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
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News by Julie
David Szalay – one to watch
Now here’s an author we think you should know about. English/Canadian David Szalay’s name keeps coming up these days, and for good reasons. Forty-two year old Szalay has four novels to his name, the last of which, All That Man Is, won him a place on this year’s Man Booker Prize short-list. He won the Betty Trask Award in 2008 for his curiously named novel London and the South-East and in 2013 he made it onto Granta magazine’s list of Best of Young British novelists. But most importantly, Szalay writes really, really well.
News by Julie
I want this!
I know I won’t be able to resist Taschen’s fabulously illustrated cookbook Les Diners de Gala by artist Salvador Dali and his wife, Gala. Reissued for the first time in 40 years, the book comes with suitably wacky recipes, and a stark warning to its readers…
Review by Meg
All That Man Is
Nine disparate yet intertwined lives. Nine different ages of man.
News by Julie
Confused by all the literary prizes?
Here’s an excellent overview of the most important ones coming up this Autumn: The Nobel Prize for Literature (13 October), The Man Booker Prize (25th October) and the National Book Awards (16th November) including all the short-listed or long-listed books.
Review by Julie
Grief is the Thing with Feathers
Glorious on grief
I have no idea why I haven’t picked up this gorgeous little book sooner. It’s the story of a young dad with two boys who loses their wife and mother in a freak accident. As they struggle to digest the loss, enter Crow, a giant black eyed, yes, crow, who stirs up everything, who pecks and shits and who refuses to leave or to be ignored, just like grief itself. Crow, a potent symbol in Ted Hughes’s poems (the dad is a Hughes scholar), is here to stay – ‘I won’t leave until you don’t need me any more’ – but as time moves on, straight-talking Crow becomes less of a nuisance, more of a therapist, helping them overcome their loss. Rarely have I seen grief been described more lyrically.
