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[[Category:New Reviews|Entertainment]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline TaggartPatti Smith|title=New Words for Old: Recycling Our Language for Year of the Modern WorldMonkey|rating=3.54|genre=TriviaBiography|summary=I never declare myself off to have a 'kip'On the coast of Santa Cruz, as I recall reading that it originally meant Patti Smith enters the same amount lunar year of sleeping – the monkey - one packed with mischief, sorrow, and activity – as happens in unexpected moments. In a whorehouse. The word stranger's words, 'cleave' can mean either to split apartAnything is possible: after all, or to connect together, and I'm sure thereit's another word that has completely changed its meaning from one end the year of things to another although I canthe monkey't remember which. Certainly, ''literally'' has tried its best to make a full switch through rampant misuse. Such is As Smith wanders the nature coast of our language – fluid both Santa Cruz in spelling until moderately recentlysolitude, and definitely in meaning. This attempt at capturing she reflects on a corner of the trivia/words/novelty market is interested year that brings huge shifts in such tales from the etymological world – the way we have adapted old words for our own, modern her life - loss and perhaps very different usages. Certainlyageing are faced head on, having browsed as it over a week, I can declare it a pretty strong attemptthe shifting political waters in America.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782434720</amazonuk>1526614758

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Spencer LeighWalton_Ask|title= Frank Sinatra: An Extraordinary Life|rating= 4|genre= Entertainment|summary= Frank Sinatra was undoubtedly a legend. In a notoriously precarious profession, he managed to stay at the top, or very close to it, for a remarkably long time. Despite a few half-hearted flirtations with other styles which may have strayed a little from his comfort zone, he remained true to his musical style, won the respect of younger generations, and never really went out of fashion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857160869</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewAsk For Blues|author=Steve Tribe|title=The All New University Challenge Quiz Book: Questions, Answers, Facts, Figures and everything in betweenMalcolm Walton

|genre=EntertainmentAutobiography|summary=[Cue theme music. Lights up on presenter, who waffles on about establishments providing contestants – De Montfort University, local pub, family unit. Contestants don't, for once, introduce themselves as itMalcolm Walton's probably book is clearly a given that they know each other. Contestants imbibe nervous sips memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of 'water', the late 1950s and settle back.] ''You all know the rulesearly 1960s, so let's not waste time – here's your first starter for ten.''  Yes, this book throws no punches and attempts but he has chosen to put you write it in the spotlight form of one of the nation's most superlative televisual institutions – but does it manage it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184949701X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Jody Revenson|title= Harry Potter: The Character Vault|rating= 4|genre= Entertainment|summary= Unlock new information about your favourite characters from the Harry Potter film series. This coffeetable book profiles the gooda novel, bad, and everything claiming in between – from Harry and Ron to Voldemort and Umbridge. Hugely detailed and filled with beautiful illustrations, images, and never before seen glimpses into his prologue that this would give the design process – this book will answer your questions about character design in the Harry Potter series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0062407449</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Jeff Lynne: The Electric Light Orchestra - Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=Biography|summary=Jeff Lynne grew up in a Birmingham suburb right at different approach to the end of 1947: even as a child he was passionate about music and was a much respected guitarist as a teenagermemoir. 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 piano with only occasional excursions into strings and brass. Pop music rarely stands still and it wasn't long before seeingthe basic instruments were seen as constraints and The Beatles, reading or hearing anything on which The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys began to form a proper judgementexperiment, with other groups following where they led. Did the world need itAmongst these groups was The Move and their lead guitarist and songwriter, I wondered – Roy Wood. Wood wanted to develop the original group's sound by adding more instruments but was great enough, prevented from achieving what he wanted by cost limitations and surely so much because the rest of the group didn't really share his enthusiasm.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Watkins_Lets|title=Let's Make Lots of Money: My Life as the Biggest Man in Pop|author=Tom Watkins|rating=4|genre=Entertainment|summary=Who on earth would be a sine qua non manager in animation history. What would some new young cast membersthe larger than life, and Kenneth Branagh, add to – or possibly would they overlay – decades here today gone tomorrow world of cinema audiences' joint memorypop? Surely it would be Anybody with an ego, a pig's ear. Wellruthless streak, if this luscious first book regarding an opportunity to embrace the new film is any indication, chances and accept that it's actually not going to be pretty goodlast, evidently. The format Tom Watkins is just one of several to have walked the fine line and, for part of film tie-in guides itself doesn't always engender much hope in the likewise prejudiced – but I confirm thistime, tooquite successfully. As his memoirs suggest, is an item well worth bearing in mindpart of the time was achievement enough.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1484713265</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Kendrick_Scrappy|title=Scrappy Little Nobody|author=Sean SmithAnna Kendrick|rating=3.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=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, and by those who did so little but managed to churn out five memoirs before they were even thirty. But more recently it's become a way of staking a claim to importance for female comics. They've not all written autobiographies, as Bridget Christie proved, but enough have to provide for a rapidly-filling shelf at the bookstore. 2016 we had Amy Schumer winning a GoodReads award, Lena Dunham's been at it, and we've also got Anna Kendrick. Now she's not a strict comic – not all of her films are designed to make you laugh, and some of them that are just don't – but this has to be in the same bracket.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=Ropek_Tragic|title=Tom Jones - Tragic Magic: The Lifeof Traffic's Chris Wood|author=Dan Ropek

