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
Non-fiction
Review by Julie
The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Living Well
Sweet recipes for happiness
Review by Michèle
The Book of Tea
The Art of Life
Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life.
This is not just a book about tea. It is an exceptional book about life, philosophy and beyond. Japanese philosopher and historian Kakuzo Okakura initially wrote the book 110 years ago, aiming to dispel the Western myths of Japanese barbarianism. He recalls the origins of tea, its philosophical ties to Zen and Taoism and the nuances of tea as an allegory for a philosophy of life. A unique book full of a wit and sagacity that makes it impossible to ignore and one of my favourite discoveries this year.
The Book of Tea is published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 54 pages.
Review by Julie
Just Kids
The making of two artists
Ever wondered what is was like to be a hip New York City artist in the late 1960s? Well, no need to wonder any longer, Patti Smith will take you right there in this fascinating autobiography. Just Kids is the story of rock and roll chick Patti Smith’s love affair and artistic collaboration with photography’s bad boy Robert Mapplethorpe, from their first chance meeting in a shop to his death-bed only two decades later.
Review by Michèle
102 English Things to Do
How to be English
To be enjoyed by English, Brits and non-Brits alike. This amusing collection of observations is part humorous analysis of being English (listen to the shipping forecast, be self-deprecating/ironic/ apologetic); part practical advice (decipher: ‘AONB’, cockney, ‘tea’, ‘be disgusted, Tunbridge wells’, and ‘Lord Lucan’); travel guide (browse Charing Cross road, experience Glynebourne/ Coronation Street/Notting Hill Carnival) and endearingly, proudly English (recite/sing alternatingly Invictus/ Jerusalem/be eccentric). Makes a lovely little gift too.
102 English Things to Do by Alex Quick is published by Old Street Publishing, 226 pages.
Review by Michèle
For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World’s Favourite Drink
A true story of 19th century espionage and theft
This true story has all the hallmarks of a fictional adventure. The backdrop is a fascinating time, not taught in classrooms, when the British were producing opium for sale to the Chinese in order to fund their own addiction: tea. When the opium-tea exchange becomes ever more difficult, the British need to find another option for stability: enter botanist turned spy, Robert Fortune, to steal the plant out of China. Although written for adults, the simple language and linear story-telling makes it suitable for younger readers (13+).
Review by Julie
A Scandalous Life
You couldn't have made it up
This incredible story of aristocratic beauty Lady Jane Digby and her escapades through the higher echelons of British, French, Austrian, German and Greek societies in the 1800s, is one of the more extraordinary biographies I’ve read. Born into wealth and privilege, the charismatic Jane Digby basically slept her way through Europe, starting with an English politician moving on to a German baron, an Austrian Prince, a Greek King and an Albainan General and many more, leaving behind her a trail of ex-husbands and children. Digby ends up in Syria as the wife of a bedouin sheik twenty years her junior. It’s an astounding story which would make a perfect film!
Review by Julie
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Graphic novels - do they work?
I’ve long been intrigued by graphic novels (basically novels told in a comic strip format – although not necessarily funny…). Do they work or are they just for lazy readers? Persepolis is the autobiographical story of Marjane Satrapi growing up in Iran during the revolution. There’s definitely nothing funny about Satrapi’s claustrophobic, repressed and violent childhood – neighbours telling on each other, the secret police monitoring every move and Iraqi bombs dropping over Teheran.
Review by Julie
Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way
A magnificent backlash against all things fast
Who’d have thought that this book would show up in British bookshops?! I’d heard of it’s huge success in my native Norway and Sweden (200,000+ copies sold), but thought for sure that’s where it would remain. Norwegian Wood is a non-fiction book about chopping firewood. Stacking firewood. Drying firewood. But more importantly, it’s about nature, patience, persistence and appreciating the small things in life. Norwegian Wood is a cross between the Cohen brothers’ film Fargo and the cult book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and predicted by my bookseller to become this year’s surprise Christmas bestseller.
Review by Julie
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ
Fascinating insight, farts and all
I’ve been driving my family mad with trivia from this adorable best-selling book on the unglamorous subject of the digestive system. Did you know, for instance, that you have up to two kilos worth of micro-organisms living in your gut? Or that saliva is filtered blood? Or that plants make their seeds slightly poisonous in the hope that we won’t eat them. Nerdy stuff, I know, but quite fun nevertheless!
