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
Feeling the winter blues creeping in and in need of an escape? The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, a gorgeous little gem of a book, will immerse you in an exotic world of heat, colour, love and friendship. ‘Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.’
Milkman by Anna Burns is a book that has everything. Humour, seriousness, depth, originality, nuanced characters, well-crafted prose and, most crucially, something important to say. You have an absolute treat in store if you haven’t yet read this story of an 18-year girl living through ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Miserable as it might sound, this book is a firework of a novel.
Disconcerting, mysterious and riveting, Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami is the story of a nine month period in the life of a portrait painter. Newly separated from his wife, he holes up in a mountaintop retreat where his discovery of a hidden painting sets in train a circular series of extraordinary events that reveal aspects of himself – and the world of instincts and ideas – that both change him forever and give him back his future.
I started The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner knowing very little about American prison life. The little I did know, I’d learnt from watching the hit American TV series Orange Is The New Black. I finished Kushner’s novel knowing a great deal more about the American justice and penal systems and feeling deeply depressed by what I had learned. The Mars Room lays bare the grim reality of those women living their lives on the margins of modern-day America.
Hot on the heels of Madeline Miller’s fabulous novel Circe comes another stunning book based on Greek myths and the Trojan War. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker is a recount of Homer’s testosterone fuelled Greek epic poem The Iliad. This time, from the perspective of the other half, the long suffering women. An absolutely riveting read. Go get it!
Sally Rooney’s much acclaimed debut Conversation With Friends just didn’t appeal to me. It felt like a book aimed at someone half my age, which it probably was (Rooney is 27). Her latest book, Normal People, on the other hand, had me utterly hooked. It’s a wonderful old-fashioned love story but with a modern twist that shows you what it’s like to be young today. It also somehow transported my back to my own fumbling first experiences with love. Highly recommended.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck somehow slipped through the cracks for me. I’ve spent the summer rectifying this and I can see why this novel has become such an enduring classic and a favoured choice amongst English teachers. The story of the Joad family, uprooting from their arid Oklahoma farm, fleeing poverty and industrialisation of farming in search of the American Dream is beautifully told, incredibly moving and a highly effective piece of political propaganda. If you haven’t read it yet, do. If you have, perhaps it’s time for a re-read?
One of the extraordinary things about Édouard Louis’ debut novel, The End of Eddy, was the complete absence of judgment and bitterness on behalf of the protagonist. Louis’ second novel, History of Violence, shares this quality and, again, it’s a story from Louis’ own life. On the way home from Christmas dinner, Louis meets a stranger whom he invites home for a drink. They share their life stories and have passionate sex. But as the stranger prepares to leave the next morning, things turn ugly. Louis’ skill as a storyteller, intelligent observation of his own and other people’s reactions and ability to draw connections between the personal and the collective proves what an extraordinary talent he is.
Charlotte by David Foenkinos is a novel based on the true story of artist Charlotte Salomon, a German Jew growing up in Berlin in the late 1930s. From a family ravaged by mental illness and suicides, Charlotte grows up in the shadow of death and depression but also with a huge creative talent. David Foenkinos’ all consuming passion for his subject matter shines through in this intense little book which, as its first page will tell you, ends in tragedy.
At one point, Bill Browder ran the most successful investment fund in Russia. Backed by prominent financiers, Browder’s $4.5 billion fund Hermitage Capital Management achieved gobsmacking returns for its investors. Red Notice is the astonishing true story of Browder’s journey from high-flying banker to impassioned human rights activist. A journey that landed him on the very top of Vladimir Putin’s list of enemies. A frightening yet absolutely riveting read.