|genre=BiographyEntertainment|summary=Few singers have sustained Chris Wood was a career over half a century and appealed to succeeding generations member of Traffic, the group formed by Steve Winwood in the way that the former Thomas John Woodward of Treforest has managed to do1967 after he left The Spencer Davis Group. Almost written off during a lean period or twoA gifted musician best known for his flute and saxophone work, he proved himself the master of re-inventionalso played keyboards, bass guitar and now contributed backing vocals as well as having a hand in his mid-70s he is loved writing several of the songs and revered as something one or two instrumentals. This biography takes its title from the name of one of a national treasurehis compositions for their fifth album.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000810445X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lincoln PeirceDolby_Sound|title=Big Nate: Laugh-O-Rama (Big Nate Activity Book 4)The Speed of Sound|author=Thomas Dolby

|summary=The week before I reviewed this book I saw a newspaper article that said that soFrom struggling post-called brain-training apps are a waste of timepunk musician to pop star, that they merely replace what we should be doing anyway from Silicon Valley innovator to keep our grey cells active (multi-taskinguniversity professor, observingThomas Dolby has had a remarkable if not unique career, REAL LIFE etc)often reinventing himself on the way. This memoir is the puzzle book version of a brain training app, based on his extensive notes and so with all those electronic titles on the market it already had opposition, even before that news came injournals. But let's face it – who on earth would risk the science being wrong on this occasion? Surely this kind of book should be an inherently essential purchase?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782433953</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter A DavidMorris_Legion|title=The Avengers Vault|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=It'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 Legion 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>}}{{newreviewRegrettable Supervillains: Oddball Criminals from Comic Book History|author=Gareth Murphy|title=Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record IndustryJon Morris

|summary=It’s As much as I like comics – and I do, whether superhero ones or not difficult – I have to find a history of popular or recorded musicadmit one thing, written around namely that the musical names who made it happenvillains in them are a bit pants. What is The Penguin but the world''Cowboys s worst Mafioso, with a hobby of waddling along like his pet birds? Where else do you win an Oscar of all things by playing a two-bit killer who just fell in a vat of random chemicals and changed colour, and Indiesgot mardier as a result (although recently he's become a nanotech genius – but let' takes a different approach. While s not go there )? And what is plenty it with the gimp in these pages about several of the most important stars, there see-through plant pot because he is the embodiment of cold? And that's just as much again if not sometimes more about some of the movers and shakersbetter-known enemies of ''Batman'', one of the inventorsbetter goodies. You can imagine how awful the baddies related to the bad goodies can be. And if you can't, managers, impresarios, and record label founders without whom there would not have been a record industrythis is the perfect primer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781254524</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Tennant, Hilary Bailey and David ElliottFletcher_Midnight|title=Did We Meet on Grub Street?In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett|author=Tony Fletcher|rating=34.5

|summary=EssentiallyTamla Motown groups and singers apart, in the mid-sixties there were three authors (all of whom have long careers major names in the book industry) revel in the idea soul music field who mattered above all. James Brown was something of being whining old curmudgeons a cult name who miss rarely bothered about or troubled the good old days of publishing. This unashamed nostalgia provides singles charts, and Otis Redding was on the focus verge of shooting into the book and allows the writers to recount numerous anecdotes from their days stratosphere when he died 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 manufacturingaeroplane crash. Because of this, I The other 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 artifactsman from Alabama, 'the dismissal of the Harry Potter phenomenon seems truculent, given the impetus the series gave to reading amongst both the young and adultswicked Pickett'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704372983</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David LodgePaling_Reading|title=Lives in WritingReading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library|author=Chris Paling|rating=4.5

