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 Magic Book of Cookery by Danaan Elderhill
Back in the seventeenth century in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia there was a coven of witches. As was common at that time witches were hunted and they had to hide their beliefs. The Friends of Euphrosyne, as they called themselves, turned to this deity (she's one of the three graces and there to remind us to have fun) in their time of need and developed rituals which could be assimilated into social gatherings, allowing them to hide in plain sight. Their book - The Magic Book of Cookery - vanished along with the coven when they were discovered but Danaan Elderhill wants us to benefit from its ancient wisdom - and its fun. Full review...
Monkeyfarts: Wacky Jokes Every Kid Should Know by David Borgenicht
Do your children like telling jokes? My daughter loves jokes. The trouble is, she makes hers up and, sadly, they're not very funny! She's five years old and she understands the construction of jokes, especially knock knock jokes, but when it comes to finding the funny punch line...well, it's not her forte! So, when this book arrived she was keen to take a look. Full review...
Craft-A-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt
Looking back on my childhood the most useful skill I acquired was that of making things. I was the daughter of a man who made a greenhouse out of a derelict bus, so it was inevitable that something would rub off on me. Well over half a century later it still stands me in good stead: I can see how to make things, how to solve problems and my imagination was fired up at an early stage. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bus-to-greenhouse converter in-house, but the best start is being encouraged to make things regularly and learning that you don't always have to buy everything you need. A drum roll, please for Sarah Goldschadt's Craft-A-Day. Full review...
The Sultan's Tigers by Josh Lacey
Tom's dad is the black sheep of the family – the only one who isn't a thieving adventurer and dishonest chancer. Tom's granddad was like that, but has just died. Tom's uncle tends that way – and even Tom himself learnt the benefits of such a life in the first book in the series. With the passing of the granddad, Tom is alone in the empty house when a desperate burglar implies a family secret is worth a lot of money – which leads to Tom and Uncle Harvey disappearing tout suite to India on the trail of treasure. Out of eight gem-encrusted tiger statuettes, seven have been bought by the same oligarch – but the eighth was hidden by one of Tom's ancestors, and might be there still, and they might be first to the priceless object – but they are not the only people on the treasure hunt… Full review...
Alienography 2: Tips for Tiny Tyrants by Chris Riddell
As we found out at quite painful length and horrid detail, even Darth Vader was young once. Alright, he didn't start out that evil, but other space supremoes and galactic governors do – and chances are you know a child that would like nothing more than to romp around destroying planets and completely and utterly having their way, with no-one daring to call 'bedtime!' for fear of being grabbed by the unmentionables. With ten(-ish) tips for that child, and several asides, diversions and added frivolity, is this large book, all with the intention of filling the black hole of ignorance in the wannabe ruler of worlds. Full review...
Boobadoodle by Rosy Sherry
Boobadoodle is a book of doodles. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobs, some belonging to the author, some to her friends. Quite good friends, I imagine. Full review...
The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend by J F Roberts
If you need to know everything about the history of Blackadder and all who worked on it, this is probably the book for you. It has in-depth biographies of all of the main actors involved, lots of details about their prior achievements, and a huge amount of information which includes scripts of deleted scenes. That said, it's staggering that a book about one of the funniest TV programmes ever made can be anywhere near this dull. Full review...
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time by Frank Cottrell Boyce
There's nothing like a good villain to spice up a tale, and they come in all shapes and sizes in this, Frank Cottrell Boyce's second book about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The previous story ended with them trying to flee Tiny Jack, a nasty piece of work with a seriously horrid Nanny and a fondness for feeding people to his pet piranhas, and as this book opens they find themselves nose-to-nose with a dinosaur. A real, live one, with her mind firmly fixed on lunch. Full review...
The Story of English by Joseph Piercy
The Story of English sets out to be a potted history of the influences that have shaped our language, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to LOLcats.com. Starting with the pre-Roman Celts and their Ogham alphabet, it goes crashing through fifteen hundred years of linguistic history at a terrific pace to end with an almost audible sigh of relief at the internet age. Full review...
A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo
Michael never knew his father and so is content to live alone with his mother. In fact, he rather enjoys feeling different and special, partly because unlike most children at school he only has one parent, but also because Maman is French and looks, to Michael at least, like Joan of Arc. Full review...
Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke
Jon arrives at boarding school in a haze of angst, not looking forward to staying in an old-fashioned town, worried about dealing with new teachers and classmates, and furious at his mum's boyfriend, known only as The Beard, for his role in the banishment. Events take an unexpected turn for the worse when Jon finds himself being stalked by a pack of sinister ghosts with a vendetta against his family, borne out of a deadly conflict with his ancestor. With the help of Ella, whose grandmother specialises in ghost tours for tourists, Jon is successful in summoning the knight Longespee to protect him. However, the ghosts prove to be more resilient than he first thought, and when Jon discovers the terrible fate of the last boy who called Longespee for help, he realises that he is in more trouble than ever before. Full review...
