Book Reviews From The Bookbag
The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a 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. We can even direct you to help for custom book reviews! Visit www.everychildareader.org to get free writing tips and www.genecaresearchreports.com will help you get your paper written for free.
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Invictus by Ryan Graudin
It's the 24th century and human beings have cracked the secret of time travel. Farway Gaius McCarthy is 17 and dreams of following in his mother's footsteps as a Recorder for the Corps of Central Time Travellers. If he succeeds, he is determined to track down Empra, who disappeared on a mission when her son was just 7. But Farway tanks his final exam and his ambitions seem crushed. He's given another chance by Lux, a black marketeer who employs teams of rogue time travellers to plunder the past of its artifacts - artifacts that fetch fortunes in credits in the Central Time world. Full review...
Culture and Society 1780-1950 by Raymond Williams
From the last decades of the eighteenth century to the final words of modernism, this book tracks societal changes through exploring five key words: industry, democracy, class, art and culture. The meanings of such things, their essence, changes as per their use and the era in which their implications were considered. Full review...
Sinful Words by Hesene Mete
When we meet him, Behram is a student at the school of theology. He loves God with a passion and has a determination to live a life dedicated to God and to live by His rules. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and his wife, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visit. It's a delightful place and the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleum, but it's not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children and Behram is taken, enthralled by the daughter, Nagina. Full review...
The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory
It was 1360 and Michaelhouse was in dire financial straits: they could last a little longer but not that long. Then it seemed that a lifeline might have been thrown to them when they heard that the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh of the Suffolk town of Clare was dead and it was possible that The Lady, as she was known, had left them a legacy. It seemed that the best thing to do was to go to Clare to claim the money (or to try and prove that it had been intended and should therefore be paid) with all haste. The real mission could be concealed behind the bald statement that they were there to attend the funeral. Matthew Bartholomew was one of the contingent from Michaelhouse. Full review...
S.T.A.G.S by M A Bennett
One weekend. Three deadly activities. Greer MacDonald is a new student at the prestigious St Aidan the Great Boarding School, known to its exclusive pupils as S.T.A.G.S. It is a school where technology is absent, the teachers are replaced by friars, and a group of elite students –known as the Medievals – run the school. When Greer inexplicably receives an invitation from the Medievals to spend a weekend at the stately home of Henry de Warlencourt, the most popular boy at school, she is too curious decline such an invitation. But little does Greer realise that there is more to the weekend than she initially understands. Ultimately she and the other two students who have been invited must come together to uncover the truth about the infamous Medievals, and the blood sports they have been chosen to take part in. Full review...
Angelica Stone by Susi Osborne
I'd say that Angelica Stone was known as Angel to her friends, but she's not big on friends. She has the sort of background you dread hearing about: sexually abused as a child, grabbed by the care system and didn't so much fall through the cracks as escaped its clutches and then had to learn how to cope. She's been told that she's tainted, that she ruins every relationship without intending to and that she's best staying away from 'decent' people. One of her jobs is working in a supermarket and it's there that she meets Lola Moriarty and she's a completely different kettle of fish. Full review...
Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford
At the World's Fair in 1962, it seems that all eyes are focused on the future. The Space Needle dominates the landscape, filling people with anticipation about things to come. One visitor, however, has his mind firmly focused on the past. Ernest Young is helping his daughter Ju-ju with a story she is writing for her newspaper; a story about a young immigrant boy who was given away as a prize in a raffle at the World's Fair in 1909. Full review...
Before I Was Yours by Virginia Macgregor
Rosie can see clearly her future family in her mind. And when that doesn't happen, she adapts. So maybe she won't carry the baby inside her, but that lovely blonde girl at the adoption event could be their new daughter. Yes, she looks like she belongs to them already. It's meant to be. Except it's not. Rosie and Sam don't get to have a genetic child of their own, and they don't get to adopt the perfect blonde girl. They end up with the exact opposite: a boy from Kenya with a peculiar back story and an ardent wish not to be adopted. As optimistic as Rosie and Sam try to be, this isn't quite what they pictured or hoped for. Full review...
The Pongwiffy Stories 1: A Witch of Dirty Habits and The Goblins' Revenge by Kaye Umansky
Meet Pongwiffy. She must be the smelliest, ugliest, most slurpy, non-house-cleaning and all-round disgusting witch out there. She's forced to live alongside the noisiest, most stupid Goblins around, and it's with great reluctance that anyone ever comes to visit – and when they do they get acclaimed as her best friend. And she doesn't even have a familiar, either. She is a hopeless person. But when said 'best friend' forces her to advertise for a familiar, nobody could expect what turns up… Full review...
