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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.

There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY[[image:Reviews}}''' reviews on the siteLeague games.jpg|center|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/primesignup/ref=acph_piv?tag=AssociateTrackingID=thebookbag-21]] <br>

==New Reviews=='''For new reviews by genre Want to find out more [[:Category:New ReviewsAbout Us|click hereabout us]].'''? __NOTOC__

'''For new features [[Features|click here]].'''__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world Reviews of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In this novella, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|ratingBest New Books=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid job, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning City|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshell, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at the rating and guessed the latter. I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. This is a debut that provokes decidedly mixed feelings. I started off convinced that I was going to love this book. The cover art is effortlessly cool, the premise intriguing, the characters laden with potential for greatness and the backdrop is certainly evocative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tove Jansson|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and Kaminski|rating=4.5|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-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>}} {{newreview|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if it's a bit naff, tepid and ignorable. What's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable and much of it is of the highest quality. Louis Barfe's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jim Helmore and Karen Wall|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!|rating=4|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''Read [[:Category: he sings his tomatoes a songNew Reviews|new reviews by category]]. The results are spectacular. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X'''</amazonukbr>}}

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph Delaney Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=The Spook's Stories: WitchesHonjin Murders

|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is married enough to make the book one to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinksread; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. But when her husband fails to return from work For those who need more, she realises something here is wrongthe extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s. Going to his office to try to find out what happens to him The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, she gets attacked and ends although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up in hospital, while his co-workers are killedwhat with it being arranged at great haste. Things get worse for She only has an uncle representing herfamily, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several yearsone thing. Either way, and the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayalcelebrations have gone ahead as planned, and the realisation that she's been living a lie only for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out wedded couple to find her husband and work out why he lied be slashed to her for so longdeath in their private annex before the sun rises on their marriage. Ignoring police warnings What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, she delves deeper and deeper into some mysterious use of a nasty underworldtraditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, and finds this case has a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one lot of her novelsthe peculiar about it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>1782275002

 {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|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 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>}} {{newreview|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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G CottamCixin Liu|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 heDeath'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)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I shall start with a word of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus master, and a magician, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - a fallen angel - is trying 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 trilogy. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud cities, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and back, and friends new and old will be on board to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsEnd

|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingIf I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, quite literallyI would have put it back on the shelf. Not because I didn't want to read it, but because I'd have figured out that it was the final part of a trilogy. Coming in part way through a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents saga is never the easiest thing to do and working in a bookshop. Itit'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 particularly true in science fiction because without knowing the provinces is back-story there are not as bad as she would like just people whose names mean nothing to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile you (when it's assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that you won'Jeremy Kylet understand. This latter is particularly true of Cixin Liu'' show, worrying over s work – his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet range is really the last thing he needsphenomenal. And yet George R R Martin, the worst is still to come. Think who knows a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, deaththing or two about world-creation, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – described itas ''s going to be a tough year for the Molesunique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, conspiracy theory and therecosmology''s little . All of that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himmore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>1784971650

 {{newreview|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 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 Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toby Lester|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>}} {{newreview|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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1780894511|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>}} {{newreviewDie Alone|author=Loose Women|title=Here Come the GirlsSimon Kernick

|genre=Home and FamilyThrillers|summary=This Ray Mason is in prison awaiting trial for murder and he's in the second volume by vulnerable prisoner unit: as a cop he's something of a target, but the unit is not as secure as the panelists from that nice ITV series, ''Loose Womeninmates would have hoped and Mason is injured in a riot. On his way to hospital he's broken free by armed men and an offer is made to him. He'. Just as promised on s to assassinate the cover, this book man who is an entertaining night with likely to become the girlscountry's next prime minister and he'll then be given a new identity so that he can start afresh abroad. It turns out His captors say that they're just like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributorsMI6, you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity facesbut Mason has his doubts. The women His choices are universally warm-hearted limited though and supportive: there will he has personal reasons to believe that it would be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as better if she sat down with a group of friends for the eveningAlastair Sheridan was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAkwaeke Emezi|title=Fortune CookiePet

