Summerwater by Sarah Moss

Review by

Summerwater

A tense, atmospheric read

In a row of cabins along a Scottish loch, families are trying to enjoy their summer holiday. It’s been bucketing down for several days and claustrophobia is setting in. Siblings are bickering, parents’ tempers flare. (Been there?) Bored, they observe each other through the ‘French doors’ of their cheaply built wooden cabins. Some venture out and some are sent out, mostly to relive the tension building inside. Summerwater by Sarah Moss, is a quietly unsettling little book that deals with family life, secrets and conflict, set in an ominous world, which I consumed in one sitting.

Read full Review

Feline Philosophy-Cats and the Meaning of Life by John Gray

Review by

Feline Philosophy – Cats and the Meaning of Life

An engrossing read about what it is to be human

Feline Philosophy – Cats and the Meaning of Life by John Gray might sound like a whimsical self-help book but is actually a subtle, engrossing and revealing read about what it is to be human. People suggest that that there is no instruction manual to life, and you would be better served discovering Meaning (with a capital M) in the great works of literature. John Gray thinks there is no such thing as Meaning. An eminent author, he has spent his career trying to rubbish the idea that there is any “meaning” to life.

Read full Review

The Life Ahead

News by

The Life Ahead (The Life Before Us) into film starring Sophia Loren

Finally! The wonderful French 1960s classic, The Life Before Us by Émile Ajar, is getting the attention it deserves. Italian screen goddess Sophia Loren is starring in The Life Ahead, a film based on the book, which is now available on Netflix (film review). It’s the story of an immigrant boy who lives in a Paris orphanage run by ex-prostitute Madame Rosa. This book will make you laugh and cry and is not only one of my all time favourite books, it’s also the most visited post on Bookstoker. You can find our review here. Hello, publishers out there, can you please re-publish this amazing book!

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Review by

Nothing to See Here

An explosively original read

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson is a near impossible sell. With its dreadful cover (really??) and odd sounding storyline (twins who catch fire when they get agitated) my go-to-bookseller struggled to convince me. Luckily, I succumbed because this is an utterly surprising, funny and moving novel. It’s the story of the Lillian, an aimless loner, who’s hired by her glamorous friend Madison as nanny for her twin stepchildren. There’s a catch: the twins combust when they’re upset. If you find this plot implausible, you won’t be alone, but somehow Wilson succeeds in making it credible and what seems like a shallow novel turns into something much weightier.

Read full Review

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

News by

The Best of the Best Women’s Prize for Fiction Prize Winner

The public has chosen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of A Yellow Sun the best winner of 25 years of Women’s Prize for Fiction. This book is a magnificent read, a beautiful love story against the backdrop of the Biafran war, a terrible conflict I vividly remember from my childhood as totally incomprehensible…until I read this book. A truly amazing novel.

Read our review of Americanah, also by Adichie.

[newletter]

As hope returns, some of our favourite American novels

Mrs Bridge

Hilarious satire with a darker message

Read Full Review

Cannery Row

A little book to make you happy

Read Full Review

A Little Life

A profoundly moving novel about friendship in the twenty-first century

Read Full Review

A Gentleman in Moscow

A Tsarist Count surviving in revolutionary Russia

Read Full Review

The Sympathizer

Bitingly satirical portrait of post-Vietnam America

Read Full Review

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath

A classic worthy of a re-read

Read Full Review

Bookshop

News by

Just in time, a saviour for your local bookshop

Just in time for the second UK lockdown comes a local bookshop saviour. Bookshop.org, an American online bookseller has launched in the UK as bookshops have to close again. Here’s how it works: find the local bookshops in your area (or anywhere else, for that matter) by entering your postcode, choose a store from the list of member bookshops and you will be directed to their website, order to your heart’s content and support your local high street and the lovely people who work there. Bye, bye Jeff!

News by

Chilling tales…

For those who don’t think the world is scary enough as it is, here’s a selection of our favourite spine-chilling ghost stories. If you want to freak out your children too, we have some for them as well…Enjoy!

Read more

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

Review by

The Devil and the Dark Water

Pure unadulterated entertainment

Readers of this blog might have noticed that I have a soft spot for novels set on sailing ships. The wilder the storms and the longer the journeys, the better, so when I came across the recently published The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton, I wasn’t hard to convince. Set in the 17th century on a ship crossing from Batavia (Jakarta) to Holland, Turton’s book is packed with wild storms, betrayals, demons, murders and a plot to make your head spin. If you enjoyed Ian McGuire’s The North Water or indeed Turton’s last book The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, this book will be for you.

Read full Review