Book Reviews From The Bookbag
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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Tales from Schwartzgarten: The Woebegone Twins by Christopher William Hill
Not many people could possibly live in the town of Schwartzgarten by choice. The mortality rate is indecently high (rather like in those English country villages inhabited by amateur detectives), and the whole town exudes an atmosphere of menace and gloom. Let's face it, even the most confident estate agent would struggle to sell a property in Poisoner's Row, never mind in the vicinity of the Glue Factory or the Cinema of Blood. Full review...
What if Money Grew on Trees?: Asking the big questions about economics by David Boyle
In a climate of increasing economic uncertainty, we may often find ourselves exploring the big questions about money, finance and the global market. For example, during the recent downturn, experts were faced with such questions as What if we just kept printing more banknotes? and What would happen if the banks crashed again? These, and other thought-provoking speculative questions have been put to a team of experts and their answers have been recorded in a fascinating and absorbing little book called What if Money Grew on Trees? Full review...
Song of the Golden Hare by Jackie Morris
If you buy one picture book this year, make it this one. Not because it’s a good story, or because you know a child who would love it (both sound reasons), but because it is also a stunning work of art. The pictures are full of carefully observed wildlife and glorious colours. Every inch adds to the telling of the tale. Full review...
Posthumous Stories by David Rose (writer of short stories)
These sixteen short stories have one thing in common: lives, and plenty of them. We jump from the earthy banter of a road crew building speed humps to an interview pre-broadcast of a classical piece where the interviewer isn't getting the kind of answers for which he hopes. On the way we meet the least-mentioned Beatle, visit a world where people are paid to read for the many that don't and the man trying to remember his father through art to name but a few. For good measure there are a couple of Kafka-esque experiments that also work as ripping good yarns. Full review...
The School Inspector Calls! by Gervase Phinn
If you've read any of Gervase Phinn's fictionalized autobiographies (the Dales series), or either of the previous two volumes in this Little Village School set, you'll know what to expect here: cosy English fun set mostly around a primary school, full of Yorkshire dialect, quirky characters prone to malapropisms and many 'kids say the darndest things' moments. Full review...
Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence and Emperor Penguins by Gavin Francis
I know two books don't make a genre, but twice in recent years I have read autobiographical travelogues of men who felt too much was going on in their lives and their surroundings, and took themselves off to remote, isolated, extremely cold and inhospitable places. One went to the shores of Lake Baikal, and shared his days hunting, fishing, drinking and reading with only a few very distant neighbours. Gavin Francis took himself south, to the edge of the Antarctic ice, to spend a year as a scientific doctor. He wasn't able to be completely as alone as some have been in the past – even if he hid himself away in isolation before the week-long annual changeover of staff was through. Francis ends up with a baker's dozen of companions, in a place where – apart from the ice, sealing things up – only two lockable doors exist. You might think this was a large group of people for someone wanting to be alone, but the very tenuous and isolated feel of the place in the huge emptiness of the landscape is the main point of this book – that, and communing with emperor penguins… Full review...
Leaving Haven by Kathleen McCleary
After years of trying for a second child, Georgia is over the moon to conceive using an egg donated by her best friend Alice. The pregnancy progresses well and everything is looking rosy for Georgia and husband John until, with mere weeks to go, she uncovers a devastating secret that changes everything, including her ability to love her new baby, Haven. Full review...
As Serious As Death (Primavera Blackstone Mystery) by Quintin Jardine
Primavera Blackstone is determined to live a quiet life. She's happy in her role as a single parent to the late Oz Blackstone's three children (one of hers, two of someone else's - don't ask, it's complicated...) and living in a village on the Spanish coast suits her perfectly. She's OK with Liam Matthews too. He's not the love of her life but they rub along well together until Liam mentions the M word. Primavera doesn't want to get married and before long Liam is on his way. Problems never seem to come on their own - and the next one is the arrival of a retired policeman from her Scottish past. Ricky Ross is now a private detective and he's working for Jack Weighley, owner of a budget airline and a man whose PR makes him seem nicer than the reality would prove. Full review...
The Secret Staircase (Brambly Hedge) by Jill Barklem
Primrose and Wilfred have a poem to rehearse as part of the mouse community's midwinter celebrations, but nowhere to practice, until they are shunted up to an attic. But once there chance discoveries lead them to find a new world that they could hardly have imagined – luxurious rooms carved into the upper reaches of the oak tree, where nobody has gone for years… Full review...
Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories by Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott and others
It's basic knowledge that Doctor Who has changed a lot since first being seen fifty years ago – and I don't mean the title character, but the nature of the programme. It has gone from black and white, and cheaply produced, and declared disposable, to being an essential part of the BBC, full-gloss digital, and accessed in all manner of ways. So with the celebratory programme still ringing in our ears, and leaving people pressing a red button to see a programme about three Doctors, er, pressing a red button, we turn to other aspects of the birthday bonanza. Such as this book, which has also mutated in its much shorter lifespan, from being a loose collection of eleven short e-book novellas written by the blazing lights of YA writing, to a huge and brilliant paperback collecting everything within one set of covers. Full review...
How to Read a Novelist: Conversations with Writers by John Freeman
As a book reviewer there are certain people whom I hold in high regard and one of these is John Freeman. Not yet forty he has an enviable record as an editor to some of the big names in literature and it seems that every book of note for a decade and a half has been greeted by his review. Don't be misled by the title How to Read a Novelist - this isn't a guide to literary criticism, but a collection of Freeman's interviews with eminent authors. There are fifty six in total, ranging from literary giants such as Toni Morrison, Ian McEwan, Gunter Grass and Kazuo Ishiguro through to popular crime fiction writers such as Donna Leon. Full review...
A Mammoth in the Fridge by Michael Escoffier and Matthieu Maudet
One day, Noah opens the fridge and finds that there is a mammoth inside! His dad tells him not to be silly, but when he and mum open the fridge to check there, indeed, is a very large mammoth, squashed up inside! Whatever will they do to get him out? Full review...
The Currency of Paper by Alex Kovacs
Maximilian Sacheverell Hollingsworth was - as the name might suggest - of aristocratic birth, but had broken off all contact with his family and in consequence found himself labouring for forty hours a week in a printing works in Dagenham. He came upon the idea of planning out his entire life and this he did in the course of a single afternoon whilst enjoying a little illicit sick leave in a pub in Bloomsbury. He would first become a counterfeiter - on a massive scale - and then a sculptor, filmmaker, collector of artefacts, sound artist and mystic. Circumstances would also turn him into a recluse, except on certain well-ordered occasions, most of which would occur - somewhat to his initial surprise - later in his life. Full review...
Winter Cocktails: Mulled Ciders, Hot Toddies, Punches, Pitchers, and Cocktail Party Snacks by Maria Del Mar Sacasa and Tara Striano
I nearly didn't read this book - cocktails are not something which appear in our house - but fortunately I had a look at the subtitle and realised that mulled ciders, hot toddies, punches and pitchers appealed a great deal more. I'm never averse to something warm and reviving after being out in the winter cold. Even better is the fact that it all comes in a well-presented, hardback book which will stand a lot of duty in the kitchen. Full review...
Emily of New Moon: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery
I think I should confess, before I write this review, that I am a true Lucy Maud Montgomery geek! I have loved her books since I was a little girl, and I have read them so many times that the covers are worn and faded and her stories live inside of me, at least in part making me who I am. I wrote my masters dissertation on her books. I went to Prince Edward Island, Canada, for a conference about her works. I came back with a bottle of red sand and a heart full of memories. If anyone ever mentions Anne of Green Gables in my presence my eyes get very large and I get very excited (and my husband rolls his eyes...) So it is with trepidation that I sit down to review one of her books. Bear with me, I will try not to geek out too much, and I will do my best to be fair! Full review...
What If Einstein Was Wrong?: Asking the Big Questions About Physics by Brian Clegg
What if Einstein Was Wrong? is a beautifully presented book written by a team of scientific experts attempting to answer some of the most intriguing What If? questions about physics, cosmology, technology and relativity. The result is an accessible storehouse of information, written in user-friendly format, which can be dipped into from time to time whether it be to impress friends at dinner parties, or simply to find out the answers to long-burning questions like: What if You Could Journey Into the Past? Full review...
Alice Through the Looking Glass by Emma Chichester Clark
As a child, I found the Alice stories weird and a bit dark. Helena Bonham Carter in book form, perhaps. Not for everyone, no matter how many times the word Classic was bandied around, identifying them as a Very Good Thing that everyone should have read. If this was your experience of the original Lewis Carroll, then put those thoughts to one side for a moment and let me tell you about this book. It’s the original story, re-told and re-illustrated, and what a difference it makes. Full review...