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
The subject matter for Colm Tóibín's 'The Testament of Mary' is exactly what the title suggests in that it relates Mary's feelings about the death of her son, Jesus, whose name it hurts her too much to even mention. It's a curiously slight offering though. Its 100 odd pages lands it somewhere between short story and novella territory. Even so, with Tóibín's excellence as a writer and the emotive subject matter, I expected to be more engaged with the story than I was. Full review...
Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little by Christopher Johnson
Language changes and evolves all the time, but since the dawn of the internet that change seems to have accelerated. Not only that, the pervasion of the web into nearly every aspect of our daily lives means the written word has more power and relevance than perhaps at any other time in human history. Given its influence over us, it seems only prudent that we should try to understand something of how this new vernacular of the internet works. In Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little naming and verbal branding expert Christopher Johnson seeks to do just that, presenting us with 'a field guide to everyday verbal ingenuity'. Full review...
Battalion by Adam Hamdy
We're twenty years or so into the future and the world is desperately short of oil. Trouble always follows such a situation. There are energy shortages, economies are contracting and the threat from terrorism is constant. The CIA and the FBI were amalgamated some time ago and agent Scott Pierce of the FSA is hunting the man known as The Spider. He's been in deep cover - including a prison sentence - but this isn't just work to him. The Spider was responsible for the Eurostar bombing which cost Pierce his wife and he's determined to see the man dead. The fact that The Spider is determined to strike at the heart of America's democratic institutions and bring her to her knees is almost secondary. Full review...
The Dust Pups by Linda Cooper
It had been snowing and was very cold outside. Cosmo, Wizard Willoughby's cat wanted to play, but the Wizard was too tired - in fact he was so tired that he went off to bed leaving his magic wand on the table. Cosmo was in playful mood and so was his friend, Tilly Mouse and it was inevitable that something would get knocked over. It was, of course, Wizard Willoughby's magic wand and with a bang four coloured stars shot out of the wand and four piles of dust disappeared. In their place were the Dust Pups - Bluebell, Inky, Cherry and Sunny - for Cosmo and his friends to play with. Full review...
Miki and the Wishing Star by Stephen Mackey
Miki and penguin and polar bear all share the same birthday, and they're very excited about each getting a birthday wish when they blow out their candles. Penguin goes first, wishing that he were the biggest penguin of all! Just what will he get up to if his wish comes true? Full review...
The Greater Thief by Alexandra Carey
Shots ring out on a London street. Among those listening are three people for whom the effects will echo for a lot longer than the sound itself. Policeman's daughter and student Alice is sitting in a nearby pub doing uni work. Paul the local trainee vicar is on parish business. His connection is fancying Alice. They're friends and almost became an item but Paul is a lot older than she is, his hopes finally being dashed when she met Josh. Yes, Josh, a gang member with both a conscience and a heart, is the third person. The page from a book of poetry given to him by Alice is found on the resulting body. Did Josh commit the murder? Can Alice help him? And, if Paul is going to assist, how far dare he go? Full review...
Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin) by Jonathan Maberry
Having escaped the horrors of Gameland at the dreadful cost of losing Tom, Benny, Nix, Lilah and Chong must journey through the Rot & Ruin without his warrior smarts. They're in search of the jet they saw in the sky months ago. They hope to find hope, some remains of a civilisation lost after First Night, when the zombie virus spread through the population like wildfire. When life as it was ceased to be. When the undead started to walk... Full review...
Tricks and Games To Teach Your Dog: How to Turn Your Much-Loved Pet into an Accomplished Performer by Sophie Collins
Over a lifetime of owning dogs, from the small and nippy Jack Russells to the large and loving Rhodesian Ridgebacks, I've learned that the more you do with your dog - the more you interact - the better your dog will be. People say that they're not great conversationalists (personally I'd disagree) but they have a tremendous willingness to please and they love to have fun with you. Sophie Collins has put together a collections of tricks and games which you can teach your dog and they range from the sit, stay and down of basic training through to quite complicated tasks and agility training. There's something there for every size and every age. Full review...
Fiona Goble's Fairy Tale Knits: 20 Enchanting Characters to Make by Fiona Goble
It's a lovely idea: knitting patterns for twenty fairy tale characters and a brief story to go with them. There's the pleasure of knitting the characters and then of a child playing with them alongside a story and then being able to use their imaginations to built their own stories. Best of all, it's done without a battery or a computer/games console in sight. It's a winner all round. Full review...