|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Fudge Cassidy and The people of the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as town Lucille believe that's where Fudge's father got all the idea frommonsters are gone. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but 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 Their children are becoming more obvious. Add raised to this understand that her father couldn't cope with they were saved by the angels, those who rid the problems town of evil, and he now has another familythere are no monsters anymore. It's just CupcakeBut one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself, Joey and bleeds a little onto one of her mother – and not a lot of money's paintings.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jenifer Roberts|title= The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Born in 1734 in Lisbonblood awakens a bizarre, terrifying-looking creature named Pet, at who somehow comes to life and declares that time the richest and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined it is here to become hunt the first female monarch in Portuguese historymonster. Married Though Jam tries to her uncle Infante Pedroconvince it that all the monsters are gone, seventeen years her seniorPet is certain that there is one, she had six children (outliving all but one of them)still, and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious woman, she had that the misfortune to be born monster is hiding in during the 'age home of reason'her best friend, when church and state were vying for supremacy. Instinctively a supporter of the old religion, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantlyRedemption.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>0571355110

 {{newreview|author=David Hughes|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5Frontpage|genreisbn=Graphic Novels1686751680|summary=Well, with a title like that, need I bother with a plot summary? A man has a day out in Morecambe, then the next thing he knows he's in 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<My Mummy does weird things /amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaman fait des choses bizarres|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild ThingsAmelie Julien and Gustyawan

|genre=General FictionFor Sharing|summary=Meet Max. Which child doesn't think that there mother is, well, ''weird''? When I It might be that in the morning their mother doesn't like speaking much, when every self-respecting child knows that that is when you're at your brightest with lots to say he sometimes gets the wrong end ? ''Why'' then does Mummy stick her fingers in her ears? Then there's doing yoga in front of the stick about adultstelevision, or dislikes his motherwhich could be worrying if it wasn't so funny. We won's new boyfriendt go into too much detail about what goes on in the bathroom and the colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and frankly, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating less said the facts. He is a bit of a rascal better about her reactions to say your artistic efforts on the leastwall. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animalsI mean, and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>what else would you use paint for?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongJustine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog What Wonders Do You See... When You Dream?

|genre=Confident ReadersFor Sharing|summary=Trevor's troublesome dog, Streaker, 'The day has had three puppies. They were fatheredended''<br>''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>''But now, according to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like to keep them, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that heit's entitled time, to half of the money from the sale of the puppies, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and itsure''s up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!|amazonuk=<amazonukbr>0141327243''For an entirely different adventure'' </amazonukbr>}}

{{newreview|author=Sarah Beth Durst|title=Ice|rating=3I hope you haven't forgotten how it feels to be much too excited for bed.5|genre=Teens|summary=Cassie lives on If you're a parent at least, you'll know how it is to persuade an Arctic research station excited small person that yes, it is in Alaskafact time for bed. ''What Wonders DoYou See...'' sets out to cater to these children. She loves the ice and the wilderness Instead of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer trying to spend her persuade them that night time is calm time on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbanks. However, things aren't all rosyit takes a slightly different tack. Cassie's mother died when she was just It tells them that sleep is actually an exciting time: a baby time of dreams in which imagination takes over and she can't help feeling a huge hole has no limit. But the trick in her heart. Her scientist father accessing this wonderful and exciting world, is remote to get calm and unloving relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and her grandmother left open the station after an argument with him when Cassie was still very youngdoor to it. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>194812422X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain Smyth and Michael TerryHarris|title=The Wide-Mouthed FrogSolitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingLifestyle|summary=Do you know This is not the joke about the wide-mouthed frog? You must have heard book I was expecting itto be. It's a classic. It's one that you really need For some reason I expected it to be another self-help manual on how to tell in personfind calm, with your fingers pulling your mouth wide openhow to step outside the mainstream, but to hopefully spark your memoryit is not that at all. Instead of telling us how, it is more about the wide-mouthed frog introduces himself ''why''. Harries examines how we're eroding solitude, which used to be a number natural part of animals until our human life, and why that matters. Of course he finally comes across a crocodile who eats wide-mouthed frogstalks about how some people have found solitude and what has come of that, and eventually in the frog does final chapter he talks about his best to disguise who he is whilst saying ''Ooh, you don't see many own experience of those round here, do you?'' I'm hardly doing having deliberately sought it justiceout, but it's very cheesy mostly he wanders down the alleys and funny. Anyway, by-ways that his thinking about this is a book of that jokelost art led him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408804964</amazonuk>1847947662

