Snap Judgements
Butterflies in November
Circinate adventure in Iceland
Nagasaki
Observations on a side-life
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.
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Review by Michèle
Out
Women take over in this gruesome Tokyo thriller
Intensely gory and plot driven, this is nevertheless a psychological thriller. Despite knowing “who dunnit” within the first 5 chapters, the anxiety the author winds about the reader is suffocating and convincing. Kirino delves into the psyche of the lead characters, four factory women struggling with personal hardships, and uncovers a simmering power behind the drab mundanity of their lives. Their situation subsequently intertwines with the seedier and rougher side of Tokyo life, and they soon find themselves in a, very tight, proverbial corner. Thriller extraordinaire.
Review by Michèle
Nagasaki
Observations on a side-life
This rather triste novella based on true events, is a poignant story of isolation in a modern world. Through a mild sense of dread, Faye manages to simultaneously capture the flavour(less) world of the monotony and prescribed particularities of a Japanese ‘salaryman’ and the subsequent disruption based on the simple observation he makes one morning that someone seems to have drunk his juice. A uniquely gentle tale that takes on a thought-provoking exploration of the thin fabric separating the accepted world with the unacknowledged people on the fridges of society. Highly recommended.
Review by Michèle
Butterflies in November
Circinate adventure in Iceland
Perhaps Icelandic women are more forward thinking than the rest of us… or maybe they just aren’t?! Droll re-evaluations of what it means to be a woman, and an independent woman at that, in this quirky narrative of a road trip ‘into the wilderness’ after being simultaneously dumped by both lover and husband. Local insight: the irony being that there is only one road in Iceland, and it loops back on itself. Brilliant circular little adventure, full of the unnamed heroine’s sardonic wit and incongruous, but very human, weaknesses. The lack of moralising makes it a refreshing, light, read.
News by Michèle
Reading on the hoof – our favourite audio books
While some may say it’s ‘cheating’ to have a book read to you, others would argue it needn’t be instead of reading words on a page. But whether you choose to re-read these books on paper or are content to ‘only listen’, here are some of our favourite: good books read to us with great talent.
News by Julie
And then there were six…Man Booker Prize short-list 2015
The Man Booker Prize short-list 2015 is out with what looks like interesting books on a wide range of themes – child abuse, technology, immigration – and geographic settings – Nigeria, Jamaica, Sheffield. Take your pick!
Review by Julie
Of Mice and Men
A classic worth re-reading
I’d forgotten how good John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men really is. Just re-read it after many years and what a gem of a little story! In a mere 120 pages, Steinbeck dives deep into themes such as loneliness, dreams and loyalty while portraying the nomadic lives of ranch hands in America during the Great Depression. To top it off are the most exquisite descriptions of landscapes and farm life.
Review by Julie
The Days of Abandonment
A 'sudden absence of sense'
How would you react if your partner one day walked out on you? In Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment Olga’s husband Mario announces, out of the blue, while clearing the table that he wants to leave her. Overwhelmed by grief, confusion and anger, Olga descends into madness in this raw, brutally honest story. The Days of Abandonment is explosive stuff – as we have come to expect from Ferrante – and all the better for it.
(This book is not part of the excellent, bestselling Neapolitan Novels series, two of which I have reviewed already (My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name) but it’s just as good.
News by Julie
A Man Booker Prize Longlist with Punch
A good literary prize brings to light books that you’ve not necessarily heard of before. This year’s Man Booker Prize longlist is an eminent example, pulling together a selection of 13 books from all corners of the world: Jamaica, New Zealand, India, the US, Ireland, Nigeria and the UK.
Review by Julie
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ
Fascinating insight, farts and all
I’ve been driving my family mad with trivia from this adorable best-selling book on the unglamorous subject of the digestive system. Did you know, for instance, that you have up to two kilos worth of micro-organisms living in your gut? Or that saliva is filtered blood? Or that plants make their seeds slightly poisonous in the hope that we won’t eat them. Nerdy stuff, I know, but quite fun nevertheless!
