Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

It's a brand new year, and Liverpudlian hairdresser Shirley is looking forward to the months ahead following one hell of a new year's eve party. What's more, she's going to chronicle her adventures in her brand spanking new diary which she will write in diligently, even when she's feeling a bit 'morning after the night before'. Full review...

The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn

This love affair tale with the city of Liverpool is mostly told through the eyes of architect Tom Baines. With the Second World War looming, Baines is desperately working on a book to capture the memory of buildings that are at risk, and appears a man more in love with the past and solid, cold structures than mankind. Full review...

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Life in Seabrook College is a mess. Some of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days there, but many are certainly too old for that. A lot of the boys are victims of ragging and bullying for being too chunky, or too smart - but some are so chunky and smart there's a certain kudos to them. The female of the species is a thing only spied from their own school next door, and only met by selling them ritalin as a weight-control pill, or meeting them at the very rare combined school disco. Full review...

Meteorite Strike by A G Taylor

Sarah is not ready. She's not ready to forgive the man who is her father, for abandoning her and her young brother Robert eight years ago. She cannot yet forgive the circumstances of her mother dying, and of the promise they were forced to make, to go to Australia with the man, and start a new life. She is certainly not prepared for the meteor strike to smash into Australia just as they fly above it, which downs the plane in a horrid crash, and seems to carry with it an alien virus which forces many people to drop permanently asleep. Full review...

How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

For Sharing

How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? was a witty and visually creative tale of Very Bad Bedtime Behaviour for modern children enamoured of dinosaurs. 'How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?' continues the formula, this time with table manners. Full review...

A Million Shades of Grey by Cynthia Kadohata

At just twelve, Tin is the youngest elephant handler in his village. Ever since he can remember, Tin has dreamed of working with elephants and he loves his own elephant, Lady, to distraction, even spending most of his nights sleeping by her side. Tin is much less keen on school, but his parents insist that he goes. Tin really can't see the point, as his sole ambition is to become a fully-fledged elephant trainer. His parents may talk about opportunities in the world outside his village but if they don't involve elephants, he's not interested. Full review...

The Tall Man: Life and Death on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper

Politics and Society

Cameron Doomadgee – Mulrunji – was just thirty six years old when he was arrested on Palm Island. Quite why he was arrested was never clear. He wasn't drunk, although he had been drinking beer – and was walking along the road singing Who Let the Dogs Out? Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley felt that there was reason to arrest Mulrunji for creating as public nuisance and he was taken to the police station. What happened next was to be the subject of intense media speculation and legal proceedings over the coming years, but within forty five minutes Mulrunji was dead. Full review...

Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life by Timothy W Ryback

History

As the fictional schoolboy hero Nigel Molesworth might have said, 'any fule kno' that Adolf Hitler was notorious for burning books. Nevertheless he was also an avid collector and passionate reader, as around 1200 surviving volumes once in his possession now in the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress, and a smaller quantity in Brown University, Rhode Island, demonstrate. Among them were world literature classics, such as 'Robinson Crusoe', 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and 'Gulliver's Travels'. He also owned an edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on the spine. The Bard, he once said, was greatly superior to Goethe and Schiller. Full review...

Taking the Medicine by Druin Burch

Popular Science

In 1898, Burch points out that a new drug was developed and marketed for the treatment of tuberculosis by Bayer & Co. TB is such an ancient enemy of man that there is apparently evidence of an earlier strain to be found in Egyptian mummies. The German firm had discovered a chemical that seemed to work well, and patients and indeed their own staff, who were tested seemed to respond well - it was named Heroin - and its addictive effects were at first missed. Full review...

Chancey by Gigi Amateau

Chancey's dam was Starry Night and her owner loved that horse so much that she wanted a foal who was exactly like her, but when Chancey was born she was bitterly disappointed for instead of the black Appaloosa with white marking Chancey was born albino. It was only his striped hooves which proved his breeding. The owner was not big enough to overcome her feelings and when she fell on hard times it was Chancey who was left out in the field to suffer despite the fact that he was no longer a young horse. Full review...

