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[[Category:New Reviews|Entertainment]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jody RevensonPatti Smith|title= Harry Potter: The Character VaultYear of the Monkey|rating= 4|genre= EntertainmentBiography|summary= Unlock new information about your favourite characters from On the Harry Potter film series. This coffeetable book profiles coast of Santa Cruz, Patti Smith enters the lunar year of the goodmonkey - one packed with mischief, badsorrow, and everything in between – from Harry and Ron to Voldemort and Umbridgeunexpected moments. Hugely detailed and filled with beautiful illustrationsIn a stranger's words, ''Anything is possible: after all, imagesit's the year of the monkey''. As Smith wanders the coast of Santa Cruz in solitude, she reflects on a year that brings huge shifts in her life - loss and never before seen glimpses into ageing are faced head on, as it the design process – this book will answer your questions about character design shifting political waters in the Harry Potter seriesAmerica.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0062407449</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KisteWalton_Ask|title=Jeff Lynne: The Electric Light Orchestra - Before and AfterAsk For Blues|author=Malcolm Walton|rating=43.5|genre=BiographyAutobiography|summary=Jeff Lynne grew up in Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a Birmingham suburb right at memoir about his introduction to the end Trad Jazz scene of 1947: even as a child the late 1950s and early 1960s, but he was passionate about music and was has chosen to write it in the form of a much respected guitarist as novel, claiming in his prologue that this would give the book a teenagerdifferent approach to the music memoir. He was a member of various semi-professional groups - critical acclaim came when he fronted Idle Race in the late sixties His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantle and popularity and a degree begins with his first discovery of commercial success arrived when he joined the popular group The MoveSalvation Army band with his grandfather. Whilst still playing with that group he co-foundedThis catapults him into a love of music, along with Roy Woodinitially taking piano lessons, the groundbreaking Electric Light Orchestra, but it was with Wood's departure that Lynne turned what had been an occasionally uneasy fusion of classical and rock later delving into a successful and popular acthis true love – the trumpet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781554927</amazonuk>

{{newreviewplainFrontpage|isbn=Moore Bientot|title=Thunderbirds are Go Official GuideA Bientot...|author=Roger Moore

|summary=Wow. Every once The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a while great shock: he was one of those people you come across knew would go on forever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a book such as this, which represents in two covers matter of days before his death he'd delivered the complete sine qua non finished manuscript of its subject and type. There is little vital to say about this his book except it is essential for anyone with any remote interest in British horror in motion picture form – yes, it covers cinema ''À bientôt…'', to a minute level but also regards TV in an addendum that will bring back equal memories to those who watch ithis publishers. A book as long and detailed as this – and boy, is it long and detailed – is immediately marked out as Just a sterling, five-star read, and yet the humble reviewer (like perhaps few months later a victim of one of these gothic fictions) has an exhaustive copy landed on my desk and exhausting time ahead. Yes, we here at The Bookbag do read every word of the books we cover, I didn't even if the only verdict regarding them is blatantly evident from the first hour's perusalbother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957648162</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonia Fraser (editor)Maslanka Sherlock|title=Sherlock: The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading Puzzle Book|author=Christopher Maslanka and the Books That Inspired ThemSteve Tribe

|summary= There has been Who doesn't love a trend for lists in recent yearsgood puzzle, with numerous websites and books cashing in on this craze for cataloguing must-see films, favourite foods, and things especially those really fiendish ones that get the brain working extra hard? There really is nothing to compare to do before you die. ‘’The Pleasure of Reading’’that buzz we get from the Aha! moment, edited by Antonia Fraser, may be, then, the most sophisticated when everything falls into place and erudite result of this fascination for listography, since its premise is straightforwardly based around the top ten books chosen by famous authorssolution reveals itself. Behind this book is the curiosity readers feel for each other or the question, as Fraser puts it, ‘What ‘’do’’ other people read?’ But these people If puzzles are some of your thing then you may wish to put your grey cells to the greatest writers working in recent years, test with contributions from Margaret Atwood, Doris Lessing, and Tom Stoppard and others. ''The bookSherlock Puzzle Book'', however, returns us to those early moments in their lives – before fame and prizes – when reading was a hobby like it is for so many peoplebased on the popular TV series. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408859629</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephanie MiltonCorcoran_Dylan|title=Minecraft Beginners's HandbookDo You Mr Jones?: Updated EditionBob Dylan with the Poets and Professors|author=Neil Corcoran|rating=4.5