|summary=David Lodge Lives I once made a comical faux pas in Writinga library when I was younger, but it certainly didn't put me off returning. So blares I once declared in a self-important way that I would start at the cover beginning of my editionthe books for young children and not stop til the end, then do the same for those for the older children – ''and then do itall over again with them'', I said, pointing at the large-print shelves. ''s I hope not far wrong'', was the response – but little me was only aware of a need for large font for my fellow whippersnappers, and not for any other reason. When heSince then I's not entertaining us with his [[:Category:David Lodge|writing career]] (now in its thirdve needed libraries, more erudite and going to them has been second nature. On the dole I made sure I could use the free Internet they provided to pay me more serious stage, after the first third back for my council tax; later I was intent on finding out if a Senior Library Assistant girl was worthy of comic light touchesher title, before he found his metier – and fame with TV adaptations– with comedies about the social and sexual lives of academe) he's teaching about course, it saved a fortune on books for study and around writingfun. When I was younger I also read around writing 'm not alone in sharing the warmth of both their heating system and the very thing they were born to provide – literature books, in other words – but there was still a huge step up between my level of use and Lodge's were among those I turned knowledge of them toactually working in one. So this book and its contents are a welcome step back down a very familiar roadWhich is where Chris Paling comes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587769</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve TribeSpringsteen_Born|title=Sherlock: ChroniclesBorn to Run|author=Bruce Springsteen

|summary=No, you haven't stumbled into a music review from the 1970s, I still remember sitting down to watch the first episode of ''Sherlock'm talking about The Boss's autobiography. I was looking forward to itLots of books have been written about Springsteen by folk who knew him, certainlyworked with him and by others who have only read the cuttings. Over the last seven years he has been going about – not putting the record straight, exactly – but within minutes I realised this was going to become far more than just telling it from his own perspective. As he puts it: ''Writing about yourself is a television seriesfunny business''. It also struck me thatBy his own admission, of all it isn't the television and film versions I had seenwhole truth, discretion holds him back but ''in a project like this felt like , the most authentic interpretation of writer has made one promise, to show the original stories - but trying to work out exactly why would definitely be a three patch problemreader his mind. Happily'' ''In these pages, I've tried to do this book provides all the explanations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907625</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Greg KeyesJVDK_Beatles|title=InterstellarA Beatles Miscellany: 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 Everything You Always Wanted to keep Know About the few people to have survived recent wars fed, even if they need to go further and use less arable lands Beatles but Were Afraid 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 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>}}{{newreviewAsk|author=Mark Cotta Vaz|title=Interstellar: Beyond Time And SpaceJohn Van der Kiste|rating=4.5

|summary=Christopher Nolan speaks here of two pertinent visits to You might have thought that just about everything which could be said about the cinema to see sci-fi epics. The first time round it was ''Star Wars'', Beatles had been said and the young cinema craftsman in the making became an avid fancertainly, who eventually found the story and nature of the filmthere's construction almost as epic, invigorating and absorbing as the movie itself. After that came a chance to see a re-release been no shortage of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''books about what went wrong, upon which Nolan reports ''information about the making of Kubricks's masterpiece was harder to come by than Lucas's.'' You don't need me what happened 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 other, the DVD and Blu-Ray extras, money and so oneven what went right. And But what I'm sure ve never seen before is a lot of that is evident with the example of 'miscellany'Interstellar'', Chris Nolan's attempt - all those little facts which are so hard to bridge the gap between ''Star Wars'' track down and ''2001'' and create a thinking womanthis is where historian John Van der Kiste comes into his own: he's emotional, family sci-fi epic. Likewise, too, this book, which is a happy ground between being told only the bare outlines, man with an eye for detail and the full-on, nothing-kept-sacred smorgasbord detail of ability to bring everything together into a Blu-Rayvery readable whole. A very happy ground, indeed, that will leave many It's a happy readerwonderful collection of the small facts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329356X</amazonuk>