Sweet Water and Bitter: The Ships That Stopped the Slave Trade by Sian Rees

History

The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed in Britain in March 1807, and the last legal British slave ship left Africa seven months later. Other countries were slow to follow suit. Everyone in Britain knew there would be resistance, and when the abolitionist Granville Sharpe purchased land in Sierra Leone to 'repatriate' freed slaves, Ottobah Cugoana, a former slave living in London, asked if it was possible for 'a fountain to send forth both sweet water and bitter.' Could the slave trade, he wondered, be abolished from West Africa - when West Africa was its source? Full review...

Precious by Sapphire

Precious Jones is a sixteen year old black girl from Harlem – well she's never actually been out of Harlem – and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second time. Her first child was a girl and she was born with Down's Syndrome. With unconscious irony Precious calls her Little Mongo and leaves her to live with her grandmother. When her second pregnancy becomes obvious she's expelled from school and joins an alternative education programme. Precious really wants to learn and the book is the story of her journey from illiteracy to maturity. Full review...

Calamity Jack by Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale

I was born to scheme, declares our hero Jack. With flashbacks we see the young lad and a pixie friend, larking about for revenge or small profit. But when his mother's bakery gets more and more into the red, the size of the profit has to increase. And when you add in revenge against the local crime lord - a giant of a man - so does the size of the target of the jape. Full review...

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Crime

Several years ago I joined a funny little book group in London, and one of the first books we read was a Sue Grafton alphabet book. I had, up to this point, never read any crime fiction, foolishly feeling myself above such books, and so I was dubious about what I'd have to say about it. That book changed my literary life. I devoured it. I couldn't get enough! I immediately searched for all the other books in the series and read them quickly, one by one, swiftly followed by a delicious plunge into the world of Agatha Christie which gave me a joyously long reading list. And so now, years later, I find myself with the latest book in the alphabet series lying in my lap, a happy smile on my face as I found I read voraciously once again! Full review...

Online Therapy: Reading Between the Lines by Jethro Adlington

Home and Family

You can get most things online these days and even therapy is becoming more widely available on the internet. It might seem like a simple step to take but many of the signals beyond the spoken word are not available to the online therapist. In a face-to-face situation body language is an added form of communication and even small changes in skin tone can give clues as to state of mind. In a situation where these clues are not available it's essential to make the most of all the clues offered by the written word. Full review...

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Isabel and her sister Ruth are slaves. But they should be free - Miss Mary Finch left a will that said so. But Miss Mary Finch is dead and her greedy nephew and heir denies all knowledge of the will. So Isabel and Ruth are sold to the Locktons and taken to New York. The Revolutionary War is underway and New York is a dangerous place. The Locktons are loyalists, but the patriots are in control of the city. Full review...

Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons by Lorraine Jenkin

From the first sentence: 'With one hell of a crash, Lettie Howell’s dinner service hit the wall…', I knew that I was going to enjoy this tale. An opening thus full of expletive and resounding Welsh Voice immediately makes it clear who’s the boss and I can relax, knowing I’m in competent hands. Welcome, Lorraine Jenkin, to my handful of favourite chick-lit authors. Full review...

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

In his own mind, bond trader Sherman McCoy is a 'Master of the Universe'. He has a pleasant wife, a beautiful mistress, and a sweet six year old daughter. Henry Lamb is a black student from the projects. Under normal circumstances, it's clear that McCoy's world and Lamb's world would never overlap. But when McCoy and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost in the Bronx, and an accident leads to Lamb being hit by McCoy's Mercedes, a chain of events start which will lead to his downfall. Full review...

