Search Results for: grace

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

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The Testaments

Book of the year or not?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, was published a few weeks ago. The dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale was a game-changer when it came out in 1985, painting a terrifying picture of a totalitarian society in which women had been reduced to birthing machines. The arrival of Trump and religious extremism propelled the book back on the best-seller lists and inspired Atwood to write a sequel. Any follow-up to a brilliantly conceived, ground-breaking creation is a tall order and as much as I found this book an interesting, page-turner (always the case with Atwood, in my opinion), it also feels like a slightly paler version of The Handmaid’s Tale.

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Top 10 Books on Bookstoker

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My Top 10 Books on Bookstoker

I often get the question ‘Which is your favourite book?’; an impossible question for me to answer. I’m simply incapable of picking one book out of all the books I’ve read. I like books for different reasons and can enjoy an exuberant story-driven historical fiction or a well-researched non-fiction book as much as a quietly contemplative cerebral novel. I don’t seem to have one single favourite author either, rather, I have several authors I keep going back to. SO, rather than picking one book, I’ve chosen my 10 favourite books (I’ve not included famous literary classics on this list, that will come in a separate post) reviewed on Bookstoker, and even that seemed like a Herculean task.

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Happy International Women’s Day!

We’re delighted to share with you our top picks of inspiring, visionary female authors of fiction and non-fiction from the blog. Click on the cover to see full review. Happy International Women’s Day!

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Margaret Atwood to publish sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

No doubt inspired by our times, Margaret Atwood has decided to write a sequel to her dystopian best-seller The Handmaid’s Tale. The Testament will be published in September 2019 and will pick up on the story 15 years after the closing scene of The Handmaid’s Tale. I, for one, can’t wait for this book. If you haven’t already read The Handmaid’s Tale, now is the time, or if you have, how about trying another of her masterpieces, Alias Grace.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Becoming

A feel good memoir written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation

The memoir of a First Lady is not usually something I would run to the bookshop for, but in the case of Michelle Obama, I was intrigued. I wanted to know if she really is as kind, warm, intelligent, accomplished, empathic and eloquent as she has come across since the day she set her foot in the White House. And, if this book is to be believed, she is! A feel good book written with warmth, humour and self-deprecation.

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My Brother’s Ghost

8-11 years

Re-reading this evocative ghost tale on Allan Ahlberg's 80th birthday

Remember Each Peach Pear Plum, The Jolly Postman, and the infamous Burglar Bill? Many of us grew up with the books of Allan Ahlberg, one of our best-loved children’s writers. June brings his 80th birthday, and a celebratory review is definitely in order. I’ve chosen the lesser known but very lovely, My Brother’s Ghost, the story of a girl’s 1950’s childhood, enlivened by the ghostly guardian figure of her dead brother.

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The David Bowie Book Club

David Bowie’s son Duncan has just launched a book club in honour of his late father. Bowie’s list of top 100 books was first published at the time of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s exhibition in London a few years ago and, now, Duncan is making a book club out of the list. First up, Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor. Read it by 1 February and join the discussion on Duncan’s Twitter account @ManMadeMoon. Predictably, the list spans a wide range of authors, genres and countries. Many well known titles here (Sarah Water’s Fingersmith,  Money by Martin Amis, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (of course!), Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, but also a whole lot of books I’ve never heard about before. Inspiring!

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Books for Christmas

Finding beautiful books to give as presents used to be tricky. Not any longer. The arrival of e-books seemed to have propelled publishers into spending more thought and money on striking book covers. So walking into a well-stocked bookstore these days is no longer only a treat for your mind but a feast for your eyes as well. The bookshops are brimming with temptations: colourful, intelligent, artistic even tactile book covers. Combine that with some clever content and you’re in gift heaven. If there ever was a place you could kill off that Christmas shopping list with one stab, it’s in a bookshop.

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The Life of a Song

Anecdotes about 50 of the world's best-loved songs

Did you know that Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Hallelujah’ took him two years, ‘ 50,000 cigarettes and several swimming pools of whiskey’ (to deepen his voice) to make? Or that ‘Amazing Grace’ was not actually written by a slave but  a repenting slave trader. Or that Ronald Reagan used Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ on his campaign trail, promising that he, just like the song, would make the electorate’s dreams come true, without realising that the song was actually about a Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, unable to find work? Neither did I, until I stumbled upon Cheal and Dalley’s compelling little book The Life of a Song, a compilation of the stories of 50 well-known songs written by music critics. A perfect present to your music loving friend, or even yourself.

The Life of a Song is published by Financial Times and Brewer’s, 208 pages.

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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler

8-11 years

Capturing the charms of New York in the 1960's

Claudia Kincaid is 12-years-old, and a bit disgruntled. Bored with the ‘…sameness of each and every week’, she feels it’s time for a grand adventure. Something bold, original, and instructive (she is, after all, a Grade A student). How about running away to New York, to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? With the Met offering celebratory tours to mark 50 years since publication, E.L Konigsburg’s American Classic deserves to be better known on this side of the Atlantic.
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