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<metadesc>Book review site, with books from most walks of literary life; fiction, biography, crime, cookery and children's books plus author interviews and top tens.</metadesc><h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|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 , the charity shop 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 [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[Featuresfeatures]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page.

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{{newreview'''Read [[:Category:Features|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and Kaminski|rating=4the latest features]].5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=After reviewing several long books, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as ''Kaminski and Me''. In it, Sebastian Zollner, the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminski, the proposed subject, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general public.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe1780724047|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story A Dictionary of British Light EntertainmentInteresting and Important Dogs|author=Peter J Conradi

|genre=EntertainmentPets|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down uponI struggle to resist a book about dogs, as if itbut I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I's ve never encountered a bit naffdog who wasn't interesting or important - and probably both, tepid I was expecting a massive tome. But ''A Dictionary of Interesting and ignorable. WhatImportant Dogs'' is actually ''a rich compendium of the world's often forgotten is that most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's hugely popularcertainly a rich treasure trove. We begin with Peter J Conradi's four collies: Cloudy, enjoyable Sky. Bradley and much of it Max. They're consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is of the highest quality. Louis BarfeConradi's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story love for each and every one of British light entertainmentthem. I knew that I was in safe hands.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4Frontpage|genre=For Sharing|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a song. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|authorisbn=Joseph Delaney 1785769294|title=The Spook's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', and on Man at the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook Window (a sort of monster-hunterDetective Cardilini) who falls in love with a witch and is forced to bear the consequences when the witch's sister comes to stay and exhibits a taste for the neighbor-children.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Unger|title=Die For YouRobert Jeffreys|rating=34.5

|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly It's when we read that a young boy is married creeping reluctantly to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises a teacher's bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked Nowadays you ''might'' hope that something would be done about it fairly quickly but this was 1965 and ends up child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part of the child. The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in hospital, while his co-workers are killedthe most horrific fashion. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by dead on the betrayalfloor, and the realisation that shetop of his skull missing. The school's initial reaction was that this was a dreadful accident: there had been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands cull of kangaroos in some nearby fields and sets out to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds it was obviously a tale stray bullet which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelshad killed the Captain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa McMann1786695227|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother is going to provide much Invisible in the way of resources. College is Janie's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBright Light|author=Jaclyn Moriarty |title=The Spell Book of Listen Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Listen Taylor's father has just moved in with his girlfriend and they are adopted into the Zing family, with all of its delightful eccentricities and unusual behaviour – the Zings meet every Friday night for dinner and then disappear into the garden shed to work on the 'Zing Family Secret'. Marbie Zing is terrified of doing something wrong and losing Nathaniel and Listen. Her sister Fancy is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her home life, and her daughter's year two teacher is coming to terms with a break up. The stories of these people come together to create a tale of life, love, and ultimately, what being part of a family means.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330446363</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=F G Cottam|title=The Magdalena Curse|rating=2.5|genre=Horror|summary=Mark Hunter is the sort of father who would do anything for his son. After losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, his surviving son Adam has become his whole world. And Adam is an exceptional child – beautiful, incredibly smart and mature beyond his ten years – only recently he's been channelling the voices of the dead. Plagued by horrific dreams, able to speak Russian in the hours after he wakes, drawing occult symbols when he doodles, Hunter believes Adam to be possessed. Doctor Elizabeth Bancroft is sceptical, until she meets Adam, and witnesses the horrors the poor boy endures for herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980982</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jon Berkeley|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Sally Gardner

|summary=I shall start with a word The beginning of advice. When you're being hounded by this excellent story will leave the reader more than a circus masterlittle confused: who is the man in the green suit, what is the Reckoning, and a magician, for the soul why are rows of a tiger that's contained people in a tiger's egg that's contained cave? But stick with it – Ms Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the same disorientation as our heroine. We watch in dismay as the brain of your teddy bearstrange man, who seems to have no eyes, and your does his best friend - a fallen angel - is trying to persuade her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyanswer his questions. Still - never mindBut for some reason Celeste, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud citiesdespite her bewilderment, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new remains wary and old will be on board to helpgives nothing away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1912374854|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewViolet|author=Lauren Kate|title=Fallen|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious and impossibly good-looking boy, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to her, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight'', but it certainly has striking similarities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gareth Hinds|title=King Lear|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Hound me out of town in a most appropriate manner, but S J I do not like King Lear. For me, even as a trained actor, the language is too dense and rich, the set-up too archly unfeasible to create the great tragedy it's thought to be. To my mind the acclaim and esteem in which it's held is only mirrored by its own over-long, over-blown blustering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0763643440</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaHolliday

|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Set I've never been but understand that travelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people in India, familiar territory for Theroux, often chance situations. Well that''A Dead Hand'' tells s exactly what happens when the story of two main/only characters meet in a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a chance letter from refund on an American exextra ticket for the Trans-Siberian train and Violet is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the same sold-patout journey. As the two team up, travelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russia, it could've been the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story start of a mystery of beautiful friendship but this a dead body in thriller after all so it quickly becomes a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about tale of obsession , manipulation and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmstoxic friendships. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toby Lester1912374838|title=The Fourth Part of the World: The Epic Story of History's Greatest Map|rating=4.5|genre=History|summary=In 2003 a map was bought for $10 million, the highest price ever paid publicly for a historical document, by the Library of Congress, where it is now on permanent public display. No ordinary map, this is sometimes described as America's birth certificate. It is the sole survivor of a thousand copies printed early in the 16th century, and was discovered by accident in some archives in a German castle in 1901. The sale and story behind it intrigued Toby Lester so much that he was inspired to discover more, and this book is the result.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861978030</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewNothing Important Happened Today|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andy Stanton|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over the place. Meat is getting thrown around like it's going out of fashion, and we have to doubt whether Polly and her companions can ever utilise the power of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Loose Women|title=Here Come the GirlsWill Carver

|genre=Home and FamilyGeneral Fiction|summary=This Nothing Important Happened Today is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV seriesa dark, twisted, ''Loose Women''difficult read. Just as promised on the coverStories about cults often are, but this book is an entertaining night different; it's written with the girls. It turns out a sense of style that theyis quite unlike anything I're just like usve read before. The faces are already familiar and even if you donI can't know them yet, remember ever having read a novel with nine contributorssuch an odd, you'll soon find distinctive narrative voice. While a like-minded woman behind one of slim and relatively small book, the celebrity faces. The women are universally warmslow-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down with a group moving nature of friends for the eveningplot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Urewilliamabbey|title=Fortune CookieThe Pursuit of William Abbey|author=Claire North|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Fudge Cassidy and When William Abbey fails to prevent the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you lynching of a certain film then you'd be spot on as thatyoung boy in 1880's where Fudge's father got South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the idea fromgrieving mother. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with weight of the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcakecurse upon him, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title=The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life as the shadow of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined dead boy begins to become follow him across the first female monarch in Portuguese historyworld. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them)Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had the misfortune to be born mountains in during the 'age pursuit of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacyWilliam. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach As he finds himself unable to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine resist speaking the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Well, with a title like truths that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out he hears in Morecambeothers, then he also learns that the next thing dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to kill the one he knows he's in loves the ultimate waiting room, with a strange array of animals (a bat, a toad, a sea urchin...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>most…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers1643785036|title=The Wild ThingsWondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E Martin

|summary=Meet MaxThose who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon'', and Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemies. When I say he sometimes gets If you've watched the wrong end of the stick about adultsrelationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, or dislikes his motheryou's new boyfriendd have said that they were magnets, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsdrawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. He is a bit Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end of the artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but a rascal to say the leastfine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. But all that might change when As time has worn on, he finds himself travelling 's frequently been brought to a strange land the attention of roisterous animals, the police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and ends up installed as their kingtheft of ''The Hay Wagon''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongMary H.K. Choi|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Permanent Record

|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station Pablo, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodega. He's massively in Alaska. She loves the ice debt, he's avoiding his mother, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he's surprised to discover that the wilderness of her remote home girl he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and she'd definitely prefer , as unlikely as it may seem, they start a relationship. With one character who is trying very hard not to spend her time on tracking polar bears be seen or noticed by anyone, and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers the other who is seen and enjoying college followed and home comforts back in Fairbanks. Howeverhounded by everyone all over the world, things arenit't all rosys an interesting clash as they come together. Cassie This isn's mother died when she was t just a baby love story though, and she canactually it's really just Pab't help feeling a huge hole s story, about the journey he takes in her heart. Her scientist father is remote and unloving and her grandmother left the station after an argument his life via his meet-up with him when Cassie was still very youngLeanna Smart. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>0349003459

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry1609809319|title=The WideLong-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know the joke about the wideHaired Cat-mouthed frog? You must have heard it. It's a classic. It's one that you really need to tell in person, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide open, but to hopefully spark your memory, the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself to a number of animals until he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogs, and the frog does his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing it justice, but it's very cheesy and funny. Anyway, this is a book of that joke.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBoy Cub|author=Dr Aaron Carroll Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Dr Rachel Vreeman|title=Don't Swallow Your GumSondra Silverston (translator)

|summary=Violet One day a boy is in the zoo with his father, when the man gets called away on urgent business. The boy isn't hustled into a very special hippocab and taken home first, though, no – he's given hot dog money, and taxi money, and told to just stick around on his own and enjoy himself. She is extremely small but Well, it's no surprise that does not the orphan-for-an-afternoon sensation the lad feels doesn't make her adoptive parents Albert him happy, and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverso he thinks of a species name for himself, and curls himself up into an empty cage, they are slightly worried that Violet has as if he were a very unusual habit of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reasonnew exhibit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk> And it's then the drama begins…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Dixon1785785516|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin

|genre=Literary FictionLifestyle|summary=Arthur Transcombe is Manners maketh man, they say. It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a middle-agedset of conventions, grey-hairedsome of which are ages old and other which have evolved over time. Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get an invitation to Buckingham Palace, self-effacing poet. they have nothing to do with class or financial status: Unremarkable really - on they're about getting the outsidebasics right before we try to deal with more difficult matters. He hasOf course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and friends, however, managed but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and to achieve some success with his poemsact appropriately. (Being a guest speaker at ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)way. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A J Healy0008324859|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic KnightsFowl Twins|author=Eoin Colfer|rating=3.5

|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. HeRelax, everyone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but the baddies aren's t getting away with skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe Fowl family to be a gang of heroic detectives charged contend with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planetThose cute little twins are now eleven (and, frankly, cute no longer) and in this, or the solar systemtheir first independent adventure, or they meet a troll and without even trying manage to make two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with immortality whatever the galaxycost (to other people), but EVERYTHINGand an unusual interrogator-nun. Nobody seems to know what's going to cause this destructionThe boys are chased, or whenkidnapped, but he arrested and his friends and their ship seem to be even killed (though not for long), all with the only people proactively going about saving the day. So it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill themhelp of one trainee fairy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1472255798|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasBad Fire (Bob Skinner)|author=Quintin Jardine

|genre=BiographyCrime|summary=When I was in my early teens, it sometimes seemed as if Terry-Thomas was one Nine years ago local councillor Marcia Brown took her own life after being accused of shoplifting from a local supermarket. It's always been assumed that she couldn't live with the shame. People were surprised that she committed suicide just before the stars of almost every other five-star British comedy film aroundcourt case when she had been adamant that she would fight to clear her name. He She said that she'd been set up because she was certainly one hot on the trail of corruption in the most recognizable characters of all with his gapcouncil. Her ex-toothed grinhusband has contacted Alex Skinner, cigarette holder and inimitable 'Hel-lo!Solicitor Advocate as well as retired Police Constable Bob Skinner's daughter, and asked that she look into clearing Brown'Hard cheese!s name: it', and best s something which he feels that he has to do in memory of all, the angry, 'You're an absolute shower!'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845134419</amazonuk>his son who was murdered recently.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Jay ParkerB07X6GLQ3Q|title=Stop MeSee Them Run|author=Marion Todd|rating=3.54