|summary=If you havenBob Dylan't heard s award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 'for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'Minecraft,'' where on earth have you been? This popular construction/survival game has captured proved highly controversial. It inevitably led some people in the imagination of almost 30 million people worldwide literary world to take stock and look at his work and the craze shows no signs reputation with a fresh eye. This volume of abating. Ifessays was first published in 2002, like me, you are curious as to what all the fuss and is about and wonder why you can no longer get near the computer until after the kids have gone to bed, then this now reissued with a new series of books foreword by Egmont are just what you need. In no time at all, you will be happily chatting about mobs, redstone, endermen and zombie pigmen as if you were an expert..Will Self.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405276770</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Martin EdwardsKyncl_Stream|title=The Golden Age of MurderStream Punks|author=Robert Kyncl and Maany Peyvan|rating=4.5

|summary=Martin Edwards has had such I watch quite a good idea for this booklot of YouTube. He takes the foundation of the Detection Club I play music videos when I want to listen to a particular song I don't already have in my collection. I use it to find out how to do things, with the late 1920s and follows through into instruction videos they seem to have for pretty much anything. At the postwar periodgym, ending his account sometime in I'll stick it on on my phone, prop it up on the midcross-1950s, perhaps trainer and watch some behind the scenes interviews with the death cast of Dorothy L Sayers in 1957my favourite shows. And sometimes I may sound tentative here because there 'll treat it as if it is no entirely precise end dateNetflix, to watch series with new episodes releasing every few days, exclusively on YouTube. The Detection Club itself still lives onHaving a new smart TV adds an extra, hosting three dinners easy way to watch without having to plug in my laptop or squint at a year for elected memberssmall phone screen. Edwards is its current archivist – yet there are no archivesSo yes, unless you count I like YouTube and I use YouTube. But I didn't know a whole lot about the hundreds of books produced by its members, which of course he does. And he also explores their livessite it until I read this book. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008105960</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter AckroydJVDK_Swing|title=Charlie ChaplinWe Can Swing Together: The Story of Lindisfarne|author=John Van der Kiste

|genre=BiographyEntertainment|summary=Charlie Chaplin dominated the formative years It all began with a group of the cinemayoungsters in North Shields. Rod Clements, Simon 'Si' Cowe, as actor Ray 'Jacka' Jackson and directorRay Laidlaw formed ''The Downtown Faction'', like no othersoon changing the name to ''Brethren'' when they were joined by singer-songwriter Alan Hull. As we are told a US-based group had a similar name they opted to change the name again - and ''Lindisfarne'' (with the name taken from an island off the Northumberland coast) was born. More than forty years on and with numerous changes of personnel the band is still very much around. They might not be touring or producing much in an early chapter the way of this booknew material, on his first visit to America in 1910but they still perform, he is alleged to have shoutedwith Rod Clements, ‘I am coming to conquer you. Every man woman and child shall have my name one of the original members on their lips!’ Within a few years he had indeed conquered his fourth stint with the entire movie-going world|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099287560</amazonuk>group.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles SolomonJVDK_ELO|title=A Wish Your Heart Makes Electric Light Orchestra: From the Grimm Brothers' Aschenputtel to Disney's CinderellaSong by Song|author=John Van der Kiste

