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
Review by Kirstin
Beautiful World Where Are You
Sex and friendship, what else is there to live for?
In an early chapter of Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney, acclaimed novelist Alice considers the burden of life under public scrutiny, the vampiric nature of contemporary media sparking loathing both inward and out. It looks very much like an auto-fictional interlude for the stratospherically successful Rooney, under pressure to deliver the goods with her third novel.
Review by Julie
Great Circle
A bumpy ride
Having just finished Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s a talented writer. Her metaphors are spot on, her ambitions high and she’s an accomplished storyteller – at times. This Booker Prize long-listed novel about Marian Graves, a female pilot in the early 20th century, takes off with a roar, but seems to stall before it picks up again at the very end. Whether or not you’re willing to go on that 600 page journey I’ll leave up to you. I certainly haven’t given up on Shipstead as an author although this book was a bit of a schlep.
Bookstoker Young Readers
Good News
A ray of sunshine
Be Resilient
Learning to roll with it
News by Julie
Books to look forward to this autumn
Where to start?? New releases are queueing up to secure a place at your bedside table. It’s tough to know where to begin when you have a list of books like this. Good luck choosing!
News by Julie
How to dupe Silicone Valley
The court case of Elizabeth Holmes of health-care start-up Theranos is in the news these days. If you’re curious about the whole story, I highly recommend Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, investigative journalist at The Wall Street, who exposed Holmes’ fraud. Addictive reading! Read our review here.
Review by Julie
The Yellow Birds
Timely, tough and beautifully written
The desperately sad situation in Afghanistan brought back memories of The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. Powers is something as contradictory as a machine gunner and a poet, as well as an extremely talented author. A Michener Fellow of Poetry from the University of Texas at Austin, Powers served as a machine gunner in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tal Afar in 2004 and 2005. His novel The Yellow Birds, inspired by his own experiences of war, is a superb book, heart wrenching, moving and beautifully written. Read full Review
Review by Julie
The World of Yesterday
The Highs and Lows of Humanity
The World of Yesterday by Stephan Zweig is his autobiography, finished two days before his and his second wife’s joint suicide. It’s a lament for a lost world, a love letter to creativity and artists and an eloquent analysis of events that led up to both the first and the second world wars. The parallels with aspects of our own turbulent times are hard to ignore. Zweig, an Austrian Jew whose wonderful novellas (The Royal Game, Amok, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman) many of you will know, was the world’s most popular author in the 1920s and 30s, until Hitler banned his books. Highly recommended.
Ingenious Thrillers for Teens
Foul is Fair
Sizzling 21st century reimagining of Macbeth
Catching Teller Crow
Ghosts, murder and the darkest days of Australian history
S.T.A.G.S.
Thrills and chills in this darkly clever YA Book Prize shortlisted novel
White Rabbit Red Wolf
Fiendishly clever thriller makes YA Book Prize shortlist
Review by Julie
The Hummingbird
That warm, fuzzy feeling
I shed a tear as I finished The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi, an Italian writer whose books keep winning prestigious Italian book prizes. Veronesi’s writing was new to me and that, it seems, has been a mistake. The life story of ophthalmologist Marco Carrera had warmth, humanity, universal truths and provided the perfect holiday read.
