Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"
| Line 11: | Line 11: | ||
'''Read [[Features|new features]].''' | '''Read [[Features|new features]].''' | ||
__NOTOC__ | __NOTOC__ | ||
| + | {{newreview | ||
| + | |author=John Burdett | ||
| + | |title=The Godfather of Kathmandu | ||
| + | |rating=4 | ||
| + | |genre=Crime | ||
| + | |summary=Sonchai Jitpleecheep is half 'farang' the son of a brothel madam and an American GI, but it's the latter rather than the former which is likely to hold up his promotion in the Thai police force, where he's a detective. He's also the part owner of a brothel where his mother, Nong, is the madam in charge. It's no problem for his boss, Colonel Vikorn, who has a few illegal interests of his own. He's currently in competition with the head of the army, General Zinna, to see who can raise the finance for a forty million dollar shipment of heroin which Sonchai's Kathmandu-based guru has for sale. | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593055462</amazonuk> | ||
| + | }} | ||
{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
Revision as of 14:22, 22 January 2010
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page.
There are currently 16,096 reviews at TheBookbag.
Want to find out more about us?
New Reviews
Read new reviews by genre.
Read new features.
The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett
Sonchai Jitpleecheep is half 'farang' the son of a brothel madam and an American GI, but it's the latter rather than the former which is likely to hold up his promotion in the Thai police force, where he's a detective. He's also the part owner of a brothel where his mother, Nong, is the madam in charge. It's no problem for his boss, Colonel Vikorn, who has a few illegal interests of his own. He's currently in competition with the head of the army, General Zinna, to see who can raise the finance for a forty million dollar shipment of heroin which Sonchai's Kathmandu-based guru has for sale. Full review...
The Great Race: The Amazing Round-The-World Auto Race Of 1908 by Gary Blackwood
In 1908, Henry Ford's Model T hadn't yet brought cars to the masses. The pioneers of the world of automobiles were experimenting and discovering just what the car could do, by driving right round the world. Except they didn't want to be pioneers. One of the competitors, Antonio Scarfoglio, put it so perfectly when he said 'We had set out to perpetuate an act of splendid folly, not to open up a new way for men. We wished to be madmen, not pioneers.' Isn't that about the best quote you've ever read? Full review...
Roxy by P J Reece
Maddie was at Aunt Gretchen's funeral when she got the phone call to tell her that her father was in a coma and likely to die. This might sound like a double whammy but Maddie's father had deserted her soon after her birth (during which her mother died) and she was brought up by Aunt Gretchen, who never missed an opportunity to point out that she was an unwanted burden. Full review...
The Spire by Richard North Patterson
When student Mark Darrow discovers the body of a black fellow student, Angela Hall, at the foot of the spire in the centre of the college he attends, he little suspects that his best friend will be charged with the murder. Now, sixteen years later, Darrow is back, at the invitation of his mentor and now college provost, Lionel Farr, to become president of the college in order to rebuild its reputation after a case of embezzlement has left the college in a precarious position (conveniently, Darrow has become an ace financial fraud lawyer in the intervening years). As Darrow digs into what happened with the college finances, he also begins to look afresh at the trial of his friend and questions if he really was guilty as charged. He also finds time to start an emerging relationship with the provost's troubled, but beautiful, daughter. Is the real killer still at large and are the two crimes connected? Full review...
This Book is Not Good for You by Pseudonymous Bosch
Cass is not having the best of time when it comes to secrets. It's all very well being involved in a top-secret society, designed to keep the secret of the most secretive secret ever, but those pesky people called adults are keeping things from her as well - namely, her very origins. Can Max-Ernest and she wade through their junk store base and find the box she was delivered in? Can they survive the mysterious clown school they end up visiting? And can they keep a mystical tuning fork from falling into the wrong hands? Full review...
Beyond the Wall of Time (Broken Man) by Russell Kirkpatrick
A couple of aspects have summed up Russell Kirkpatrick's Broken Man trilogy for me so far. There has been a fascinating story with some wonderful character building that has made it highly enjoyable. There have also been some of the most detailed maps I have ever seen in a fantasy series, offering more variation than I've seen in maps before and actually adding detail to some parts of the story, not merely acting as a guide. I was expecting more of the same from the final part, Beyond the Wall of Time and very much looking forward to it. Full review...
Among Thieves by David Hosp
In 1990, some valuable paintings were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston in the United States. The police investigation failed to find them and many felt they were lost forever. But soon the paintings and their whereabouts would be impacting on many people's lives… Full review...
