Book Reviews From The Bookbag
The Bookbag
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. We can even direct you to help for custom book reviews! Visit www.everychildareader.org to get free writing tips and www.genecaresearchreports.com will help you get your paper written for free.
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Something Is Rotten in Fettig: A Satire by Jere Krakoff
Leopold Plotkin finds himself in some very hot water when he initiates the Mud Crisis. Leopold inherited the family butcher's shop and he is a very good and skilled butcher. But he doesn't like people watching him work and is generally lacking in social skills. The shop's trade suffers and Leopold decides to cover the window with mud so that no-one can see inside. Full review...
Where's the BaBOOn? by Michael Escoffier and Kris Di Giacomo
The title of a book can be an important indication of what you are about to get yourself into. Where's the BaBOOn? is a subtly different than Where's the Baboon? Can you spot the surprising difference? One book is about finding the missing monkey, the other is waiting for the missing monkey to find you. Therefore, grab this book at your peril, knowing that at some point a Baboon will say BOO! Full review...
The Mock Olympian by Michael Brown
It started with an idle conversation just before the 2012 London Olympics: Michael Long's friend Sarah gave him a book as part of his birthday present. It was Time Out's guide to the history of the Olympics and it covered each of the summer Olympics in chronological order from the inaugural games in Athens in 1896. Sarah's boyfriend James commented that with all the running Michael did, he'd probably have run in most of the Olympic cities. Although Long had done a goodly number of runs, bike rides and triathlons he'd only competed in two of the twenty three cities - London and Athens. Now most of us would have left it at that, but that's not the Michael Long you're going to come to know and love. He saw it as a challenge and what's more he blogged about it and then wrote this book. Full review...
Winter: A Book for the Season by Felicity Trotman (editor)
This seasonal anthology contains a nice mixture of poetry, nature and travel pieces, and excerpts from longer works of fiction. Felicity Trotman, a freelance editor and member of the English Civil War Society, has arranged the material into three sections: 'The Old Year', 'Christmas, Sacred and Secular', and 'The New Year'. This creates an appropriate sense of chronological progression, and also serves to make Christmas the heart of the book. Black-and-white illustrations – maps, photographs and engravings – are interspersed throughout, and each author gets a short paragraph of biography and background. Full review...
Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood
This lovely tale of a small rabbit hero, begins in a time of peace and contentment for the rabbit kingdom. In the cold and snowy days leading up to the mid-winter holiday, an old Bard visits Thornwood Burrow to entertain the rabbits around a roaring fire. The Bard tells a gripping tale from the past, about Podkin, the son of a rabbit chieftain. When a dark and frightening power, known as the Gorm, rises up in the rabbit world, Podkin and his sister and brother are forced to leave their burrow and run for their lives. The story follows their journey and their attempt to defeat the Gorm and restore peace and safety to the rabbit communities across the land. Full review...
Great British Eccentrics by S D Tucker
Some very strange people have stalked our green and pleasant land. In his introduction, Tucker asks us why. Is it our status as an island people which has made so many of our countrymen turn in on ourselves? Has our long libertarian tradition of the idea of individual freedom, as long as we do nobody else any harm, permitted weirdness to flourish among us? Full review...
The First Hunter by Robert Swindells
Tan and his family are scavengers - stone age scavengers. When a big cat makes a kill one of the family - the brand man - dashes in and frightens the big cat off its kill with a firy brand and one of the others snatches some of the meat for the family. If they don't get the meat then it's down to roots, insects or lizards. Some of the family are concerned about Wid, who grew, but his brain didn't and they don't see why they should hunt for meat to keep the boy alive. They're all for leaving him to the wolves. Tan won't have it and for the moment Wid is safe. Full review...
Keeping On Keeping On: Diaries 2005-2014 by Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett's prose collections have been something to look forward to for years. They're a collection of excerpts from his diaries plus prose pieces of various lengths. I read Writing Home soon after publication - it was a Christmas present and I enjoyed it greatly, but it wasn't until I was deep into Untold Stories that I realised the extent to which Bennett had been less than frank in Writing Home. Bennett wrote Untold Stories in the knowledge that he had cancer and had only an even chance of survival: he assumed that his executors would make the decision as to what should be published. What was published - and by Bennett - was more open than the earlier work. Keeping On Keeping On follows and extends that trend. Full review...
