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. We can even direct you to help for custom book reviews!
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Miraculous Miranda by Siobhan Parkinson
It's Old Bear's birthday, and so all the other toys are planning something. In fact lots of somethings: gifts, a cake, a proper celebration. It's wonderful. Elsie the elephant has even made him a present, the talented little thing. But then, as we soon find out, Elsie is good at many things: wrapping presents, baking cakes, blowing up balloons, singing. It's a lovely sunny day, so the toys gather outside but just as they finish setting things up, and just as Old Bear arrives, disaster strikes! Can the toys have a happy ending and find time to finish Old Bear's party?Miranda is a small girl with a big - no, a huge - imagination. She writes stories, tells jokes using wordplay and her favourite part of school is the Word of the Day competition, which she almost always wins. Unless best friend Caroline O'Rourke aka COR or annoying boy-in-the-class Darren Hoey pinches one of Miranda's words and pips her at the post that way, that is. Miranda is also quite soppy and emotional, unlike COR, who is sporty and blunt. Full review...
Happy Birthday Old Bear by Jane Hissey
It's Old Bear's birthday, and so all the other toys are planning something. In fact lots of somethings: gifts, a cake, a proper celebration. It's wonderful. Elsie the elephant has even made him a present, the talented little thing. But then, as we soon find out, Elsie is good at many things: wrapping presents, baking cakes, blowing up balloons, singing. It's a lovely sunny day, so the toys gather outside but just as they finish setting things up, and just as Old Bear arrives, disaster strikes! Can the toys have a happy ending and find time to finish Old Bear's party? Full review...
One Cheetah, One Cherry: A Book of Beautiful Numbers by Jackie Morris
Once you've seen anything illustrated by Jackie Morris you know that you'll get a book full of pictures, all of which you'd be delighted and proud to hang on your walls. One, Cheetah, One Cherry: A Book of Beautiful Numbers is no exception. We begin with just the one cherry, so red and shiny you are tempted to see if it's real, but you're put off by the next picture. The one cherry is joined by one cheetah and he's got a proprietorial paw resting across the shoulder of the cherry. You're not going to argue with him. Full review...
The Other Alice by Michelle Harrison
Alice hasn't met her traveller father very often, but there's one rule he always impresses upon her: never, ever leave a story unfinished. And for a gifted writer like Alice, that's easy – until she tackles a full-length novel and realises her imagination has dried up. She's a long way into the story before she discovers she has no idea how to finish it. And then she starts seeing shadows out of the corner of her eye, shapes that flit away into the dark as soon as she turns to look at them. Full review...
Dog Medicine: How My Dog Saved Me From Myself by Julie Barton
It was 1996 and Julie Barton was twenty-two years old and one year into her job in publishing in New York when she collapsed on the kitchen floor of her apartment in Manhattan. She was severely depressed, an illness provoked, on the face of it, but the end of a destructive romantic relationship - or was it the end? Will kept coming back, in the early hours of the morning, sleeping with her, then leaving again. When Julie collapsed all she could think to do was to ring her mother who drove from Ohio to New York and took her home. Despite the best intentions of her parents and therapists, Julie seemed unable to break out of the depression, until she finally made just one positive decision - to adopt a Golden Retriever puppy whom she called Bunker Hill. Full review...
The Countenance Divine by Michael Hughes
In 1999, a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something.
In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master.
In 1777, an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns.
And in 1666, poet and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries later.
But where does the feeling come from that the world is about to end? Full review...
Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)
There's a bunch of rock stacks – four of them, even if their name implies only three – off the coast of Iceland. The largest is a tall and thin lump of rock, hazardous to anyone on it, and home to a crumbling and inoperable helipad and a small, squat lighthouse – not the lighthouse of your imagination, but a perky concrete cabin, not needing any more than the one room to house the gear and the lantern on top. Replacing some of that gear and surveying the site is a group of four people – specialist workers, and a photographer to capture it all. So why and how do we know their story ends in tragedy – two of them cast to the waters below, and a third seemingly stabbed before the prologue is over? And why is their narrative interspersed with that of a woman, struggling with work in the police and seemingly with a haunted garage, the scene of her husband's failed suicide, and also that of a family returning home from a house-swap trip to Florida to find something they really didn't want to have waiting? Full review...
Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
This is the debut novel from Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, but you would never know it. It is an accomplished, unusual, poetically written story about a young Japanese girl, Yuki Oyama, who has lived most of her life in New York. As such, she feels an outsider: the American girls at school ignore her and she finds the rituals of her parents' home suffocating. Her father has hopes of her studying medicine, but the only thing Yuki enjoys is art. Full review...