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dr Aaron Carroll and Dr Rachel VreemanAndy Briggs|title=Don't Swallow Your GumCtrl+S

|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=Life in the near future'''BANG'''s not all bad. ThatWe's ve reversed global warming and fixed the sound of copious urban myths being shot downcollapsing bee population. We even created SPACE, a virtual-sensory universe where average guys like Theo Wilson can do almost anything they desire. '''BANG''But almost anything isn't enough for some. That's the sound of the old wives slamming the doorEvery day, normal people are being taken, as their tales get revealed as baselessemotions harvested - and lives traded - to create death-defying thrills for the rich and twisted. '''CLICK'''Now Theo’s mother has disappeared. ThatAnd as he follows her breadcrumb trail of clues, he's ll come up against the noise lots of illmost dangerous SPACE has to offer: vPolice, AI Bots and anarchists -informed websites make as they get closed downwell as a criminal empire that will kill to stop him finding her . . All noises come due to this brilliant book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043369</amazonuk>1409184641

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annie Taylor1609809378|title=VioletThe Rabbits' Rebellion|author=Ariel Dorfman and Chris Riddell

|summary=Violet is a very special hippoWe're in the realm of the rabbits, only the foxes and wolves have taken over. She is extremely small King Wolf, His Wolfiness, has declared the rabbits don't exist, but the pesky birds have spread rumours from awing that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the lessbunnies are in fact still around. However Demanding a propaganda spree, King Wolf orders a humble monkey to be his official portrait photographer, they are slightly worried that Violet has but whatever the poor innocent monkey prints out in his darkroom there is a very unusual habit distinct leporine hint. Can King Wolf succeed in proving himself victorious, can the rabbits show their continued existence to all who need to know of turning pink without warning it – and for no explicable reason.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>what can the poor monkey caught in between do?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonInnosanto Nagara|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveM is for Movement

|genre=Literary FictionEmerging Readers|summary=Arthur Transcombe Set in Indonesia, in the not too distant past, this is a middle-agedstory about social change. Dealing with some difficult issues, grey-hairedsuch as political corruption and nepotism, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - on the outsidebook is neither boring nor preachy. He hasIt educates gently, howeverwith vibrant, managed to achieve some success with his poemschallenging illustrations, and it portrays how social movements need people who will try, even when it seems that they will fail. (Being The message is a guest speaker at positive one; that in an increasingly uncertain world, we do still have the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)power to instigate change. He is also a babe magnet!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>1609809351

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A J Healy1780724047|title=Tommy Storm A Dictionary of Interesting and the Galactic KnightsImportant Dogs|author=Peter J Conradi|rating=3.54|genre=Confident ReadersPets|summary=Meet Tommy StormI struggle to resist a book about dogs, but I did wonder why this one was so ''thin'': given that I've never encountered a dog who wasn't interesting or important - and probably both, I was expecting a massive tome. HeBut 's one 'A Dictionary of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be Interesting and Important Dogs'' is actually ''a gang rich compendium of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHINGworld's most significant and beloved dogs'' and it's certainly a rich treasure trove. Nobody seems to know whatWe begin with Peter J Conradi's going to cause this destructionfour collies: Cloudy, or when, but he Sky. Bradley and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the dayMax. So itThey's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony whore consecutive rather than simultaneous dogs, but what comes over is Conradi's about to kill love for each and every one of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk> I knew that I was in safe hands.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham McCann1785769294|title=Bounder!: The Biography of Terry-ThomasMan at the Window (Detective Cardilini)|author=Robert Jeffreys

