Why am I passionate about this?

I only want to write beautiful literary fiction. I hope to rip out your heart, but while it’s in my care and before I return it, I aspire to inflate it. The struggle and the discipline. The goalpost of perfection. Hurt & Happy. Joy & Suffering. Light & Dark. Coarse & Smooth. Refined & Crude. I want to polish and weave. I want to render and affect. I write, as well, for my own exploration and understanding of the world. I aspire to move you by writing the toils and treasures of our shared human experience. 


I wrote

Immortal North

By Tom Stewart,

Book cover of Immortal North

What is my book about?

He’s known as the trapper and his family has a long history in these isolated woods. Now it’s just him…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Road

Tom Stewart Why did I love this book?

I believe if you want to show the brightest light, you should surround it with pitch dark. McCarthy writes a bleak tale that truly illuminates the love between a father and son. In the obscurity of dusk and ash, their bond becomes palpable. On exhibit is humankind’s grit, moments of joy amidst hardship, and hope. As always, his prose is stunningly gorgeous. Cormac McCarthy is one of the very best writers in the history of the craft. I read him, in part, to educate myself as an author.

By Cormac McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if…


Book cover of Into the Wild

Tom Stewart Why did I love this book?

A tragic coming of age story. I like how the young man puts his beliefs on the line, how he pursues beauty and dares to live by his own values and within his unique conception of the world. I’ve always found McCandless’ final quote interesting, “Happiness is only real when shared.” I no longer believe that is true, not totally, but it’s thoughtworthy. Into the Wild and my first book have their parallels.

By Jon Krakauer,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked Into the Wild as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Krakauer’s page-turning bestseller explores a famed missing person mystery while unraveling the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons.

"Terrifying... Eloquent... A heart-rending drama of human yearning." —New York Times

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all…


Book cover of The Old Man and the Sea

Tom Stewart Why did I love this book?

Ernest Hemingway ties Cormac McCarthy as the two authors that have most significantly influenced me. His prose is beautiful while being sparse. He writes without pretense, and with his unique writing of internality his stories become authentic glimpses of character. He describes scenes vividly using few words by employing our own memory banks to the topic. He captures life so very well. This story is timeless and imagistic. I’ve read it many times and have many more reads in me. Hemingway, McCarthy, Marquez, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky, these are the writers that I consider my teachers—I hope my work is never derivative of, only inspired by them.

By Ernest Hemingway,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked The Old Man and the Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This powerful and dignified story about a Cuban fisherman's struggle with a great fish has the universal appeal of a struggle between man and the elements, the hunter with the hunted. It earned Hemingway the Nobel prize and has been made into an acclaimed film. Age 13+


Book cover of War and Peace

Tom Stewart Why did I love this book?

Given both its breadth and depth, I can always come back to this novel. There are many interesting philosophical ideas, the history is fascinating, and I love how each character lives very differently. The constant question of what gives life value and how to meet our death, and seeing perspectives change for those who are privileged to live out long lives. A masterwork. In my personal life, philosophical questions are not abstract concepts, and life is worthy of deep thought. The novel is a great place to navigate life’s big questions. If I’m fortunate enough to have your readership, you’ll see this in my work as well.

By Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator)

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked War and Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov comes this magnificent new translation of Tolstoy's masterwork.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

War and Peacebroadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both…


Book cover of Man’s Search for Meaning

Tom Stewart Why did I love this book?

If to people I love I could only give a single book, this would be it. I’ve read it three times and will revisit it until I die. Imprison a man in hell on Earth where the souls of his loved ones rise from the smokestacks of the crematorium within his sight. His friends die starving and beaten in the mud. What’s left of human dignity? Is there anything redeeming? Is there a chance for forgiveness, or even beauty or love? This tragic account of an appalling time is one of the greatest books ever written. I improve as a writer by improving as a human. This book does that.

By Viktor Frankl,

Why should I read it?

45 authors picked Man’s Search for Meaning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.


Explore my book 😀

Immortal North

By Tom Stewart,

Book cover of Immortal North

What is my book about?

He’s known as the trapper and his family has a long history in these isolated woods. Now it’s just him and the boy, and he’ll raise him in the world he knows, the forest, where threats take recognizable forms: harsh weather, peak predators, the encroachment of civilization at odds with their lifestyle. But for those lands and minds with an unsettled past, other dangers may lurk in the woods where father and son hunt the timber. One fateful day their woodland life is violently broken—shouldn’t those guilty of such injustice be held to account? Though at times gritty even violent, there is raw grace in these pages like veins of gold running through black quartz.

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Book cover of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

Kalvin Thane Author Of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

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Why am I passionate about this?

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What is my book about?

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Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to make enough of a difference?

Can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic dominance before the Alliance falls? Maybe. If they can stop fighting each other.

Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

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What is this book about?

Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.

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In the midst of the surging tides of war, a…


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