Book Reviews From 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.
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Make New Year's Resolutions and Keep Them Using NLP by Donna Blinston
It's coming up to that time of year again – you know it's the one where you make resolutions about going on a diet, getting more exercise, stopping smoking or losing weight. If they last a week into the New Year you're probably doing well – and then you're left with a feeling of failure. Donna Blinston offers advice on how to make your resolutions and how to keep them – and I needed this advice as much as the next couch potato. Full review...
Cars - A Pop-Up Book Of Automobiles by Robert Crowther
Robert Crowther tells the story of the car, from Cugnot's steam engine, Trevithick's road locomotive and Benz's Motorwagen, right through to the record-breaking Thrust SSC and to future cars, like the biodegradable Eco One. There are plenty of pop-ups and pull tabs to bring it all to life, and it's packed with detail. Full review...
Daughter of Fire and Ice by Marie-Louise Jensen
Welcome to Viking times. The land is ruled by a pitiless and greedy Chieftain, Bjorn Svanson, who always gets what he wants. And what he wants is Thora. She is a healer – very useful when you're going to set out on a voyage, and also very pretty. The Chieftain's destination is the land of fire and ice, also known as Iceland. Impatiently, the Chieftain kidnaps Thora, but what he doesn't know is that Thora has powers. Yes, a historical fantasy where the heroine has powers – didn't see that coming did you? She can read auras and at times, see the future. And what she sees is her new master's murder. Before you know it, he has been stabbed and Thora and a mysterious male slave are free. What is their destination still? The land of fire and ice. Impersonating Bjorn Svanson, the male slave commandeers his ships and they sail away to Iceland, where a precarious future awaits. Will Svanson's men follow them across the oceans for revenge? Can they live with what they have done? Will they ever get a chance to be together? Full review...
Betrayals: A Strange Angels Novel by Lili St Crow
To start, I have to cover the ground of the mythology of this series. Humans, vampires and werewolves all live in this world, and both species of 'the other' have people halfway turned. Vampires and werewolves aren't exactly the sort to mix with each other - one liking to spill blood, the others going into feeding frenzies every time they smell it. In a previous book, our heroine Dru, has realised her best friend can become semi-wolf in a shape-changing way, and she's tending to the vampire side of things. She's also discovered a very strong threat against her life. Full review...
The Hudbrax Hoard (Sabrax Clyke Series) by James Fitzsimmons
Meet Sabrax Clyke. Not allowed to sit around in the hole in the dry-stone wall he and his family call home, and admire the pretty girl who's just moved in next door, he's persuaded by an urgent message from distant relatives to go to their aid regarding some unmentionable, awful predicament. His journey there and the task itself will involve metal dragons, odd standing stones, earth-shattering movements, and unearthly nasties. Full review...
Snow White by Jane Ray
Jane Ray has taken the classic fairy tale of Snow White, the dwarves and the wicked queen, and created beautiful three-dimensional tableaux. It's a much-loved story that everyone is familiar with, and this is a great opportunity to rediscover a classic in an interesting new way. Full review...
The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen
When a circus ship sinks off the coast of Maine, the animals escape and make their home in a nearby town. They soon enchant the locals, who in turn decide to protect the animals from the greedy circus-owner. Very loosely based on the sinking of the Royal Tar in 1836, The Circus Ship is a fun picture book that animal-lovers will enjoy. Full review...
Sins of the Angel by Wayne J Harris
Dr Gideon Matthews, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacher, has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy and, on his way home afterwards, he is murdered. The following day however he wakes up in hospital or, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himself. Gabriel goes a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by the new feelings and desires he experiences in this body, sinning left, right and centre and causing scandal at his every move. He is also wondering for what purpose he has been brought into this body and finds that he is dreaming about a demon, someone who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in God's name and who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too... Full review...
The Making of Modern Britain: From Queen Victoria to V.E. Day by Andrew Marr
This book, and the BBC TV series which complements it, must confirm Andrew Marr's status as one of the most entertaining and compulsive historian-cum-presenters working today. His previous project, on postwar Britain, was hard to fault, and anyone who enjoyed that will certainly relish this. Full review...