The Wreck of the SS London by Simon Wills
The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was the ocean disaster against which all subsequent shipwrecks have come to be compared. Yet some forty years earlier, the people of mid-Victorian Britain and overseas were horrified by another loss at sea which at the time had a similar impact. In January 1866 SS London, a large new luxury liner en route to Australia, went down shortly after leaving England, with around 250 people dead, maybe more (the exact figure will never be known), and only three survivors. Full review...
Italian Street Food by Paola Bacchia
Books about Italian food are everywhere, with recipes for pizza, pasta dishes and all the usual suspects. In a winter which seems to be starting hard all too early what I wanted was sunshine - and the sort of food which you find on the Italian streets and in those bars which only the locals know about. It's the sort of food which you eat on the move, or leaning against the bar - tables and chairs don't usually come into the equation. For the most part it doesn't aspire to being healthy - frying plays a larger part than it does in a virtuous diet and it is a little short on fruit and veg - but we can all be a bit naughty on occasions, can't we? Full review...
My Son's Not Rainman: One Man, One Autistic Boy, A Million Adventures by John Williams
In 2012, stand-up comedian John Williams was encouraged by his work colleagues to write a show charting his experiences as the parent of an autistic boy. After registering the domain name: My Son's Not Rainman, he also decided to write a blog to share his funny anecdotes and experiences. After a shaky start (I had a handful of followers. Three of them were my brothers), the blog eventually went viral as it increased in popularity with parents who felt a connection with John and 'The Boy'. This book fills in some of the gaps in the story, starting with 'The Boy's' early childhood and ending, appropriately, on his thirteenth birthday, when he suddenly became 'The Teen'. Full review...
Queen Victoria and the European Empires by John Van der Kiste
Queen Victoria and the European Empires is a very readable history of Queen Victoria's relationships, both personal and political with the royalty of France, Germany, Austria and Russia. Many of these associations were based on family ties, but - as in all families - not all connections brought joy in their wake. John Van der Kiste - an expert in all things Victorian - produces an elegant picture of the changing relationships between the eighteen thirties and the early nineteen hundreds in a book which is deceptively slim, but packed with fascinating information and insights. Full review...
Knowledge Encyclopedia: Animal! by DK
The encyclopedia may be an informative type of book, but it's not always the most interesting. A series of dry facts plastered all over the page with nary an image in sight. This dry type of learning is never going to work with some of our modern youth, more used to spending time looking for imaginary animals on their phones, than researching real ones in a book. If you want to capture their attention, you must first draw their eyes. DK have attempted this in one of the most colourful and vibrant encyclopedias you are likely to see. Full review...
Pendulum by Adam Hamdy
There's no time wasted with a gentle introduction: we interrupt an attempted murder. John Wallace - ordinary John Wallace - is about to be hanged by a man in a black mask who has invaded his apartment. The fact that it's happening is bad enough, but why is it happening, and to Wallace? It's fate which intervenes and Wallace escapes. He's going to keep escaping and I'm not going to tell you a great deal more about the plot: you're better off reading what Adam Hamdy has written than my version of it. It's sufficient to say that the pace and the action never let up and you're not going to get the answers until the final pages. Full review...
Sins by Mary Telford and Louise Verity
Is there enough new to say about the seven deadly sins? We've seen them all shown to us, from school age and up to the movie Se7en, which we sincerely hope was NOT shown to anyone at school age. We can each recount them all, having been long familiar with them, even if we probably can't pin down when they were actually set in stone without help. Similarly, is there anything new in the world of fairy tale? We know the tropes - characters identified by their status or gender (the woman, the husband), a clear set of rules to obey, and a moral as strong as, if not stronger than, the formulae involved. Well, this volume demands we decide the answer to those questions as being positive ones, and if it's not always definitive in the writing here that there is something new, rest assured there will be something in the imagery that will definitely strike one as fresh... Full review...
The Boy by Wytske Versteeg
Kito was a withdrawn child. It was difficult for his parents, especially his mother, to reach him. Like many children who turn inwards, he struggled to make friends at school. And those he did make seemed only to use him for access to his games consoles. His dark skin also marked him out for bullying. Kito went missing after a class trip to the beach. His body was discovered when it washed up on the sand. Kito had drowned. Full review...
A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky
A City Dreaming guides us through a year in the life of the restless and enigmatic M as he returns to New York after travelling. A magical adept, well-known to the various non-human beings that frequent the alternative realities of New York City and not without power himself, you'd never guess any of it from his nonchalant hipper-than-thou attitude. He tries to keep out of local politics – opposing camps of magical affiliates in the city – but can be fiercely loyal to his closest associates. Though he reluctantly gets mixed up in various scrapes via his strange bunch of friends and acquaintances, and occasionally has to save the day, all he really wants is to be left alone to enjoy the sex, drugs and good coffee that abound in the city. Full review...
