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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17 Equations That Changed The World by Ian Stewart
17 Equations That Changed the World takes us through the history of mathematics, from Pythagoras through Einstein's theory of relativy and chaos theory. It highlights the most influently equations, clearly explains them, and establishes the full ranges of breakthroughs they led to. Full review...
Dotter of Her Father's Eyes by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot
If there's one person able to produce a worthwhile potted history of James Joyce's daughter, it should be Mary M Talbot. She's an eminent academic, and her father was a major Joycean scholar. Both females had parents with the same names too - James and Nora, both took to the stage when younger after going to dance school, but it's the contrasts between them this volume subtly picks out rather than any similarities, in a dual biography painted by one person we know by now as more than able to produce a delightful graphic novel - Bryan Talbot. Full review...
The Child Inside by Suzanne Bugler
Rachel Morgan feels that she does not fit in anywhere. Certainly not with all of the other mums at her son Jono's posh school. Certainly not with all the happy jolly families on the beaches when they are on holiday. And most of all, she no longer feels that she fits in with her own little family. Nothing ever feels right and she continually feels isolated on the outside looking in. Of course, these feelings lead to an increasing sense of dissatisfaction which she can only deal with by dwelling on what she perceives as her happier past. Full review...
Modesty Blaise: Live Bait by Peter O'Donnell
We're back in the gritty yet glamorous world of Modesty Blaise - at least, as gritty and glamorous as you could get in the Evening Standard daily comic strip in the late 1980s. Titan have had a mammoth undertaking to reproduce all the original strips in handy large-format graphic novel compendia, and this latest covers three stories, all of which I consider greater in depth than those in the other volume I've reviewed - Sweet Caroline. Full review...
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Dora and Nora Chance are the twin daughters of Shakespearean actor Melchior Hazard and Pretty Kitty, the chambermaid at the theatrical boarding house where he was lodging in the First World War. Kitty died in childbirth and the girls were brought up by the woman they knew as Grandma. As for Melchior, he preferred that it be thought that his twin brother Peregrine was responsible and Perry was not unhappy to bear the burden. What Melchior didn't know was that the twin daughters which his first wife produced were actually sired by Perry. If you're getting confused, then bear in mind that there are more sets of twins to appear and that this is comedy, not of the cheap canned laughter variety, but of the type written by the bard himself. Full review...
The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan
Kasienka's Dad is gone, leaving only a brief note to say he'd gone to England. Its two years after his departure, and Kasienka and her mother are moving to England to find him. With nothing but a suitcase and an old laundry bag, they leave Poland and their lives behind. But England isn't what Kasienka imagined, living in a single room, and sharing a bed with her mum, she longs to return to Poland. At home her mother throws herself into finding Kasienka's Dad, heartbroken that he left them; at school Kasienka finds herself a target of bullying. Full review...
Talina in the Tower by Michelle Lovric
Nineteenth century Venice can seem a sinister place, full of secrets, misty forgotten islands and magic, both good and 'baddened'. It does, however, have its brighter, warmer side, with cosy, comforting grannies and delicious recipes, and Talina loves it dearly. But then the mangy, rabid Ravageurs arrive, creatures part-way between wolves and hyenas, and claim the city as their ancestral home. Men, women and children are stolen away in the night, as are cats and rats, but the inhabitants refuse to believe the full horror of what is happening, preferring instead to blame a neighbouring town. Full review...
Educating Jack by Jack Sheffield
September 1982 sees the beginning of Jack Sheffield's sixth year as head of Ragley-on-the-Forest village school and some of the village regulars are realising that this is going to be a year to remember too. Nora Pratt has been in the coffee shop for a quarter of a century now. Ronnie Smith decides that the world of employment might be for him after all - but is sacked from one job after a matter of seconds. At the cinema it's ET who's pulling in the crowds and Prince William comes into the world along with the 20p piece (well - not at exactly the same time), but it's Jack Sheffield who is going to face the biggest change. Full review...