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields
'The Novel is Dead' is not really what a novelist wants to read first on picking up a new book – but I persevered with Shields' manifesto and I'm glad I did. This is a thought-provoking wake-up call that any artist, writer or book-lover will enjoy. Full review...
Dark Entries by Ian Rankin and Werther Dell'Edera
The producers of Dark Entries, the latest hit reality TV show, are worried. Yes the six housemates are there, present and correct, and are ready to be scared witless en route to the one way out, and the brilliant prize that might await them somewhere in the merry-go-round of horror that is their new home. They are already being scared witless, by phantoms - but that's nothing to do with the TV producers. Full review...
Holidays According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney
Humphrey the hamster is worried. Everywhere he turns his little pink ears he hears noises about the school being closed. How can he survive without all his adoring fans in room 26, and what is life like for a classroom pet without a classroom? Luckily, this is only the summer holiday he is misunderstanding, and what do you know - he will soon be meeting familiar faces, not at school, but at summer camp. Full review...
Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze by Keith Mansfield
Before I get into the review of this book, I'd like to suggest that if you haven't read Keith Mansfield's first Johnny Mackintosh book, The Spirit of London, you go off and read the review of that first and then go and read the book itself. It's a fantastic read. But because this is a sequel, there are obviously going to be some SPOILERS ahead.
So, done that have you? Full review...
The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe
This book is a collection of autobiographical essays by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, whose best known work is the novel Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. Topics covered include Nigerian, Biafran and Igbo history and culture, African literature and the legacy of colonialism in his country and the rest of Africa. Some of the essays are taken from guest lectures at universities around the world and conference papers, and others are written for this book, particularly many of the more personal pieces about Achebe's family. Full review...
The Calton Papers by Norman Russell
Philip Garamond had had an abiding interest in botany since his teens and when we first meet him he's on his way to Sotheby's intent on making a bid for the Calton Papers. Sir George Calton's papers include an unpublished account of Darwin's explorations on the Beagle, some letters and a geographical survey of the British Isles. Garamond's ambition had always been to own a botanical garden on Madeira, but he lacked the funds and the Calton Papers seemed to be as close as he would get to owning something special. Full review...
Legacy and Spellbound (Wicked) by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
Holly Cathers has returned, and this time, she's more powerful than ever. The war between the House of Cahors witches and House of Deveraux warlocks still rages on, and only one side will eventually triumph. Full review...
Not Exactly - In Praise Of Vagueness by Kees van Deemter
How warm is a warm day? Or rather, given the weather at the moment, how chilly is a chilly day? Is it better to know I want a small helping of peas, or to know that I want 82 peas? There are times when vagueness is more useful than being specific. Kees van Deemter makes this point, sharing many examples from a number of fields, including maths, philosophy, linguistics and AI. Full review...
One Smart Fish by Chris Wormell
Many, many, many years ago, the ocean was full of amazing fish. The most amazing fish was a boring-looking silver fish, who was smarter than all the others. He played chess (against himself), drew pictures and performed plays. One day, he decided to see what life was like on land, so he invented feet and went for a walk. Yep, you've guessed it: it's a picture book about evolution. Full review...
Into Suez by Stevie Davies
We are introduced to the main characters Ailsa and Joe Roberts and their young daughter, Nia. Joe is a down-to-earth Welshman who's been posted to Egypt with the RAF. They are making a new and exciting life for themselves amidst the heat and poverty of the Middle East. Ailsa is English, rather headstrong and clever. Her parents said she'd 'the brain of a boy.' There are two strands to the novel which interweave throughout: the 1950s which see the early married life of Joe and Ailsa and then there's the post-invasion of Iraq period when the grown-up Nia returns to Egypt to lay some ghosts, as it were. Full review...
Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin by Norah Vincent
Voluntary Madness is journalist Norah Vincent's account of her visits to three mental health facilities in America. The first is an urban, public hospital that houses mainly homeless, psychotic patients, many of whom are addicted to drugs. In this hospital, the doctors are overworked and jaded and medication is always the answer. Soon, the author finds that her latent depression (which led her to do the book in the first place) is returning. The process of being institutionalised breaks her sense of self-worth down astonishingly fast. Indeed, she suggests that it is the lack of autonomy in institutional life, even for those patients who voluntarily commit themselves, that makes it so hard for them to rebuild independent lives when they finally leave the institution. Full review...