|summary=It's not a useful thing, to have sniffy presumptions, when you're a humble book reviewer. The same applies My memories of course pop music in the world of cinema, early sixties revolve around guitars and a lot else besidesdrums, but I do have to admit to be really quite dubious about sometimes the thought of a live action remake of Cinderella, even before seeing, reading or hearing anything on which to form a proper judgementpiano with only occasional excursions into strings and brass. Did the world need Pop music rarely stands still and it, I wondered – wasn't long before the original was great enough, basic instruments were seen as constraints and surely so much a sine qua non in animation history. What would some new young cast membersThe Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Kenneth BranaghThe Beach Boys began to experiment, add to – or possibly would with other groups following where they overlay – decades of cinema audiences' joint memory? Surely it would be a pig's earled. WellAmongst these groups was The Move and their lead guitarist and songwriter, if this luscious first book regarding Roy Wood. Wood wanted to develop the new film is any indication, itgroup's actually going to be pretty good. The format sound by adding more instruments but was prevented from achieving what he wanted by cost limitations and because the rest of film tie-in guides itself doesnthe group didn't always engender much hope in the likewise prejudiced – but I confirm this, too, is an item well worth bearing in mindreally share his enthusiasm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1484713265</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sean SmithWatkins_Lets|title=Let's Make Lots of Money: My Life as the Biggest Man in Pop|author=Tom Jones - The LifeWatkins|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyEntertainment|summary=Few singers have sustained Who on earth would be a career over half manager in the larger than life, here today gone tomorrow world of pop? Anybody with an ego, a century and appealed ruthless streak, an opportunity to succeeding generations in embrace the way chances and accept that the former Thomas John Woodward it's not going to last, evidently. Tom Watkins is just one of Treforest has managed several to do. Almost written off during a lean period or twohave walked the fine line and, he proved himself for part of the master of re-inventiontime, and now in quite successfully. As his mid-70s he is loved and revered as something memoirs suggest, part of a national treasurethe time was achievement enough.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000810445X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lincoln PeirceKendrick_Scrappy|title=Big Nate: Laugh-O-Rama (Big Nate Activity Book 4)|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=This seems to be a firmly established publishing practise now – the enhanced readership experience offered to fans of a franchise by a tie-in activity book. This is yet another example – looking like a genuine entry in an on-going series, it instead offers the fan of the characters the chance to interact with them in new ways, as well as looking back through the shelves of their collection, and inwardly as well, at their own thoughts and tastes. Note I say it's for a fan – this example will alienate anyone else from the first page – but for the right audience it’s generally a good thing. And in this instance it's a very, very good thing indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007569076</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewScrappy Little Nobody|author=Dr Gareth Moore|title=Clever Commuter: Puzzles, Tests and Problems to Solve on Your JourneyAnna Kendrick

|summary=The week before I reviewed this Celebrity autobiographies. It's a genre long tainted by the examples of people who clearly didn't deserve to be a celebrity, let alone have a ghost-writer create their book I saw a newspaper article that said that , and by those who did so-called brain-training apps are little but managed to churn out five memoirs before they were even thirty. But more recently it's become a waste way of timestaking a claim to importance for female comics. They've not all written autobiographies, that they merely replace what we should be doing anyway as Bridget Christie proved, but enough have to keep our grey cells active (multiprovide for a rapidly-taskingfilling shelf at the bookstore. 2016 we had Amy Schumer winning a GoodReads award, observingLena Dunham's been at it, REAL LIFE etc)and we've also got Anna Kendrick. This is the puzzle book version Now she's not a strict comic – not all of a brain training appher films are designed to make you laugh, and so with all those electronic titles on the market it already had opposition, even before some of them that news came in. But letare just don's face it t – who on earth would risk the science being wrong on but this occasion? Surely this kind of book should has to be an inherently essential purchase?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433953</amazonuk>in the same bracket.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter A DavidRopek_Tragic|title=Tragic Magic: The Avengers Vault|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=ItLife of Traffic's not just because the third richest take of any movie is about to get a sequel that we have this pictorial background guide. There have been decades of action featuring the main characters of The Avengers, and they themselves are fifty years old as a collective entity, so this book has a lot of ground to cover. To its benefit there are hardly any mentions of the global behemoth that are Marvel films these days, beyond a couple of references where relevant. Instead we're looking back, with bright and eager eyes, to see what we can find, what the beginner may need to know, and what the fan will have fond memories of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781313989</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewChris Wood|author=Gareth Murphy|title=Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record IndustryDan Ropek|rating=4.5

|summary=It’s not difficult to find Chris Wood was a history member of popular or recorded musicTraffic, written around the musical names who made it happengroup formed by Steve Winwood in 1967 after he left The Spencer Davis Group. ''Cowboys A gifted musician best known for his flute and saxophone work, he also played keyboards, bass guitar and Indies'' takes contributed backing vocals as well as having a different approach. While there is plenty hand in these pages about writing several of the most important stars, there is just as much again if not sometimes more about the movers songs and shakers, one or two instrumentals. This biography takes its title from the inventors, managers, impresarios, and record label founders without whom there would not have been a record industryname of one of his compositions for their fifth album.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781254524</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David ElliottDolby_Sound|title=Did We Meet on Grub Street?|rating=3.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=Essentially, the three authors (all of whom have long careers in the book industry) revel in the idea of being whining old curmudgeons who miss the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides the focus The Speed of the book and allows the writers to recount numerous anecdotes from their days in the publishing business. Whilst the primary audience for this book may well be students of creative writing and media studies, it also serves as an interesting exploration of an aspect of modern history: how a once-burgeoning industry is now a shell of its former self, much like a lot of manufacturing. Because of this, I was disappointed that no space was given to a consideration of how the rise of the e-book and Kindle has directly damaged both the sale of books and the potential for new books to be written (fewer real books sold = fewer financial advances paid to writers = fewer books written). Also, given the clear love of books as treasured artifacts, the dismissal of the Harry Potter phenomenon seems truculent, given the impetus the series gave to reading amongst both the young and adults.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704372983</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSound|author=David Lodge|title=Lives in WritingThomas Dolby|rating=4.5