Amelia and the Virgin by Nicky Harlow
Amelia is 13 years old and lives with her mother, brother and extended family in 1980s Liverpool. Con, her great-uncle, is a psychiatrist with prestigious patients and a bit of a drink problem, Great-Aunt Edith is a devout Catholic with an inclination towards eccentricity and her brother, Julian, is a junky. Amelia's mother tries to hold everyone together but becomes slightly distracted when she inherits a convent in Ireland, complete with nuns. Amelia has her own problems, though. She sees visions of the Goddess Irena and is pregnant with the next Messiah. (A girl this time as the original male Messiah didn't have much luck.) Full review...
Best Shot in the West by Patricia McKissack, Frederick L McKissack Jr and Randy DuBurke
'We're going to do the real West, Nat. You're as real as the rest of 'em - Bat Masterson, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill, the Earps.' So says a publisher to a lowly railroad porter, Nat. But if this guy's as real as the rest of those famous names, why does his not trip off the tongue? Is it purely because as the most famous African-American cowboy, he still was not allowed to be as famous as he should? Full review...
The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore
Set in 1952 in Yorkshire, a young couple move into a rented flat. Philip is the new, young doctor while his new wife Isabel struggles with the isolated life with no friends or family and Philip's frequent absence due to the demands of his job. Things take a turn to the spooky when, waking from under the warmth of the old greatcoat Isabel finds in the flat, she hears a tapping at the window and finds there an RAF pilot, Alec, who appears to know Isabel intimately. Full review...
The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott
Flora Avery's schoolmaster husband dies suddenly, leaving her three daughters and a dilemma: how does she find the money to raise them? Her answer is to return to her pre-marital profession, the one of which her husband disapproved so vocally. Flora decides to put her family on the stage as a vaudeville act. So begins a new life as they tour the backwater theatres of America and their native Canada, dreaming of a big future whilst weathering the present. Set prior to and during World War I, it wasn't just the Averys who faced changes and uncertainty. Full review...
The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
Mara has just started her whole life over - new city, new school, new start. It's just what the doctor ordered, and her family - though still treating her like she might fall apart at any moment - are tentatively hopeful that it's just what she needs to get back on her feet. Mara just hopes her memories return. She needs to know what happened the night her two best friends and her boyfriend died in an accident she somehow managed to escape unscathed. Full review...
Burning Issy by Melvin Burgess
It's the early 17th century and Issy is living in Lancashire with her foster father Nat and foster brother Ghyll. Nat is a cunning man - a herbalist and healer - and Issy keeps house while Nat plies his trade and teaches Ghyll how to follow in his footsteps. It's a hard life and there is little to spare. And the family live on the edge of suspicion. Convinced he's being plotted against by Scottish witches, the King has unleashed witch-hunts on a deeply superstitious and fearful country. Healers like Nat are working in the grey areas of persecution and are only ever an accusation away from torture and trial, while time is running out for self-professed witches like Demdyke and her family. Full review...
A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd
Picture the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansion. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour of the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there was that tempestuous iconoclast, D.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. She, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends in the pages of annotated diaries which became A Book of Secrets. Full review...
Demystifying the Chinese Economy by Justin Yifu Lin
The success of the Chinese economy, and as Lin makes us aware, a success which contrasts strongly with what appeared major failure in the recent historical past, is something which needs explanation. No one can ignore it, and we are confronted with the effects of it from the ownership of Thames water to the faces of tourists in London and Stratford on a daily basis. And in the roots of its success are the potential seeds of future change, a change that now more than ever is crucial to the way the world economy works. Full review...
The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live by Roman Krznaric
'How should we live?' asks author Roman Krznaric. To answer this ancient question, he looks to history. 'I believe that the future of the art of living can be found by gazing into the past', he says. Creating a book which is as full of curiosities as a Renaissance 'Wunderkammer', he has a stab at the big questions: love, belief, money, family, death. The result is a pot-pourri of delights which left this particular reader stimulated and invigorated. Full review...
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman
Haeden, New York is a small town of the type where nothing really happens. When 19 year old Wendy White goes missing, the local reporter, Stacy Flynn, thinks she’s found her big break, but her investigations lead her to a wall of silence which proves highly distressing to break through. Hoffman’s observations of small town life and small town personalities are compelling. No aspect is left unexamined, from the painful tedium to the quite contentment experienced as part of a whole spectrum of emotions experienced by visitors and residents alike. Full review...
