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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Esme's Egg by Neil Griffith and Chistine Grove
Every day in the laying season Esme the hen laid an egg and every day Farmer Ferguson came along and removed it. Esme tried being a little bit devious but wherever she laid her egg Farmer Ferguson came along and took it away. Nothing daunted, Esme decided that she was going to follow her egg and so began a trip which involved a van and a warehouse and another van and finally a supermarket before Farmer Ferguson arrived to take Esme and six chicks back to the farm. Full review...
Krent Able's Big Book of Mischief by Krent Able
It's come to my attention recently that Knockabout books, with their growing library of graphic titles, have no intention in being at all literary – not for them the gently observant characterisation of some original graphic novels. Instead they seem to have a wilful regard for going even further than their house name suggests – wild, wacky and not afraid to present an upsetting image. With Krent Able they have the collaborator who will surely help them live up to that ethos like no other. Taken from the Stool Pigeon musical magazine, with some extra cartoons, are these strips of depravity, death in unlikely ways and revolting selections of body parts and fluids. Full review...
Where's the Meerkat? Journey Through Time by Paul Moran
It seems that one way for creators to keep kids poring over the pages of their books is to do what the people behind this have done – take most of the words out. There are a few hundred, giving us some brief story about a bunch of meerkats using a time machine, partly by accident, and therefore visiting several different major historical points in time, but one can ignore them, for it is the artwork that one has to scour for ten meerkats, a squirrel and a hawk. And that search is what is going to keep the young of all ages engaged in for quite some time… Full review...
Andy Bates: Modern Twists on Classic Dishes by Andy Bates
I do tire of cook books which regurgitate what are essentially the same recipes time after time. Sometimes food writers rework their own recipes - a tweak here, a change of emphasis there and you can have the same dish many times over, so it's a real breath of fresh air when you find a book which seems to have new ideas, or genuinely new approaches to classic dishes. Andy Bates has a classical background (working in a Michelin starred restaurant by the time he was seventeen and time in France to hone his skills) but his business is a stall in London's Whitecross street market. So - a perfect combination of technical knowledge, experience and knowing what people really want to eat. Full review...
Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor by Simon Callow
Once a towering presence on stage and screen, the star of fifty films and forty plays, Charles Laughton seems largely forgotten these days. As an actor of a younger generation and keen admirer of his work, Callow is well placed to bring him back to the fore. He notes in his preface that the man has increasingly slipped out of public consciousness, and even within his own profession he is virtually unknown to anybody under the age of forty Full review...
Dominion by C J Sansom
It's 1952 and twelve years since Churchill became Minister of War and Halifax took over from Chamberlain as Prime Minister. Churchill had thought that he might be able to run the war from that position but, Halifax, the appeaser, held sway and Britain surrendered to Germany in the aftermath of Dunkirk. Russia fought on, but it was a war of attrition rather than one which looked to come to a clear conclusion. The British people are under a violent, authoritarian rule and British Jews face a grim future. Winston Churchill - aged and possibly infirm - is the head of the Resistance organisation, but he's forced to live his life in hiding and on the run. Full review...
Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights by Marina Warner
'Arabesque' is, these days, a term little used outside ballet. However, in its original meaning it conveyed the idea of an intricate pattern, constantly and exuberantly multiplying in countless new twists and turns, like the interlinked curves on a Middle Eastern carpet. That notion of arabesque – things spreading and connecting gorgeously – is pretty much crucial to both the theory and the design of Marina Warner's fantastical and fantastic new exploration of the rich intercultural history of the Arabian Nights, Stranger Magic. Full review...
Trains and Lovers: The Heart's Journey by Alexander McCall Smith
Do you have a train journey to make? Will it take you several hours? If so, then I can't think of a better place to sit and read Alexander McCall Smith's new, standalone novel. It's all about four people travelling on a train you see, and it's all about love. I gorged on it one evening, reading it all in one go without stopping, and it's really rather lovely! Full review...
