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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I Am Not Sleepy And I Will Not Go To Bed by Lauren Child
Like many children, Lola does not particularly like going to bed. She likes staying up colouring, scribbling, sticking and most of all chattering. When she is told that it is time for bed, she always has an answer as to why she should not go: she never gets tired; she can’t clean her teeth because somebody is eating her toothpaste; and the whales are swimming in the bath. The list is endless especially where the highly imaginative Lola is concerned. However, older brother Charlie knows Lola so well; if anyone can persuade her to get into bed, it’s him. Full review...
Teachers Pest: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman
Lovecraft Middle School has been found to be full of other things in the past. Book one in this series had the ultra-modern campus plagued by rats, including a two-headed example that somehow became our hero Robert's pet. We have since found the whole thing is also full of portals into a nightmarish underworld, ghosts of a mansion where a mad scientist was dredging up hell. Now the school is full of something else – insects. Flies and other bugs are all over, people are getting bad haircuts due to head lice left, right and centre, and Robert's best friend Glenn might have suffered a most peculiar wasp sting. Would it have anything to do with the particular nature of the hellish beast that has just won presidency of the student council? Full review...
Country Loving by Cathy Woodman
When Stevie Dunsford receives a call to tell her that her father’s farm is in danger of going under, she doesn’t have any idea how bad things really are. Her life is in London with her successful career in accountancy and her good looking boyfriend. She plans to go to the farm in Devon for the weekend to sort things out and that will be that. However, when she discovers the state of things, she has no option other to stay and try to make things better even though she and her father have been estranged for years. What she does not expect though, is how readily and happily she fits back into life on the farm and soon her London life and Nick start to lose their attraction. Of course, this new contentment has got nothing to do with her blossoming relationship with the gorgeous local vet, Leo. It’s time to move forward and commit to the farm and Leo. However, just as things are really looking good, Stevie makes an unexpected discovery that threatens to ruin everything. Full review...
Chilled to the Bone by Quentin Bates
It would have been embarrassing for the shipowner to be found tied to his bed in one of Reykjavik's smartest hotels, abandoned in the middle of an obvious bondage session, but he was past caring. Death was from natural causes. It would have been easy for Sergeant Gunnhildur Gisladottir to write this off as an unfortunate accident, but instinct told her that things were not quite as they seemed. Some discreet questioning around the hotels in the city brought to light several similar incidents, with the victims relieved of their credit cards and cash and grateful to keep everything quiet. It's almost benign crime, but then some disturbing connections came to light. Full review...
Cooking with Bones by Jess Richards
Sisters Amber and Maya run away from home, the city of Paradon, and arrive in a small village. Finding an old cottage, the girls settle in comfortably, hidden from the locals' sight while joining in with their customs as Amber backs honey cakes each night from the ingredients left daily outside the cottage and the instructions of the former occupant's cookery books. Now they've moved away from their old life Amber tries to encourage Maya to stand on her own two feet which isn't easy. For Maya is a formwanderer, engineered to reflect other's wants; a role in which it's difficult to exist normally, let alone while trying to adjust to change… and, indeed, unexpected death. Full review...
A Delicate Truth by John le Carre
It's 2008 and Paul is recruited by, apparently, the government to assist in an undercover operation in Gibraltar. It's perfectly straightforward and its success will impede a cell of Al Qaeda. Paul performs, is thanked and taken home without complications. Fast forward to 2011 and Toby Bell is promoted to the role of private secretary for Paul's recruiter, MP Fergus Quinn. Whilst acquainting himself with Quinn's CV, Toby uncovers the story of the mission, discovering not only Quinn's involvement but hints that it may not have been as straightforward as all that. Quinn also appears to have been connected with an organisation that's not all it seems, unfortunately for a particular pillar of a Cornish community for whom life will never be the same again. Full review...
The Trials of Radclyffe Hall by Diana Souhami
It is a coincidence that the year 1928 saw the first appearance of two English novels which were denounced and initially suppressed on the grounds of obscenity and their potential to corrupt innocent readers – D.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' and Radclyffe Hall's 'The Well of Loneliness'. Lawrence's many novels, stories and poems are widely read today, but Hall and her works are hardly remembered except by a minority. Diana Souhami has done her a service in this generous yet deeply probing life of a literary trailblazer. Full review...
Greta and Cecil by Diana Souhami
The story of the notoriously reclusive film star from Sweden and the noted British photographer is a curious one. Neither ever married, both were androgynous and bisexual, plucked their eyebrows, and had numerous short-term relationships. They were like chalk and cheese; Beaton was a compulsive writer and diarist, while Garbo was reluctant to pick up a pen even to sign her own name. He adored parties, publicity, dressing up in frocks and photographing himself or posing for others behind the lens (he couldn’t look more feminine in two pictures of him in frocks by Dorothy Wilding from 1925 if he tried), while she was very much an early bed at night person, preferred to wear unfussy men’s clothes, and was reluctant to be photographed at all if she could help it. It is significant that the one picture of them together in the book, taken in London in 1951, shows her deliberately hiding her face behind what looks like a handbag. Full review...