Swift by R J Anderson
Ivy lives in an abandoned Cornish tin mine with the rest of her piskie clan. The piskies live in fear of kidnapping spriggans and so it's a closed life, with the females of the clan rarely going above ground. It's just too dangerous. This weighs heavily on Ivy, who has an independent spirit and sense of wanderlust. And Ivy has other sadnesses: her mother disappeared years ago, taken by spriggans, and she was born without wings so cannot fly like the others. Full review...
My Granny is a Pirate by Val McDermid and Arthur Robins
It seems the pirate phase is something all small children go through at some point. My daughter spent several months dressed as a pirate, completing her outfit with a knitted eye patch, which she asked my mum to knit for her, swiftly followed by a knitted parrot! It is rather fun to run around shouting 'Arrrrrrrrrr me hearties!' actually, so I can see the appeal. Anyway, this story caters beautifully for all the little wannabe pirates out there and tells of one little boy's granny and her secret life story. Full review...
There's a House Inside My Mummy by Giles Andreae and Vanessa Cabban
The arrival of a new sibling can be a tricky time in any child's life, but this lovely book helps ease the way for a new baby and explains about pregnancy in a very easy, funny way that is perfect for sharing with toddlers. The idea of there being a house inside mummy's tummy is a clever one, and instantly understandable by small children, and the loving family relationship that is depicted in the story is wonderful to see. Full review...
Leadership Rules by Jo Owen
Owen's latest addition to the management self-help canon is subtitled 50 Timeless Lessons for Leaders. Fifty lessons in under 250 pages? You have to know that the genuine newness of the insights might be on the disappointing side of fabulous. That's not to completely write off Leadership Rules. I enjoyed reading it. Given its structure of short sharp snipes which might be aimed at the dip-in-and-out brigade, I can also say that it reads well as a sit-down-and-consider book. Full review...
The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China by James Palmer
Welcome to China, where the populous are busy leaving a rural country full of prosperous mineral resources and coal mines, and shoddily-built hydro-electric dams in environmentally dubious locations, for the burgeoning, mechanised cities. But this isn't the birth of 2012, it's the dawn of 1976. Chairman Mao is dying, Premier Zhou Enlai has just died, and the cauldron of power is being stirred as never before. Among the momentous events of the year however will be a huge earthquake directly centred on the city of Tangshan, which will kill something like two thirds of a million people. Full review...
Hinterland by Caroline Brothers
Aryan (14) and his brother Kabir (aged 8) are refugees, fleeing the horrors of their homeland, Afghanistan. Equipped only with some money sewn into a belt and stories of a promised land called England, they learn about desperation, misplaced trust and other lessons normally kept from children. Full review...
Max and Molly's Guide to Trouble: How to Build an Abominable Snowman by Dominic Barker and Hannah Shaw
I'd like you to meet Max and Molly Pesker of Laburnum Avenue, Trull. They're twins, with red hair and bright, fun-loving natures to match and this time they have a real problem on their hands. Laburnum Avenue is snowed in and Mum can't get to the supermarket. Until the road is cleared they're going to have to live on the supply of EMERGENCY BEANS which their father has been storing in the cellar. There's also a humanitarian aspect to their problems. The Goodley children (could children ever have had a more appropriate surname?) from across the street eat tofu but have never tasted toffee! That can't be allowed to continue, now can it? Full review...
A Fairy Tale by Tony Ross
In Balaclava Street Bessie was bored. Even her book wasn't helping. It was about fairies and she didn't believe in them, obviously. And even if they did exist they'd have more sense than to live in the gloomy streets around the mill, wouldn't they? Playing with her ball in the back yard she encountered her next-door neighbour, Mrs Leaf and a strange friendship developed between the old woman and the young girl. It was difficult for Bessie to work out if Mrs Leaf actually believed in fairies, but it seemed strange that as Bessie got older, Mrs Leaf seemed to get younger. And who exactly was Mrs Leaf? Full review...
