What I read in 2024

My goal for 2024, as usual, was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read 122 books, more than twice as many.

Here is a review of what I read in 2024, by category.

Children's Books. I don't read children's books to the kids anymore, but I read a few to myself this year. My favorite was, of course, The Birchbark House, which is a lovely story, but I also really liked Zia, which is a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins and is very sad. And Totoro was very sweet and made me feel like I was watching the movie again.

• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
• Zia by Scott O'Dell
• My Neighbor Totoro (novelization) by Hayao Miyazaki & Tsugiko Kubo, translated by Jim Hubbert
  

Young Adult (YA)/Teen Books. Since I've stopped reading to the kids, I read most of these to myself (except the first, which is the second to last book I read to them). I honestly didn't like any of them much. I don't like this genre. I keep wondering whether I would have liked it when I was a teenager, if it had existed then. I'm not sure. Anyway, my favorite was probably the John Green book, which I have read before. The kids didn't like it that much, though. We watched the movie, and it was pretty good.

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (read to the kids)
  
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
  
• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (set in Ridgecrest)
  
• House of Stairs by William Sleator
  

 

Books for the Book Group. My beloved book group continues, even though we have only three members now and two of us are on Mounjaro/Zepbound, so we don't want to eat! I liked several of these, so it's a little hard to choose a favorite. I think I'm going to go with Good Night, Irene, which was a really unusual perspective on World War II. I think the only books I really didn't like were The Promise and Loot. They were both well-meaning books, but they just didn't work for me. Oh, and Rin Tin Tin. So boring, although I learned some interesting things about dogs and dog movies.

• January/February: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• March: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
  
• April: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
  
• May: The Promise by Damon Galgut
  
• June: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
  
• July: Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
  
• August/September: Loot by Tania James
  
• October: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
  
• November/December: Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean
  

 

Mystery/Thriller. Often a long list, but this year it was mostly just rereads of Dorothy L. Sayers. My favorite of the new books I read was probably Slow Horses, which was a fun introduction to a new series that now I get to continue reading.

• Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
  
• A Cold and Silent Dying by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• Slow Horses by Mick Herron
• Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• Dead Lions by Mick Herron
• Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron
• Lost Birds by Anne Hillerman
• Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Supernatural Mystery/Ghost Story. I only read a few of these this year. Didn't really like the Tremblay, hated the last installment of Phil Rickman's beloved series. So I guess my favorite was The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, lol. Must do better next year.

• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
• The Fever of the World by Phil Rickman
• The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories edited by J. A. Cuddon

Science Fiction/Fantasy. Hardly read any science fiction this year. I thought about choosing a scifi writer as one of my monthly picks, but ended up not doing that. The Cherryh book was fine, but at this point in the series she's just phoning it in. Drowning Towers was so unusual (about climate change and the destruction of society in Australia) that I'll say it was my favorite.

• Resurgence by C. J. Cherryh
• Drowning Towers by George Turner

 

Poetry. I planned to read more poetry this year, but eventually petered out. Still, eight books, that's better than usual. I'm going to say my favorite was Walking Gentry Home because it was such an interesting concept, genealogy in verse. I also enjoyed the volume of Pushkin, which I started reading during the month when I was reading Nabokov, and finally finished a few days before the end of the year.

• Tomorrow's Living Room by Jason Whitmarsh
• Feel Free by Nick Laird
• There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1963-78 by Michael Ondaatje
• Seems Like a Mighty Long Time: Poems by Angela Jackson
• The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 by Louise Bogan
• Selected Poems of May Sarton, ed. by Serena Sue Hilsinger and Lois Brynes
• Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse by Alora Young
• Alexander Pushkin: Selected Poetry translated by Antony Wood

 

General Fiction. A very long list this year, on account of my plan to read multiple books by a different author each month. I liked several of these a lot: Life and Times of Michael K, The Last Night at the Ritz, Austerlitz, Jesus' Son, James, The Trial, The Painted Drum, and The Things They Carried were all really good, and I'm probably forgetting some. Any of these could have been my favorite, but I'm going to put a picture of Jesus' Son here because it probably blew me away more than any other piece of fiction I read this year.