|summary=Spam E-Mails can be incredibly annoying, but most of us will have had to deal with them. Fortunately, It's when we can hit the delete button and forget about them as quickly as they came. I certainly prefer not to torture my friends by sending such rubbish on, no matter how bad my luck read that a young boy is supposed creeping reluctantly to become if I dona teacher'ts bedroom one October night that we realise something is badly wrong. But I wonder how many of us Nowadays you ''might'' hope that something would react if a spam E-Mail actually be done about it fairly quickly but this was a matter of life 1965 and death, rather than just claiming to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749007079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=The Battle child abuse was generally regarded as malicious mischief on the part of the Sun|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=London 1601child. Elizabeth I is getting on The boy would be safe that night though - albeit in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streetsmost horrific fashion. Jack is happy because it When he reached Captain Edmund's bedroom he found the man dead on the floor, the top of his birthday and his present is his heartskull missing. The school's desireinitial reaction was that this was a dreadful accident: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's there had been a ''licking cull of kangaroos in some nearby fields and it was obviously a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in stray bullet which had killed the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''Captain. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>

  {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1786695227|title=Love and KissesInvisible in a Bright Light|author=Sally Gardner

|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever and were The beginning of this excellent story will leave the reader more than a little confused: who is the man in the good girls. Neither missed schoolgreen suit, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that what isthe Reckoning, not so far. and why are rows of people in a cave? Up until then Tamsin had been But stick with it – Ms Gardner is very cleverly letting us experience the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universitysame disorientation as our heroine. All that seemed We watch in dismay as the strange man, who seems to change when she met Alex. Wellhave no eyes, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed does his wheelbarrow into best to persuade her, from the building site where he workedto answer his questions. OhBut for some reason Celeste, and did I mention that he was seventeendespite her bewilderment, Polish remains wary and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>gives nothing away.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Mintzberg1912374854|title=ManagingViolet|author=S J I Holliday|rating=3.5|genre=Business and FinanceThrillers|summary=I''Study after study has shown ve never been but understand that travelling is all about meeting new people and forming instantaneous bonds with people in often chance situations. Well that managers work at an unrelenting pace'' How true, though it always makes me wonder why, as s exactly what happens when the two main/only characters meet in a result, there's such travel agency in Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying to get a market refund on an extra ticket for bulky management the Trans-Siberian train and leadership and general business books like this oneViolet is trying to unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the same sold-out journey. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find As the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to thistwo team up, by providing two books in onetravelling through Mongolia, Serbia and into Russia, it is such could've been the start of a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read beautiful friendship but this book in one a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a tale of two ways. Option one is to read every word, chapter by chapter, cover to cover. If you have the time I would recommend this approach because the book is very readable, not too repetitiveobsession, manipulation and quite thought-provokingtoxic friendships.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kathryn Fox1912374838|title=Blood BornNothing Important Happened Today|author=Will Carver

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=To give support to Nothing Important Happened Today is a vulnerable gang-rape victimdark, twisted, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse on the day she is due to testify against the notorious Harbourn brothers. But when Anya arrives at the house she finds Giverny close to death and faces a battle against time to save herdifficult read. In the panicStories about cults often are, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether but this is different; it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse still, in trying to save the girl's life, Anya has interfered written with a crime scene and the case falls apartsense of style that is quite unlike anything I've read before. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news of another attackI can't remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. A pair of sisters have been stabbed While a slim and raped resulting in relatively small book, the death slow-moving nature of one, while the other clings to lifeplot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leah Flemingwilliamabbey|title=Remembrance Day|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in a wheelchair watches the unveiling The Pursuit of the new war memorial in the village square. There's pride in what has been achieved, in the family who are gathered around her and there are memories too. Some are good but many are not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWilliam Abbey|author=Neal Layton|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Claire North

|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Having successfully seen off When William Abbey fails to prevent the rather unpleasant humans lynching of a young boy in earlier volumes1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar as the shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods mountains in pursuit of Difficult SumsWilliam. They're supposed As he finds himself unable to be making presentations about what they did during resist speaking the holidays tootruths that he hears in others, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and, frankly, seeks to kill the one he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>loves the most…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb1643785036|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomWondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E Martin