This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You by Jon McGregor
The clue is in the Christopher Brookmyre-styled title. If the events, characters and circumstances in these stories are known to you, then you have my sympathies. A man causes an embarrassment trying to watch his daughter's first school nativity play. Another has a phobia of eggs containing an avian foetus when he puts knife and fork to them. There's a car crash here - and there, a drowning, some arson, some theft... and a lot of clues that point to some national disaster. Take all those clues as one and you eventually see this is more than just a collection of disparate short stories, but a very fractured, obfuscated novel. Full review...
Sherlock Holmes and the Lyme Regis Legacy by David Ruffle
Dr Watson is happy to be returning to Lyme Regis, and the woman he loves. He gets more than he bargained for, though, as he is quickly embroiled in a series of killings which bear strange resemblances to some of the cases he and Holmes have been involved in. The great detective joins him, with Lestrade following to assist in their investigations, and the trio realise that they are dealing with a haunting figure from their past... Full review...
The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer v. 3 by Garen Ewing
Here we are, then, ten years after the debut of this graphic novel on the Internet, and finally the print trilogy is complete. At last we can see if our hero Julius, his chums, the shady Government people, and his enemy’s beautiful assassin aide who remains impossible to shrug off, manage to get anywhere near the fabled titular plant in its secret Himalayan location, and just how important it has been for all those many people left back in England. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, and it’s been worth it. Full review...
The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones
It's Spring 1924 in South Wales, and young undertaker Wilfred is going to learn the hard way how serious the trivial can be. Fascinated by a girl's dress - worn very seductively by Grace, who he has met but twice as an adult - he blurts out a marriage proposal. As much as wants to take it back, she won't let him. He tries to move on, leaving her disappointed, especially when he falls for the daughter of a man he buries, but... There are things dangerously spoken, dangerously left unsaid, and a complex web of divided loyalties and enforced connections, in this brilliant debut novel. Full review...
Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory by Paul Watson
I'm a huge fan of both football and reading, so a book about football is always likely to appeal to me as the best way of combining the two. Recently, I've read books set at the pinnacle of the game in Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey and about one man's struggle to bring football to a foreign land in Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons. Up Pohnpei is firmly in the latter category, treading very similar ground to Simons' book. Full review...
Sherlock Holmes and the Lyme Regis Horror - Expanded 2nd Edition by David Ruffle
Taking a rare holiday on the Dorsetshire coast, Dr Watson manages to persuade Sherlock Holmes to join him. Delighted to spend time with his old friend Godfrey Jacobs, and charmed by widowed boarding house proprietor Mrs Heidler, the good doctor is set for a pleasant and relaxing stay – until mysterious events occur, pointing to an unimaginable evil, and the game’s afoot once more! Full review...
Desert Angel by Charlie Price
Fourteen-year-old Angel is alone in an open desert. The man who killed her mother is relentlessly tracking her, and determined to see her buried. Just as she resigns herself to death, the local community suddenly take her in and give her a new identity and an opportunity to hide with a normal family. They believe that she'll be safe, but Angel knows better. She knows Scotty, and she knows that he won't give up so easily. Her constant paranoia threatens to drive a wedge between her and the family who have taken her in, but she is convinced that it is the only thing keeping her alive, and she might just be right. Full review...
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier
From the very beginning of this delightful book you are left in no doubt about the extraordinary and magical adventures you will experience with Peter Nimble and his friends. As a baby Peter is found floating in a basket across the sea. The magistrates give him a name, as the law requires, then leave him to fend for himself. He is raised for a while by a cat, then adopted by Mr Seamus, a beggarmonger who trains him to steal and beats him regularly to ensure he learns his lessons well. Full review...
Tattybogle by Sandra Horn and Ken Brown
At the start of this story, Tattybogle stands in the middle of the field in which he has stood for a long time. He is made of sticks and sacks, wears the farmer's old clothes and his head is full of straw and cheerful thoughts. It would seem that this scarecrow's life is a very good one especially when the wind blows because he likes a bit of a dance. He also likes the rain and when the stars twinkle at night. Full review...
