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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Super Happy Magic Forest by Matty Long
The Lord of the Rings has an impressive legacy, both as a trilogy of books and films. Its impact on the fantasy genre as a whole is almost immeasurable – in many ways the genre exists because of these books. Frodo and co. also lives on within the people who love and cherish the books and the fantasy genre as a whole, but how do you spark this enthusiasm in your kids? Matty Long may just have come up with a cunning plan. Full review...
Out of Bounds by Bruce Hugman
Author Bruce Hugman has been a school teacher, probation officer, smallholder, university lecturer, PR Professional, is an international communications consultant and teacher in healthcare and patient safety. Having nursed two partners through the final stages of AIDS, and survived the 2004 Asian Tsunami. A varied and interesting life then – and it is the first thirty years of it that Hugman chooses to concentrate on here. Full review...
Thunderbirds are Go Official Guide
It's time to admit that I am old. I remember the first series of Thunderbirds from Saturday morning kids' cinema – an episode of that, then a second-run film, both for a quid. They were only ten years old or so then, but at least that proved the franchise was durable. Nothing did that quite as much, however, as the news a couple of years ago that the Anderson estate was to allow a CG updating, bringing a new generation of people to the massed audience. Amid the usual worries about it losing everything that made it special, it actually did pretty well when it aired in 2015 – even with a breakfast time transmission slot. This small(ish) format hardback is, bar the annual, the very first chance to look at an official book concerning the series, and inasmuch as it inspired me to research the return, and certainly accept it as looking a worthy addition to the canon, it succeeds on all fronts. Full review...
Nelly and the Quest for Captain Peabody by Roland Chambers and Ella Okstad
Ella's father, Captain Peabody, sailed away when she was a baby. He remembered her birthday once or twice sending her a gift of painted snails and an egg which hatched into a visionary turtle. This turtle, Columbus, has grown to become Ella's closest friend and companion as her mother sits silently knitting and nothing more has been heard from her father. There may be a lesson about parental inadequacy and unreliability here but if so it's understated. I have rarely met a less angst-ridden heroine than Ella though she can give a firm lecture about keeping one's promises. Full review...
I Wish I had a Pirate Hat by Roger Stevens
I was worried, initially, that all these poems were going to be about pirates. How would Roger Stevens keep the interest going if he was confined to the staple diet of treasure maps and skull and cross bones? In fact there are only three pirate poems but they are the first three and the book cover gives little indication of the variety within. I Wish I had a Pirate Hat contains forty five poems grouped into Fun Time, School Time, Home Time. No poem is longer than a page and there’s sufficient range of form and tone to keep one reading. There’s also sufficient consistency to allow one to drop in at random and with confidence. Full review...
The Great White Man-Eating Shark by Margharet Mahy and Jonathan Allen
This is the story of Norvin who was a good actor but rather plain. In fact he looked like a shark… There were not many parts in the world of theatre for boys who looked like sharks so Norvin took up swimming. Soon he was able to shoot through the water like a silver arrow but he found it tedious having to share the delightful space of Caramel Cove with all the other swimmers. Almost every young reader will be able to guess what Norvin did next – but they might not anticipate the way in which his plan goes wrong. Full review...
Last Resort (A Bob Skinner Mystery) by Quintin Jardine
In the space of a year life has changed dramatically for Bob Skinner. He's not going to be head of Police Service Scotland - he withdrew his application - and his third marriage went to the wall quite dramatically. On the other hand he's back with his second wife, Sarah, who's getting rather annoyed at the way he's moping around now that he's on gardening leave. She's the one who persuades him to go to his house in Spain to sort himself out. It's a cathartic trip: an old friend asks him to investigate the disappearance of a trusted employee and Skinner discovers that he himself is the target of a 'true crime' author. If nothing else he realises that what he's been missing in the job of late is the hands-on investigation. At least he's not moping any more... Full review...
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter about People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
Neurotribes is is an ambitious book. It aims to challenge the widely-held perception that autism is a disability, or a developmental delay. One of my favourite quotes from the book is this:
One way to understand neurodiversity is to think in terms of 'human operating systems' instead of diagnostic labels... Just because a computer is not running Windows doesn't mean that it's broken.
This refreshing approach underpins the whole of this ground-breaking work, which is essentially a potted-history of autism from the distant past to the present day. It will fascinate and enlighten anyone with an interest in the subject, or who is affected, directly or indirectly, by the condition. For autistic people, this book represents their roots; their cultural history, and illustrates how far the autistic community have come over the past few decades. Full review...