Llama Llama Red Pyjama by Anna Dewdney
Every parent will know the bedtime game: it looks as though we're all settled down, on the edge of sleep and it's time for Mummy to slip away and get on with all that has to be done, but then... There's a call: a drink of water still seems to be the favourite and Baby Llama is no exception. Like most children he just wants to hang on to his mother for that little bit longer. Only Llama Mama is busy washing up and then the phone rings... She's distracted but Baby Llama is distraught and works himself up into something of a tizzy. Full review...
Business Continuity For Dummies by Stuart Sterling, Brian Duddridge, Andrew Elliott, Michael Conway and Anna Payne
When you build a business you set off with unbridled enthusiasm and if you're lucky it does seem as though the Gods are flying along with and you holding your hands. But they have other calls on their time and at some point something will go wrong. It's inevitable. It might be something unforeseeable, something outside of your control, or an event which you really should have prepared for. In addition to growing this fledgling business you're now trying to troubleshoot, to second guess and eventually you stop moving forward and do little but worry about what can go wrong. There's a temptation to try and put it out of your mind: why give your nightmares an outing during the day? What you need is a plan - a structured, unthreatening way of looking at what can fail and how you would deal with it. Full review...
Boris Saves the Show by Carrie Weston and Tim Warnes
Bookbag has enjoyed Boris' previous adventures in Oh, Boris! and Bravo, Boris! so I was keen to see what Boris was up to this time around. We're back amongst familiar faces, in Miss Cluck's school, and this time Miss Cluck has decided the class will put on an end of term show, and that there will be special guests from the Pond Side Nursery coming to watch too! But what role will Boris take in the show? Full review...
The House of Memories by Monica McInerney
Ella Fox's life would never have been described as easy. Her parents divorced when she was young and not long after, her father was killed in a light aircraft crash. Her mother remarried and although Ella loved her new and funny stepbrother, Charlie, she could not stem her feelings of jealousy when her half sister Jess is born not long after the marriage. Although she lived halfway across the world from him, she always turned to her Uncle Lucas in her lowest moments. It's hardly surprising then, that years later, after the tragic death of her twenty month old son, Felix, she ultimately runs to her uncle in London. Full review...
Rain or Shine (Snip and Snap) by Diane Fox and Christyan Fox
It's an important lesson to learn, if you're growing up in the UK - the perils of planning an outdoor picnic! Snip and Snap have decided to have a picnic, but as poor Snip tries to get ready he finds that the changeable weather thwarts his plans at every step! Will he ever manage to eat his picnic with his friend Snap? Full review...
Really Weird Removals.Com by Daniela Sacerdoti
Twelve-year-old Luca and his younger sister Valentina don't know their Uncle Alistair, who had a row with their father about a decade ago. When Alistair returns to the Scottish island of Eilean to try to put things right, their dad doesn't want to have anything to do with him - but when Luca and Valentina meet him and the ghost he's brought with him, they're desperate to help their uncle with his Really Weird Removals Company. While their parents think they're helping to exterminate ants and cockroaches, they're actually relocating mermaids, sea serpents and trolls - but not everything out there is friendly. Can Alistair keep them safe? And what exactly did cause his row with their father? Full review...
Fans Not Customers: How to create growth companies in a no growth world by Vernon Hill
Vernon Hill is the man behind Metro Bank in the UK, the founder of Commerce Bank in the US and the holder of the North American franchise of PetPlan. When Metro Bank opened in the UK in July 2010 I remember wondering if the world really needed another Bank and the truth was that it didn't need another Bank-just-like-every-other-Bank-you've-encountered, but it did need a fresh approach to the business and a sweeping away of all the old rules and prejudices. Hill had proved that it could be done with Commerce Bank and in the last two years he's made a similar impact with Metro. Full review...
Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom and Laura Watkinson (Translator)
'Whoever controls Berlin controls Germany and whoever controls Germany controls Europe' is a remark which is attributed to Lenin. Until November 1989, the Berlin Wall bisected the historic city and divided its citizens from each other. Berlin was occupied, militarised and yet its people carried on with their daily lives amongst the ruins. Cees Nooteboom, a distinguished Dutch travel writer, knew something of the devastation of the past. He is old enough to have experienced, and at impressionable age, the Nazi Blitzkreig and occupation of Holland. A sensitive and susceptible person, he meditates upon the various strata of meaning, history, heroism and time itself. The result is a prose poem on a unique city that is condemned to be constantly developing, becoming rather than just being. Full review...
Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
Joe is a salesman on the verge of giving up. Having lost all confidence in his ability to sell vacuum cleaners to Middle America, he creates and elaborates on a fantasy just for fun. It includes a woman being 'serviced' from behind, her partner obscured by a waist high wall. The only thing any over-the-wall voyeur sees is an innocent activity e.g. she may manicure her nails. Full review...
A Mediocre Man by A K Hill
Francis James Humbleton, the 'mediocre man' of the title is quiet and reserved, hardworking and a man of such regular habits that his neighbours can set their clocks by his departure to work each morning. His life was unassuming, unnoticed by all but a very few and his death only came to light because his employers knew that something must be wrong when he didn't return to work after the Christmas break. Mr Humbleton had been murdered, at precisely (what else could it be?) 3am in what looked to be a burglary gone wrong. Only Mr Humbleton had nothing that was worth stealing and it's down to Detective Inspector Johnson and Detective Constable Smith to investigate his life as well as his death. Full review...
Finale (Hush Hush) by Becca Fitzpatrick
We left Patch and Nora were finally happily together and in love but with a big problem: Nora's vow to her dead father, Hank. Nora must lead the Nephilim in the upcoming war against the fallen angels who possess their bodies each year. If she doesn't, both she and her mother will die. She won't be accepted as leader by the Nephilim if her own boyfriend is a fallen angel, so once again their relationship has to go underground. Nora agrees to a fake relationship with Dante, the second-in-command Nephilim. The scam is easy enough to pull off - they need to spend a lot of time together anyway, as Dante trains Nora's newly Nephilim body for war. Full review...
The Racketeer by John Grisham
Malcolm Bannister is forty-three years old and a lawyer. He's also in prison for a crime he didn't know he was committing and in which he had no criminal intent. Halfway through a ten-year stretch he's the only black man in the prison serving time for a white collar crime: that's what happens when you're just a bit naive and what looks like a genuine real estate deal turns out to be part of a massive money laundering operation. The prison he's in is relatively relaxed and he's the librarian, but he's lost his job, his wife's divorced him and he wonders if he'll ever see his young son again. Other than that, life's pretty much of a muchness. Full review...
Red Cat, Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond
Red Cat and Blue Cat don't get on. They don't get on at all. They hiss and scratch and stumble and thwump. They fight like... well, cat and cat. Each cat has a secret, though: each cat would quite like to be like the other. Blue Cat would like to be fast and bouncy like Red Cat, and Red Cat would like to be smart and quick-witted like Blue Cat. Blue Cat tries to turn red, by eating red things. Red Cat copies him. Neither changes colour, and neither takes on the characteristics of the other. Who'd have thunk it? They're going to have to come up with another plan. Full review...
A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown
Once upon a time, there was a dark, dark moor. On that moor was a dark, dark wood. That wood has a dark, dark... well, you get the idea. Darkness is compounded by darkness, and we delve deeper and deeper into this spooky story, to find what lies at the heart of it. Full review...
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin
When I look back on my school days it didn't seem terribly complicated, but when I see what my grandchildren are coping with I'm amazed at all that they have to remember. They need to have methods of jogging their memories. 'Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy' gives them lots of ways of remembering a rich variety of facts, but also shows them how they can develop their own ways of helping their memory. It's a book about mnemonics such as rhymes, acrostics, stories, grouping, linking, pictures, acronyms and wordplay. It's not just the methods of remembering that are there - there are all sorts of facts in with the methods. Full review...
Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French
When Dawn French wrote her first novel A Tiny Bit Marvellous I was eager to read it, looking forward to plenty of silly humour and those elusive-when-reading out loud laughs. I was disappointed unfortunately, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters and quite discouraged and depressed somehow. So, I approached her new novel with a little trepidation, unsure as to whether she deserved a second chance. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt! Full review...
The Vintage Teacup Club by Vanessa Greene
Jenny, Maggie and Alison meet at a car boot sale. Jenny is looking for vintage tea sets to serve tea at her wedding to Dan in a few month's time. She spots four cups and saucers that would be ideal but at the same time, the cups are also spotted by Maggie and Alison who also want them. Over a cup of tea, they realise that each of them needs them at a different time so it could be possible to buy them and then share them. Jenny will have them first at her wedding, then Maggie will use them in the 'Alice in Wonderland' garden she is creating, before finally passing them on to Alison who will use them as scented candle holders. It's a good solution and one that will lead to a strong and lasting friendship between the three of them. Full review...
Edisto by Padgett Powell
Welcome to the household of the Duchess and our narrator, Simons (pronounced as with two Ms), a luxurious building set in the Carolinian coastal town of Edisto, and a white household in a friendly black neighbourhood. Our story starts when a man arrives, trying to serve a court order to the maid's daughter, an act which drives the maid to flee, and which leads to the man replacing her in her shack. He doesn't exactly do the housework as she did, but he does help the household out, for the Duchess is quite Bohemian in attitude, and wants her twelve year old boy to be a dazzling authorial prodigy. He already has a stool with his name on at the local black bar, but the man – who Simons decides to call Taurus – is going to be a peculiar father figure, opening his world up into that of adulthood. Full review...
Nelson: A Dream of Glory by John Sugden
I will admit that I didn't know what I was letting myself in for when I saw 'Nelson: A Dream of Glory' sitting on the Bookbag shelf, but I had just come back from Portsmouth and a wander around on the Victory, so it was a bit hard to resist. Full review...
The Downstairs Cookbook: Recipes From A 1920s Household Cook by Margaret Powell
Margaret Powell began her life in service as a housemaid, but she had an interest in cooking (her mother wouldn't allow her to learn at home as food was too precious to waste) and by talking to cooks, watching what they did and making notes she eventually rose to be cook in the grand houses on the nineteen twenties. The Downstairs Cookbook is her collection of the recipes which she used, or which were current at the time. But it's more than that. Think of it as being rather like a visit to a good cookery school where you'd collect all those hints and tips which make recipes work and the anecdotes about life in a professional kitchen. Full review...
Raised from the Ground by Jose Saramago
Domingos is a feckless man, a man often neglecting his family, and hitting his wife due to too much drinking, a man often leaving everyone behind as he chases work and flees his debts. He calls himself a shoemaker but really he's little different from those around him, who actually do have to move about, chasing what seasonal agricultural work is available. Certainly his children and their children in turn will mostly be bound to the land they sprang from - the 'latifundio' – and the spirit of both all of them, and of it, throughout the Portuguese twentieth century, are the subjects of this early Jose Saramago novel, in English for the first time after a thirty-year wait. Full review...
Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad
A Christmastime in Norway. Spending his Christmas Eve alone, yet celebrating the age-old occasion the traditional way just by and for himself, is Professor Andersen. While taking time to muse on the party-hosting neighbours lit up in their own apartments across the way, he sees a young woman get roughly manhandled by what he thinks is a young man, after which their curtains are closed and suspicion is allowed to mount in the Professor's mind. He attends a dinner party – arriving far too early, to have the opportunity to talk the case over with his best friend – and goes away, spending many hours with his colleague, yet carries on doing nothing about reporting what he is sure was a murder. He and the relationship to the criminal in his mind are the basis of this short novel. Full review...
