The 2024 Book Report: My Year of Reading

I plan to follow up with notes on some of my favorite reads this year, here is the list of books I read this year. A few I have to Google to remember their content; others will not leave me. As I read other people's list of favorite books--as well as the New York Times list of the best books of the century so far, my list of what to read next gets longer. Here are the 80 I read and remembered to record:

Books I Read in 2024

Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

Lee Smith, Silver Alert

Julie Whelan, Thank You for Listening

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

Fred Chappell, I Am One of You Forever

Daniel Mason, North Woods

Kari Gunter-Seymour, Dirt Songs

William Kent Kruger, The River We Remember

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Margo Jodyne Dills, The Nail Set

James McBride, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes

Chris Bachelder & Jennifer Hebel, Dayswork

Gary Goldman, What I Meant to Say Was

Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter

Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

Mark Zwenitzer & Charles Hirschberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?

Carla Jean Whitley, Muscle Shoals Sound Studios

Percival Everett, James

Angeline Boulley, A Firekeeper’s Daughter

Sarah Clarkson, Book Girl

David Grann, The Wager

Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

James Goodhand, Day Tripper

Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

Ben Groner, Dust Storms May Exist

David Platt, Something Needs to Change

Lucinda Williams, Don’t’ Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You

Amor Towles, Table for Two

Marianne Worthington, Girl Singer

Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

Julia Alvarez, The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Colm Toibin, Long Island

John Cowan, Hold to a Dream

Tommy Orange, Wandering Star

Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

Gillian McAllister, Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Luis Albert Urrea, Goodnight Irene

Anita Prose, The Mystery Guest

Sian Hughes, Pearl

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

Amanda Skenandore, The Life of Mirielke West

Sean Dieterich, Kinfolk

Emilie Hart, Weyward

Barbara Martin Stephens, The People and the Music

Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

Michelle Horton, Dear Sister

Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois

Joanna Quinn, The Whalebone Theatre

Elizabeth Berg, We All Are Welcome Here

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Goo Omens

David Barry, Big Trouble

Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Christina Dodd, Daughter of Fair Verona

Scott Owens, Augury of Birds

Adrian Rice, The Chances of Harm

Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

--. Show. Your Work.

Paulette Giles, Chenneville

Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything

Ryan McGee, Welcome to the Circus of Baseball

Brian Fairchild, Willie, Waylon, and the Boys

Tyler Mahan Coe, Cocaine and Rhinestones

Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf

Emily Critchley, One Puzzling Afternoon

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Chris Whitaker, All of the Colors of the Dark

Todd Snider, I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like

 Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

Liz Moore, God of the Woods

Leah Weiss, If the Creek Don’t Rise

Ruth Thompson, Journey Bread

KB Ballentine, All the Way Through

John Thomas York, The Charge,

Claire Keegan, Foster

Desmond Tutu and Ngho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving

Thomas Fuller, The Boys of Riverside

Jonathan Haidt, Anxious Generation

Elizabeth Keating, The Essential Questions

 

 

The 2024 Book Report: My Year of Reading

2016: A Year in Books

One of my favorite rituals at the end of each year is compiling my list of books I have read.  I've been keeping notes on my wall calendar for quite some time, and I transcribe them here and in my Bookwoman notebook. I read once that Art Garfunkel has kept his list like this since he was about sixteen. I wish I'd started then.

The books I actually get around to reading, the ones that press their way to the top of the pile, get there in a variety of ways.  Being a part of a book club has been important for me, encouraging me to read books I might otherwise pass by--Just Mercy, for example, and When the Moon Is Low. Some books make the list when I hear the author at a reading. This year, I heard Kimberly Williams-Paisley,  Jane Hamilton, Louise Erdrich, and Ann Patchett, to name just a few. Living in Nashville now, I am fortunate to be able to attend lots of book events thanks to the Nashville Public Library (Salon @615) and Parnassus Books.