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Martha & Hanwell by Zadie Smith
• Mixed Company by Jenny Shank
• Howards End by E. M. Forster
• NW by Zadie Smith
• Dusklands by J. M. Coetzee
• Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (again)
• Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
• Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (again)
• The Pleasing Hour by Lily King
• The English Teacher by Lily King
• Father of the Rain by Lily King
• Foe by J. M. Coetzee
• 1984 by George Orwell (read w/Teen A for school)
• Writers and Lovers by Lily King
• Life of Pi by Yann Marten (read (for the 2nd time) w/Teen A for school)
• But Not For Love by Elizabeth Savage
• The Last Night at the Ritz by Elizabeth Savage
• Toward the End by Elizabeth Savage
• Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes (read to the twins)
  
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
• A Revolver to Carry at Night by Monika Zgustova, translated by Julie Jones
  
• The Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser
  
• The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, translated by Idra Novey
  
• Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell
• The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser
• Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• James by Percival Everett
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard (also could be considered a memoir)
  
• Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
• Collected Stories by Franz Kafka
• The Trial by Franz Kafka
• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (read w/Teen B for school)
• The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
• The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (read w/Teen A for school)
  
• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens
  
• The Chimes by Charles Dickens
• The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens

Christmas Books. I only read one Christmas book this year (I'm not counting the Dickens books as Christmas books) and it was appallingly awful. So I don't have a favorite, and I won't include a picture. I don't want to encourage this sort of thing.

• The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose

Graphic Novels/Memoirs/Whatever. I only read two graphic books this year, and the second was a children's book. It was OK. But The Talk was outstanding and I'm sure it would be my favorite even if I had read several others. Really good book, with the scenes set in Berkeley as a bonus.

• The Talk by Darrin Bell
• Took: A Ghost Story graphic novel by Mary Downing Hahn, adapted by Scott Peterson, Jen Vaughn, & Hank Jones

 

Memoir/Diaries/Autobiography. Looking at this list, I see that I read a lot of books about death and dying this year. I didn't mean to be morbid -- death and dying are just really interesting subjects, especially as one approaches the latter part of one's life (I'm only 64, but I might easily have lived 3/4 of my life already). Although I thoroughly enjoyed several of these books, I'm going to choose the first one as my favorite. The Bright Hour is really a good book (if you can bear to read about a young mother dying of breast cancer). I also especially liked Stay True, which brought back so many memories of my time at Berkeley. And the books by Kevin Fisher-Paulson were so comforting. I read bits of them at night when I needed something to calm me down.

• The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
  
• A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall
• Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor
• Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott with Sam Lamott
• The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
• Night by Elie Wiesel (read w/Teen B for school)
• Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu
• Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
• A Song for Lost Angels: How Daddy and Papa Fought to Save Their Family by Kevin Fisher-Paulson
• In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger
• How We Keep Spinning: The Journey of a Family in Stories by Kevin Fisher-Paulson

 

Biography. Now this is embarrassing. I did not read a single biography all year (except for presidential biographies). I guess I could have put the bio of Florence Harding here, but I think it really belongs with the presidential bios. Right after Christmas I read a book about Judy Blume that I thought was going to be a biography, but I ultimately decided that it wasn't one -- it was about her influence as an author, not her life. Oh well. I'll do better in 2025, I hope.

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Presidential Biography. I made it through four presidents this year and they were all interesting. I was surprised to find that I didn't care much for Woodrow Wilson after reading about him. He had many good points, but overall not a very effective president. Harding was a joke: his many affairs, his crazy wife, the Teapot Dome scandal, etc. Calvin Coolidge was a lot of fun, though not a very good president. And Hoover was so interesting -- such a fascinating guy, though again not very successful as president. It's hard to choose a favorite book, but I guess I'll go with Hoover (though I also loved the Coolidge bio). That was an exemplary presidential biography.

• Woodrow Wilson by August Heckscher
• Warren G. Harding by John W. Dean
• The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War by James David Robenalt
• Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferazza Anthony
• Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President by Donald R. McCoy
• Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte

 

General Nonfiction. Even with reading all that fiction, I managed to squeeze in the occasional work of nonfiction. Most of these were OK, but I'm not sure how to choose a favorite. I don't think I was totally blown away by any of them. I enjoyed The In-Between (more books about death and dying), and The Ship Beneath the Ice was very interesting. White Sands was a good introduction to a new writer for me (Geoff Dyer) who I plan to read more of. Rough Sleepers was a good book to read if you want to know more about the homeless crisis. But a favorite???? Could be any of those.

• Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
• The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos
  
• Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson
  
• Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott
• Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott
• Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationships with Food Through Myth, Metaphor, and Storytelling by Anita Johnston
• The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance by Mensun Bound
• Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb
• Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner
• The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness by Kenn Kaufman
• Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story by Dean-David Schillinger
• A Walk in the Woods by Dick Chavey
• White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer
• Love is Stronger Than Death: The Mystical Union of Two Souls by Cynthia Bourgeault
• The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings by Geoff Dyer
• Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People by Tracy Kidder
• The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein