Keith Stuart Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Keith Stuart is a veteran journalist and literary fiction author that is best known for his bestselling debut novel “A Boy Made of Blocks.”
The author started out as a features editor and writer on Edge the highly influential magazine before he became a freelancer in 2000. As a freelancer he worked for a variety of publications including T3, PC Gamer, and The Official Playstation Magazine in addition to investigating interactive and digital art for the magazine Frieze.
Stuart is now the Guardian’s games editor and also writes film, music and media for the company in addition to frequent appearances on their podcast Tech Weekly.
He had worked as a journalist covering digital culture and video games for more than two decades before he published the award winning “A Boy Made of Blocks.: The novel went on to become a bestseller and has sold more than 24 languages and sold more than 200,000 copies.

Unlike her contemporaries, Keith Stuart was never a huge reader of novels when he was in his teenage years as he preferred graphic novels and comics. He always found it difficult to engage with the literary works they studied at school until he read “Less than Zero” as an eighteen year old.
He found the work modern, interesting and different and from that time on he was hooked. The nihilism of the characters, the sparse writing, the references to cool bands, and the clothes were just what he was looking for.
It was from this that he came to discover great American novelists such as Donna Tartt, Tama Janowitz, and Jay Mcinerney and suddenly she found herself loving books.
He still vividly remembers when he went for his admission interview at Warwick University to study Drama and English. He spent much of his time enthusiastically explaining how Less Than Zero conveyed the spaces between auctions, people and moments brilliantly.
He thought he had blown it but soon after received an acceptance letter. It was at this time that he thought maybe he had a knack for stories.

While he never loved reading, writing is something he always did ever since he was in junior school. When he was a senior he edited several school magazines and also did some writing after he developed the passion for reading. At Warwick he took a playwriting course and thinks that was the most fun he ever had in school.
His publishing story is quite unusual as he did not have to go through the whole submission and rejection wringer. He had been working for the Guardian as a video games editor when he wrote an emotional article about a very popular game that his autistic son loved.
Some editorial director at Little, Brown read the article and approached him asking if he would be interested in writing a novel on the same theme. Even though he had never written long form fiction he agreed and in 2016 he published his debut novel A Boy Made of Blocks.
Keith Suart wrote the novel to communicate what having a family member with autism is like. He also asserts tha video games can be an intelligent, expressive and beautiful experience if managed correctly.
As for his favorite novels and authors that have inspired him, he has asserted that they are too many to count. But some of these include Jay McInerney, Brett Easton Ellis, Catch 22, Great Expectations, Treasure Island and Jane Eyre.

Kaith Stuart’s novel “A Boy Made of Blocks” is heartwarming and lovely read about a father that is struggling to get through to Sam, his autistic son. Sam is a socially awkward and difficult child who for the most part is taken care of by his mother Jody.
It is exhausting work and she is almost giving up that she suggests a trial separation which she thinks will force Alex and his father to help with Sam. Alex knows that he has been unable to connect with his son and given that he is working a dead end job, finding the time to help Jody is proving difficult. When they are finally separated he lives with one of his best friends who is the typical single man engaging in all kinds of short term romantic liaisons.
When Sam’s mother gets him an Xbox, Alex worries that this will make his son even worse as he thinks it will make him less able to interact with others socially. But soon Alex realizes that there is nothing his son loves better than Minecraft and sees an opportunity to connect with him.
For the child, the game is not the answer to everything but it helps him a lot in developing and improving in many areas of his life.

“Days of Wonder” by Keith Stuart tells the story of Hannah, a girl that was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition just before she turned five. She is now turning sixteen and is experiencing many of the serious effects of her condition that include breathlessness, fainting and tiredness.
The doctors are not sure how much time she has left as it will depend on how much punishment her heart can take. She is the daughter of Tom, a single father who administers the local theater. Despite everything, he ensures that he throws a huge birthday celebration for his daughter every year.
But things could get worse for them as the council intends to shut down the theater and pave the way for the building of affordable housing in its place. Over the years, the theater has come to be part of their lives and has kept Tom sane when everything was falling apart.
It is where the magic has been kept alive as Hannah has come to love watching the actors and actresses act out fantasies and dreams she dare not have.
It is the sad story of a girl that has to come to terms with her illness and make the most of life while she still lives.

Keith Stuart’s “The Frequency of Us” is a novel set during World War II where a naive and young wireless engineer meets Elsa Klein. She is a German refugee that is worldly, witty and sophisticated and he thinks that finally he has someone he could make something with.
But then their home is bombed and when Will comes to he is all alone in the wreckage and according to friends and family he was never married. Seven decades later, social worker Laura is off her medications and trying to get out of depression.
Her latest charge is an isolated and strange man whose house has been pretty much the same since the end of World War II. He insists that his wife went missing during the war but everyone believes he is demented. Laura does not believe the man is suffering from dementia and sets out to investigate.