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Marianne Dreams

8-11 years

Celebrating 60 years of Catherine Storr's haunting journey into a young girl's psyche

The luckiest of readers often find that a handful of childhood books will stay in their hearts their whole lives through. Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr is one of those for me. Having bewitched me since childhood, I was thrilled that its 60th anniversary presented the opportunity to write a glowing review. It is the story of invalided 10-year-old Marianne, who passes her lonely, bedridden hours by drawing a house. When Marianne sleeps, her dreams transport her into her picture, to the house she drew and the secrets it conceals. The stage is set for the spookiest of psychodramas.

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What I'm reading this summer

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What I’m reading this summer

Don’t you just love this side of summer? At this point it seems endless, hence the towering pile of books on my desk that I intend to read during the holiday. Maybe this will be the year I have time to read them all?!

 

 

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Best books for summer 2018

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What to read summer 2018?

What are the best books for summer 2018? We’re thrilled to present our summer reading list. A list full of great reads for every mood. Funny and sad, light and heavy, it’s all here. Happy summer from all of us at Bookstoker!

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Charlotte by David Foenkinos

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Charlotte

A punch of a book

Charlotte by David Foenkinos is a novel based on the true story of artist Charlotte Salomon, a German Jew growing up in Berlin in the late 1930s.  From a family ravaged by mental illness and suicides, Charlotte grows up in the shadow of death and depression but also with a huge creative talent. David Foenkinos’ all consuming passion for his subject matter shines through in this intense little book which, as its first page will tell you, ends in tragedy.

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Kamila Shamsie wins Women's Prize for Fiction 2018

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Kamila Shamsie wins the Women’s Prize for Fiction

Kamila Shamsie won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly The Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction) for her book Home Fire yesterday. It’s a gripping read about a passionate love story between the son of a muslim Home Secretary and the daughter of a Jihadist. Moral dilemmas and culture clashes abound. I was sucked inn by this book but a bit turned off by it’s ending. Still worth a read though. Women’s Prize For Fiction 2018. Here’s our review.

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Your chance to vote for a Booker Prize winner

The Booker Prize is 50 this year and to celebrate the organisers have launched the Golden Booker, a prize given to the best winner during it’s five decades. Five judges have picked one candidate from each decade and now it’s up to you and me to choose the overall winner.

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Would You Let Your Wife Read This Book? by Sylvia Bedford

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Would you let your wife read this book?

A book in the dock

Many of you will have read D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and even those who haven’t might be familiar with the controversy around the book. The story, written in 1928, is about an adulterous relationship between an upper-class woman and a gamekeeper. The description of sex was so raunchy that the book wasn’t even published.

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Red Notice by Bill Browder

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Red Notice

Unputdownable, Kafkaesque real-life thriller

At one point, Bill Browder ran the most successful investment fund in Russia. Backed by prominent financiers, Browder’s $4.5 billion fund Hermitage Capital Management achieved gobsmacking returns for its investors. Red Notice is the astonishing true story of Browder’s journey from high-flying banker to impassioned human rights activist. A journey that landed him on the very top of Vladimir Putin’s list of enemies. A frightening yet absolutely riveting read.

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