Stars: A Family Guide to the Night Sky by Adam Ford
If an innovative book and a beautiful piece of art got together and had offspring, the result would probably look a lot like an Ivy Press publication. This publisher never ceases to impress and their books are the kind of ones that you keep to pass onto subsequent generations. With this in mind, I was excited to receive a lovely children's book called Stars: A Family Guide to the Night Sky for review, which invites families to explore the cosmos from your own backyard. Would it live up to the standard of its predecessors? I was getting starry-eyed in anticipation... Full review...
Smile by Michelle Magorian and Sam Usher
Josh is tired, fed up and feeling put out and ignored. No, he isn't having a tantrum – something big has happened (well, two things actually) and his world has turned upside down. You see The Howler has arrived and everything has changed and not, so far, for the better. Baby brother Charlie is just seventeen days old and is not only taking up all of his parents' time, but also stopping everyone in the house from getting enough sleep with his constant howling. Will the crying 'ever' stop? And there's worse because the really terrible thing is the baby's arrival meant a very special event had to be cancelled. Full review...
Sherlock Holmes - The Thinking Engine by James Lovegrove
In this hyper-connected world, it is not difficult to conceive of machines that can answer perplexing questions in the blink of an eye, communicate over a vast network or even seemingly outsmart humans. Of course, in the year 1895, such a machine would be viewed with deep suspicion and curiosity; hailed as a miracle, or condemned as the work of dark supernatural forces. James Lovegrove put this idea to the test in his latest Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Thinking Engine, which pits man against machine in the ultimate battle of wits. Full review...
Jacqueline the Singing Crow by Mandi Kujawa and Claude St Aubin
Meet Jacqueline the crow. She's perfectly happy up in Canada, with a whole forest of trees to choose from, enough to eat, and a whole sky into which she can thrust her birdsong in celebration. She has, in fact, a lot to crow about. Until she hears humans talk of her as drably black, dumb, and ugly to both look at and to hear. What she chooses to do as a response is a surprise worth discovering in this large format picture book. Full review...
Brain Twisters: The Science of Thinking and Feeling by Clive Gifford and Professor Anil Seth
Meet the brain. We all have one. We all use it (and by 'it' I mean a heck of a lot more of it than the 10% of urban myth) every second of the day. We engage with different parts of it for balance, catching a ball, memorising a list of moves in controlling a video game character, or understanding things ranging from written instruction to body language. It's such a vital part of the body, taking up 20% of our glucose fuel intake as well as of oxygen, that understanding of it cannot come at too young an age. But in this varied and complex book, looking at a varied and complex subject, I do wonder if the right approach has been taken at all times. Full review...
The Wonder Garden: Wander through the world's wildest habitats and discover more than 80 amazing animals by Jenny Broom and Kristjana S Williams
Is it any wonder that this book calls the outside world The Wonder Garden? I know things in fiction books, on TV and in games can be fabulous, but can they compete – really – with what nature has presented? You only need a gate through which to go, and a willingness to explore. This book provides those gates – there they are, shining luxuriously on the cover of this jumbo-sized hardback. And in five easy-to-take steps, the rest of the book provides for that exploration, taking us down south in Amazonia, down below the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, and up – to deserts and mountains, via Germany's own Black Forest. And the trip is nothing if not spectacular to look at. Full review...
City Atlas: Discover the world with 30 city maps by Martin Haake and Georgia Cherry
It's not every time I mention the feel of the book I'm reviewing, but this time it's worth a mention. This volume has been lavishly presented in a roughened card cover, as opposed to the gloss of others in this format from this publisher, and so looks and feels like an old stamp catalogue. The title image is indeed a stamp, stuck on the centre of the cover. And just as all stamps the world over are practically the same yet completely different in design, so are the world's cities. The point of this book is to bring the common elements as well as the unique features of all the world's capitals to the fore, to show that while a city may be a city is a city, their constant variety is what makes each and every one worth a visit. With that being on the costly side, this is a decent enough substitute. Full review...
The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale and LeUyen Pham
Princess Magnolia has a double life. On one hand she has a perfectly prim, proper and pink castle turret to live in, on the other she has a secret escape tunnel. On her head she has a tiara, on her finger a monster alarm. Her life is also full of threats – on one side a horrid, blue, goat-eating beastie, on the other a prim and proper visitor intent on finding out if the perfect Princess has any secrets. Well we know she has, but will they be discovered – and which is the greater threat? Full review...
The Art of Possible by Kate Tojeiro
As I recently wrote on this website, I started reading management manuals and self-improvement books at a time when my life was not going so great. Since then, it seems that they have continued to drop into my life just as I need them. I'm sure there's something to the science of "serendipity", which basically means we notice stuff more when it's what we need. Full review...