Everwild by Neal Shusterman
Neal Shusterman continues his part zany adventure, part philosophical enquiry, and part coming-of-age story that began with Everlost in this follow-up that is perhaps even better than its predecessor.
Everlost is a kind of limbo and home to children - Afterlights - who have died, but somehow missed the tunnel and the light - wherever and whatever the light actually is. Adults never make it there, but significant or much-loved objects and buildings sometimes do. Mary Hightower, for instance, is so-called because she took up residence in New York in the Twin Towers. Mary thinks Everlost is a wonderful place and she "saves" the Afterlights she finds by giving them repetitive but addictive tasks to fill eternity. Full review...
Direct Red by Gabriel Weston
Few people have the ability to convey the minutiae of their profession in ways which engage the reader, answer your unspoken questions and talk in such a way that you're neither patronised nor overburdened with jargon. Gabriel Weston is one such – and Direct Red held me as though I was hypnotised for several hours. She's a surgeon and we're pulled into the intricacies of her world without the need to don mask and gown. Full review...
True Blue by David Baldacci
Jamie Meldon, ex-criminal-defence attorney, now in private practice, leaves his office very late one night. He's met by the FBI. Very shortly afterwards Jamie Meldon is dead in a dumpster.
Mace Perry is working out, trying to stay fit, trying to stay sane, trying to stay alive long enough to get out jail in a couple of days' time. Perry was a cop. Under-cover, maverick and darn good at her job. Until she ended up stoned on meth, busted for robbery, convicted and sent down. Full review...
The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses by David Baldwin
Due to the small amount of surviving personal sources, any book which purports to be a biography of a 15-century subject is almost inevitably going to be more a 'life and times' than a life. In the case of women who were sisters but not sovereigns or consorts themselves, the lack of data will be even more acute. Full review...
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas
Meet Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. An unlikely police commissaire, he's an acquired taste for his colleagues. Short, ungainly, seemingly thinking about the most obtuse things in his pursuit of the truth, and endlessly doodling, but beneath his deathly slow speech and unexpected diversions into his childhood comes a surprisingly perceptive ability to find the culprit in whatever crime he is forced to solve. Full review...
Too Purply! by Jean Reidy and Genevieve Leloup
It's time for school, but the young girl and her tortoise don't want to wear any of their clothes. They're too purply, too tickly, too puckery, too prickly, and so on. You get the idea. Adjectives abound in this fun getting dressed book. Full review...
The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Rachel Isadora
Bookbag recently loved Rachel Isadora's take on The Night Before Christmas, which put the classic Christmas poem in an African setting. This time round, she has turned her eye to the Grimms' 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses'. Full review...
The Returners by Gemma Malley
'Ducks are cool. Whatever happens, whatever gets thrown at them, they just carry on, their little legs paddling. Unfazed. They always look like they're smiling.'
Will almost wishes he could be a duck. He has precious little to smile about. Sitting watching those ducks go about their business so blithely by the pond, he can't help but remember his mother who committed suicide there some years ago, when Will was just a tiny lad. Full review...
Mousebeard's Revenge (Mousehunter Trilogy) by Alex Milway
If you started this trilogy way back when, you would probably never expect the pirate, Mousebeard, and the hero and heroine, Emiline and Scratcher, to be working together. But they are - so deep is the world of Old Town in intrigue, subterfuge and wicked plans, that they need to combine forces - and get other returning characters back on hand and on their side - to counter Mousebeard's enemies once and for all. Only, one great thing has changed. Yes, that's right. Mousebeard has had a shave... Full review...
A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin
No one had anticipated that Labour would win the election, not least because the party leader was Harry Perkins, a former steel worker. His manifesto included promises to remove all American bases from British soil, public control of finance and the dismantling of media empires. There were a few other things too – but they'll do for starters. The establishment – to a man – was appalled. Press barons, media stars, bishops and civil service mandarins knew that, for the good of the country (not themselves, of course) something had to be done and obviously the end would justify whatever means they had to take to achieve their aims. Harry Perkins had to be removed from office. Full review...
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
'Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a long standing and one of the best known series of science-fiction by Orson Scott Card. It's been defined as an 'interquel', fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' and the 'Speaker for the Dead', the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters of 'Ender's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'. Full review...