|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most of us will have had D I Clare Mackay is still relatively new to deal with themSt Andrew's: she was previously at Maryhill Rd station in Glasgow. Fortunately, we can hit She's left quite a lot behind including a relationship that wasn't going anywhere after Tom failed to support her when the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they camechips were down. I certainly prefer She also left a nasty situation, of her own making but not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish onher fault, no matter how bad my luck and St Andrew's is supposed to become if I dona fresh start. Not long into the job she's faced with a hit and run death and there's little doubt that it wasn'taccidental - the card with the number five suggests murder. But I wonder how many of us would react if a spam E-Mail actually Andy Robb was married to Sandra. You could say that they had an open marriage but there seemed to be a matter lot of life the 'open' and deathvery little of the 'marriage' left - on both sides, rather than just claiming to bebut would she want him dead?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeanette Winterson1786540991|title=The Battle of the SunImpossible Boy|author=Ben Brooks|rating=4.5

|summary=London 1601''Oleg and Emma entered their den to find a cardboard spaceship standing where they usually sat. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busySlowly, bustling placethe front door opened. Boats fill the river and people fill the streetsSmoke billowed out. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named MaxAnd out stepped a boy, who's a ''licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy dressed in the air and a tail wagging and a barkinglong coat with an even longer scarf, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delightwound around his neck.''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Love and Kisses|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever and were '"My name's Sebastian Cole," the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that isboy said, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to university. All "But you already know that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say "'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he worked. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Henry Mintzberg|title=Managing|rating=5|genre=Business and Finance|summary=''Study after study has shown that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How trueAnd indeed they do. Ever since the summer, though it always makes me wonder why, as a result, therewhen their friend Sarah's such a market for bulky management mother had moved her away, Oleg and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants Emma have been unable to read one ever find the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books in one, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book in one of two ways. Option one is to read every word, chapter by chapter, cover new friend to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitive, and quite thought-provokingtake her place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox1447281357|title=Blood BornSalvation Lost|author=Peter F Hamilton

|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=To give support to a vulnerable gangIn the twenty-rape victimthird century, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse humanity is enjoying a comparative utopia. Yet life on the day she Earth is due about to testify against the notorious Harbourn brotherschange, forever. But when Anya arrives at Feriton Kane's investigative team has discovered the house she finds Giverny close worst threat ever to death face mankind – and faces a battle against we've almost no time to save herfight back. In The supposedly benign Olyix plan to harvest humanity, in order to carry us to their god at the end of the panicuniverse. And as their agents conclude schemes down on earth, Anya fails vast warships converge above to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murdergather this cargo. Worse stillSome factions push for humanity to flee, to live in trying hiding amongst the stars – although only a chosen few would make it out in time. But others refuse to save break before the girl's lifestorm. As disaster looms, Anya has interfered with animosities must be set aside to focus on just one goal: wiping this enemy from the face of creation. Even if it means preparing for a crime scene and future this generation will never see.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471186393|title=Photographer of the case falls apartLost|author=Caroline Scott|rating=4. She blames herself for 5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there post. There is no letter or note with it. There is news nothing written on the back of another attackthe photograph. A pair It is a picture of sisters have her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technically, he has been stabbed and raped resulting in "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the death of oneword 'missing', while disbelieving the other clings to lifeword killed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leah Fleming1783784350|title=Remembrance DayThis Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain's Knitted History|author=Esther Rutter|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionHistory|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady It was December and Esther Rutter was stuck in her office job, writing to people she'd never met and preparing spreadsheets. The job frustrated her and even her knitting did not soothe her mind. January was going to be a wheelchair watches time for making changes and she decided that she would travel the unveiling length and breadth of the new war memorial in British Isles with occasional forays abroad, discovering and telling the story of wool's history and how it had made and changed the village squarelandscape. ThereShe's pride d grown up on a sheep farm in what has been achievedSuffolk - '' a free range child on the farm'' - and learned to spin, in the family who are gathered around knit and weave from her mother and there are memories tooher mother's friend. Some are good but many are notThis was in her blood.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Layton1401286208|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Black Canary: Ignite|author=Meg Cabot and Cara McGee