Sarmada by Fadi Azzam and Adam Talib (Translator)
'Sarmada' is small and remote village in the Northern hills of Syria, close to the Turkish border. And for much of Azzam's novel it seems a forgotten village, lost in the rituals and mysticism of ancient Druze belief and folk tales that inform the collective consciousness of the place. For the novel weaves the tales of three Syrian women and their relationships with each other, the men of their lives and the fabric of a life almost caught in the timeless past of the Middle East. Full review...
Will Gallows and the Thunder Dragon's Roar by Derek Keilty
Because this series revisits traditional western genre stories, this volume concerns the problems caused by settlers muscling in and making demands on the land and resources of the natives. Because it is also a fantasy series, the settlers are humans fleeing an earthquake-raddled territory for new lives where elves live, and if the cavalry are summonsed to take sides they'll do it on flying horses. And because this is a very enjoyable series, the fix half-human, half-elf Will Gallows - who could also qualify as a young member of the sky cavalry - finds himself in is a most compelling plot. Full review...
Katy's Wild Foal by Victoria Eveleigh
It snowed on Katy's birthday but something even more magical was going to happen that day. When she went out onto Exmoor she discovered a tiny newborn foal and its dam. With wobbly steps the foal walked right up to her and she was spellbound. It wasn't easy but she persuaded her father that the mare and foal needed help and he got them some hay. Katy couldn't ride but she still longed for that foal. Katy's Wild Foal is the story of the next year in Katy's life - and the life of the foal - and what a roller coaster it was going to be. Full review...
The Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw
Do you remember being a child who had only just learned how to read? Do you remember the very first time you read a fairy story that no-one had told you before? Can you recapture the joy of entering a truly magical land and (for a time) believing it was real?
No? Then I recommend that you read Ali Shaw's second novel 'The Man Who Rained'. Full review...
I & I: The Natural Mystics by Colin Grant
Just mention the word reggae, and the name that nearly always springs to mind is that of Bob Marley and the Wailers. The music has always been very much a product of the Jamaican culture, nurtured in years of turbulent history. In this book Colin Grant, born in Britain of Jamaican parents, goes back deep into its roots, and in the process examines the childhood lives of the Wailers’ three main personalities, namely Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Neville Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer, to provide an account of the group – but much more than that. Full review...
This Is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees
Jamie falls hook, line and sinker for Caro the moment he runs into her at the Rendez. He knows she's bad news. Everyone knows she's bad news. But he just can't help himself. Caro is strong, vital, secretive and beautiful and Jamie is a moth to her flame. He suspects there's someone else in her life but it doesn't make a difference. No matter what everyone else thinks, what his sister Martha says, Caro is not like any other girl Jamie knows. She's worth any risk, despite the disappearances, despite the odd tattoos and scars from self-harm. And there's also Rob. Back from Afghanistan with a shattered leg, Jamie's older brother is descending into a world of drink and drugs. He just can't fit back into small town life. Jamie wants to help him, but Rob is too unpredictable and unstable to reach. Full review...
The Donut Diaries: Revenge is Sweet: Book Two by Anthony McGowan
Only the other week I was reviewing and enjoying a book styled as a young lad's diary, where the greatest insult was to call someone a doughnut. Here, the hero of a book styled as a young lad's diary, calls himself Donut. He does eat a lot of them, for one, and as a result has a bit of a muffin-top going on. His schoolfriends call him Donut too - those few friends he could gather together into a gang of outcasts and oddments in the first book of this series. In this first sequel, covering a couple of months in his second term, there is a very nasty problem, as Donut is framed for leaving unsavoury messages about the school. Full review...
Artemis by Philip Palmer
With every novel, Philip Palmer is going from strength to strength. I've not always enjoyed his writing style, but his eye for a story is wonderful and his imagination is seemingly endless. Every time I open one of his novels, I wonder when he will find the limits of his inventiveness and it's never that time. Artemis is no exception to that rule. Full review...
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
On Rollrock Island, the fishermen find their brides from the sea through the usurial offices of the witch Miskaella. They're selkies; seal women who shed their skins to become human. Their husbands are obsessed by them and the men without a selkie will risk anything to become part of the enchantment, even their human wives and children and half their lifetime earnings. Soon there are no human women left on Rollrock - the adults to the mainland and the female selkie babies to the ocean. There are just dads and mams and little boys. Full review...