The Boy With One Name by J R Wallis
Jones is the boy with one name, snatched as an infant from his loving parents by a Badlander called Maitland, he only longs to be a normal boy and have his family back. One night, he and Maitland are on patrol and come across an ogre 'moon-bathing.' Things don't go quite to plan; enter: Ruby, a foster child on the run, who is desperate to be part of the Badlander's world, despite its dangers and terrors. Along with a talking gun, a miniature fire breathing black dog, an old camper van, and a hefty sprinkling of magic – you're sure to be taken on one hell of a ride. Full review...
The X-Files: Earth Children are Weird. A Picture Book by Jason Rekulak and Kim Smith
We know that Dana Scully and Fox Mulder didn't know each other as children, for they met much later on, at work for the FBI. But if they had, they may well have camped out in the back yard. They made have read scary stories to each other, but one thing is for sure – Mulder's imagination would have seen aliens everywhere. He would have seen mystery in the deep impression in the yard, horror in the shadows, and the unexplained in any vaguely mysterious noise. For that's what happens on the pages of this picture book – but that's not all that happens – the truth is something much more peculiar… Full review...
Princess of Blood by Tom Lloyd
Toil – unpredictable and dangerous even for an assassin, now wears the Princess of Blood on her jacket. Mercanery Lynx still has his doubts about her – but a new mission to escort a dignitary soon throws the old team back together. Travelling to an ancient city that conceals a mysterious labyrinth, the situations go from bad to worse, with new threats and worse horrors on every corner. The group argue and bicker as they go along – but will they be too concerned with their own disputes to see the far blacker evil that threatens to surround them? Full review...
Artemis by Andy Weir
Welcome to Artemis, the first city on the moon. A powerhouse for the rich and a once in a lifetime trip for earth tourists, and also a place a small community of citizens call home. Jazz Bashara is one such citizen. She came to Artemis with her father aged six, it's the only place she's ever known but she wouldn't say she's flourishing. In fact, the phrase most often used to describe Jazz is a waste of talent. Jazz lives in the low end of town, sleeping on a bunk, using a shared bathroom, which is all she can afford through her job as a porter. However, Jazz dreams above all else of being rich and to this end, she has set up a side business of illegal smuggling activity. When one of Jazz's regular clients wants her to step up from petty criminal to major criminal for a handsome reward, it is just too tempting to refuse. What Jazz doesn't know is all the facts behind what she is being asked to do. Full review...
The French Cashew Tree by Parrain Thorance
The place isn't given a name, but we can work out that it's in the Caribbean and it's here that Parrain Thorance had an idyllic childhood with his parents, brother and sister until he was eight years old. It was then that his mother died suddenly and the family was broken up: his brother and sister went to live with an aunt and Parrain stayed with his father - but an aunt and uncle moved into the family home. The aunt - his father's sister - was fine, but Parrain and her husband never got on. The easy, generous days of childhood, sitting under the titular French Cashew Tree might still be there superficially, but paradise would never be untainted again. Full review...
The Smell of Fresh Rain by Barney Shaw
The Smell of Fresh Rain attempts to open our minds to the power and potential of our sense of smell. Barney Shaw, a man armed with only a powerful curiosity and boundless enthusiasm sets out to understand this ever elusive sense and to explore ways to interpret smells in an accessible and simple way. His journey takes him from boatyards to markets via Harrods and his childhood home to uncover the meaning behind everyday scents and to distil the apparently complex nature of smell into language which is accessible and satisfying. Full review...
The Universe and Life but Not Everything by Anthony Christian Wright
I often wonder - usually after a moment of shaking my fist at the news on TV - what my manifesto for life and society would look like were I to write it down. I have all sorts of thoughts about these things, from the metaphysics of who we are and where we come from, right down to detailed critiques of quite insignificant government policies. I've never done such an exercise - mostly because I lack the time, the patience and the diligence required. It seems like an enormous task. Full review...
Cool Duck and Lots of Hats (Early Reader) by Elizabeth Dale and Giusi Capizzi
Children are a little like Pokemon; you may not be able to house them in a Pokeball, but they are always evolving. Your little kiddo may have spent the first couple of years or so intent to sit on your lap and listen to you read a story, but at some point they are going to want to read themselves. This is not the moment to lend them your copy of Lord of the Rings as their own first books will actually be simpler stories than the books that you have shared together. You need to know your ducks and your hats before you can tackle what on Earth a Gruffalo is. Full review...
My Name is Sam by Wes Stuart
Who is the real enemy? This is the question which confronts Sam, the champion of the Sereia in their cosmos-spanning war with the Gibbus, and the main character in this story. Sam is an unimposing boy who has no past and no memory of who he is, yet he possesses extraordinary abilities. He is also Earth's last hope for salvation from the Gibbus who, in seven days, will destroy the planet and everyone on it. This is not his choice however: that is the decision of the alien Sereia, his mentors and guides, as he is forced to confront this hazardous task. They have their own reasons for wanting Earth to be saved, but are too weak to challenge the Gibbus themselves. In their search for a human champion they find the unlikely and ill-prepared young boy, Sam – but this child is not quite as he appears… Full review...
The Gurugu Pledge by Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel
Juan Tomas Avila Laurel, one of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writers, is an author who deserves to be read the world over. With The Gurugu Pledge, he's captured a an angry and incredibly urgent slice of the migrant experience – a snapshot of the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent in search of the barbed wire fences at Melilla- the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Morocco. Full review...
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
An attractive, well-heeled woman enters a classically-minded funeral parlour in London, and makes plans for her own funeral. Within just a few hours, she's had lunch, engaged with business affairs – and been killed in her own home. Could anyone have foreseen the service to have been needed so quickly? That's the initial premise of this thriller, this most intriguing mystery, and if you want to read it – which is something you really should do – with no surprises, you should not read the book's blurb, or even the authorial biography, and perhaps not even the following. Just go in blind, and wait for the surprises – that start, as it happens, with chapter two… Full review...
Here Come the Superheroes by Neal Zetter and Chris White
I'm quite sure you're well aware of the spate of superhero movies doing the rounds these days, with any and every star of the comics page seemingly on the big screen – and the small. They're everywhere, and their numbers are only growing. But here is a unique chance to meet a few more – Mega Slug, Micro Girl, Magnetic Me, Sister Speed – even one calling himself the Ultimate Superhero. But we're not meeting them in a well-established comic universe, or with some horrid and convoluted back story. No, we're being introduced to them all in the format of verse – and for the young superhero and/or poetry fan this clearly has an instant appeal. Full review...
Where is Grandma? by Peter Schossow
Meet Henry. He's a young lad being taken by a nanny to hospital to check up on his grandma, who's in having had an accident. It's a shame, then, that said nanny is so busy yacking into her phone to look after him, for he ends up going off on his own adventure to find his gran. And what an adventure – babies being born, people with stomach problems, chemo, beans stuck up their nose… all life is here in this hospital, and both that and the lad's mishap are clearly and very pleasantly conveyed. Full review...
Iggy Peck's Big Project Book for Amazing Architects by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts
Out of all the things I wanted to be as a child, an architect was not one of them. Which is a shame, perhaps – I might have had a few Prince Charles-friendly ideas under my belt, and even if I hadn't exactly progressed at that I might have been more at ease at those stupid team-bonding 'build-a-this-or-that' exercises you are sometimes forced to undergo as an adult. I never knew I would ever hold any importance in my ability to draw buildings, conceptualise towns and create model structures of my own creations – partly because I knew I had no ability. But for the likes of Iggy Peck, the whole idea is never in doubt – he spends his entire time thinking of buildings and how to improve on the ones he knows. And so, for the duration of your engagement with these pages, will you. Full review...
The Waking by Matthew Smith
Isabel Sykes, 23, recounts the recent attempt she made to come to terms with the loss of her mother, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykes. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired by the appearance of Imogen Taylor, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD on her mother's work, Isabel plunges into the depths of her past and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems to be, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood in order to protect her family from more tragedy. She receives unexpected help from beyond the grave: in the strange, glittering fragments of her mother's last, unfinished work, 'Midnightsong'. Full review...
The Warrior in the Mist by Ruth Eastham
Fracking is a big issue in some parts of the country, particularly in the north, and for Aidan, it means not only the destruction of the countryside he loves but a huge change in his life. Once they start blasting, his dad will lose his job caring for a rich landowner's horses, and he and Aidan will have to leave their home and their friends to live seventeen floors up in a tower block. But despite the protesters' determined efforts the blasting is going ahead, and there is only one small, faint hope – find the tomb of the warrior queen Boudicca, reputedly slaughtered nearby by the Romans in AD 61, so the area can be declared a World Heritage Site. Full review...
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida, makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss - who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married - and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late-night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labelled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight on politics in general.How does one go on after this? In Aviva's case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. She starts over as a wedding planner, tries to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident.But when, at the urging of others, she decides to run for public office herself, that long-ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet A. These days, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everything you've done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity. And it's only a matter of time until Aviva/Jane's daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect her. Full review...
