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
I’m very excited to introduce Jane, our new book reviewer. Just like Meg and Michele, Jane has been handpicked for her impeccable taste in books. She also comes with a great deal of experience from the publishing industry and currently runs her own literary agency specialising in non-fiction books. Our Souls At Night is Jane’s first contribution. Welcome Jane!
Read more about Jane here.
I’m extremely pleased to tell you that we have a new book reviewer on our team. Apart from being an ex-publisher with tons of experience from the industry and an extensive network, London based Meg is a super bright and totally delightful person. She’s been obsessed about books since childhood and within minutes of meeting we were deep into book discussions. She has quietly been writing a few reviews for us already which are listed below. You can read more about Meg in the About section. Welcome Meg!
Lots to look forward to on the film front over the coming months. I can’t wait to bring my kids to see Mark Rylance as the BFG in Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book The BFG. I won’t be the last one to see Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones in Dan Brown’s Inferno either. Set in Florence, Venice and Istanbul, it should be worth it for the stunning locations alone! Emma Watson and Tom Hanks will star in the film version of Dave Eggers’ The Circle. Martin Scorsese is also making a film of Silence by Shusaku Endo, a story set in 17th century about Jesuit priests trying to bring Christianity to Japan. Will try to read that before it comes out. And there’s more…
More books being made into films
I always like to keep an eye on what The New Yorker’s book critic James Wood is up to. His reviews are, without fail, illuminating and thoughtful and he’s introduced me to many new authors. Here’s a collection of his reviews over the past few months. Enjoy!
To add to your list of things to do before you die: 12 interesting bookshops, as chosen by The Independent. I like the look of Venice bookshop Aqua Alta and have always wanted to go to the famous Atlantis Books in Santorini, think I’ll start with those… Extremely pleased to see one of my local book shops on the list: Lutyens & Rubinstein in Notting Hill. Their well-read and friendly manager Claire can take credit for many a recommendation on this blog.
The Independent – 12 Bookstores Every Reader Should Visit in Their Lifetime
We are thrilled that South Korean Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith, has won the International Man Booker Prize 2016. It’s a truly original and wonderfully weird story of a young woman’s break down. Read our review here to see if this is for you.
The £50,000 prize is shared between the author and the 28 year old translator Deborah Smith who taught herself Korean only three years before. Extraordinary!!
Read this inspiring article from The New York Times about male book clubs. Wish more men would do it as it is SO MUCH FUN! Not sure about their ‘no books by women about women’ rule, though…isn’t the point of reading that you see things from a different perspective? In fact, perhaps it might even be helpful in their relationships? We certainly don’t have a ‘no books by men about men’ rule in my all female bookclub, although we did give up on Don Delillo after his looooong description of a baseball game in Underworld…
Do you have an all male bookclub? Please tell us about it!
Men Have Bookclubs, Too from The New York Times
Wanted to share with you this thought-provoking article by Andrew Solomon (lecturer on psychology and politics and author of award winning Far From the Tree) about medicine and literature, where he rejoices the surge in interest in books discussing medicine. I couldn’t agree more. I’ve read and reviewed two of the books he discusses: Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. Truly life-changing reads!
Literature About Medicine May Be All That Can Save Us by Andrew Solomon
We’re going away for Easter with a bunch of recently published books which we thought we would share with you. We haven’t read these yet, but they all sound pretty promising…Which one are you bringing?
I have great faith in translated international book prizes, only the best make into the English language market and choosing the very best of those is inevitable going to result in a list of excellent books. I’m thrilled to see Mend the Living and A Whole Life on the list as they are both amongst my absolute favourite recent reads. I’ve also just finished the wonderfully quirky The Vegetarian, unlike anything I’ve read before. And then there is Elena Ferrante’s books, three of which I’ve reviewed on this blog (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name and Days of Abandonment.) If the quality of those I’ve read is anything to go by, all of these should be amazing reads.