John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk
John Saturnall’s mother is a healer and herbalist. It was all too easy in the 1620’s for women with her skills to come under suspicion of witchcraft. When John and his mother are hounded from their village by religious extremists the Lessoners, they hide in Buccla’s Wood. But as winter takes a grip on the land John’s mother dies. John is taken in to work in the kitchens at Buckland Manor. His progress from scullery boy to cook is graphically recorded alongside his prickly relationship with the daughter of the house, Lucretia. The story takes the couple through the years of the civil war, when life at Buckland comes under threat from the advancing Puritan army. Full review...
Stealing Into Winter: being the first adventure from the chronicles of Jeniche of Antar by Graeme K Talboys
Streetwise young thief Jeniche wakes up to find her prison cell's walls collapsing around her. This is no natural disaster but an invasion by the Occassans, mercilessly brandishing 'moskets', weapons that fire death rendering the native Makamban cudgels futile. Whilst scouring the streets and avoiding the marauding army, Jeniche visits old haunts, checking on her friends and wondering what to do next. This last part is solved for her: a band of Tunduri monks and nuns, including their young God-King himself, want a guide to take them home to Tundur, the land of winter beyond the desert. The journey may be hazardous but nothing's safe anymore, and so, accompanied by the muscular, slow-witted stable owner, Trag and mysterious swordsman Alltud, their journey begins. Full review...
Monstrous Maud: Spooky Sports Day by A B Saddlewick
Quite how do you make a sports day spooky? Well, in this topsy-turvy world, you don't have to do much. It's nasty enough for vampires to be competing in the daylight, it's not fair on monsters with tails or for mummies with bandages to trip over – and it's just a bit too girly, prim and proper – and a bit too pink, for monsters. Monstrous Maud, of course, isn't a monster, but does go to a special school dedicated to them. How can she hope to train her best friend, who is quite hopeless at any sporting activity, and also manage to keep her monstrous disguise up when the starting gun is fired? Full review...
There Is No Such Thing As A Free Press by Mick Hume
I'll confess that the phone-hacking scandal largely left me cold. It seemed to be about people who had courted the media interest complaining that they had caught the media's interest when they didn't intend to do so. Then the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone came to light and disinterest turned to disgust. The Leveson Enquiry became the best show in town if you really wanted to hear about what celebrities had been doing and I moved to wondering what the outcome would be and whether it would prove to be a talking shop and waste of money. It might have remained that way if the Jimmy Savile scandal hadn't dominated the news for a couple of weeks and I really began to wonder if we here at Bookbag Towers were the only people hadn't known what was going on. Why hadn't this made headlines when other less important news had? I needed to know more about the press. I particularly needed to know if increased regulation - which seems almost inevitable - could produce more Jimmy Saviles. Full review...
Hippospotamus by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
Poor hippo has found a spot on her bottom. All of her friends have an opinion about what might be wrong with her, ranging from measles to hippopox or perhaps an allergy to cake! They all have suggestions, too, as to how hippo might get rid of the spot and poor hippo tries them all. Will anything ever get rid of that nasty spot? Full review...
Born to Ride: The Autobiography of Stephen Roche by Stephen Roche
With all the revelations about the systemised doping culture surrounding Lance Armstrong's team in the 1990s, it was interesting to read a story of a time before cycling was embroiled in one drugs scandal after another. Although perhaps not as memorable as Armstrong's career, Stephen Roche's will hold a place in cycling history for 1987, when he became only the second man to win the Tour de France, the Giro D'Italia and the World Championships in the same season. A quarter of a century after that remarkable feat, Roche has produced his autobiography, Born to Ride. Full review...
Tuesday by David Wiesner
What do you call a man who illustrates books in such a way that you can sit and stare at individual pictures, as much enthralled by their detail as if they were hung in a gallery? A man who has such trust in his readers that he can tell a complex story without a word of text? Or one who can produce this wordless book and ensure that it appeals to children and to adults in equal measure? Well, he's called David Wiesner and he's a genius. Full review...
Crocodile on the Carousel by Sally Tissington
Cath Furnish's life has been so marked out by suffering to such an extent that she believes that's what life's about. Despite being married to Bill, raising her granddaughter Amanda and her daughter Marie being TV's 'Happy Lady', Cath is attracted to the biblical book of Job, a co-sufferer in her eyes. She's even bought a grotesque carousel for the back garden incorporating such jolly figures as a crocodile, a bleeding horse and the gates of death because it reminds her of him. As much as Amanda loves her grandmother, she doesn't want to continue living like this and so sets herself a mission. Despite opposition she will disprove her upbringing and find love and happiness, so help her. Full review...
Operation Bunny - Wings & Co by Sally Gardner
Emily Vole very nearly enters this world with a bang; abandoned at Stanstead Airport in a hatbox that is mistaken for an explosive device she only just escapes being blown up by the bomb disposal squad. After this inauspicious beginning things briefly improve for Emily when she is adopted by a wealthy couple, Daisy and Ronald Dashwood, who have no children of their own. However, the couple soon tire of their little girl and following the birth of Daisy Dashwood’s triplet daughters poor Emily is relegated to the role of a servant who is banished to the laundry room and forced to sleep on the ironing board. Life is miserable for Emily until one day she meets her kindly next door neighbour Miss String and her talking cat, Fidget. Through her new friends Emily discovers that there really is such a thing as magic and she soon find herself thrust into an exciting adventure she could never have anticipated. Full review...
Claude in the Country by Alex T Smith
Thank goodness Alex T Smith is doing such a grand job of continuing to feed my Claude habit. Growing up I always had a bit of a thing for Snoopy, but now I do like to steal the Claude stories away from my daughter and curl up to read them myself as they always cheer me up. This time Claude (and Sir Bobblysock, we mustn't forget him!) have a grand adventure in the countryside. So what with chickens and sheep and pigs and cowpats...what could possibly go wrong?! Full review...
Atticus Claw Breaks the Law by Jennifer Gray
Meet the new criminal gang in town – three evil, thieving magpies, led by the vicious Jimmy, and Atticus Claw, the greatest cat burglar. Together they are on a mission to rob the entire town of all its jewellery, watches and other shiny valuables. To help him rest up between missions Atticus has decided to live right at the centre of the action – the parents of the children who adopt him are in turns the local police officer, and the woman charged with running a luxurious Antiques Roadshow-styled affair at the local manor house. There will be bling, there will be sardines as a reward for Atticus – and with the animals' inside information on the roadshow, nothing can go wrong – can it? Full review...
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding
For once I don't feel like devoting my first paragraph to a teasing plot summary. And while I'm here to judge the book and not the cover, even the British paperback blurb agrees, and gives nothing away in its woolliness. I am duty bound to say this is the third book to feature Darian Frey and the rest of the crew of his flying craft the Ketty Jay. If pressed I will say it starts with him indulging in a further instance of thievery, making a mistake, and then finding just how much is in the science fantasy universe that can possibly get between him and what might repair the damage. Full review...
The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill
There is a theory regarding ghosts that they are projected recordings from the very brickwork of buildings – that 'stone tapes' can replay scenes or characters of heightened emotion so that people can see the vestige of what went before. What if something a bit more animated than a building – a lively, realistic oil painting – can also convey collected recorded instances of such strong feelings - feelings such as mortal terror? It would be like Dorian Gray's portrait, recording all the horrors, keeping them intact in one place – but would it be the cause or the effect? Full review...
Dolly by Susan Hill
An empty house in the remote fenlands of England, with a man returning to it alone… a lawyer sorting out an inheritance… something buried yet still yielding power… Susan Hill's name, and the subtitle 'a ghost story' on the cover… We do seem to be in the territory of The Woman in Black, but worry not – this new short genre novel is a very different beast. Full review...
Anna Amalia, Grand Duchess: Patron of Goethe and Schiller by Frances A Gerard
Anna Amalia of Brunswick, a Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach in the eighteenth century, is scarcely little more than a footnote in European royal history these days. Nevertheless it was mainly through her patronage that the court of Weimar became one of the most artistically renowned of the time, a reputation it never lost throughout the increasingly militaristic times that Germany went through from the age of Bismarck and beyond. Full review...
Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor by Adrian Fort
Nancy, Lady Astor, the first woman to take her seat as an elected Member of Parliament at Westminster, is one of those characters about whom it is surely impossible for anyone to write a dull biography. A determined character who inspired admiration, respect and exasperation in equal measure from most if not all who had dealings with her, she is well served by this latest in a long line of titles devoted to her. Full review...
The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey
Like many an enthralling novel, this book starts with a death from natural causes yet in odd circumstances which initially leaves several questions unanswered. In fact, in spite of the subtitle, and also knowing nothing about the family whose story it tells in part, I had to look through the book thoroughly before reading, to satisfy myself that it actually was non-fiction. Full review...
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M Banks
It's 25 years since Iain M Banks introduced us to the utopian Culture series of sci fi adventure books and The Hydrogen Sonata is the 13th in the series. One thing Banks does particularly well is to make his books completely accessible as stand alones, explaining the concept afresh each time without going over old ground for long time fans, of which there are many. In many ways, this is a good introduction for those who have yet to discover the joys of this excellent series because it's far more linear than some. He sometimes leaves even hardened Culture addicts struggling to work out what's going on with alternative realities before bringing them together, but there's little of that here. Full review...