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
There's little doubt that Brian Kimberling's debut novel, Snapper is a slightly unusual book. The publishers describe it as a coming of age story, and it is after a fashion, but it's more in the vein of an adult looking back on his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at things. The narrator, Nathan, shares many of the traits of his creator. Like Kimberling, he is brought up in Indiana and is involved in research of songbirds in that state; effectively a paid bird watcher. The title of the book though comes not from any type of bird, but from the snapping turtle that lives in the state. It's a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosiers'. Full review...
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
I can only describe Lost and Found as a work of art. The story is beautiful in its simplicity, and the illustrations also have a magical quality to them. I have read criticism of some of Jeffers' early works for his style of drawing, especially the thin stick like legs of the The Boy. The critics seem to have fallen silent on this book though and there is nothing but praise for it. The boy is not the most realistic drawing of a child I have seen, but there is something special about it, some unique presence that sets this book apart from other books. It is not a crude drawing, but a very individualised, artistic expression of Jeffers' style, which is rapidly becoming a personal trademark. The rest of his illustrations are simple and uncluttered as well. Many depict only the main characters, a single prop on a white background. Another picture shows only a few house with a darkened sky, a full moon and stars. Full review...
It Wasn't Me (The Hueys) by Oliver Jeffers
The title of this book will be familiar to every small child. I think it may be one of the first sentences many learn. The scenario will also be very familiar. The story is about a family, who usually get along very well. But just once in while - they don't. This just happens to be one of those times when they are not getting along at all, and Gillespie walks into a huge argument. He asks why they are fighting, but as mad as everyone is, no one can quite remember. A few start pointing fingers as to who started the fight, but each character insists he was not the one who started the row. They never do remember what caused the quarrel but eventually wander off for something a bit more exciting. Full review...
Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg
Grace and Mary is a tender and moving account spanning three generations of the same family. In the first chapter, we are introduced to ninety-two year old Mary and her doting son, John. Mary is in a nursing home and has dementia, hovering in a limbo-world, precariously balanced between the present and the past. John delights when he catches the occasional glimpse of the real Mary, and they find a meeting place, of sorts in their shared world of memories and songs. Full review...
Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 by Ian Irvine
The former heir Rixium is now just plain Rix as he flees his ancestral castle in Hightspall hotly pursued by the marauding Cythonians, invading his home along with his homeland. Accompanying Rix are Glynnie, a young maidservant and her little brother Benn. Hampered by his entanglement with the enemy resulting in the brutal loss of his right hand, Rix is also still mourning his best friend Tobry, killed when hurled from a tower. Meanwhile, Rix's other friend, a Pale and therefore ex-slave of the Cythonians, Tali has been kidnapped on the orders of the evil chancellor. He isn't the only one after her, just her current possessor. The other is Lyf, the Cythonian King who needs only one more of the legendary black pearls to secure his omnipotence, i.e. the black pearl embedded in Tali's head. Tali's escape from slavery came at a price, but the future for both her and Rix seems a lot more costly. Full review...
After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross
'We were looking at a long line of people trudging down a country road. They were loaded with bundles and backpacks and babies and they all looked miserable and exhausted. Refugees, I thought automatically. But they weren't. They were people like us.'
After Armageddon Monday - the collapse of all the major banks in the UK - life has become increasingly difficult for Matt and his family. Money is worthless. Food is the main currency. People who have it are resented and hated. They're named and shamed on hoarder websites and subject to violent raids by those who don't. Matt's family has more food than most because they have an allotment and have set up a trading network. But the raiders don't care about how they got their food. They just want it. Full review...
Primrose by Alex T Smith
Princess Primrose is bored, bored, bored! Everyone is so formal, so serious and proper, and Primrose just longs to have some fun. Everyone in the palace is constantly telling her off, telling her what not to do. The Queen is worried about her, wondering how Primrose will ever learn to behave like a proper princess. In the end they decide that they must call in Grandmama, for surely if anyone can make Primrose behave it's Grandmama! Full review...
4 Bones Sleeping by Gerald Wixey
There's quite a contrast between the settings in 4 Bones Sleeping. To begin with there's the time. Just about everything that happens goes back to the end of the Second World War and just afterwards, when people were coming to terms with having won the war, but not quite knowing what to do with the peace. Then there's 1980 when we wondered if we'd won the war, but lost the peace. The places are very different too: the people involved in this story have their being in the seedier parts of London in the post-war years, but what are they all doing in a one-horse town in rural Oxfordshire? And where did the money come from which allowed Jack to own the local newspaper and make Harry the landlord of the pub? Full review...