The Walrus and the Carpenter and Other Favourite Poems by Children's Trust
Celebrities, including Richard Hammond, Paul O'Grady, Sienna Miller, McFly and Lorraine Kelly, have chosen their favourite poems for this anthology. All proceeds from the book go to The Children's Trust. It's a fantastic charity, who help disabled children, and I urge you all to buy a copy of The Walrus and the Carpenter to support them. Full review...
I Drink Therefore I Am by Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton is a conservative philosopher and composer, best known for his work on philosophy and music, but who shares Plato's belief that 'nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man' and in this book seeks to combine his two interests of philosophy and the fruits of the vine. Full review...
The Darkening by Stephen M Irwin
This book has the 'S' word written all over it. No, not sex - supernatural. So, it's got all things a bit spooky, not-quite-right, strange coincidences. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I read the blurb on the back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groan. Not really my cup of tea. But I'm open-minded and I'll read anything once. I'm glad I did. Irwin is Australian. For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authors, so I was keen to get reading. Full review...
The Head is Dead (Poppy Fields Murder Mystery) by Tanya Landman
Meet, once again, Poppy Fields. When tasked to create a murder mystery experience for a school fete she is only surprised to find the headmistress - a newly employed battleaxe that no-one seems to like - a real-life victim of an assassin. And there is only a school field full of suspects. Can she and her best friend, brainbox George, solve the day and make the staff room a safer place to be? And where does the invisible sheepdog come in?! Full review...
The Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria by Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham and Tim Jepson
There's a general Rough Guide to Italy, but revisiting again this regional guide in the process of writing up our trip to Tuscany two years ago, I was reminded of how good indeed this particular Rough Guide is. I bought it because I wanted to supplement the general Rough Guide to Italy I had with more detailed coverage of the region in which we were going to spend the whole trip - and I was extremely happy with the result. Full review...
Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating by Frank Furedi
It seems the more problems the school-aged generation pose to society, the more responsibility schools have to take, teaching not simply English and Maths, but Personal Thinking and Learning Skills, Happiness Classes, and Emotional Education. The duty to raise a child well is taken out of the apparently 'incompetent' hands of parents, and given over to the education system, where values can be regulated and controlled. Full review...
Flirt Diva - For Women Who Want to be Bold and Sassy and have a Fabulous Life! by Susan Ostler
There are lots of timetabled books on the market, that promise to transform everything from your employability to the size of your thighs in a certain number of weeks, if you commit to their programme, and this book is really just another one to add to the 'scheduled self-improvement' pile. Except we're not talking here about dropping a dress size in time for Christmas, or sailing through that oh-so-important interview to land the job of your dreams...for this book is a 6 week guide to Getting Loved Up that promises to put its participants (and as you'll learn, you're more than a mere reader with this title) on the fast track to romance. Gosh. Full review...
The Kites are Flying by Michael Morpurgo
Said lives on the West Bank. He herds his family's sheep, spends a lot of time talking in his head to his absent brother Mahmoud, and he makes a great many kites, which he sends across the wall to the girl in the blue headscarf who lives in the occupiers' settlements. What Said doesn't do, is talk out loud, even to his new friend Mister Max. Max is a Western journalist who wants to make a documentary about how the Palestinian/Israeli conflict affects ordinary people on both sides of the wall. Max is entranced by Said, and his dozens of kites, all bearing the message salaam or peace. He can see that Said has a dream, but he's not sure what it is. Will the dream come true before Max has to leave? Full review...
Dying to be Famous (Poppy Fields Murder Mystery) by Tanya Landman
Meet Poppy Fields - an inquisitive young lass, keen on exploring her world - in a slightly different way to her geeky, walking-encyclopaedia of a best friend, Graham. So keen is she to explore the phenomenon that is the latest seen-everywhere, snapped-at-all-hours celebrity, she makes the pair of them go to audition for bit parts in the Christmas production of The Wizard of Oz the star is starting to rehearse. Unfortunately for her, she apparently hasn't noticed she's in the third book in a series of young reader murder mysteries, and deaths more unexpected than having a house land on you might just be on the playbill... Full review...
Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook by Stuart Brown
I expect there will be a few people who spot this book on the shelves and wonder who Mma Ramotswe is, but Alexander McCall Smith's legion of fans certainly won't be amongst them. This cookbook is a nice tie-in to the books, written with a foreword from AMS himself, and full of flavoursome recipes that are spoken of in his series of books about Mma Ramotswe and her Number One Ladies Detective Agency. Illustrated with beautiful photography, lots of quotes from the books, and lots of information about Botswana's rich variety of food it's a wonderful mix of being both a cookery book, a reference book and a companion work to the Mma Ramostwe books. Full review...
The Book of the Alchemist by Adam Williams
The Book of the Alchemist is a story within a story. It opens in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Pinzon, a Spanish politician who resigns for moral reasons, is taken hostage by a group of Republican soldiers, along with his young Grandson. A group of villagers are also taken captive and locked in a cathedral as part of the soldiers' desperate plan to protect themselves from the Fascist forces that are hunting them. A cavernous mosque built inside the mountain under the cathedral's crypt is discovered, and in it, a book. As Pinzon reads the book, another story unfolds, set in the eleventh century. This is the story of Samuel the Jew. Full review...
Me and Orson Welles by Robert Kaplow
Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of a performance, through the rose-tinted lens of the theatrical celebrities he listens to on the radio. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through a chance encounter with Orson Welles, it seems as if all his dreams may be about to come true. He goes from being the guy that all the girls see as a friend, one of the bookish kids at school, to the glamour of mingling with stars of the stage. We follow Richard's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not to mention his disapproving mother. Full review...
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years by Michael Palin
Never meet your heroes, goes the old adage. Never read their diaries might be equally sage advice. That's probably why I didn't tackle Michael Palin's collected daily journals until now. Along with the rest of the Monty Python team, he was without doubt a hero of my teenage years. Full review...
Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis: All 50 Chapters by Robert Crumb
In the beginning was the picture. Just think of all the countless religious images, both inside and outside religious establishments, designed to convey the message to those who could not read. Art and religion have always been linked, which is probably one of the main reasons I stayed an atheist - I hated art at school, and drawing a man on a donkey, something way beyond my skills, was not a task I appreciated, hence my dislike of both subjects. Full review...
Animals by Keith Laidler
Animals is described as a visual guide to the animal kingdom, but please don't think of it as a picture book as it's far more than that. Don't think of it as a coffee table book either – despite the fact that its size – midway between A2 and A3 – might tempt you to think that way. It's a journey through the complex diversity of the animal kingdom based on sound scientific principles. Full review...
A To Z - The Best Children's Poetry From Agard To Zephaniah by Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen has picked the best modern children's poetry, from John Agard through to Benjamin Zephaniah. It stemmed from Rosen performing in schools and libraries with many of the poets, and as children's poetry anthologies go, it's amongst the very best. Full review...
The Man on the Moor by John Van der Kiste
In the summer of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadily, but there didn't seem to be any connection with the international situation when a London clerk, George Stephens, was found dead in a country lane on the edge of Dartmoor. The moor had been his passion and he'd always been keen to escape London and return to Devon. It was an odd death but in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if George's mother had not announced that George was the son of the Kaiser. Despite her fondness for gin the story she told was oddly compelling and when it was linked up with the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less and less like an accident. Full review...
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
It's hard to believe that The Left Hand of Darkness dates back to 1969: forty years on, it reads as well, or even better, then when it was originally written, and - deservedly - enjoys a classic status in the science-fiction canon, as well as being perhaps the best known sci-fi novel by Ursula LeGuin. Full review...
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
I think my husband was a little taken aback to see me curled up on the sofa engrossed in a book about American Football. I suppose I should admit that I didn't actually know it was going to be about American Football. Well, I knew it was about a boy who played American Football, but I'd thought that was just going to be the background story, you know, like in Jerry Maguire. So the first chapter seemed to go on and on forever, and I thought my head might pop from reading about quarterbacks and blind sides and plays and offence and defence and running statistics...but then somehow I stumbled to the real heart of the story; the story of Michael Oher, a young African-American from the slums of Memphis whose father was never around, and whose mother was a drug addict and lost him to social services at a young age. Full review...
