Book cover of Twin Troubles and Chocolate Tortes

Diana Day-Admire Author Of The Angels Within

From Diana's 3 favorite reads in 2025.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Diana's 3 favorite reads in 2025

Diana Day-Admire Why Diana loves this book

This is the latest in the Death by Chocolate series, Sally Berneathy is a wonderful author. Her stories are always fun and fast paced. The Cat- Henry, the Neighbors, the boyfriend and the ex-es 12-year-old...so much to like and then there is chocolate too! What's not to love?

By Sally Berneathy ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Twin Troubles and Chocolate Tortes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An elderly man moves next door to Paula and becomes Zach's new best friend. They play baseball and draw pictures. Paula even likes him.

Then the man falls downstairs and dies.

The next day a woman shows up at Death by Chocolate claiming to be Paula's twin sister, claiming the dead man was their grandfather. This woman has got DNA results, vintage family photos, and a heartwarming backstory...that doesn't quite add up.

Lindsay finds herself knee-deep in secrets, lies, and one very tangled family tree. With Paula skeptical, Zach heartbroken, and the truth hiding somewhere in plain sight, it's up…


Book cover of Bournville

Alistair Owen Author Of The Mirror and the Road: Conversations with William Boyd

From Alistair's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Screenwriter Interviewer Bookworm Film buff

Alistair's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Alistair Owen Why Alistair loves this book

Subtitled "A Novel in Seven Occasions" – from the VE Day celebrations in 1945 to their anniversary, mid-pandemic, 75 years later – Bournville is Jonathan Coe's latest and perhaps most ambitious entry in what's starting to look like a career-long, non-chronological chronicle of post-war British history and the national character: sometimes told as drama, sometimes as comedy, sometimes as satire, but always in a way which is both deeply perceptive and deceptively light touch.

Like his 2018 novel Middle England – possibly the only good thing to come out of Brexit, and certainly the only thing which has helped me understand it – Bournville is funny, angry, rueful, hopeful and, above all, empathetic, reaching the reassuring yet simultaneously unsettling conclusion that 'everything changes, and everything stays the same'.

By Jonathan Coe ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bournville as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the bestselling, award-winning author of Middle England comes a profoundly moving, brutally funny and brilliantly true portrait of Britain told through four generations of one family.

'A wickedly funny, clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and Britishness and what we have become' Rachel Joyce

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In Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on…


Book cover of Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye

Alexandre Lacroix Author Of Dragons in Love

From my list on bedtime stories.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m the happy father of five children, born between 2000 and 2017. So in my adult years, I have quite constantly lived in the company of young children, and I’ve started inventing stories for them. I have now six albums published in France, all of which were originally imagined for my kids just before we switch off the light for sleeping. Born in 1975, I live in Paris, I’m the chief editor of Philosophie magazine (a monthly publication with 50 000 readers), and I’ve published twenty novels and essays alas not available in English. I’m the president and co-founder of a creative writing school located in Paris, Les Mots.

Alexandre's book list on bedtime stories

Alexandre Lacroix Why Alexandre loves this book

Claude Ponti is now in charge of the answers to the children's questions in Philosophie Magazine. Maybe less diffused in the Anglophone world than Ungerer, he’s clearly a great artiste, one of the biggest, with an extravagant and surrealistic imagination, and this album, in particular, is a masterpiece.

By Claude Ponti , Alyson Waters (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blaze and the Castle Cake for Bertha Daye as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

Claude Ponti’s nimble wordplay and punning, combined with his phantasmagorical and joyful illustrations, create an endearing gem of a book, bound to be a bedtime story favorite.

From one of the world’s most beloved children’s book authors comes a story of a high-spirited flock of friends building an unusual birthday cake. 
A rabble of soft, golden “chicklets” are awoken one morning to a startling proclamation: they only have ten short days to prepare for their best friend Bertha Daye’s party. It’s time to get to work building a larger-than-life castle cake to house and feed the revelers. Made of chocolate…


Book cover of Party of Two

Alex Travis Author Of The Only Black Girl in the Room

From my list on young, Black, and all together.

Why am I passionate about this?

Reading these books has given me people to relate to in a way that I didn’t have when I was younger, and it’s fun to see Black women learning how to thrive in both life and love since that’s not an image I’ve gotten to see very often in media. As a recent Ph.D. grad, immersing myself in fictional romantic worlds and humor has been a great way to unwind but also think through how I want to operate in the world as a (sort of??) adult. These books can appeal to anyone, but this has just been a bit of why they resonate with me. 

Alex's book list on young, Black, and all together

Alex Travis Why Alex loves this book

Reading Jasmine Guillory’s books is one of the first times I’ve been able to relate to modern fictional main characters as a Black woman. This book has steamy romance (whew) but also has characters who are able to learn from each other and grow together, which makes the romantic element that much sweeter.

Throw in a dash of local politics (it’s still enjoyable, I swear!) and the media attention that comes with that, and I was hooked! A main character who seems to have it together but is still grappling with how others perceive her and her past. Who can’t relate to that? Plus, I can’t resist a couple that finds their connection in the bedroom (or office) and through exploring food spots together and bonding over local places. 

By Jasmine Guillory ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Party of Two as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A chance meeting with a handsome stranger turns into a whirlwind affair that gets everyone talking in this New York Times bestseller. 

Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe’s mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia has zero interest in dating a politician, but when a cake arrives at her office with the cutest message, she can’t resist—it is chocolate…