|summary=David Lodge Lives in Writing. So blares the cover of my editionFrom struggling post-punk musician to pop star, from Silicon Valley innovator to university professor, and it's Thomas Dolby has had a remarkable if not far wrong. When he's not entertaining us with his [[:Category:David Lodge|writing unique career]] (now in its third, more erudite and to me more serious stage, after often reinventing himself on the first third of comic light touches, before he found way. This memoir is based on his metier – and fame with TV adaptations– with comedies about the social extensive notes and sexual lives of academe) he's teaching about and around writing. When I was younger I also read around writing – literature books, in other words – and Lodge's were among those I turned to. So this book and its contents are a welcome step back down a very familiar roadjournals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587769</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve TribeMorris_Legion|title=SherlockThe Legion of Regrettable Supervillains: ChroniclesOddball Criminals from Comic Book History|author=Jon Morris

|summary=As much as I still remember sitting down to watch the first episode of ''Sherlock''. like comics – and I was looking forward to it, certainlydo, but within minutes whether superhero ones or not – I realised this was going have to become far more than just admit one thing, namely that the villains in them are a television seriesbit pants. It also struck me thatWhat is The Penguin but the world's worst Mafioso, with a hobby of waddling along like his pet birds? Where else do you win an Oscar of all the television things by playing a two-bit killer who just fell in a vat of random chemicals and film versions I had seenchanged colour, this felt like and got mardier as a result (although recently he's become a nanotech genius – but let's not go there)? And what is it with the gimp in the see-through plant pot because he is the most authentic interpretation embodiment of cold? And that's just some of the original stories better- but trying known enemies of ''Batman'', one of the better goodies. You can imagine how awful the baddies related to work out exactly why would definitely the bad goodies can be a three patch problem. HappilyAnd if you can't, this book provides all is the explanationsperfect primer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907625</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Greg KeyesFletcher_Midnight|title=InterstellarIn the Midnight Hour: The Official Movie Novelization|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The Earth is dying – dust storms are ravaging the world and blight killing off all useful crops, meaning farmers are vital to keep the few people to have survived recent wars fed, even if they need to go further and use less arable lands to do so. Cooper is one such man, despite a history in a completely different career; he lives with the father of his deceased wife and their two children in amongst the corn. But when some mysterious happenings keep occurring in the bedroom that was his wife's as a young girl and is now their daughter's, a most unlikely chain Life & Soul of events leads him to find clues that could revive his past – that in fact of a highly trained astronaut, with the one last potential mission – that of a shortcut to the stars in the trails of prior manned probes to detect new habitable planets for what's left of mankind…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783293691</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewWilson Pickett|author=Mark Cotta Vaz|title=Interstellar: Beyond Time And SpaceTony Fletcher

|summary=Christopher Nolan speaks here of two pertinent visits to Tamla Motown groups and singers apart, in the cinema to see scimid-fi epics. The first time round it was ''Star Wars'', and the young cinema craftsman sixties there were three major names in the making became an avid fan, soul music field who eventually found the story and nature mattered above all. James Brown was something of a cult name who rarely bothered about or troubled the film's construction almost as epicsingles charts, invigorating and absorbing as Otis Redding was on the movie itself. After that came a chance to see a re-release verge of ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', upon which Nolan reports ''information about shooting into the making of Kubricks's masterpiece was harder to come by than Lucas'sstratosphere when he died in an aeroplane crash.'' You don't need me to tell you that nowadays information about making of movie magic is all around us – the trailers and camera diaries of set footage advertising upcoming blockbusters in parallel with each The other, was the DVD and Blu-Ray extrasman from Alabama, and so on. And I'm sure a lot of that is evident with the example of wicked Pickett''Interstellar'', Chris Nolan's attempt to bridge the gap between ''Star Wars'' and ''2001'' and create a thinking woman's emotional, family sci-fi epic. Likewise, too, this book, which is a happy ground between being told only the bare outlines, and the full-on, nothing-kept-sacred smorgasbord detail of a Blu-Ray. A very happy ground, indeed, that will leave many a happy reader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329356X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul RuditisPaling_Reading|title=Battlestar Galactica VaultReading Allowed: The Complete History Of The Series, 1978-2012True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library|author=Chris Paling|rating=4.5

