Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

Astute and impassioned prequel to The Hate U Give

The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor by Amy Alznauer

5-8 years

In honour of unfettered imagination and the right to be odd

Review by Fred Kelly

27th Feb 21

The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare

A Cloak of Contemplation

This may seem a perverse time to be reading The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare; however, I have my reasons. I first met the author and broadcaster in Munich. The Literaturhaus is a glorious place to meet like-minded artistic folk. Yet, it was a few days later in the beating heat of the German countryside that we talked openly and with that rare candour which seems only ever to emerge – fleetingly – in moments of stillness. Nantesbuch is a small stretch of wilderness, some few miles north of Penzberg. Clare puffed on a cigarette and described his journal as a process of reflection upon his seasonal depression. I countered that summer was in fact the most sobering time of the year for me. He smiled – lit a further cigarette – and that was the end of that.

Bookstoker’s best books about art and artists

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

When loneliness turns into art

Just Kids by Patti Smith

The making of two artists

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

Michelangelo up close and personal, the perfect travel companion for a trip to Italy

The Unfinished Palazzo – Life, Love and Art in Venice by Judith Mackrell

Gloriously gossipy biography of one grand palazzo and three extraordinary women

The Hare With the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

An unforgettable family memoir

So Much Longing In So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard

A brilliant introduction to the non-canonical Munch

Review by Kirsten Murray

19th Feb 21

Indelicacy by Amina Cain

Not lacking in delicacy

Although a short read, Indelicacy by Amina Cain is a delightful, thought provoking novella about socioeconomic amelioration, the complexities of marriage, and female agency. Following main character Vitória who, longing for the economic and temporal freedom to write, climbs (and falls down) the hierarchical ladder from gallery cleaner to kept wife to independent singleton. Indelicacy celebrates the arts and female friendship above the apparent ‘need’ for a woman to produce, commit to and maintain a marriage.

Review by Julie

15th Feb 21

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

Stories of lives not lived

It’s London 1944 and a German bomb is about to hit a Woolworths shop where five young children are shopping with their mums. The first chapter of Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford describes, in harrowing detail, the moment of impact. What would have happened to those five kids if they hadn’t turned to ‘dust’? This is what Spufford want us to imagine in Light Perpetual, a gripping tribute to lives not lived.

A book for half-term? Find these and other titles for fed up teens on our blog

Why Your Parents are Driving You Up the Wall and What To Do About It by Dean Burnett

Defusing domestic dramas

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

A vital and profound contender for our favourite YA read of 2020

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Vibrant and absorbing verse novel

Feel like trying something different?

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

Apocalypse in the Hamptons

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

An explosively original read

Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima

Darkly comic Japanese noir

The Notebook by Agota Kristof

A book to shock

Review by Fred Kelly

7th Feb 21

And All the Trumpets by Donald Smith

A Call to Resilience

I was born in Britain in the mid-nineties; as such, I am fortunate enough to know very little of war and her brutish seams. Instead, I see explosions on television and sleep safely in my bed with only the rumbling Northern Line to stir me. And All the Trumpets by Donald Smith is enlightening, troubling and overwhelmingly humbling. The autobiography recounts Smith’s years as a Japanese prisoner of war. It is a story of almost incomprehensible suffering; daily torture, rampant disease and total psychological discombobulation come to define Smith’s lived experience in a story too far-fetched for fiction.

Review by Fred Kelly

3rd Feb 21

The Offing by Benjamin Myers

A treasure for quiet times

I first noticed The Offing by Benjamin Myers while on a day trip to Bath. It was eight days later when a copy fell through the letterbox of my north London flat; only, I hadn’t ordered it. It took a little investigation to identify the sender as my companion to the heritage city. Books have meaning beyond their contents; stories remind us of times in our lives and the people who have enlivened them. Myers’ The Offing tells the heart-warming story of sixteen-year- old Robert Appleyard and his unlikely friendship with a mysterious elderly lady. In this sense, it is a tale of companionship; and for me, the wonderful serendipity of correlation between the novel’s sentiment and the means by which it arrived on my shelf.