The Astrologer's Daughter by Rebecca Lim
Horary Astrology is an ancient branch of horoscopic astrology in which an astrologer attempts to answer a question asked at an exact time by the construction of a horoscope around it. Clear as mud? Yes, me too. Suffice to say, an horary astrologer would have to be a very gifted individual indeed and Avicenna Crowe's mother, Joanne, is such an astrologer. In fact, her predictive powers have been uncannily exact for her whole life and with such a gift comes an assortment of negative aspects; stalkers and maniacally obsessed clients at the bad end of the scale to, well, worse. Sometimes much worse… Full review...
Demon Road by Derek Landy
Amber Lamont was a relatively ordinary 16-year-old, living a pretty quiet, uneventful life; she went to school, had a part-time job, and a decent relationship with her aloof but loving parents. But over the course of just one day everything goes completely to hell. Amber discovers that she can turn into a demon, a genuine, red-skinned, satanic monster, with horns and talons that can rip a human to shreds. Her demon side is the least of her problems, however. For Amber's parents are also demons, and now that her powers have manifested, they are intent on eating her and absorbing her power for themselves. Amber finds herself on the run, travelling the Demon Road across America in a desperate attempt to escape her parents, accompanied by Milo, an enigmatic guardian, who has dark secrets of his own. Full review...
Dandelion Angel by C B Calico
In her Author's Note, debut novelist C.B. Calico reveals that Dandelion Angel was inspired by a non-fiction work, Understanding the Borderline Mother by Christine Ann Lawson. The four mother/daughter relationships in this Germany-set novel – all marked to some extent by dysfunction, physical and/or verbal abuse, and borderline personality disorder – are based on Lawson's metaphorical classifications: the hermit, the queen, the waif, and the witch. Looping back through her four storylines in three complete cycles, Calico shows how mental illness is rooted in childhood experiences and can go on to affect a whole family. Full review...
The Commando Entrepreneur by Damian McKinney
It always helps to know the bias of anyone reviewing a book for you, so cards on the table: I am something of a "self-help" / "self-improvement" junkie. I use both expressions because it's often difficult to know where the boundary between management text books and teach-yourself-a-better-way-to-live books lies. Full review...
Dark Benediction by Walter M Miller Jr
Walter M. Miller Jr is rightly placed among the science fiction giants H.G. Wells, Michael Moorcock, and Philip K. Dick in the Masterworks series, a large selection of genre-defining writers and works at the centre of what is now such a popular and diverse range of literatures, films, and television productions. Miller is considered one of the finest science fiction writers of the 1950s, and in Dark Benediction, fourteen of this author's best short stories are brought together in one collection. Full review...
Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur by Joan Aiken and Quentin Blake
If you think about all the many unsuitable items that Mortimer the raven has eaten, from staircases to bowler hats, it's surprising that he's still in as good a shape as he is. This time, Mortimer finds himself left alone with Mrs Jones' sewing machine. I'm still not sure why Mrs Jones ever lets him out of her sight, since he has an unerring capacity for trouble, yet here we find him, gobbling down the pink material that is intended for Arabel's new dress, swiftly followed by the needle! When Mortimer eventually discovers the foot pedal that makes the sewing machine go he and Arabel are turfed out of the house and allowed to go across the road to the park where a crowd has gathered around an interesting find in a large hole… Full review...
Thunderstruck by Elizabeth McCracken
I chose to review this collection of short stories with no prior knowledge of the author's work – often the best way to do it, though I am aware that McCracken's work comes highly commended. After reading these stories, I can see why and I am already looking forward to reading more of her work. Full review...
The Silent History by Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett
Well, they kept this quiet – for reasons that will become obvious. A couple of years ago people in America were giving birth to problematic kids. They (the children) were soon found to be unnaturally quiet – perhaps crying with hunger or pain, but never even trying to 'ooga-wooga' their way into their parents' hearts. They were later found to be completely unable to speak, they could not read and indeed they could not understand anything said to them, or shown them, as an instruction. They were physically unable to parse anything as language, and were in a silent world of their own. But right about now they and we are combining worlds – schools are being set up, and funds are being made available, and people are coming down on the endless divide as to whether they are just problematic, disabled – or even the blessed. In a couple of years, however, the problems the virus that is causing these people to be born with will be shown to be a major problem – and that is before the kids themselves change. For they will be able to switch their mental abilities much like a blind man can hear more than the average, and will be able to comprehend body and facial language much more coherently than anyone else. Throughout this timeline, however, people will be working hard to try and study the problem, and put it right – if indeed 'right' is the correct word… Full review...
Between Gods by Alison Pick
Alison Pick's paternal grandparents escaped Czechoslovakia just before the Holocaust by bribing the Nazis for visas to Canada; the rest of the family died in Auschwitz. They spent their whole lives trying to pass as Christians, and Pick's father, too, was reluctant to have anything to do with Judaism. Pick only learned he was Jewish through a conversation overheard when she was 11. Full review...
