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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A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton
Little owl has fallen out of his nest - uh-oh! Thankfully, a kindly squirrel is going to help him find his mummy. The little owl remembers aspects of what she looks like, so the squirrel ticks off animal after animal until they find mummy owl. Full review...
The Good Father by Noah Hawley
Dr Paul Allen is more than happy with his life. His second wife, Fran, is efficient, a good manager, a good mother to their young twins and not overly emotional as Ellen (Wife No. 1) was. In fact you could say that his life runs like clockwork, which is just how he likes it. Paul hates chaos and the unexpected, but he's about to be visited by both. As the Allens sit in horror watching news footage of the charismatic presidential front-runner being gunned down, there's a knock at the door. Their real horror is beginning; the FBI believes the son he had with Ellen is the guy who pulled the trigger. Full review...
Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May
Billy's mum is dead. Billy is 19 years old when his mum resists a mugger; this is the last thing she ever does, leaving Billy with 6 year old Oscar to face life together. They'll be fine. For a start, their life isn't as bad as the 'Life! Death! Prizes!' type magazines at supermarket check-outs. Billy has a job at the local history museum, Oscar's doing ok at school, so, despite their Aunt Toni, despite Oscar's recently reappearing father, despite the PTA mothers at the school gates... and social services... and the fact that the mugger is a local lad that Billy sees around... yep, they'll be fine. Full review...
Cub's First Summer by Rebecca Elliott
It's the first day of summer, and when Cub wakes up, Mum suggests a walk in the forest together. As Cub and Mum explore Cub bombards his mum with questions (in true toddler fashion!) about the heat, about the length of the days, about the flowers and the birds. They spend a happy day together, enjoying the delights of summer until the sky grows darker and a thunderstorm approaches. Quickly, they run back home and as the storm rages they enjoy one more pleasure, snuggling up together for sleepy time! Full review...
Fables: Legends in Exile - Vol 01 by Bill Willingham
Forced out of the Homelands by the evil Adversary, the characters in Fables have made their way to New York City. Those of them who look relatively human, at least. With Old King Cole as Mayor (in name, at least, despite his deputy Snow White running the show), Bigby Wolf as the Sheriff, and Prince Charming being, well, charming, towards every woman he can, these are characters you'll already know and love – but portrayed in a way that completely reinvigorates them. Full review...
In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill
Ben and Ruth had been married for just a year when he was killed in a tragic accident. One of the other foresters came to tell Ruth about what had happened, but in truth she had known before he arrived. From feeling deliriously happy she had descended within moments into the depths of despair and felt so ill that she could barely move. The confirmation was just that - and Ruth was bereft. She couldn't share her feelings with Ben's family. It's politic to say that they were dealing with their grief in their own way but more truthful to admit that they had never liked her and were disinclined to extend more than the socially-required gestures now that Ben was dead. Full review...
Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch
A young boy and Roger, his dog, receive some traditional advice about how they should live their lives. We've all heard the sentiments (and being honest - not always in the best of circumstances) many times but Serge Bloch gives us his interpretation of the words which we hear so often. Boy (for he has no other name) is told that he has his whole life ahead of him - and gazes at the future through a telescope. It's the first of almost thirty delightful illustrations designed to make us think about what we're saying. Full review...
Escape by Barbara Delinsky
Emily and James are a couple of 30-something lawyers living in New York, except they’re not really living so much as existing, running from home to work to yoga class to book club, barely spending any time together. It’s just the way it is until one day Emily takes a particularly tough call at work and realises in that moment that what she’s doing isn’t right. It isn’t how she imagined life would be. It isn’t what she went to law school for, or what she wants. And so she leaves. Fleeing the city for an altogether more relaxed place, she tells neither her work nor her husband that she is leaving, she just goes. Full review...
London Under by Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd is already well-known as a historian of London. As a kind of adjunct to his mammoth work on the city, here we have a comparatively slender tome on one specific aspect. Underneath the city is a world of its own, of springs, streams, Roman amphitheatres, Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, the creatures which have dwelt in its darkness from rats and eels to monsters and hosts, and last but not least the modern Underground railway system. Full review...
London: The Concise Biography by Peter Ackroyd
As is the case with his recent volume on Charles Dickens, Ackroyd's London is an abridged version of the full book originally published twelve years ago. Nevertheless, at over 600 pages of fairly close print in paperback, it is still a very full read. Full review...
The Duff: The designated ugly fat friend by Kody Keplinger
Bianca Piper is proud of her cynicism. She's not an air-head. She's not obsessed with dating jocks. She has no desire to flirt with every male in sight. But when Wesley Rush, the school heartthrob, tells her she's a DUFF - a Designated Ugly Fat Friend - it really gets to Bianca. Things aren't going well for Bianca on the domestic front either. Her mother is away all the time and Bianca is afraid her father might start drinking again, after eighteen years. As things get further and further out of control at home, Bianca finds herself in the most unlikely of place - the arms of the hated Wesley Rush. Full review...
The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki
The Flying Man opens with the now elderly Maqil Karam writing a letter in his budget hotel in the South of France and facing death. His story takes in many locations, from his native Punjab, to New York, Cairo, London, Paris and Hong Kong. In each location, Maqil adopts a different name, including Mike Cram, Mehmet Kahn, Miguel Caram and Mikhail Lee. Often he acquires a different wife as well, Carine, Samira and Bernadette, although he doesn't go to the bother of divorcing them, he just simply walks away. He is a chancer and a gambler, avoiding attachment, responsibility and commitment throughout his life. Full review...
Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder: The End of the World. Maybe. by Jo Nesbo
If you put authors you least expect to diversify from more literary to children's works on a scale of one to ten, Jeanette Winterson must be a four, Ian McEwan a high eight, and Jo Nesbo, Nordic crime sensation de nos jours at least eleven. But this is now the third in the series of youthful, frivolous adventures, and this time the titular professor, diminutive smart Alec Nilly and Lisa (and their seven-legged spider) have to save the world. Full review...
The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
All contact is lost with two Icelanders working in a remote north-eastern coast of Greenland. There are some signs of what might have happened to them - and none of them good - but the local villagers have no intention of helping in any search and are hostile when they're approached. Six months before a woman geologist had disappeared from the same site and although this was written off as a potential suicide or dreadful accident no definitive explanation had been forthcoming. Was her disappearance related to the disappearance of the two men? Lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir was part of the team hired to investigate the disappearances. Full review...
When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle
In this modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Rosaline has been best friends with Rob ever since they were tiny. But recently, their friendship has grown. The electric crackle of attraction is sparking between them and they are tentatively inching their way towards a relationship. One night they kiss and Rosaline believes they are about to become the couple she has always believed they were destined to be. But then her estranged cousin Juliet arrives back in town. She makes it clear she wants Rob and will stop at nothing to get him. Rosaline can do nothing but watch as Juliet steals her boyfriend and her best friend... Full review...
Department 19: The Rising by Will Hill
HE RISES. The graffiti is breaking out everywhere. For those who don't know what it's referring to, it's a minor annoyance. For Blacklight operatives, it could be the harbinger of the end of the world. Because HE is Dracula, and Valeri Rusmanov has succeeded in bringing his old master back to life – or the vampire equivalent of it, at least. The only hope is that they can track him down before he reaches his full power. Can Jamie Carpenter, along with new Blacklight operatives Larissa (his vampire girlfriend) and Kate Randall, who he rescued from Lindisfarne at the climax of the last book, help to stop him? That's about all of the plot that I feel comfortable talking about, such is my desperation to avoid spoiling anything. Full review...
The Bankruptcy Diaries by Paul Broderick
In 2000, Paul Livingson graduated from university and got his first proper grown up job. By 2007 he had filed for bankruptcy. With no failed businesses, unfortunate property depreciation or poor stock market investments in between you might be at a loss to see how he ended up there, until you read his diary of those years and it all becomes crystal clear. Full review...
Six Little Chicks by Jez Alborough
It's a beautiful day and Hen has already given birth to five fine chicks. She still has one more egg to hatch though so she still needs to sit on that while the other chicks explore and play outside. She is just settling down when she hears Owl’s loud 'To-wit-to-woo!' telling them that the big, bad fox is on the prowl. She dashes out to see all her chicks playing happily with no wolf in sight so she warns them to stay close and goes back to her egg. Not long after, Goose comes along with a similar warning but still there is no fox. Finally though, the fox does arrive and although the chicks are now hiding in the hen house, he entices them to 'come closer'. It looks as if time may be up for these sweet little creatures. Luckily though, the fifth chick had been kicking a stick which, in the little ones' attempts to get away, flies up in the air and manages to land in the fox's mouth wedging it open. This is very fortunate as it is just in time for them to see their sixth little brother or sister be born! Full review...
The Last Day of Term by Francis Gilbert
It's the last day of term at the Gilda Ball Academy, and English teacher Martin can't wait for the holiday to start. Shaken by the death of his friend Jack in a riot at the school, he's failed to notice his marriage falling to pieces and his relationship with his son deteriorating. Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, an anonymous pupil accuses him of inappropriate sexual conduct. Full review...
Invincible by Sherrilyn Kenyon
With Nick Gautier having survived the onslaught of zombies, and finding out that most of the people he knows are supernatural, he’s left wondering what to do now. He hasn’t got long to decide, though – because his new coach is putting pressure on him to steal some special items, and boys of his age are turning up dead. Will he be next? Not if he can help it! Can Nick avoid being murdered, deal with his coach, and work out just who he can trust? Full review...
How to Be Selfish (and Other Uncomfortable Advice) by Olga Levancuka
It's strange how you come to read a particular book. A couple of days ago I was chatting to a dog-walking friend who retired about a year ago. He'd been surprised to find that the main problem in retirement was one which he hadn't anticipated: all his life he'd had to account for himself to somebody else and now he was struggling to discover what it was that he wanted to do. Then I found myself chatting to Olga Levancucka, author of How To Be Selfish - but she seemed like one of the most unselfish people I'd ever met. There was a book here waiting to be read! Full review...
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
Bea Nightingale's brother Marvin wants her - is haranguing her - to retrieve his errant son Julian from post-war Paris, to where he has decamped in an effort to escape parental control. Bea, a New York high school teacher, is an unlikely candidate for the role of rescuer - she and her brother have been estranged for the best part of twenty years. But she capitulates to his demands and sets off on a journey in which her presence will affect not only Julian, but his sister who also runs off to Paris, his girlfriend, a displaced Eastern European Jew, his mother (also escaping Marvin, but this time in a psychiatric facility) and Bea's own ex-husband Leo. Full review...
Never Coming Home by Evonne Wareham
Kaz Elmore has almost come to terms with her daughter's death. She died while on holiday in America with her father (Kaz's ex husband) and her ashes have been scattered on the river. As tragic as it is, Kaz has no alternative but to accept that her daughter is never coming back. However, one day she receives a visit from a man called Devlin, who witnessed the accident and was holding Jamie when she died. His sole intention is to provide some comfort for Kaz by telling her that her daughter was not alone but when he spots photographs of Jamie, he realises that she is not the child who died in his arms. Full review...
The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrea Eames
'The Cry of the Go-Away Bird' is the debut novel from Andrea Eames. It revolves around Elise, a white Zimbabwean girl living through her teens on the eve of the Mugabe-sponsored farm invasions at the beginning of this century. The author herself grew up in Zimbabwe before moving to New Zealand with her family at the age of seventeen and there is a strong sense of memoir and personal experience in the novel, which has both positive and negative effects on the narrative. Full review...
Grandad There's a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill
Things have moved on since we first met ex-crime reporter, Jimm Juree, stranded at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and Restaurant with most of her dysfunctional family. I say 'most' because the sister who used to be a brother and who has criminal tendencies isn't with them and when I say 'moved on' I mean that the tide has been in and out quite a few times. This time it's washed up something a little unusual: a head. Uncertain of what, exactly, you do when you find a head on the beach, Jimm sets off to see the village head man. It's the start of a journey which will uncover piracy and slavery, violence and murder in what should be a beautiful part of the world, but isn't. Full review...
I Love You, Little Monster by Giles Andreae and Jess Mikhail
There's a little monster called Small and a big monster called Big. Small is fast asleep in bed one night when Big comes in, ruffles his hair and starts talking to him. As he speaks it becomes apparent how much he loves the little monster and how much he wants to protect him. He explains that the days are always so busy and there is never enough time to say all of the things that he should say, but it is easy to do so when it is dark. Full review...
I Have Waited, and You Have Come by Martine McDonagh
Rachel's world is in a state of decay. Her house is falling apart, her boyfriend has left her and civilization has crumbled in the wake of plague and extreme climate change. Her only friend, Stephanie, is separated from Rachel by the now insurmountable barrier of the Atlantic Ocean, their communication dependent on an increasingly unreliable satellite connecting their phones. At Stephanie's prompting Rachel gives her number to local trader Noah, who promises to call. Instead the number falls into the hands of the mysterious and sinister Jez White, initiating a disturbing game of cat and mouse, where the line between stalker and victim becomes blurred as Rachel finally decides to take control of her life. Full review...
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
The 'I' in the title of Jane Harris's Gillespie and I is Harriet Baxter. Now elderly and residing in London in 1933, she is finally telling her events of what happened in the early 1880s in Glasgow and her relationship with the Gillespie family. At the time, a spinster of independent means, she arrived in Glasgow to visit the International Exhibition and became a champion of and friend to a young Scottish painter, Ned Gillespie and his young family. We know from early on that tragedy struck the Gillespie family leading to Ned destroying his career, but Harriet wants to set the record straight with regard to her involvement in events. You may or may not believe her story. Full review...
The Girl In The Mask by Marie-Louise Jensen
Sophia has been living relatively freely while her father has been in the West Indies, running the estate, shooting pistols with her cousin Jack and generally being unladylike. But now her father is back and more than keen to see her married off to the next suitable gentleman who so much as looks in her direction. Full review...
Let's Find Mimi at Home by Katherine Lodge
Mimi is a little mouse who lives with her mouse family. This book takes us through her day at home, waking up, getting dressed, eating breakfast etc. Each double page spread has a small description of what Mimi is doing and the challenge is to find Mimi (and her family too, if you wish) and see what she's getting up to! Full review...
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith makes it look so easy, churning out book after delightful book that continue to delight and amuse his loyal readers. His writing seems effortless, and in this story, once again, the characters remain the wonderful friends we have always known and expected them to be, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere and AMS is simply transcribing them for our pleasure. Full review...
Cold Comfort by Quentin Bates
Since we last met Sergeant Gunnhildur she's been promoted and is now working in the Serious Crimes Unit in Reykjavik. It's quite a contrast to her previous job in Hvalvick, but Gunna is determined to make a go of it and it's not long before she has responsibility for two very different cases. A convict has escaped and seems as though he's determined to settle old scores, but why did he need to escape when his ten-year sentence was almost up? The other case is rather more high profile: an ex-TV fitness presenter is murdered in her city apartment and some of the people who knew her are rather well known. Full review...
Twelve Minutes to Midnight by Christopher Edge
The year is 1899. Each night at twelve minutes to midnight, the inmates of Bedlam (London's Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane) rise up from their sleep and begin scribbling strange words and messages everywhere they can... scraps of paper, the walls, scraps from their clothes, even on their own skin. These insane ramblings seem to depict the impossible and hint at the future. Thirteen year old Penelope Tredwell, orphan heiress and writer of best-selling magazine The Penny Dreadful, is intrigued. Hiding behind an actor hired to play the noted author of the Penny Dreadful mysteries, Penny drags him unwillingly into a macabre investigation. As she seeks to discover the meaning of insane ramblings of these unfortunate inmates, and turn them into what would be her best-selling and most famous story ever, Penny finds that she's uncovered a sinister plot controlled by a very real, very evil, very unlikely villain, and she may well be the next victim. Full review...
Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams by Jenny Colgan
Rosie Hopkins is reluctant to leave her beloved London, Gerard, a live-in boyfriend of eight years and her work as auxiliary nurse. But when an elderly aunt who had spent her life running a traditional sweetshop in a small village in the North of England becomes just too elderly to cope, Rosie surprises everybody – even herself – by taking up the challenge. A 100% townie who can't ride a bike and doesn't seem to own a waterproof, a pair of wellies or even walking boots, Rosie soon discovers that the countryside has its charms, not least of which is the local supply of masculine eye candy. Soon she will find herself re-opening the shop (just to sell it as a running concern, you understand) as well as somewhat accidentally, saving and enriching lives all around, from a lady of the manor's Lab to her own dignified, but possessed of an acid tongue, great aunt Lillian. Full review...
Goblins by Philip Reeve
Poor Skarper. He's such a loser. In the violent and bloodthirsty goblin world where fighting and eating and taking other people's loot are all-time-favourite, number-one activities, he has a terrible handicap. He thinks. In fact, he's pretty clever, for a goblin, to the extent that he uses the goblins' bumwipe heaps for . . . reading. Yup, you heard me. Reading. The foolish hatchling works out that the black squiggles on the mouldering heaps of soft and crinkly stuff left, long ago, by the ancient inhabitants of the tower, are written words, and instead of going out raiding like any sensible goblin, he creeps off to a quiet corner to work out what they mean. Silly, eh? Full review...
A Small Fortune by Rosie Dastgir
Harris Anwar is truly a man who is split between two worlds. He's a British Pakistani, proud of his Eastern roots, but when he came to the UK he changed his name from Haaris - with a long, flat vowel - to the more acceptable Harris and his clothing was that favoured by an English gentleman. He's proud and he would say many reasons to be proud. Some of the things of which he's proud are relatively small - the vacuum cleaner which he's had for twenty years might not work particularly well, but he's proud that he's hung on to it. He's proud of his car, the central heating which he installed himself and most of all he's proud of his daughter. Full review...