A Finder's Magic by Philippa Pearce and Helen Craig
Till (that's short for Tillawn) has lost his dog Bess and he has no idea how he's going to find her until a mysterious stranger appears. Mr Finder interviews various witnesses, including a cat, a mole, a heron and Miss Mousey. It's not what Miss Mousey says that gives Mr Finder the vital clue as to what has happened to Bess, but the sketch she made of the riverbank at the time that Bess went missing. There's a lot of magic in the quest to find Bess, but it's all very confusing for Till and at one point he even doubts the motives of Mr Finder. Full review...
The Night Before Christmas by Rachel Isadora and Clement Clarke Moore
Everyone knows and loves Clement Clarke Moore's poem A Visit From St Nicholas. Even if you don't go the whole hog, gathering the family round by the log fire, and reading it together, its opening line of 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... fills you with a warm glow. You can practically smell the mulled wine and hear the snores of Auntie Gertrude during the Queen's Speech. It's an absolute classic. Full review...
Warriors by Jack Ludlow
Arduin of Fassano is paid by Michael Doukeianos, a young Byzantine general, to keep the peace in Apulia. Arduin is a Lombard, however, and secretly plans to revolt and take Apulia for himself, hiring a group of Norman mercenaries to help him do the job. These Normans are William de Hauteville and his brothers, famed warriors with their own conflicts and a desire to gain titles and wealth for their sons. Even if Arduin and the Normans could take Apulia, there are no guarantees that they could hold it in a land full of treachery and bribes. Full review...
The Ultimate DVD Easter Egg Guide: How to Access the Hidden Extras on Your DVD by Jo Berry
Consider the Easter Egg - at least in the way DVD collectors mean. Sometimes a pointless hidden add-on, that is there for no reason. Sometimes they can be a priceless bonus, seemingly gifted by the disc producers to those in the know, costing - at least in the case of some animated instances - many thousands of pounds. Some oik on set with a camcorder, they are not. I've been guilty several times of clicking away in directions the menus don't seem to encourage on the off-chance I find something (or, on a PC, just sweeping the PC mouse over any and every title card in case it highlights something previously invisible). Forcing several titles and chapters by going straight to them in case they're something secret is not a hobby I like to admit to. Full review...
Dead Cat With Firelighter by Frances Day
We're in the world of modern art. A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking up, as her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptual, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish and nothing. We're also in the world of the wannabe stars and starlets, trying to make the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywood. And in the background in both instances, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling strings, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - and a lot more - to get their charges to fame. And a bit of contract killing and murder on the side. Full review...
Cold to the Touch by Frances Fyfield
There's something obsessive about Jessica Hurly. When Sarah Fortune encounters her on a cold, dark London morning, she's distraught because the man who fills all her thoughts has rejected her and it seems that her mother wants nothing to do with her. Jess is a talented chef but she's short of work – the occasion when she emptied a tureen of soup over the host at a dinner party did not enhance her reputation even if all the other guests were secretly delighted. Sarah senses her vulnerability, but it's Jess who organises the let of one of her mother's cottages in the sea-side town where she grew up so that Sarah can have a long break from the flat where she still smells a recent fire. Full review...
Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams by Shirley Williams
Who could resist a title like that? And is this some lesser-known Shirley Williams, recalling a life spent in libraries? The answer to the latter is no.
Shirley Catlin, as she was born, tells us in the early pages of this memoir that during her childhood her father encouraged her to climb the bookshelves in their Chelsea house, right up to the ceiling. It was a secret between the two of them, as her mother, Testament of Youth Author Vera Brittain, would have immediately anticipated cracked skulls and broken arms. Full review...
Prep School Children: A Class Apart Over Two Centuries by Vyvyen Brendon
Prep School Children is Vyvyen Brendon's second collection (Children of the Raj was the first). It explores the pupil experience, using primary sources like weekly letters home, memoirs and interviews, and less immediate material such as fiction, school magazines and headmasters' biographies. I came to the book with some questions: what was it like to be a boarder at a prep school? What difference did a prep school education make to life as an adult? Why parents might send their children to such schools when the horrors were well-known, many of the dads presumably having survived the experience themselves. Full review...