I still rely on recommendations from my favorite fellow book lovers out there--Carol Jago and Amber Owens fall into that group. A few are assignments, books I'm reviewing for journals or authors I'm introducing at readings. Some books I find through pure serendipity, prowling the shelves at book stores and the public library. I must confessed that I abandoned several this year--especially audiobooks. I may give a few of them another try, but I'm unapologetic for opting out, considering how many more I may never get around to reading.

I discovered author Louise Penny last year (Thank you, Brian Faucette), and she's certainly over-represented on my list this year. I'm not usually one to read mysteries or series. Her books are both, and yet I find myself caught up and waiting for her to finish another. I have rarely found a set of characters about whom I cared so much. Over the course of her dozen or so novels, I have come to know the residents of Three Pines and their regular visitors. I keep telling anyone who'll listen to read them--but to be sure to read them in order, so as not to spoil surprises. I also read the next in the Flavia deLuce novels by Alan Bradley, and End of Watch the third in Stephen King's trilogy.

I re-read a couple of books, Life after Life, a book club selection I enjoyed again. Many of my favorite go-to authors have lived up to expectations--Patchett, Ron Rash, Anna Quindlen. As always, I have a number of poetry collections on my list. To be honest, I've read more than I've listed. I am sure. I'm also partway through books by friends--Scott Owens and Jeff Hardin for instance.

This year my husband and I also completed the Bible, using the MacArthur Daily Bible. I read it through with friends a few years ago, and my paperback copy is held together by duct tape, so I downloaded the eBook on my iPad. I like the arrangement: every day offers a selection from the Old Testament, from the New Testament, the Psalms and Proverbs. Leviticus is much easier to read, knowing one of the Gospels will follow.

I'm already making a list for this year, and I'm almost through Wally Lamb's I'll Take You There. On the sofa beside me, I've made check marks beside the New York Times best sellers I've read and a W beside the ones I "want to read."  If I've learned anything, though, it is this: the books I finish aren't always the ones I planned to read. New titles just keep butting their way in.

My 2016 list:

Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace
Chris Scotten, Secret Wisdom of the Earth
Claudia Rankine, Citizen
Lisa Genova, Inside the O'Briens
Judy Blume, In the Unlikely Event
Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Rachel Cusk, Outline
Louise Penny, The Cruelest Month
Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy
Lee Smith, A Guest on the Earth
JD Crowe, Half Thunk Thoughts and Half Fast Drawings
Kevin Kwan, China Rich Girlfriend
Nadia Hashimi, When the Moon Is Low
Matthew Neill Null, Honey from the Lion
Judith Richard, Sounds of Silence
Robert Galbraith, Career of Evil
Tim Peeler, Rough Beast
Joseph Mills, Exit Pursued by a Bear
Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
Joshilyn Jackson, The Opposite of Everyone
Louise Penny, The Brutal Telling
Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Jenny Lawson, Pretend This Never Happened
Louise Erdrich, LaRose
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, The Nest
Kim Boykin, Echoes of Mercy
Stephen King, End of Watch
Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue
Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead
---. The Hangman
---. A Trick of the Light
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland
Jane Shlensky, Barefoot on Gravel
Allen St. John, Clapton's Guitar
Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible
Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery
---. How the Light Gets In
Kate Atkinson, Life after Life
Kimberly Williams-Paisley, How the Light Gets In
Emma Straub, Modern Lovers
Ron Rash, The Risen
Anna Quindlen,  Miller's Valley
Louise Penny, Nature of the Beast
Beth Revis, A World Without You
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
Chris Cleaves, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven
Jonathan Safron Foer, Here I Am
Liane Moriarty, Truly, Madly, Guilty
Colton Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
Alan Bradley, Thrice the Brinded Cat Has Mewed
Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
Louise Penny, A Great Reckoning
Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs
Martha Hall Kelly, The Lilac Girls
Lauren Goff, Fates and Furies
Ann Patchett, Commonwealth
Susan Thurston, Sister of Grendel
Amy Ash, The Open Mouth of the Vase
The MacArthur Daily Bible

2016: A Year in Books