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
A good literary prize brings to light books that you’ve not necessarily heard of before. This year’s Man Booker Prize longlist is an eminent example, pulling together a selection of 13 books from all corners of the world: Jamaica, New Zealand, India, the US, Ireland, Nigeria and the UK.
Reviews of the most anticipated book of the decade, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, the unpublished chronological sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, have been trickling in over the past few days in the lead up to its publication on the 14th July. There seems to be surprises in the book, which was actually written before the 1960s classic, but never published. Apparently, Atticus Finch, the defence lawyer, champion of suppressed blacks and the moral beacon of To Kill a Mockingbird, shows a darker side as a racist!
I’ve just started F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night, a novel set amongst the pine trees and turquoise waters of the Riviera in the 1920’s, and realised how a summery summer read can make summer even better. To get you into the mood, the Guardian has made a list of books that will bring you right into the spirit of summer.
While piling up summer reading for yourself, make sure you throw in a few books for your kids too. Summer is the time to make them love reading as much as you do, while there’s no homework and eons of time. I’ve been trawling the internet for good children’s summer reading lists and here’s what I found.
I would say yes!
A friend just alerted me to this article in The New Yorker which reminded me about Alain de Botton’s (philosopher and author of The Art of Travel and The Architecture of Happiness) The School of Life and their Bibliotherapy service.
I’m booking my tickets to this new literary festival in Kew Gardens (24th – 28th September 2015). I can think of worse places to sit through talks by authors like Margaret Atwood, Louis de Bernieres, Bill Bryson, Neel Mukherjee, Michael Morpurgo and many more. Can’t wait!
German author Jenny Erpenbeck has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2015 with her book The End of Days, a story about five possible alternative lives of a girl born in Austria-Hungary at the start of the 20th century.
The Cannes Film Festival this week has been buzzing with praise for the film Carol, a lesbian love story from the 1950s starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Just what it says on the tin. Snap judgements are our immediate responses to books we have read recently. They are meant as a tool for you to quickly assess wether or not you would like to read them too. There will be a link to the full review for those books we have written a more in-depth recommendation of. Over time, it will become an archive where you can look up a book you’re considering to read to see if we think it’s worth your time.
Hope this is helpful!
I’m thrilled that my great friend and avid reader Michèle, will join me as guest blogger for adult books on Bookstoker. Michèle has read everything, and by that I mean literally EVERYTHING. She has over 1,500 books listed on her Goodreads account and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Michèle lives in Singapore with her family, has spent many years in Asia and brings with her a whole different cultural and geographical perspective. Apart from that, she writes beautifully and, as you’ll see, has great taste in books! You can read more about Michèle in the About section and her first rave review of multiple prize winning book H is for Hawk.
