Welcome to Bookstoker!
We’re here to help you find that book that you can’t put down, the book you’ll push on all your friends, the book that’ll change your life.
We read literary fiction, non-fiction, classics and children’s books, all genres and styles embraced in our aim to share the love. You’ll also find fabulous Bookstagrams and literary news.
A world of bookish delights!
Kirstin and Julie
Top 100 Book Blogs
Netgalley Member
News by Julie
Travelling in the time of Covid
In 2012, London-based writer Ann Morgan set out to read a book from every country in the world in a year. Pretty ambitious when you know there are 196 of them. She asked people to send her recommendations and the list she compiled is an extraordinary overview of literature from around the world.
From Vatican City to Vietnam, from Russia to Rawanda. Wherever you can’t go, this list will have a book suggestion for every imaginary journey. Enjoy!
News by Julie
NPR’s Best Ever Teen Fiction
America’s excellent National Public Radio conducted a Best Ever Teen Fiction poll a few years ago and this list still stands in my opinion. Some fantastic books here for every teen age, taste and gender.
News by Julie
Hay to you
The organisers of the world famous Hay festival have been hard at work to make a virtual version this year. Starting Friday 22nd May a mind blowingly brilliant program of speakers on a wide range of topics will be available online. Free live events with over a hundred speakers on politics, the environment, science, history, cosmology, linguistics, ethics, pandemics (of course) and lots and lots of fiction. I don’t even know where to start! If you’ve never been able to make it to the festival, this is your chance.
Hay Festival Digital has an equally brilliant special program for schools which starts today. Tell your school about it or use it for your own home schooling (or simply as a babysittter).
News by Julie
Becoming to the screen
Did you love Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming as much as I did? The Netflix documentary based on her book and life starts today, 6th of May, on Netflix. I’ll be watching! Here’s our review of her book.
News by Julie
Bookstoker Young Readers
News by Julie
Normal People on screen
Remember Sally Rooney’s dazzling, multi-prize-winning novel Normal People? The BBC and Hulu just released a TV-series based on the book and rave reviews are flooding in. You can find our review here. Watch the series or read the book or even both. Just don’t miss this gem of a love story! Here’s the trailer.
https://youtu.be/LoIBGYXlxW0
News by Julie
And you thought home isolation was bad…
Getting a perspective sometimes make things feel better. These great books should do the job.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The ultimate ‘hard times’ book, written during the Great Depression. Classic Steinbeck with unforgettable characters.
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. Remember this one? A heart-wrenching but also very funny memoir by the Irish-American author who grew up in extreme poverty in Limerick, Ireland.
Blood River – A journey into Africa’s Broken Heart by Tim Butcher. A gripping non-fiction story of a journalist’s journey through Congo, one of the most dangerous countries on earth.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Set in Korea during the Japanese occupation, this family epic vividly describes the one-bowl-of-rice-a-day-existence.
The Five – the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold. Being a poor, divorced or single woman in Victorian times is the last thing you’d ever want to be after reading this superbly researched Baille-Gifford prize winning non-fiction book.
…and, of course, ANYTHING Charles Dickens.
News by Julie
Women’s Prize for Fiction short-list 2020
Just what we need right now. A curated selection of books by smart women in the know, the judging panel of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. There’s a one time winner of the Booker Prize (Bernadine Evaristo) and a two-time (possibly a third?) winner of the Booker Prize (Hilary Mantel). There’s the wonderful Jenny Offill whose books (Weather and Dept. of Speculation) we love. And then there’s our recent favourite, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. Good choices judging panel!
