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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__

{{newreview|author=Shirley Jackson|title=We Have Always Lived In The Castle|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world 'Read [[:Category:New Reviews|new reviews by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is deadcategory]]. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other people, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people of the village have always hated us', and tells us that she hates them too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonukbr>}}

'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].''' <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon WestonSeishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)|title=Nelson to the RescueThe Honjin Murders

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike To many readers, the Milkphrase 'locked room murder mystery's milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in is enough to make the stable at book one to read; preferably quantified by the back of the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks hewords 'clever' or 's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleeping. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mikegood's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our heroFor those who need more, Nelson, finds himself travelling down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see here is the danger extra background – we're in rural Japan in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companionsthe 1930s. In this novella, we meet a young mother who The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetablesalthough the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disprovedwhat with it being arranged at great haste. But after meeting with She only has an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into uncle representing her worldfamily, for one thing. She begins an affair with himEither way, begins to let things slip at home and with the childrencelebrations have gone ahead as planned, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by only for the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|rating=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 wedded couple to be. But the life she is leading is beginning slashed to take its toll. On death in their private annex before the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home townsun rises on their marriage. There, she meets someone familiar, What with a ghost reminding her man missing parts of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girlhis fingers being in the neighbourhood, full and some mysterious use of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living traditional musical instrument at 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 time of the girl.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Amanda Downum|title=The Drowning City|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=In a nutshellcrime, you're reading this because you're wondering whether The Drowning City is good, bad or mediocre. You've probably glanced at case has a lot of the rating and guessed the latter. I'm afraid peculiar about 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498149</amazonuk>1782275002

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tove JanssonCixin Liu|title=The True DeceiverDeath's End

|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will If I'd been paying more attention when I picked this book up, I would have come across Janssonput it back on the shelf. Not because I didn's work unwittinglyt want to read it, via but because I'd have figured out that it was the televised renditions final part of a trilogy. Coming in part way through a saga is never the Moomin taleseasiest thing to do and it's particularly true in science fiction because without knowing the back-story there are not just people whose names mean nothing to you (when it's assumed they will) but there are whole concepts that you won't understand. This latter is particularly true of Cixin Liu's work – his range is phenomenal. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced George R R Martin, who knows a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set thing or two about the translation into Englishworld-creation, first described it as ''a unique blend of The Summer Book scientific and then of a collection of short stories which were published as philosophical speculation, conspiracy theory and cosmology'A Winter Book'. All of that and more. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>1784971650

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Kehlmann 1780894511|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>}} {{newreviewDie Alone|author=Louis Barfe|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentSimon Kernick

|genre=EntertainmentThrillers|summary=Light entertainment Ray Mason is often looked down upon, as if it's a bit naff, tepid in prison awaiting trial for murder and ignorable. Whathe's often forgotten is that it's hugely popular, enjoyable and much of it is of in the highest quality. Louis Barfevulnerable prisoner unit: as a cop he's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story something 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-Offa target, 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 unit is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Delaney |title=The Spook's Stories: Witches|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary='Warning: Not to be read after dark,' are not as secure as the only words on the back of ''The Spook's Stories'', inmates would have hoped and on the inside flap, 'The Times' warns us that this book Mason is 'seriously scary'...  The whole thing kicks-off relatively tamely, though, with a story about a young Spook (a sort of monster-hunter) who falls injured 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-childrenriot.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329961</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Unger|title=Die For You|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to On his office to try to find out what happens way to him, she gets attacked and ends up in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by the betrayal, and the realisation that shehe's been living a lie for the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands broken free by armed men and sets out an offer is made to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so longhim. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Janie is seventeen and studying hard for college. She He's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home to earn money for college as it's unlikely her alcoholic mother assassinate the man who is going likely to provide much in become the way of resources. College is Janiecountry's only chance at a life better than the one she's lived so far next prime minister and so you canhe'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 ll 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 be given 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 new identity so that 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)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I shall can start with a word of adviceafresh abroad. When youHis captors say that they're being hounded by a circus masterMI6, 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 trilogybut Mason has his doubts. Still - never mind, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight His choices are limited though 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 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 has personal reasons to reassure glamorous wife Daisy believe that life in the provinces is not as bad as she it 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 himbetter if Alastair Sheridan was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren KateAkwaeke Emezi|title=FallenPet

|summary=A 17 year old girl at The people of the town Lucille believe that all the monsters are gone. Their children are raised to understand that they were saved by the angels, those who rid the town of evil, and there are no monsters anymore. But one day, Jam accidentally cuts herself, and bleeds a new school meets little onto one of her mother's paintings. The blood awakens a mysterious and impossibly goodbizarre, terrifying-looking boycreature named Pet, who she's immediately drawn somehow comes to life and declares that it is here tohunt the monster. He seems determined Though Jam tries to either ignore her or be outright rude to herconvince it that all the monsters are gone, Pet is certain that there is one, until he saves her lifestill, and that the two monster is hiding in the home of them end up drawn together. This isn't Stephenie Meyer's ''Twilight''her best friend, but it certainly has striking similaritiesRedemption.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>0571355110

 {{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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1686751680|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 My Mummy does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639<weird things /amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaman fait des choses bizarres|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, Amelie Julien 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>}} {{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 GirlsGustyawan

|genre=Home and FamilyFor Sharing|summary=This Which child doesn't think that there mother is the second volume by the panelists from that nice ITV series, well, ''Loose Womenweird''. Just as promised on the cover, this book is an entertaining night with the girls. ? It turns out might be that theyin the morning their mother doesn're just t like us. The faces are already familiar and even if you don't know them yet, with nine contributorsspeaking much, when every self-respecting child knows that that is when you'll soon find a like-minded woman behind one of the celebrity faces. The women are universally warm-hearted and supportive: there will be many a lonely woman who reads this book and feels as if she sat down re at your brightest with a group of friends for the evening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444700154</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jean Ure|title=Fortune Cookie|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. lots to say? If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where FudgeWhy's father got the idea from. 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 then does Mummy stick her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that fingers in her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now has another family. ears? ItThen there's just Cupcakedoing yoga in front of the television, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of moneywhich could be worrying if it wasn't so funny.|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 We won't go into too much detail about what goes on in 1734 in Lisbon, at that time the richest bathroom and most opulent city in Europe, Maria was destined to become the first female monarch in Portuguese history. Married to her uncle Infante Pedro, seventeen years her senior, she had six children (outliving all but one of them), colour changes which have occured when Mummy emerges and became Queen in 1777. A conscientious womanfrankly, she had the misfortune less said the better about her reactions to be born in during your artistic efforts on the 'age of reason', when church and state were vying for supremacywall. Instinctively a supporter of the old religionI mean, with a humanitarian approach to state affairs, she was no Queen Elizabeth, no Catherine the Great, and wore her crown rather reluctantly.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095455891X</amazonuk>what else would you use paint for?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David HughesJustine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk|title=Thomas Wogan is Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|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 urchinWhat Wonders Do You See...), all waiting for... well, something. Yup, as you didn't need telling, he's dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095580888X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild ThingsWhen You Dream?

|genre=General FictionFor Sharing|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults''The day has ended''<br>''Hasn't it been splendid?'' <br>''But now, or dislikes his motherit's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revengetime, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=be sure'' <amazonukbr>0241144221''For an entirely different adventure'' </amazonukbr>}}

{{newreview|author=Jeremy Strong|title=Christmas Chaos I hope you haven't forgotten how it feels to be much too excited for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog |rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Trevorbed. If you's troublesome dogre a parent at least, Streakeryou'll know how it is to persuade an excited small person that yes, has had three puppiesit is in fact time for bed. ''What Wonders DoYou See... They were fathered, according '' sets out to cater to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one these children. Instead of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like trying to keep persuade themthat night time is calm time, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas and put it takes a slightly different tack. It tells them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled to half sleep is actually an exciting time: a time of dreams in which imagination takes over and has no limit. But the money from the sale of the puppies, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing trick in the park accessing this wonderful and it's up exciting world, is to Trevor get calm and his best friend Tina relaxed first so that you can easily fall asleep and open the door to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!it. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>194812422X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Beth DurstMichael Harris|title=IceSolitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World|rating=3.5|genre=TeensLifestyle|summary=Cassie lives on an Arctic research station in AlaskaThis is not the book I was expecting it to be. She loves the ice and the wilderness of her remote home and she'd definitely prefer For some reason I expected it to spend her time be another self-help manual on tracking polar bears and fending off frostbite rather than on mixing with her peers and enjoying college and home comforts back in Fairbankshow to find calm, how to step outside the mainstream, but it is not that at all. However Instead of telling us how, things arenit is more about the ''why''t all rosy. Cassie Harries examines how we's mother died when she was just re eroding solitude, which used to be a baby natural part of our human life, and she can't help feeling a huge hole in her heartwhy that matters. Her scientist father is remote Of course he talks about how some people have found solitude and unloving what has come of that, and her grandmother left eventually in the station after an argument with final chapter he talks about his own experience of having deliberately sought it out, but mostly he wanders down the alleys and by-ways that his thinking about this lost art led him when Cassie was still very young. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386571</amazonuk>1847947662

 {{newreview|author=Iain Smyth and Michael Terry|title=The Wide-Mouthed Frog|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Do you know the joke about the wide-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>}} {{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 a result, there's such a market for bulky management and leadership and general business books like this one. How does anyone who needs or wants to read one ever find exactly what happens when the time to do so? This title actually has an answer to this, by providing two books main/only characters meet in one, and it is such a simple yet effective solution that I have to start there. You can read this book travel agency in one of two ways. Option one Beijing - Carrie is unsuccessfully trying 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 repetitive, and quite thought-provoking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0273709305</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kathryn Fox|title=Blood Born|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=To give support to get a vulnerable gang-rape victim, forensic pathologist Anya Crichton offers to drive Giverny Hart to the courthouse refund on an extra ticket for the day she Trans-Siberian train and Violet is due trying to testify against unsuccessfully buy a ticket for the notorious Harbourn brotherssame sold-out journey. But when Anya arrives at As the house she finds Giverny close to death two team up, travelling through Mongolia, Serbia and faces a battle against time to save her. In the panicinto Russia, Anya fails to take note of an important clue which might help tell whether it really was suicide or a cleverly staged murder. Worse still, in trying to save the girlcould's life, Anya has interfered with a crime scene and ve been the case falls apart. She blames herself for the Harbourn brothers being allowed to walk free and only hours later there is news start of another attack. A pair a beautiful friendship but this a thriller after all so it quickly becomes a tale of sisters have been stabbed obsession, manipulation and raped resulting in the death of one, while the other clings to lifetoxic friendships.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340933097</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leah Fleming1912374838|title=Remembrance DayNothing Important Happened Today|author=Will Carver

|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=In the year 2000 an old lady in Nothing Important Happened Today is a dark, twisted, difficult read. Stories about cults often are, but this is different; it's written with a wheelchair watches the unveiling sense of the new war memorial in the village squarestyle that is quite unlike anything I've read before. ThereI can's pride in what has been achievedt remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. While a slim and relatively small book, in the family who are gathered around her and there are memories tooslow-moving nature of the plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages. Some are good but many are not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561039</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neal Laytonwilliamabbey|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)The Pursuit of William Abbey|author=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>