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Consent by Annabel Lyon

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Consent

Elegant psychological page-turner

Long-listed for The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021, Consent by Annabel Lyon is a dark and twisty tale. At a time when public debate around the principle of consent has often centred on the sexual, the novel’s slightly lurid cover misleads. Lyon is actually intent on exploring the broader meaning of the word, in a cleverly interwoven story of two sets of sisters. In each case, one sister is incapacitated and the remaining sibling compelled to care for her. What appears to be an affecting domestic drama accelerates into a shocking and suspenseful reckoning with guilt and grief.

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The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

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The Woman in the Purple Skirt

Enigmatic Japanese tale of lonely obsession

Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa literary prize, The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura is currently cresting the wave of novels by en vogue female Japanese writers. Set in an unnamed city in Japan, it tells the story of a narrator who refers to herself as the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. Leading an isolated life, her only diversion appears to be a fascination with a neighbourhood local, the aforementioned Woman in the Purple Skirt. What initially appears to the reader as no more than an odd girl crush, becomes much darker, as our becardiganed storyteller decides to play puppet master with Purple Skirt’s life.

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Christmas books 2021

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Books for Christmas 2021

So here we are, at the end of another unusual year. I’m guessing many of you have sought solace in books as I have, although, at times I’ve found it challenging to concentrate and engage with books. The good news is that when the floodgates of publishing opened post-lockdown (take two), the quality of books published really picked up and recently we’ve enjoyed some fabulous novels which bodes well for Christmas and beyond. So here they are, our best reads this year.

We here at Bookstoker wish you all the best for a happy holiday season!

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The Girl Who Talked to Trees by Natasha Farrant

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The Girl Who Talked to Trees

8-11 years

The ideal gift for nature-loving bookworms

In the canny world of kids’ publishing, the mood of 2021 is exemplified by a verdant sweep of environmentally conscious books. Amongst the very best is The Girl Who Talked to Trees by Natasha Farrant, the tale of 11-year-old Olive, whose best friend in the world just happens to be a four-hundred year old oak tree. When her beloved tree comes under threat, Olive is swept into a world of arboreal magic, on a mission of salvation and conservation. This little girl who talks to trees is about to discover that they’re a voluble bunch.

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Stay Another Day by June Dawson

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Stay Another Day

Teen/Young Adult

An essential festive sofa read

Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson is a glitter-laden delight and I’m hoping Santa pops a copy into every discerning teen reader’s Christmas stocking. Written with Dawson’s trademark brio and wit, it’s the story of three siblings, reunited for a festive family gathering. Coming home from uni, student Fern is longing for the perfect Christmas, her twin Rowan bitingly dismissive of his uncool, drab family, while younger sister, Willow, awaits them, ‘pale and tragic, some gothic attic secret.’Rowan’s fears of dullness are decidedly misplaced. Hold onto your party hats as the tinsel hits the fan.

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Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich

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Last Summer in the City

Cinematic novel captures the essence of Rome’s glamour years

Leo Gazzara is hovering on the brink of both turning thirty and plunging into an existential crisis. Keen to avoid respectability, his days are spent avoiding hard work, his nights indulging in the hedonistic thrills of city life. Originally published in 1970, Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich is an Italian cult classic. Here translated into English for the first time, it captures those heady days when Rome was the capital of glamour. A boozy, smoky and  intoxicating novel, it tells the story of the year Leo’s dolce vita turned sour.

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Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney

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Beautiful World Where Are You

Sex and friendship, what else is there to live for?

In an early chapter of  Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney, acclaimed novelist Alice considers the burden of life under public scrutiny, the vampiric nature of contemporary media sparking loathing both inward and out. It looks very much like an auto-fictional interlude for the stratospherically successful Rooney, under pressure to deliver the goods with her third novel.

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The Yellow Birds

Timely, tough and beautifully written

The desperately sad situation in Afghanistan brought back memories of The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. Powers is something as contradictory as a machine gunner and a poet, as well as an extremely talented author. A Michener Fellow of Poetry from the University of Texas at Austin, Powers served as a machine gunner in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tal Afar in 2004 and 2005. His novel The Yellow Birds, inspired by his own experiences of war, is a superb book, heart wrenching, moving and beautifully written. Read full Review

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

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The World of Yesterday

The Highs and Lows of Humanity

The World of Yesterday by Stephan Zweig is his autobiography, finished two days before his and his second wife’s joint suicide. It’s a lament for a lost world, a love letter to creativity and artists and an eloquent analysis of events that led up to both the first and the second world wars. The parallels with aspects of our own turbulent times are hard to ignore. Zweig, an Austrian Jew whose wonderful novellas (The Royal Game, Amok, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Twenty-four Hours in the Life of a Woman) many of you will know, was the world’s most popular author in the 1920s and 30s, until Hitler banned his books. Highly recommended.

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Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

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Effi Briest

Classic German novel of adulterous downfall

Considering its description by Thomas Mann as one of the six most significant novels ever written, and rumoured to have moved Samuel Beckett to tears on even his fourth reading, Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane remains a remarkably little known novel outside of its native Germany.  Set in 1880’s Prussia, Effi treads the well-worn path of the nineteenth century literary heroine. As an unworldly young woman in a status obsessed male-dominated world, her story tells of a stifling marriage of convenience. Prepare for adulterous downfall and a classic interpretation of the expression ‘pistols at dawn.’

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