The Thirteen Curses by Michelle Harrison

Red is back, but she's trapped in the fairy realm. Having swapped places with Tanya, she is bound there, but is still desperate to get both her and her brother back into the human world. She must seek an audience with the fairy court, but the realm is full of deception and cruelty – it will be a challenge just to get there. And guess what happens when she gets there? She is set another challenge, twisted with the cruelty of the Unseelie (Boo! Hiss!) court. Whilst the journey goes on, she reflects on her past: the car crash that killed her parents and her time at the children's home. Meanwhile, Tanya has returned to Elvesden Manor for half term and let's just say that her ability to see fairies comes back into use when the new housekeeper and her pesky parrot land her and Fabian and the whole Manor crew into trouble with the little people. Full review...

Walking to the Moon by Kate Cole-Adams

We meet the main character Jessica, or Jess as she is usually called, deep in an emotional black hole. She can see no light at the end of the tunnel. And right from the start, right from page one, we have a sense of the beautiful and poetic language of Cole-Adams. 'Time and I have a new arrangement. We leave each other alone.' And indeed time is not important in this novel. We have all the time in the world would probably be the motto of the medical staff - if they had one. Full review...

The Islands of the Blessed (Sea of Trolls Trilogy) by Nancy Farmer

In this third adventure, Jack, a fourteen year old Saxon apprentice bard, and Thorgil, a bad-tempered shield maiden, follow the Bard Dragon Tongue on a quest to quell the draugr - the malevolent spirit of a drowned mermaid mistakenly summoned to Jack's village and who seeks revenge for her earlier ill treatment at human hands. Full review...

The Hostage (Medusa Project) by Sophie McKenzie

Teenagers Nico, Kitty, Ed and Dylan were implanted with the Medusa gene when they were babies. Now they're adolescents, the intended psychic abilities are coming to the fore. Nico has the power of telekinesis - he can move objects with his mind. Ed can read other people's thoughts. Dylan has an invisible protective shield and no weapon can harm her. Kitty has visions that predict the future. Full review...

Into Battle (The Seventh Tower) by Garth Nix

We've made it to book five in Garth Nix's Seventh Tower series, so a quick recap:

The Dark World is blocked from the Sun by an enchanted Veil created by Tal's forebears to protect it from the creatures who inhabit Aenir - a spirit land full of magic and magical beasts.Aenir is lit and warmed by the Sun, but the Dark World uses sunstones - crystals grown and charged with light and heat in Aenir. Some inhabitants of the Dark World - the Chosen - also bind some of Aenir's creatures to themselves as spiritshadows or spiritguards. Full review...

Heaven And Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 1974 - 2001 by Don Felder

Entertainment

In terms of record sales and income from live tours, hardly anyone matched the Eagles' rate of success during the 1970s. Yet the constant search to better themselves with each record, the in-fighting, the drugs and egos, soon got the better of them. They say it is tough at the top, and nobody is better equipped to tell the often painful story than their former guitarist Don Felder. Full review...

The Isle of Man: Portrait of a Nation by John Grimson

History

To many of us, the Isle of Man is probably best known for the Tynwald, the annual TT motorcycle races, and as a holiday resort. I must admit that my knowledge of it extended little further than that, and therefore found this book invaluable. In these 550 pages, profusely illustrated with photographs and maps, I imagine that few if any questions on the subject are left unanswered. John Grimson has lived there for nearly forty years, and as well as working with several of the island's local authorities, was active as a long-distance runner and cyclist until his early seventies. Full review...

A Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman

A Disobedient Girl follows two women struggling to retain control of their lives in the face of servitude. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage family, whose daughter, Thara, is Latha's age. As children, the girls are the best of friends, but they are destined to be separated by class, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into the picture. Meanwhile, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love child. Biso's husband murdered her lover in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it in the arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her future. Full review...

Recipe For Scandal by Debby Holt

There's evidently a market for scandalous tales, or else many a women's weekly would have gone out of business by now, but this book, though full of scandal, is slightly different. This isn't council estate scandal or even trashy celebrity scandal, it's juicy, firmly middle class scandal of the type Zoë Heller might write about, and it's wickedly captivating. Full review...

How Could She? by Dana Fowley

Autobiography

From the age of five Dana Fowley was subjected to unimaginable sexual abuse and before long her sister would be subjected to more of the same. She was raped by her mother's partner and taken to the homes of her grandparents where she was abused by them and others. At other times she was forced to go to the homes of other men where she was raped and abused. Did her mother not know what was going on? Did she turn a blind eye? It was neither of those.

Her mother was a willing participant in the abuse and organised much of it. Full review...

Catch by Simon Robson

Catharine's husband Tom is away on business in Birmingham, and so Catharine awakes alone for the first time in their little cottage at the end of their lane. They moved there a few months previously, and since then Catharine has spent her days quietly awaiting her husband's return from work. She is sure that she will figure out, some day, what her purpose in life is. She thought it might be to have a baby, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened as yet. Meanwhile she waits, and thinks, and waits. In the lounge stands her piano, a stark reminder of the life she didn't manage to realise because although she studied music she found, quite quickly, that in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoever. So, on this day, alone at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by the piano's presence and over-thinking every second of the day. She worries away at who she is, and what her life is, as her loneliness and the day itself unravel around her. Full review...

Man + Dog by Nick Wadley

Humour

Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted the fact that I lacked a canine companion. Watching a dog – or better still, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television and it's sheer joy to see how man and dog interacts and how, so often, they hold a mirror up to each other. Full review...

A Date in Your Diary by Jules Stanbridge

Harry knows that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, but she also knows there's a difference between what we need and what we want – and she wants a bloke. More specifically, she wants a date for the latest in a string of friend-and-family weddings, a wedding where, thanks to a 'tricky' seating plan, she will be sitting on the same table as her most recent ex...and his new girlfriend. With no prospects in sight, Harry comes to the conclusion that internet dating might be the way to go. At best, she'll find a guy who ticks all her boxes and will joyfully accompany her to the wedding before they live happily ever after, and at worst, well, she might get a story out of it, never a bad thing for a magazine journo. Full review...

House of Secrets by Diane Harker

Jane has had to grow up fast. Constantly moving from place to place, never staying in the same school for long, and always reminded of her mother's money worries, Jane longs for the kind of life where she can just be a kid, and not have to deal with adult problems.

When she's sent to stay at her sister's student digs, the Laurels, things go from bad to worse. The Laurels is a decrepit Victorian Townhouse, freezing cold, with no food, and to make matters worse, Jane's sister, Billa, doesn't even want her there. Full review...

Dishonour by Helen Black

Crime

Modern lives.

Lily Valentine is heavily pregnant and trying to get her own law firm up and running (having been sacked from her previous job for a tendency to be a trifle too independent – or maybe just disorganised).

Ryan is a boy from the sink estates. Thin, angry, rebellious, but with an ability to charm and a serious talent for art that gets lost in his gansta-speak and tendency to skive off school.

Lailla and Aasha are good Muslim girls. Hard-working, sober, appropriately dressed, dutiful to their families. They're also English teenagers, with a fair dose of what that normally implies.

Jack is a copper, overlooked for the interesting cases (like murder), good at child protection, in love with Lily, addicted to the job, always trying to do the right thing, and not always succeeding. His current clean-living and caring attitude is driving Lily to distraction. Full review...

The Convent by Panos Karnezis

Our Lady of Mercy is a small convent on the Spanish sierra made up of a handful of devoted nuns who live their lives simply, carrying out their daily duties like clockwork. However things change when a suitcase containing a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside the convent doors. The Mother Superior, Sister Maria Ines, believes the baby to be a miracle and plans to keep him in the convent, but the other sisters do not agree. During the events that follow the true characters of the nuns inside the convent are revealed and the peace that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to show the tension that has been bubbling away under the surface. Full review...

The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno