The best novels and short stories I've read lately

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been a voracious reader since I was a kid, and I am always in the process of reading several books simultaneously. Books, whether I’m writing or reading them, are a huge part of my world.


I wrote...

Chicken Big

By Keith Graves,

Book cover of Chicken Big

What is my book about?

On a teeny little farm, in an itty bitty coop, a very small hen laid a big humongous egg! So begins the hilarious story of an enormous chicken with identity issues. The clueless flock tries to guess what he is. He’s big. Is he an elephant? He eats acorns. Is he a squirrel? He protects them from the rain. Does that mean he’s an umbrella?

In the end, they find it’s what’s on the inside that makes the big guy a chicken.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of All the Light We Cannot See

Keith Graves Why did I love this book?

The Pulitzer Prize-winning All The Light We Cannot See is a stunningly beautiful story. Set in World War 2 France, it tells the thrilling story of Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a boy her age in the German army. There is a cursed jewel, a Nazi officer who will kill to find it, and there is love. In my top ten.

By Anthony Doerr,

Why should I read it?

40 authors picked All the Light We Cannot See as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE 2015 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR FICTION

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II

Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.'

For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic…


Book cover of The Overstory

Keith Graves Why did I love this book?

The Overstory broke my heart and opened my mind to the incredible secrets of trees. It weaves together the tree-centered stories of several characters: a scientist, a computer genius, a group of tree-loving activists, an artist, and many unforgettable trees that become characters in their own right. A life changing book for me.

By Richard Powers,

Why should I read it?

29 authors picked The Overstory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see…


Book cover of Tenth of December: Stories

Keith Graves Why did I love this book?

Tenth of December is a collection of brilliant, deeply touching, and often hilarious short stories by the greatest of modern American short story writers, George Saunders. He’s part Mark Twain, part Kurt Vonnegut, with an incredible knack for creating characters so real and pathetic that you will swear you have met them…maybe at Walmart. Don’t miss it.

By George Saunders,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Tenth of December as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**ESCAPE FROM SPIDERHEAD NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX - STARRING CHRIS HEMSWORTH AND MILES TELLER** The prize-winning, New York Times bestselling short story collection from the internationally bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo 'The best book you'll read this year' New York Times 'Dazzlingly surreal stories about a failing America' Sunday Times WINNER OF THE 2014 FOLIO PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2013 George Saunders's most wryly hilarious and disturbing collection yet, Tenth of December illuminates human experience and explores figures lost in a labyrinth of troubling preoccupations. A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for…


Book cover of A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

Keith Graves Why did I love this book?

A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself sounds like a self-help book but is actually a comic thriller/touching character study set in the world of the New York mob. Rena, the widow of a wise guy, lives a quiet life in the Bronx until the day she cracks a would-be suitor over the head with an ashtray and steals his vintage Impala. It’s a mob caper, an elderly gals wild road trip, and a Grandmother and granddaughter reunion story all in one. Big fun.

By William Boyle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Thelma and Louise meets Goodfellas when an unlikely trio of women in New York find themselves banding together to escape the clutches of violent figures from their pasts.

THELMA AND LOUISE MEETS GOODFELLAS when an unlikely trio of women in New York find themselves banding together to escape the clutches of violent figures from their pasts.

After Brooklyn mob widow Rena Ruggiero hits her eighty-year-old neighbour Enzio on the head with an ashtray when he makes an unwanted move on her, she steals his vintage Chevy Impala and retreats to the Bronx home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and her…


Book cover of Blacktop Wasteland

Keith Graves Why did I love this book?

Seriously high octane excitement in this story of a Black professional getaway driver and hot rod mechanic  Bug Montage. Set in the deep south, it’s a tale of desperate people doing dangerous and crazy things to escape the claws of poverty that are always trying to drag them down. Bug and his family are wonderful characters you will bond with and want more of at the end of this rollercoaster of a book.

By S.A. Cosby,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Blacktop Wasteland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLERS OF 2020*
*LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER 2020*

'BLACKTOP WASTELAND may be the book of the year.' MICHAEL CONNELLY
'Sensationally good' LEE CHILD
'I loved BLACKTOP WASTELAND' STEPHEN KING
'Stunning. Can't remember the last time I read such a powerful crime novel' MARK BILLINGHAM

"Bug" Montage: honest mechanic, loving family man. He's no longer the criminal he was - the sharpest wheelman east of the Mississippi.

But when his respectable life crumbles, a shady associate comes calling with a one-time job promising a huge payout. Inexorably drawn to the driver's seat - and haunted by…


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The Midnight Man

By Julie Anderson,

Book cover of The Midnight Man

Julie Anderson Author Of The Midnight Man

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I write historical crime fiction, and my latest novel is set in a hospital, a real place, now closed. The South London Hospital for Women and Children (1912–1985) was set up by pioneering suffragists and women surgeons Maud Chadburn and Eleanor Davies-Colley (the first woman admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons) and I recreate the now almost-forgotten hospital in my book. Events take place in 1946 when wartime trauma still impacts upon a society exhausted by conflict, and my book choices also reflect this.

Julie's book list on evocative stories set in a hospital

What is my book about?

A historical thriller set in south London just after World War II, as Britain returns to civilian life and the men return home from the fight, causing the women to leave their wartime roles. The South London Hospital for Women and Children is a hospital, (based on a real place) run by women for women and must make adjustments of its own. As austerity bites, the coldest Winter then on record makes life grim. Then a young nurse goes missing.

Days later, her body is found behind a locked door, and two women from the hospital, unimpressed by the police response, decide to investigate. Highly atmospheric and evocative of a distinct period and place.

The Midnight Man

By Julie Anderson,

What is this book about?

BEWARE THE DARKNESS BENEATH

Winter 1946

One cold dark night, as a devastated London shivers through the transition to post-war life, a young nurse goes missing from the South London Hospital for Women & Children. Her body is discovered hours later behind a locked door.

Two women from the hospital join forces to investigate the case. Determined not to return to the futures laid out for them before the war, the unlikely sleuths must face their own demons and dilemmas as they pursue - The Midnight Man.

‘A mystery that evokes the period – and a recovering London – in…


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