|summary=For those who don't knowI once made a comical faux pas in a library when I was younger, or canbut it certainly didn't rememberput me off returning. I once declared in a self-important way that I would start at the beginning of the books for young children and not stop til the end, then do the same for those for the older children – ''Battlestar Galacticaand then do it all over again with them'' was a '70s piece of American sci-fi TV, launched to great acclaim as a parallel to I said, pointing at the rather similar large-print shelves. ''Star WarsI hope not'' with a full-on TV movie, then one lengthy season was the response – but little me was only aware of hour-long adventuresa need for large font for my fellow whippersnappers, that even had Fred Astaire playing a bit part before audiences dwindled and the show died outnot for any other reason. It shot itself in the foot with a sort-of sequel soon afterwards, Since then languished for decades before two crafty creatives found a way to put more meat on the bonesI've needed libraries, and going to marry the show with much more modern sensibilitiesthem has been second nature. It's not a programme On the dole I made sure I would necessarily have entered a 'vault' could use the free Internet they provided to pay me back for, as my council tax; later I was only intent on finding out if a fan Senior Library Assistant girl was worthy of the originalher title, and of course, it saved a fortune on books for study and possibly only then as opposed to nowfun. I've m not seen a ''BSG'' entity since my youth alone in sharing the warmth of both their heating system and the very thing they were born to provide – books, but I know there was still a heck huge step up between my level of use and knowledge of a lot about what I have pushed them to the back of my mind since then, courtesy of these pagesactually working in one. Which is where Chris Paling comes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781313350</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Springsteen_Born|title=The Art of NoirBorn to Run|author=Eddie MullerBruce Springsteen|rating=4.5

|summary=Colour is surely not No, you haven't stumbled into a music review from the first thing one associates with film noir – after all1970s, the clue is in the name. 'I'm talking about The Third ManBoss'' is s autobiography. Lots of books have been written about Springsteen by folk who knew him, worked with him and by others who have only better with read the shadows, Fritz Lang never needed gaudy colour, and cuttings. Over the whole genre of noir would have last seven years he has been very different if going about – not putting the record straight, exactly – but telling it had been born in Technicolorfrom his own perspective. As he puts it: ''Writing about yourself is a funny business''. But By his own admission, it did live into isn't the era of Cinemascope and colour pictureswhole truth, discretion holds him back but ''in a project like this, and it was never advertised as black and whitethe writer has made one promise, as these superb images testify. The large postcards and posters that adorned American picturehouse lobbies to plug show the films on offer were always luridreader his mind.'' ''In these pages, vivid and extremely colourful. And I've tried to do this book is just as colourful – as well as erudite, comprehensive and extremely entertaining.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715647687</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=JVDK_Beatles|title=The Art of Making ShadowsA Beatles Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Beatles but Were Afraid to Ask|author=Sophie CollinsJohn Van der Kiste|rating=4.5

|summary=Winter is almost upon us You might have thought that just about everything which could be said about the Beatles had been said and the evenings are getting darker. Howevercertainly, rather than bemoaning the lack there's been no shortage of sunshinebooks about what went wrong, how about putting a positive spin on what happened to the situation money and viewing even what went right. But what I've never seen before is a 'miscellany' - all those long, dark evenings as the perfect opportunity little facts which are so hard to hone your shadow-casting skills? Shadow-play track down and this is where historian John Van der Kiste comes into his own: he's a man with an art form that has endured through the ages eye for detail and yet still has the power ability to enchant and entertainbring everything together into a very readable whole. So grab It's a lamp, gather round and get ready to create barking dogs, flying birds and a whole menagerie wonderful collection of shadow characters..the small facts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905695454</amazonuk>