Gathering Prey by John Sandford
Any fan of a long running series will dread the book that falls off the cliff. This is the story that just does not make sense, or is so reminiscent of previous outings that it may as well not exist. With 24 titles already written about Lucas Davenport, the Prey series by John Sandford is overdue this, but will Gathering Prey be the moment that the maverick cop Davenport becomes a shadow of his former self? Full review...
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Ruth Jefferson is a nurse. She looks after new mothers and their babies and she's the sort of nurse that you hope you'll encounter when it's your turn, or the turn of anyone close to you. She cares and she's good at her job, very good, in fact. Turk and Brittany Bauer and their new son, Davis, were under her care, only Turk took strong exception to Ruth having anything to do with their child: Turk and Brittany were white supremacists - and Ruth Jefferson was black, an African American and despite all her experience she was banned from caring from Davis Bauer. Full review...
Blink and You Die (Ruby Redfort Book 6) by Lauren Child
Here we are: the final book in the popular Ruby Redfort spy series. Get ready to say an emotional goodbye to 'every smart kid's smart kid.' Things are looking bleak: Spectrum has a mole, nobody can be trusted, the infamous 'Count' is working for someone even more evil than he is and the fly is about to get tangled in a very sticky web. Stay alert. Stay Awake. Blink and you die. Full review...
The Land of Stories: An Author's Odyssey by Chris Colfer
I think that it is only fair to warn people who haven't yet read any of the Land of Stories books and may be contemplating it. Prepare to be completely consumed. Be aware that once you pick up one of these books you will be unable to put it down until you have finished the last page. Also know that the author likes to torture his readers with the most frustrating cliff-hangers at the end of each book. You will want to read on, but are essentially paralysed in a type of limbo until the release of the next book in the series. The last book ended on a tantalising premise: our heroes, Alex and Connor have a potion that will enable them to enter any story they wish. They are going to use it to travel into Connor's own collection of short stories in order to recruit his creations, fight the bad guys and save the storybook world. So grab your book, clear your schedule and get cosy, because the reading marathon is just about to begin... Full review...
The Mistress of Windfell Manor by Diane Allen
Charlotte Booth is the beautiful daughter of a successful wool farmer and like any young Victorian woman, she looks forward to the day she can be married and have a family of her own. Her childhood sweetheart Archie has a place in Charlotte's heart, but he cannot provide her with the life she desires, so when wealthy mill owner Joseph Dawson comes to town Charlotte sees her luck begin to change. After a brief courtship, Charlotte and Joseph marry and move in to the illustrious Windfell Manor, but things soon turn sour when one of Joseph's mill workers is found dead and Charlotte starts to suspect that Joseph isn't the man she first thought he was. Full review...
Raven Child and the Snow Witch by Lina Sunderland and Daniel Egneus
A beautiful story of hope, family and love. In the frozen north and safe away from the icy wilderness, young Anya lives a happy care-free life in the Snow Garden. She plays, she is at one with the animals and she dreams. On one day, no different from any other, Anya’s mother sets off on a journey to the glacier to collect a special flower to plant in the Snow Garden. Anya waits for her mother’s return and keeps busy throughout the day. After a long while of waiting Anya falls asleep and dreams of a terrible event involving the most dreadful enchantress of them all – the Snow Witch. From here on, Anya becomes determined to find and save her mother but she has no idea what lies ahead. Can Anya pit her wills against the frozen wilderness, the wild wolves and ultimately the Snow Witch herself? Full review...
School of Velocity by Eric Beck Rubin
Jan's head is dropping him in it. He's a trained concert pianist, but is having difficulty performing, with a horrendous problem, in that he can hear any discordant music, or just in fact horrid noise, when in the wings waiting to perform, and never the score he is due to follow. The devil's tinnitus, you might call it. With another failure behind him, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has to work back through his life to tell us the cause – and we're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, to his formative years at art school, with a pretentious drama student, Dirk. The book is a fast-moving exploration of what Jan finds of note (pun intended) through his life, and all that might have caused his mental problem. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help? Full review...
Farm by Surya Sajnani
In this sturdy, interactive board book little ones have clues to animals you might find on the farm, and can then slide the pieces of picture round on the facing page to uncover the answer. Full review...