|summary=Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans Meet Dinah Lance. Frustrated that her policeman father will not allow her to try and follow in earlier volumeshis footsteps, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar and Arabella have nothing much else seemingly lumbered with being a cheerleader at school, she is desperate to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots find her voice. But it's actually more double periods a case of Difficult Sums. They're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during the holidays tooher voice finding her, but Oscar hasn't done as when she gets frustrated or plain dissed at school her vocal outcry can shatter glass better than any preparation andopera singer. You could almost call it a weapon, franklyor a power. But in order for her to call herself a superhero, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>there has to be a whole path of steps for her to take – one of which will be into her past…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1789017977|authortitle=Ursula Jones Ronnie and Sarah GibbHilda's Romance: Towards a New Life after World War II|titleauthor=The Princess Who Had No KingdomWendy Williams

|genre=Confident ReadersHistory|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse PrettyRonnie Williams was the son of Thomas Henry Williams (known as Harry) and Ethel Wall. She There's very polite, friendlysome doubt as to whether or not they were ever married or even Harry's birthdate: he claimed to have been born in 1863, but he was already many years older than Ethel and kind-hearted, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't he might well have shaved a kingdom of her ownfew years off his age. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, For a while the family was quite well-to-do but there's always disaster struck in the 1929 Depression and five-year-old Ronnie had to adjust to a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't very different lifestyle. One thing he did inherit from his father was his need to be well-turned-out and this would stay with him throughout his life. He joined the princess of anywherearmy at eighteen in 1942.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mij Kelly and Louise Nisbet1542015421|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasRoyal Baths Murder|author=J R Ellis|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Mouse doesnWhen Damian Penrose was murdered there was no shortage of suspects: he was a deeply unpleasant man. In fact the only surprising thing was that there wasn't like anyone and keeps herself more of a queue waiting to herselfdo the dirty deed. Her things are her things What was a bit of a headline maker was that Penrose was a crime writer and she is too selfish to share them with anyone else. One day, an old man moves that he was strangled in to Mousethe midst of Harrogate's housecrime writing festival. He used to be went for a swim at the happiest man in the world, but now he's sad. He's fed up of having given, given, given all his life Royal Baths and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserablereturned, so one day she decides to cheer him up his body being found by giving him a clementinethe receptionist. DCI Jim Oldroyd was the man tasked with investigating the crime..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Bland|title=The Very Cranky Bear|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Moose, Lion It would not be the only death, Zebra and Sheep head into a cave to get out it was only because of the rain, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him up, he roars at them, chasing them outside, so they decide to cheer him up somehow. Zebra paints stripes on him, Moose fashions antlers for him and Lion sticks a mane quick actions of straw on him. Unsurprisinglyhis sergeant, this makes Bear even crankierAndy Carter, so itthat Oldroyd's down to Sheep to save the daywas not one of them...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kes Gray and Lee WildishDaniel Kraus|title=Mum and Dad GlueBlood Sugar

|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=A young boyThis is a difficult read. And not because of the dark subject matter – that'll come later – but because of the way in which it's parents are splitting uptold. He's going through the usual emotions that children This might put a lot of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denialreaders off, and then trying to get be honest it'd be hard to blame them to stay together. His method for this isnKraus tells the story in a distinctive voice unlike any other I't the usual response though: he looks for glue to stick his mum ve read; an erratic dialect with heavy and dad togetherfrequent slang. ThankfullyThe immediate effect is disorientating and distracting, he finds and it takes some wise and kindly advice in the processtime to feel natural.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clara Vulliamy|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To Bed|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=It's Pearla struggle to acclimatise to Jody's bedtimevoice, to get acquainted with his mannerisms, but she says shethe story wouldn's really busy t be the same without it, and isnsomehow it works. It shouldn't going to sleep. She just wants to play and play and play. When the bear with sticky paws rings the doorbell, he whisks her away on an amazing adventure - although as you might expect, the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she but it does get a little sleepy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>1789091934