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse PrettyHay Wagon'', and Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemies. She If you's very politeve watched the relationship, friendlyas has our narrator, and kind-heartedart dealer Jamie Helmsworth, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesnyou't d have a kingdom said that they were magnets, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enoughthe artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there's always was but a feeling that shefine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn on, he's not quite as good as them because she isn't frequently been brought to the attention of the princess police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of anywhere''The Hay Wagon''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mij Kelly and Louise NisbetMary H.K. Choi|title=The Happiest Man in the World or the Mouse Who Made ChristmasPermanent Record

|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Mouse doesnPablo, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodega. He's massively in debt, he't like anyone s avoiding his mother, and keeps herself he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he's surprised to herself. Her things are her things and she discover that the girl he is too selfish to share them chatting with anyone else. One dayas he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, an old man moves in to Mouse's housethey start a relationship. He used With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone, and the happiest man in other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, but now heit's sadan interesting clash as they come together. He This isn't just a love story though, and actually it's really just Pab's fed up of having givenstory, given, given all about the journey he takes in his life and never got anything back. He just sits quietly and mopes. This makes Mouse miserable, so one day she decides to cheer him via his meet-up by giving him a clementine..with Leanna Smart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340931558</amazonuk>0349003459

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bland1609809319|title=The Very Cranky BearLong-Haired Cat-Boy Cub|author=Etgar Keret, Aviel Basil and Sondra Silverston (translator)|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=MooseOne day a boy is in the zoo with his father, Lion, Zebra and Sheep head when the man gets called away on urgent business. The boy isn't hustled into a cave to get out of the raincab and taken home first, but little do they know that Bear is fast asleep in there. When they wake him upthough, no – he roars at them's given hot dog money, chasing them outsideand taxi money, so they decide and told to cheer him up somehowjust stick around on his own and enjoy himself. Zebra paints stripes on him Well, Moose fashions antlers it's no surprise that the orphan-for -an-afternoon sensation the lad feels doesn't make him happy, and Lion sticks so he thinks of a mane of straw on him. Unsurprisinglyspecies name for himself, this makes Bear even crankierand curls himself up into an empty cage, so as if he were a new exhibit. And it's down to Sheep to save then the day...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989424</amazonuk>drama begins…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kes Gray and Lee Wildish1785785516|title=Mum and Dad GlueFucking Good Manners|author=Simon Griffin

|genre=For SharingLifestyle|summary=A young boy's parents are splitting upManners maketh man, they say. He's going through the usual emotions that children It certainly makes life easier if everybody abides by a set of divorce go through: worry, feeling unsure, blaming himself, anger, denialconventions, some of which are ages old and then trying other which have evolved over time. Manners are not about how much to tip or how you should behave if you get them an invitation to stay together. His method for this isnBuckingham Palace, they have nothing to do with class or financial status: they't re about getting the usual response though: he looks for glue basics right before we try to stick his mum deal with more difficult matters. Of course we all have more relaxed manners when we're with family and dad together. Thankfullyfriends, he finds some wise but it's best if we learn to distinguish between our public and private lives and kindly advice in to act appropriately. ''Fucking Good Manners'' aims to help us on the processway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340957107</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clara Vulliamy0008324859|title=The Bear With Sticky Paws Won't Go To BedFowl Twins|author=Eoin Colfer|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It's Pearl's bedtimeRelax, everyone – our old friend Artemis may be off planet, but she says she's really busy and isnthe baddies aren't going getting away with skulduggery any time soon because they now have not one but two members of the Fowl family to sleepcontend with. She just wants to play Those cute little twins are now eleven (and play , frankly, cute no longer) and play. When the bear in this, their first independent adventure, they meet a troll and without even trying manage to make two deadly enemies: a nobleman obsessed with sticky paws rings immortality whatever the doorbellcost (to other people), he whisks her away on and an amazing adventure unusual interrogator- although as you might expectnun. The boys are chased, kidnapped, arrested and even killed (though not for long), all with the bear has a little more energy than Pearl and eventually she does get a little sleepyhelp of one trainee fairy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408300648</amazonuk>