, given a weekly, tasteless meal from the charitable funds, but bitterly refusing to quit the place, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivity. In part two it is the congregation, as a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old women. Full review...
The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
'The Quality of Mercy' picks up the story of the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first book, you won't be greatly disadvantaged as the relevant story lines are explained. What you might miss out on is some of the feeling for a few of the main characters, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates of the slave ship, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracy. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequel, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to poverty, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durham. Full review...
Milly-Molly-Mandy's Family by Joyce Lankester Brisley
Millicent Margaret Amanda (that's Milly-Molly-Mandy to you and me) lives with Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty (and Toby the dog) in a nice white cottage with a thatched roof. And do you know, she has all sorts of adventures. She goes out into town alone to fetch things for her extended family, she goes to a concert where she even knows one of the performers, she gets invited to parties in the village hall, and she does it all with the company of Little Friend Susan and Billy Blunt. Full review...