The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke
Kate is as sensible, focused and down to earth as her sister Mia is reckless and unsettled, so it’s no surprise that it’s Mia who leaves London behind to go traveling. With dreams of seeing the USA, Australia and beyond, Mia sets off excitedly with her best friend Finn, but this once in a lifetime trip tragically becomes just that as some months later Mia is found dead in Bali, an apparent suicide plunge. With her life thrown into turmoil and unable to get past the things they said, and didn’t say, to each other when Mia was alive, Kate makes a rather Mia-like decision to leave it all behind too. Armed with Mia’s travel journey, she sets off to retrace her sister’s steps, stop by stop, to try and work out what Mia was going through, and what ultimately lead to her death. Full review...
The Woodpecker Menace by Ted Olinger
The Key Peninsula is a small spur of land on the Puget Sound in Washington state, shaped - you guessed it - like a key. Its resident are disparate and include both incomers and those who'd see themselves as pioneer settlers. But they're joined in a communal sense of island living. It's on a much smaller scale, but I think most British people can feel affinity with identifying as an islander. It flavours our relationship with continental Europe in so many ways. Full review...
Claude in the Spotlight by Alex T Smith
You have met Claude, haven't you? He's a funny, plump little dog whose best friend is Sir Bobblysock and the two of them frequently get themselves embroiled in all sorts of adventures. This time Claude heads, accidentally, towards a career on stage. But something is amiss in the theatre. Can Claude help save the show? Full review...
Diary Of Dorkius Maximus by Tim Collins
The Diary of Dorkius Maximus begins very much like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, only instead of journal bought by the protagonist's mother, we have a scroll bought by his father. Like Greg Heffley, the main character in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dorkius Maximus has set out to record his childhood as a record of how he rose to greatness - once he becomes a Great Roman Hero. Full review...
The Holiday Home by Fern Britton
Pru and Connie might be sisters but they're as different as chalk and cheese. It's always been like this. Pru is the elder, although not by much and she's a hard-nosed businesswoman who always gets what she wants. Husband Francis was acquired in much the same way that you might employ staff - and that's his function. He looks after Pru and their son Jeremy. Connie, on the other hand, is a homebody - married to Greg (who runs her parents' family business) and mother to Abigail their sixteen-going-on-seventeen year old daughter. There's another difference too. Francis is pure of heart and an honest man, largely unappreciated by his wife, but Greg, although Connie believes differently, is a philandering little sh.. Full review...
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Spanning the period from just before World War One to the end of World War Two, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life tells the story of Ursula Todd. Or more accurately, it tells the potential stories of Ursula Todd. If you've seen the movie Sliding Doors then you will have some idea of the concept Atkinson explores; that of small changes in life leading to different outcomes, many of which lead to tragic endings but strangely the book manages to be a celebration of the spirit of Ursula and is often quite uplifting. It's a book that sounds like it is going to be much more confusing than it is though and the result is a very special book indeed. It's that rare thing of a book that has a strong literary style but which is also very readable. Full review...
Tom Gates is Absolutely Fantastic (at some things) by Liz Pichon
The Tom Gates books follow a rapidly-becoming-familiar diary format with plenty of childlike doodles for illustrations. They follow the life a very ordinary boy. In this particular book, Tom faces everyday issues common to most children from family embarrassment, minor complaints about school and a three day school activity trip. Tom gets into difficulties due to forgetfulness, day dreams a lot and spends time with his best friend. There are plenty of jokes throughout, which children will relate to as most will face these issues, but in all honesty I found the book too ordinary. I didn't feel there was enough excitement to really interest a child, I wasn't terribly impressed by the artwork and I found the odd style of print distracting - but what do I know? After all, this book was not intended for middle aged mothers, it was intended for children, and while I was an expert at choosing just the right books for my son while he was younger, he has developed his own tastes as he has grown older and finding just the right books to keep his passion for reading alive has become more of a challenge. If I were reviewing this book based only on my experience of reading it - the resulting rating would be fairly low, but instead, I am trying to see this book through my sons eyes, and he really enjoyed it. Full review...
Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne
Adamma Okomma, daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, isn't keen on moving to boarding school, even the exclusive Crofton College in Wiltshire. However, after arriving there, she quickly makes friends with the beautiful but unpredictable Scarlett. What seems like a beautiful friendship, though, is torn apart when both girls fall for the same guy. After Scarlett goes missing, can Adamma put their problems behind her? Full review...