A Whisper of Horses by Zillah Bethell
A Whisper of Horses is set in a dystopian future, where most living things have been long since eradicated by 'the Gases.' The few remaining survivors try to eke out a living in the ruined city of Lahn Dan, split into three distinct class groups: Lead (Pb), Copper (Cu) and Gold (Au). Serendipity, a young Pb girl has always been fascinated by the statues and artworks in the city, which depict riders on majestic horses. Of course, she has never seen a real horse; no-one has. When Serendipity finds a map that hints that there may still be horses living in 'Grey Britan', she makes the brave decision to try and escape the walled city to go in search of her dream. Full review...
Prince Arthur: The Tudor King Who Never Was by Sean Cunningham
Prince Arthur was the eldest son of Henry VII. Had he lived longer, there might have been no Henry VIII, thus paving the way for a very large counterfactual 'what if' in British history. The name Arthur, that of the mythical King several centuries earlier, had great expectations attached, never to be fulfilled. Full review...
Constellation by Adrien Bosc
October 28, 1949. 02:51, following reports of good weather and visibility on, the pilot makes contact; the flight has reach 3,000 feet, he has the airport in sight, he is preparing to land. The estimated time of arrival came and went, the landing had not happened. A search is initiated, which eventually establishes that the carrier had crashed into a mountainside in the Azores, killing all 37 of its passengers and all 11 of its crew. Full review...
Spectacles by Sue Perkins
A dash of drama, a sprinkling of gossip and a smattering of laugh-out-loud funny make for the best sort of memoir. Full review...
The Strays by Emily Bitto
Lily comes from an ordinary suburban family, but on her first day at a new school she meets Eva: the super-confident middle daughter of artist Evan Trentham. The girls fast become firm friends, to the exclusion of all those ar ound them and it isn't long before Lily is spending more time at the Trentham's than she does at home. Why wouldn't she? Their life is everything her family's isn't. Full review...
Boy X by Dan Smith
When Ash McCarthy wakes up in some sort of medical facility he immediately knows something is wrong. But he doesn't suspect just how much until he steps outside and finds himself on a remote tropical island. Then he smells the blood and begins to find the bodies. A deadly virus has been released and, to make matters worse, it's being taken off the island to be sold as a weapon that could wipe out humanity. The antidote is being taken with it and, unless Ash can stop them within 24 hours, everyone on the island who has been infected (including Ash's mum) will die. Full review...
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
I wasn't sure what to expect when I asked for this book to review. It claims on the front cover to be not exactly a memoir, and it isn't. Yet, also, it kind of is. In fact, I would struggle to describe or decipher exactly what it is. It is so unlike any book I've ever read before. Full review...
Through the Mirror Door by Sarah Baker
Angela doesn't like her Aunt or cousins but living them with has to better than the series of children's homes she's had to put up with. She's, therefore, determined to bite her tongue and behave like an angel when she's invited to join their family holiday in France. Her cousins don't make this easy but Angela soon has bigger concerns to occupy her mind – namely the mysterious boy on the other side of the Mirror Door and the fact that he appears to be dying, alone and uncared for in 1898. Full review...
The Witch's Kiss by Katharine Corr and Elizabeth Corr
Merry is an average teenager. She's also a witch. She's trying not to be, but she is. Then Jack comes into her life and she can't help falling under his spell. One problem – he's part of an evil, centuries-old curse that Merry now has to break. If Merry has lost her heart, will she lose her life too? Or can true love's kiss save the day? Being a witch is dangerous – but being in love is even worse… Full review...
Warrior Bronze (Gods and Warriors Book 5) by Michelle Paver
Hooray and boohoo! The final instalment of Michelle Paver's Gods and Warriors series has arrived. This series is set in the Bronze Age amid the Greek civilisations of the mainland (Mycenaean) and Crete (Minoan). Our two central characters represent both: Hylas, the boy searching for his sister, is Mycenaean, and Pirra, the daughter of a high priestess, is Minoan. Together, they are trying to defeat the evil Crows who are ravaging lands far and wide. But to do that, they need to retrieve the dagger of Kronos from deep inside Crow territory. If they fail, the evil gods known as the Angry Ones will rule all the land and all the people. Full review...
The Chicken Nugget Ambush by Mark Lowery
Roman Garstang and his class are embarking on their school residential trip to Farm View Outdoor Survival Centre. Events leading up to departure day mean than Roman is not all that excited about the visit - mostly due to the jam doughnut incident which in turn leads to a solely chicken nugget diet prescribed by his doctor. Well, not exactly prescribed by his doctor, but this was the message his mum chose to hear. A typical school residential setting provides the backdrop for exploring children's relationship when they are away from home. Some of his class mates are fully prepared for the trip, others shudder at the thought of a bit of mud in their finger nails and a stereotypical survival 'expert' in Mad Dan leads the children on their adventure. Full review...
The Creeper Man by Dawn Kurtagich
The Creeper Man won't get you if you just stay away from the woods
In 1980 three little girls summon a protector out of Python Wood. But with a grinning mouth and without eyes, The Creeper Man is not their protector.
In 2016 two sisters, Silla and Nori, runaway from London and their cruel father to La Baume, the country house in which their crazy Aunt Cath lives. Away from fear and hurt, the girls are finally happy and loved. They're finally safe… Until the trees start moving closer. Full review...
The A-Z of Victorian Crime by Neil R A Bell, Trevor N Bond, Kate Clarke and M W Oldridge
Victorian crime has never ceased to cast its spell. Is it because such terrible goings-on took place sufficiently long ago that they do not disgust us in the same way as equally dreadful events from, say, the last few days of which we read from today's papers or online coverage? Whatever the reason, there is an endless fascination with murders and other major transgressions of the law from the era of gas lamps and swirling fog – true Victorian melodrama, misbehaviour and horror from real life writ large. It is amply catered for in this title, the joint work of four authors. Full review...
The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso
I often claim to know most of my history from reading story books (a.k.a. novels). Sometimes, however, you need to know the history before you have a context in which to sit the story. Portugal is one of those countries about which I know quite literally nothing, and in 1975 I was about twelve years old – old enough to register that there was a war going on in somewhere called Angola, but back then, there were wars going on all over the place. Western European empires around the world were in their death throes. Some went more peacefully than others, albeit none of them trailing much glory in their wake. Full review...
Holy Sh*t: A brief history of swearing by Melissa Mohr
Holy Sh*t as the name suggests looks at both swearing, in Biblical terms, to swearing, also usually in Biblical terms but with rather more emphasis on the act, rather than the deity. This book takes the reader on a journey from the Old Testament, when swearing your allegiance to the one true God was a prerequisite for staying alive, to the Middle Ages where swearing on the same God was punishable by rather grisly death. That takes care of the Holy, now onto the part you are really interested in, the Sh*t. Full review...
The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian England by Jenifer Roberts
The name of Yolande Stephens (nee Duvernay) is not that well-known in the annals of Victorian England, but behind it lies an enthralling rags-to-riches saga. How did a young girl born into poverty in Paris become one of the most celebrated ballerinas of her time in England, and after that one of the richest women in the country, with a fortune on her death which rivalled that of Queen Victoria? Full review...
Owl Song at Dawn by Emma Claire Sweeney
Maeve Maloney runs the Sea View Lodge guest house that her parents ran before her. The house has harboured many memories for Maeve over the past 80-years-plus, most of which she's managed to keep at bay. However, her suppression is endangered when Vincent comes to call. Far from being an ordinary guest, Vincent is a link to that past Maeve thought she'd outrun but now has to relive. Add that to trying to teach Steph and Len to fib effectively and life becomes very difficult indeed. Full review...
Sing to Silent Stones: Violet's War (Sing to Silent Stones 1) by David Snell
Although born to Victorian parents, Violet is a modern Edwardian young woman. She believes in women's suffrage and the right to fall in love with whomever she chooses. Her choice is Frank Balfour, one of her father's employees which is not without its problems. Encouragingly for some people around Violet, as war darkens the nation's mood, Frank goes to do his bit. This leaves Violet with more than memories of their fond farewell; Frank leaves her a son. What follows feels like the end of her life to Violet but it's just the beginning of adventures that will take her to war too; behind enemy lines to witness dark days and amazing bravery. Full review...
REMADE (Remade 1) by Alex Scarrow
It started as one of those news stories no one really paid too much attention to, just another virus infection in a faraway country. But as knowledge of the pathogen and its capabilities spreads, the medics, biologists, epidemiologists are the first to realise that the world is staring at an extinction level event. With no species barrier and seemingly limitless transmission capability, the virus is utterly unstoppable, mercilessly liquidizing its victims, leaving just bare bones and tufts of hair as a reminder of what once was. Leon was never cut out to be a hero, but fortuitous circumstances find him somehow among a small group who manage to escape the initial purge. However, as Leon tries desperately to look after his injured younger sister, Grace, he soon comes to realise that the ever-looming threat of the virus is far from the only danger in this post-apocalyptic world. Full review...
50 Things You Should Know About Space by Raman Prinja
Space is a cold and desolate place, but learning about it does not need to be. Nothing else quite captures the immensity that is Space – all the stars and planets out there that could contain alien life. How can you capture this majesty and put it onto a page so that you inspire the youth of today to be the astronauts and astronomers of tomorrow? A series of dry fact is perhaps not the best option, unless they happen to be a very specific type of child. Full review...
