"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." Haruki Murakami

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." Stephen King

Check-out my FIVE-STAR Reading Recommendations over at Bookshop.org - here

Reading is a vital part of the writing process, so I thought I would keep a list of what I read. For novels and other longer works such as non-fiction, I have started using Goodreads. My Goodreads profile

Because I write short stories, I also tend to read a lot of them, so will try to keep a list of them here, adding the most recently read to the top! Only published pieces are considered - if I like it, it goes on the list - if I really like it, it gets a FAV.

Watermelon Boyfriend, HaHa Lounge, '94, by Robin Zlotnick (Identity Theory) FAV
Stephen Tries His Hand At Microfiction, by Stephen Snowder (Identity Theory) FAV
Town of Cats, by Haruki Murakami (The New Yorker) FAV
The Swimmer, by John Cheever FAV
The Frontier Sentinel, by Ciaran Carson (The Star Factory) FAV
Kilifi Creek, by Lionel Shriver (BBC National Short Story Award Winner) FAV
I Walk Between the Raindrops, by TC Boyle (The New Yorker)
The Eye of the Mackinaw, by Luis Carrasco (Epoque Press)
A Losing Game, by JF Powers (The New Yorker)
Chicxulub, by TC Boyle (The New Yorker) FAV
Primal Cuts, by Danielle McLaughlin (The Lonely Crowd)
Unnecessary Things, by Tatyana Tolstaya (The New Yorker) FAV
Dogs Go Wolf, by Lauren Groff (The New Yorker)
Everything is Far from Here, by Cristina Henriquez (The New Yorker)
The Window, by Lee Hamblin (Reflex Fiction)
What the Garden Knows that the Summit Doesn't, by Melissa Fu (Reflex Fiction)
Caring for Plants, by Hye-young Pyun (The New Yorker) FAV
Stilts, by Jonathan Dean (Somesuch Stories)
The Cure for Too Much Feeling, by Bernie McGill (The Glass Shore) FAV
At Christmas Time, by Anton Chekhov
Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip, by Charles Bukowski
Today is Friday, by Ernest Hemingway
Cat in the Rain, by Ernest Hemingway
The Moth in the Flame, by Truman Capote
Symbols and Signs, by Vladimir Nabokov
Down through the Valley, by Wells Tower
Rainwater, by Nickolas Butler
Executors of Important Energies, by Wells Tower
Retreat, by Wells Tower
The Brown Coast, by Wells Tower
The Bear came over the Mountain, by Alice Munro
The Half-Skinned Deer, by Annie Proulx
The Hanging Stranger, by Philip K Dick