The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe
In the early 1860s a group of young Parisian artists were keen to exhibit their work, despite opposition from the official art world. Their protests at being spurned by the Salon, the French equivalent of the Royal Academy, resulted in their paintings being shown at the rather disparagingly-named Salon des Refusés, where crowds and critics came to view - and jeer. When they held the first of their own exhibitions a few years later, one reviewer said that they 'seem to have declared war on beauty', while another assured his readers that every canvas must have been the work of some practical joker who had dipped his brushes in paint, smeared it onto yards of canvas, and signed the result with several different names. Full review...
My Mum Has X-Ray Vision by Angela McAllister and Alex T Smith
Milo suspects his mum has x-ray vision. She can see through the ceiling downstairs when he's jumping on her bed. She can see through the outside wall when he's making potions in the garden in her saucepans. Is she really a superhero? Milo puts her to the test... Full review...
The Unspoken Truth by Angelica Garnett
I would not normally start a review with the biography of the author, but The Unspoken Truth is presented as autobiographical fiction by a child of the Bloomsbury Group – in fact the subtitle is 'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories'. The blurb on the inside cover even identifies which character is based on the author in each of the four stories, just in case we are not sure. Full review...
Rhyming Life and Death by Amos Oz
Rhyming Love and Death is a kind of philosophical love letter to literature, or perhaps more so to fiction. It is a book about how to write, about the compulsion to write, and about the strange world that the writer of fiction must live in. Full review...
Himglish and Femalese: Why Women Don't Get Why Men Don't Get Them by Jean Hannah Edelstein
Men aren't Martian and women don't hail from Venus. We're all Earthlings apparently; which seems like progress of a sort. Even so we still have trouble understanding each other because we speak different languages – Himglish and Femalese. Luckily Jean Hannah Edelstein is fluent in both and has written this light hearted volume to define the problem and translate. Full review...
Winnie's Jokes by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul
Who turns off the lights at Halloween? The lights witch. What does an Australian witch ride on? A broomerang. Yep, it's a joke book. Full review...
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Teenage boy meets mysterious new stranger in a small town. They fall in love, he finds out she's harbouring a dark secret, the pair of them try to find out if their relationship can work while she tries to keep him safe from her world. This kind of book appears to be released every few weeks since Twilight became so successful – but rarely in the past few years has it been done as well as it has in Beautiful Creatures. Full review...
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Sometimes with authors you just don't know what you've been missing. Other times you do. Jasper Fforde has long been on my catch-up list. Snippets of Thursday Next and reviews and interviews were enough to convince me I had to get to know this work.
My chance finally came with the first in a completely new series: Shades of Grey. Full review...
Blackout by Sam Mills
'I am a murderer.
'I'm standing in a bookshop, a gun hot in my palm. The bullet that sat in my barrel thirty seconds ago has pierced flesh, blown into brain tissue, metal now fighting consciousness. The woman slumps ont the floor. Blood begins to trickle from her head. It drips onto a pile of signed copies stacked on the floor.'
Oh my word! What an explosive beginning to a book! But what made a boy do something like this? Full review...
Ondine: The Summer of Shambles by Ebony McKenna
Ondine de Groot wants out of psychic summercamp, so together with her pet ferret Shambles, she flees from the tea leaf readings and astral projection classes, back to her family's restaurant. Only, as soon as she leaves summercamp, she starts hearing voices. Specifically a broad Scottish voice – one that seems to be coming from her ferret. Shambles, it transpires, is in fact a man, turned into a ferret by a witch. Ondine starts to wonder what Shambles would look like as a man, but her imaginings are soon interrupted by the arrival of handsome Lord Vincent, son of the Duke, who sets Ondine's heart fluttering. Full review...
More Deaths Than One by Jean Rowden
Constable Thomas 'Thorny' Deepbriar has a broken leg after his involvement in a case and so is taken by his wife, Mary, to recuperate in the seaside town where he worked as a policeman during the war. He expects to be bored - the most interesting thing on the horizon is a case of missing gnomes. Then he bumps into an old colleague - someone who left the force in a haze of suspicion. Shortly afterwards, a body is found on the beach. Even stranger is that the dead man is someone that Thorny and his colleague thought had died during the war. It seems that things are not as they seem. Can Thorny work out what is going on, even with a broken leg? Full review...
The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior by Paul Strathern
The interaction between three very different, not to say contrasting, personalities of the Renaissance period sets the scene for what promises to be an intriguing title. In 1502 the paths of Cesare Borgia, notorious son of the equally infamous Pope Alexander VI, Niccolò Machiavelli, the intellectual and diplomat, and Leonardo da Vinci, at the time best known as a military engineer though remembered today primarily as a great artist, were destined to cross. Full review...