The Human Part by Kari Hotakainen and Owen F Witesman (translator)
Salme Malmikunnas attends a literary fair with her daughter, Helena but before going inside, Salme meets an author who offers her a small fortune in exchange for her story. He seeks inspiration and feels that Salme's biography is it. Salme agrees only after a fee increase and so their regular meetings begin. The author gets a story and Salme unloads her past and present onto this stranger. Meanwhile, Salme's family continues speeding towards a devastating event. Full review...
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
Karou and Akiva once dreamt of a peaceful world, but their dreams look further away from reality than ever. Is there any way that either of them can gain redemption? Full review...
Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy by Roger Osborne
Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theory. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that of Greece in the sixth century BC, to the present day. 'Humanity's finest achievement', as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of his prologue, comes from the Greek words demos (people) and kratos (rule). It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later. Full review...
The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers
Agnes is a mystery to the residents of Chartres, even as she goes about filling any shortfall in labour here, doing any odd job there, and cleaning for some of the people in and around the fabulous cathedral the town is so proud of – and, even in the end, cleaning the cathedral itself. There is an aged, dotty professor from Wales, two extremely curmudgeonly and bitter old gossips, and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsed. She seems perfectly willing to do anything one asks, so much so that one might ask why, although nobody seems to do so. The answers might be in the even-numbered chapters, which take us deeper into this character's extraordinary past, and to a linked series of quite tragic events… Full review...
Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Evie has always been plagued by horrific hallucinations and nightmares. After a stint in a psych clinic, Evie's desperate to get back to life as normal. Unfortunately, returning to her hometown triggers the hallucinations again and Evie starts to realise she is never going to be able to pass for normal. Adding to her problems, a new boy at school is destroying Evie's idea of the perfect relationship with her ideal boyfriend. Jackson is crass and a well known player - so why does Evie find him so tempting? Full review...
Hurricane Hole by John Kerr
In 1942 German U-boats were wreaking havoc with Allied shipping in the Caribbean. Tom Hamilton, a young American working undercover and posing as a rich playboy, was sent to the Bahamas to investigate Nils Ericsson, a Swedish industrialist. Sweden might have been neutral in the war but Ericsson was known to have ties to the Nazis. It wasn't long before Hamilton was certain that Ericsson was building a base for U-boats at Hurricane Hole on Hog Island. The problem was what to do about it. The Governor of the Bahamas was the Duke of Windsor, friend of Ericsson and himself a suspected Nazi sympathiser. As an added complication Hamilton was attracted to Evelyn Shawcross but as she was a friend of both the Governor and Ericsson, could he trust her? Full review...
Crime and Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach and Carol Brown Janeway (translator)
A fictitious, unnamed German criminal defence lawyer opens his files and takes us through some of the cases with which he's been involved over the years. Each of the eleven chapters is a fully formed recollection introducing us to such people as tragic Theresa and Leonhard, a sister and brother bound by deep affection despite the 'tough love' tactics of their millionaire father, the tale of the two muggers who picked the wrong (and very mysterious) victim and the story of Dr Fahner's fatal promise made to his wife. Full review...
They Call Me... Montey Greene by A R Yoba
He didn't believe in coincidences but he did believe in conspiracies.
Little does Montey Greene know how well this motto will serve him. Aside from a brief hold-up at customs, Montey is thoroughly enjoying his holiday in Milan. Recently separated from his wife, he's enjoying eyeing up all the lovely Italian women, meeting up with friends, and just generally pleasing himself. Full review...
The Heresy of Dr Dee by Phil Rickman
The year is 1560, and there is talk of the end of time. The rumours which are even more rife, though, are those concerning the death of Amy Dudley. Did Lord Robert Dudley have his wife killed to allow him to marry Queen Elizabeth I? Even Dudley's friend Doctor John Dee doesn't seem convinced of his innocence. Dee has other problems, though - he's told the queen that he has a shewstone, a crystal with mystical properties, and he desperately needs to find one. With Dudley accompanying him, he sets of to the Welsh borders in pursuit of one such stone, but the land of Dee's father is a dangerous place. With politics and religion causing tension, and the possible reappearance of a Welsh brigand from nearly two centuries previous, can Dee and Dudley survive? Full review...
Ash by James Herbert
There are strange goings on at Comraich Castle, with the normal poltergeist type activities of cold spots in rooms and the lights inexplicably dimming having escalated into a resident being found pinned to the wall of his room by his own blood and innards. David Ash is sent in to investigate, but he is warned that he must work alone and in secrecy, as whilst some of the residents of Comraich Castle are not ghosts, they are considered long dead by the outside world and that world must never know of their continued existence. Full review...
Eden Moore – Not Flesh Nor Feathers by Cherie Priest
A year has passed since medium Eden Moore's brush with the ghostly battlefields and she's certainly come a long way since the first time we encountered her. She's learnt a lot from media celebrity Dana Marshall, is nearly 25 and has decided it's time to move out of Aunt Lu and Uncle David's place. She even has her eye on an apartment in a downtown block by the river. However, some things don't change. The Read House is being renovated to combine a hotel and Starbucks but one room remains untouched due to paranormal activity. Eden's TV journalist friend Nick calls her in to communicate with the ghost, a young girl who isn't satisfied with scary noises and shifting ornaments. Within moments of entering Eden is trapped as the phantom attempts to tear her limb from limb mumbling about how 'they' are coming for her. Who are 'they'? Why are people disappearing near the river? Chattanooga will soon find out as it's about to flood and in the mud something stirs. Full review...
The Descent of the Lyre by Will Buckingham
Seventeen year old Ivan Gelski, the much loved son of Bulgarian peasant parents, has his bride to be and future snatched from him brutally just before his wedding. Full of rage and vengeance, he leaves his close knit village to join the haiduti, a savage band of outlaws who kill mercilessly in order to acquire food and survival. Years later, on one of these killing sprees, Ivan encounters Solomon Kuretic, a Viennese Jew and guitar virtuoso on his way to play for the Sultan in Constantinople. Solomon must play for his life but, by doing so, he sends Ivan on a journey of his own spreading across Europe and into saintly veneration. Full review...
Oranges and Lemons: Rhymes From Past Times by Karen Dolby
Karen Dolby's book is a loving look at nursery rhymes from many different times and places, handily organised into groups like 'Monday's Child: The Rhythm of Days' and 'Oranges and Lemons: Songs and Games'. In addition to the rhymes themselves, Dolby sets them into context and tells us of the stories behind them. Full review...
The Pets You Get! by Adrian Reynolds and Thomas Taylor
A young boy doesn't like the boring guinea pig his sister has. He'd much rather have a dog... no, a grizzly bear... no, a DRAGON! He runs through a number of options for whizz-bang pets that are much more exciting. However, his sister keeps selling the option of the guinea pig. Maybe, just maybe, he'll come to appreciate the little scurrying creature. Full review...
One Dog and His Man by Mike Henley
Oberon is a Labrador with a pedigree as long as your arm and One Dog and His Man is his story about what it's like living with the man he generously refers to as The Boss, about life in general and the ways of the world. Think of him as the canine equivalent of the parliamentary sketch writer, there to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human life and bring a gentle humour to situations which might otherwise be taken far too seriously. Before you wonder how this is possible - how a dog can write a book - let me remind you that dogs are very intelligent animals. After all, dogs and their humans might go to what are laughingly called 'dog training classes', but it's the humans who are trained, not the dogs. Full review...
The Heart Broke In by James Meek
In The Heart Broke In, James Meek manages to combine some big and serious issues into a compellingly readable and entertaining moral thriller. At the centre of the book are two siblings who are very different. Ritchie is a former rock star, now working in the world of reality television producing a game show about teenage pop bands while his younger sister, Bec, is a devoted scientist working on a cure for malaria. On the one hand it's a story of family dynamics, but it's also a thoughtful and well constructed tale of morality and judgement. Setting science against religion it asks very modern day questions about who is the guardian of morality in today's world and who, if anyone, has the right to judge others' behaviour. Full review...
Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson in the Company of Women by Kate Chisholm
What's your mental image of a Great Writer? Most people would probably say the same thing: someone sitting in splendid isolation, probably in a garret, writing Great Words and hating them. The idea of Great Writers having friends, or even a family, is a bizarre one. Partly this is because most Great Writers were incredibly weird people. But there's another issue at play. We're simply not used to imagining them in context, just one small part of a large and busy world. Our notion of biography is an incredibly fragmented one: despite the fact that one of the best indications of someone's character is how they interact with other human beings, we expect biographers to essentially confine themselves to the person and their literary output. Full review...
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Geoffrey Brock, Umberto Eco and Fulvio Testa
Of all the benefits of being at the hands of the book reviewing gods, the fact that now and again you get to visit a true classic, one of those books you think you know but have never read, stands out as being a major advantage. Consider Pinocchio – I've reviewed a very adult graphic novel version that's definitely not for the faint-hearted, I've even performed in a stage version – but never read the original. I might never even have seen the Disney film but I have an inkling of what it's about, how it pans out, and what the thrust of the story is. And of course, a lot of my impressions are wrong. This volume is one of the best ways to get a crisp, accurate and clear insight into the reality. Full review...
Young Sherlock Holmes: Snake Bite by Andrew Lane
It can't be easy, imagining Sherlock Holmes as a boy. So many of his most notable characteristics — for example, his capricious behaviour, his detailed knowledge of so many subjects, and his analytical, sometimes even cold approach to problems — are clearly the result of many years of experiences and studies. Any author brave enough to tackle this challenge must of necessity create a person who is as yet untested in many of the fields for which he will later become famous. Full review...
Rod: The autobiography by Rod Stewart
There is only one Rod. One of the first things I noticed about this book was that his surname did not appear on the spine or the front cover of the dust jacket – only on the inside flaps. However, as someone whose career has kept him a household name for over four decades, it is probably superfluous anyway. Full review...
Angel of Mons by Robin Bennett
Ben Bartops is surprised and horrified about what he sees in the trenches of Belgium in August 1914. So is Sam Lyle, but at least he has the experience of being a career soldier – Ben is a schoolkid from the 21st Century, and shouldn't by rights be in the warzone at all. But something is putting, or taking, or sending, him to the front, and somehow the two lives will intertwine, in very dramatic ways… Full review...
Professor Gargoyle: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman
Let's be honest – starting a new series with a boy alone in a new school, apart from his bullying nemesis, does not particularly strike one as original, or even interesting. But behind all the fabulous LCD message boards and technology, the brand new Lovecraft Middle actually holds some very interesting and ancient secrets. A host of children find a white rat waiting for them in their lockers when they're opened for the first time. The library seems to have a very unusual labyrinth of secret passages in, appropriately enough, the paranormal fiction section. And no-one, from the pupils to the staff, seem to be acting quite as they should… Full review...
Monster Mountains: Raven Boy and Elf Girl 2 by Marcus Sedgwick
Meet, if you didn't last time, Raven Boy and Elf Girl. He's got a rat in his pocket, and can communicate with animals and birds, while she has a magical bow, but doesn't know how to use it properly. They don't have a home forest any more, as the Goblin King sent an ogre to demolish it. This is the first sequel amongst the series of six volumes, as they encounter different landscapes in turn on their way to confront him and put him to rights – somehow. Here they face the freezing cold, a giant yeti, the three evil trolls chasing them since book one for their supper – and Jeremy. Full review...
The Feathered Man by Jeremy de Quidt
Klaus is a street kid who has been taken in by Kusselman, the tooth-puller. Kusselman is a hard taskmaster, fond of using a belt to discipline and control his young apprentice, and he isn't fussy where he finds teeth to sell to the rich of the town. So there's nothing unusual in a trip to Frau Drecht's miserable boarding house, home to those with no money and no other place to go. When her residents die off, as they tend to do with depressing regularity, Frau Drecht sells their teeth to Kusselman and their poor, wasted bodies to the School of Anatomy for dissection. Frau Drecht has also taken a street child for a servant. But to keep Liesel in line, Frau Drecht uses a hot iron, not a belt. Full review...
The Haunted Book by Jeremy Dyson
Typically atypical noises faced by someone alone in an empty house… a rock group reuniting at their old studios and finding there are more haunting traces of their passage than just their unremembered recordings… a nightmare for a round-the-world solo yachtsman when he gains a passenger… These could possibly count as entrants in any compendium of ghost stories. But what of their author, tasked to transfer reportage into readable non-fiction? Should he not know better about dabbling with the occult, in any shape or form? How long will it be before he finds himself staring at a ghost himself – one that has not confined itself to just the pages of the book he is currently writing, but has made itself known in volumes past? Full review...
The Nolympics: One Man's Struggle Against Sporting Hysteria by Nicholas Lezard
Confession: I was always going to be attracted to this book. I was planning for the Olympics since London won them – planning my escape, that is. And to add insult to athletics-hysteria induced injury, I then fell ill, missed my holiday, couldn’t get the money back on insurance, and found the predicted horrifically heaving horror of a city to be a complete myth. So after losing money on a holiday that I planned for years and didn’t need to be on anyway, I thought reading this would be a form of therapy for my anger! Full review...
The Dead are Rising (MetaWars) by Jeff Norton
Jonah's father died in the battle for control of the Metasphere. He was a Guardian - a terrorist or freedom fighter, depending how you see things - and he had infiltrated himself into a position of trust with the Millenials, the group supporting the billionaire inventor who created and controlled an online world in which people living in a post peak-oil and devasted Earth spend most of their time. But before he died, Jason Delacroix's memories had been uploaded to the Metasphere as an avatar. Full review...
Bartolome: the Infanta's Pet by Rachel van Kooj and Siobhan Parkinson (translator)
In 17th century Spain, life is run by a strict code of conduct and appearances dictated by the Royal House. It is not a place of kindness or understanding, especially for a dwarf like Bartolome Carrasco. When his father, coachman to the Infanta Margarita, moves his family to Madrid for a better life; Bartolome is kept hidden from the world in a back room. But Bartolome is clever. He hears that a dwarf, just like him, has a position in the Royal household, he begins to educate himself in order to follow his dream and make his family proud. A sudden coach accident brings Bartolome to the attention of the young Infanta, and she demands that he be brought into the court as her pet. Forced to dress and behave as a dog, it seems life is destined to be one humiliation after another. Then, Bartolome meets the artist, Diego Velazquez, court painter who is working on Las Meninas, a portrait of the Royal family centring on the Infanta. A plan is hatched that may free Bartolome from his life of servitude and fear forever. Full review...
Mindfulness for Black Dogs and Blue Days: Finding a Path Through Depression by Richard Gilpin
Richard Gilpin is a counsellor, cognitive behavioural psychotherapist and mindfulness instructor. He's also suffered from depression since his teens and is well aware of just how debilitating it can be. In 'Mindfulness and Black Dogs' ( a nod to Churchill who referred to his depression as his black dog) he shares his own experiences with the illness and offers insights as to how a sufferer can find a way through the weight which descends upon them. He looks particularly at how mindfulness can help. Full review...
Why? by Joel Levy
Why does the Titanic float but a brick sink? And that water they’re sinking or floating in, why is it wet? And what colour is it, ‘cos it ain’t clear? These questions and many more are answered in this book which may not be a new concept but which is executed extremely well. Full review...
Puzzled by David Astle
Words are wonderful enough when they’re just telling you things straight up, but who can resist them when they’re really being playful? Not David Astle, the author of this new title that blows the lid on it all with what he calls 'secrets and clues from a life in words'. Full review...