Binary by Michael Crichton
Switch on TV over the holiday season and you will eventually stumble across a show about celebrities before they were famous. Sit back and watch Hollywood Royalty gurn on an advert or appear in an early episode of ‘Grange Hill’. Working before you hit the limelight does not happen solely to actors; authors often had a life before they put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard). Indeed, the likes of Stephen King, Jack Higgins and many others had a prolific career under a nom de plume. Michael Crichton is another such author and after his untimely death 1998 we will be unlikely to see any new works by him. Thankfully, the publisher Titan Books has gone back to his earlier days under the name John Lange to re-release some of his hardboiled crime fiction. Full review...
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies is told in an alternating first person point of view, switching back and forth between R a zombie who has retained a bit more of the power of thought than most, and Julie, a feisty and courageous heroine, who has been through horrible hardships, but retained an ability to truly care about others. In short, R has far more humanity than the average zombie, but Julie also held on to more of the traits that I feel truly make us human in a world where kindness and unselfish love have become even more endangered than the human race itself. Two other characters are important to this storyline, M, R's best friend and Nora, Julie's closest friend and confidant. I especially liked Nora, who has suffered far more than Julie, and yet still is willing to put aside past hurt, but M has his redeeming points as well. Full review...
The New Hunger: The Prequel to Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
I normally review a book within a day or two of finishing it. I couldn't with this one. I loved this book, but I did feel dissatisfied with the ending, and I thought perhaps I was missing something - and I was. This book was written as a prequel, and most of the readers will have already read Warm Bodies. I found something so unique in Isaac Marion's writing style, and something about this book so compelling that I couldn't quite bear to rate it down, but neither was I happy with a 5 star rating with such as lacklustre ending. It felt like half a book to me. So - in order to review this fairly - I felt I had to read the author's first book. After reading it I am no longer disappointed in the ending. It isn't after all the end - it is just the beginning of one of the best books I have ever read. Full review...
Sky on Fire (Monument 14) by Emmy Laybourne
We left our supermarket kids when they split up at the end of Monument 14. Niko, Alex and six others were taking the school bus to try to save Brayden who had been shot and to find the US military evacuation team. Dean, Astrid and three of the little ones had stayed behind - it was too risky to take pregnant Astrid into the poisoned outside. And when we say poisoned, we mean it. A bioweapons accident had left the air toxic in different ways to different people, depending on their blood group. Nobody knows where Jake is. Full review...
World After (Penryn and the End of Days Book 2) by Susan Ee
Penryn successfully (depending on how you look at things) liberated her little sister Paige from the sick experiments of the angels now ruling over the world. Believed to be dead at the start of the story, Penryn finds herself at the control centre of the human resistance movement whose treatment of her sister and other victims of angel brutality seems less than human. In order to protect her sister she feels the need to leave the resistance and risk life in the nearly destroyed world amongst predators such as angels and even more horrifying creations spawned by the angels. All the while Pen clings to the hope of a reunion with Raffe, the angel responsible for saving her life and true owner of the powerful sword she carries with her. Full review...
A Treasury of Fairy Tales by Helen Cresswell
Once upon a time, in a village not so far away, a mother and her son received a parcel. In that parcel was ‘A Treasury of Fairy Tales’, kindly sent by the publisher Harper Collins. They curled up on the sofa and started to read… would they be enchanted? Full review...
Of Lions and Unicorns: A Lifetime of Tales from the Master Storyteller by Michael Morpurgo
Of Lions and Unicorns is a collection of short stories and extracts from Morpurgo’s most popular books. The book is split into five sections, which focus on recurring themes in his writing. Full review...
Inside The Centre: The Life of J Robert Oppenheimer by Ray Monk
Thinking back to the early 1960s, Bertrand Russell, the subject of another prize winning biography by Ray Monk, was frequently seen on black and white television declaring his concerns over Nuclear Weapons. He stated, 'Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.' For nearly seventy years, mankind has wondered in the words of Sting, 'How can I save my boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?' As concerns about nuclear proliferation in relation to Iraq, Pakistan and North Korea escalate it is salutary to return to a thorough biography of the man, known as the father of the bomb, that felt a deep and urgent need to be at the centre and to belong, J Robert Oppenheimer. Full review...
