Let’s start with the numbers:
For someone who does not do a lot of unnecessary math in adult life, I really do love statistics. So I’m about to hit you with some good ones! I read 132 books in 2024. I always set my goal as 100–because there have been years when I haven’t made it. For example I only read 88, 97, and 67 (what?) books, respectively, in 2020 (hello, global panini), 2016 (second year at a new school, had changed content areas) and 2013 (early teaching). In the 13 reading years from 2012-2024, I averaged 117 books a year. The last five years I have apparently given up other parts of life because I’ve averaged 140 reads a year for 2020-2024. Nuts.
I am a repeat-author offender. I read eight books by Percival Everett in 2024 (I’m sort of on a mission to be an Everett-completist; however some of his older books are not in the Chicago Public Library collections so we’ll see), five by Veronica Roth (three rereads), and three each by Naomi Novik (one re-read), Nghi Vo, Elle Kennedy (sometimes a girl needs her smut), and Neal Shusterman.
I read 55 fiction books, 29 science fiction or fantasy, 13 non-fiction (WHOA!), 21 poetry collections and 11 graphic novels (three non-fiction and 11 fiction). So across genre and type: out of the 132, 95 were fiction (71%, a little low for me, frankly, ha), 16 were non-fiction, which is a wildly high number for me, and 21 were poetry collections, which honestly tend to contain both fiction and non- within the span of a collection, although I do notice that Storygraph files them as nonfiction.
Highest of Highlights:
My very, very favorite read in any genre, but particularly fiction, for 2024 was “Wounded” by Percival Everett. Yes, I read James. Yes, I see it getting all the glory. Yes, I found it a good read. I did not find it as good a read as Wounded. I’ve read roughly 22 of Everett’s books at this point, and my favorites are: 1) Wounded; 2) The Trees; 3) Erasure; 4) Watershed; and 5) I Am Not Sidney Poitier.
I have really been reading a lot more non-fiction here in the old age of my 50s and I can lay at least part of the blame at the footsteps of Hanif Abdurraqib who put out my favorite nonfiction of 2024, a breathtaking memoir “There’s Always This Year.” Swoontastic. Abudurraqib’s writing is so beautiful that it actually becomes deceiving–when he writes about music, I want to buy every album he recommends. In fact, I did for a while, and it turns out our musical taste overlap is only about 25% of what he listens to, heh. Fortunately this memoir contains a lot of basketball, which I already loved, so I wasn’t fighting my instincts the whole time. It was glorious.
And my favorite poetry of 2024 was Victoria Cheng’s collection “With My Back to the World.” Beautiful, self-deprecating, humorous, and so much play with form. But warning: if you’re already depressed, this might not be a good prescription for you.
My favorite graphic novel reads in 2024 were the three books that comprise the Friday series by Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente: 1) Friday Book One: The First Day of Christmas; 2) Friday Book Two: On a Cold Winter’s Night; and 3) Friday Book Three: Christmas Time Is Here Again. These are also the books that made me most want to: 1) reread Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden; 2) rewatch Veronica Mars; and 3) be a precocious teen again.
Other Very Favorite Fiction:
- Menewood, by Nicola Griffith. Finally the sequel to Hild. It was my first fresh read of 2024 and it broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. I will never be done reading these two books.
- Enter Ghost, by Isabella Hammad. Definitely a book of this time and this moment in history. Also just a beautiful book with gorgeous ideas, interesting relationships, and such a tangibly fleshed out world. I went back and read her first novel after this. She joined my favorite living authors list this year and I’m so glad my dad told me about her, and then the NYRB told me about her, and now I am telling everyone about her.
- I also really liked Big Swiss by Jen Beagin; James by Percival Everett, mentioned above; Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, which is just wildly gorgeous on a sentence level, and did you know you can’t hashtag that title on Instagram? Politics rule the world; Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino; The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut, another “I want to read everything he publishes author for me, after “When We Cease to Understand the World” in 2022; and, perhaps last summer’s hottest book, God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
Other Favorite Non-Fiction:
- Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe. OMG this book is so good. It sent me seeking out PRK all over the place. I’m listening to his podcast about the CIA potentially writing a German band’s hit song, I’m listening to every interview he’s ever gone, I’m obsessed. I guess I need to watch the series.
- The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, by Wright Thompson. Wowza. This book is amazing. It has a very spiraling structure (like a math curriculum, ha) and there are points at which you wonder why a particular tangent is happening, but it all ties together in the end. Very powerful. Here’s my GoodReads review if you need to hear more.
- I also really liked How Far the Light Reaches, by Sabrina Imbler, a gorgeous exploration of identity via exploring sea creatures; Here After by Amy Lin, the best book I’ve read on grief since Madeline L’Engles’ book about her husband’s death from cancer in The Crosswick Series (volume 4 I think); and Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, by Chris LaTray, a poet I’m kinda obsessed with.
Other Favorite Poetry:
- I loved Good Boys by Megan Fernandes, as I dig into her back catalog after adoring her 2023 release “I Do Everything I’m Told.”
- I am also loving finally digging into Diane Seuss, both Frank: sonnets and American Poetry were excellent; and I also loved Safia Elhilo’s January Children after predviously loving “Girls That Never Die.”
Other Favorite Graphic Novels:
- I’m still reading the ongoing series Saga (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), Monstress (Marjorie M. Liu), and Something Is Killing the Children (James Tynion IV). I also really enjoyed Shadowlife by Hiromi Goto.
A few other thoughts:
The books I found most unexpectedly charming:
- Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
- Familia by Lauren E. Rico (a purchase at the San Juan airport)
- Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka
The books that broke my brain the hardest: everything in the Atlas Complex series by Olivie Blake.
The most fun series I read was the Scholomance books by Naomi Novik (I reread the first one and fresh read the last two with a student and we had such fun conversations about them, so shout out Kamilo!).
The sexist books I read were Wolfsong by T.J. Klune and its sequels (although there are elements that get very repetitive and I haven’t been able to finish the last one, Brothersong).
The book I liked that was certainly the most unexpected to become a movie: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder.
The author I’m coming around on: Sally Rooney. I really liked Intermezzo (and previously “Beautiful World, Where Are You”) after not loving either “Normal People” (and its overwhelming sadomasochism).
And I loved revisiting Ray Carney and his world in Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (I looooved “Harlem Shuffle”).
What about you? What were your favorite reads last year? What am I missing? Comments are open!
(Also if you want to see the complete list, you can view it on GoodReads or StoryGraph both of which I am doing. StoryGraph is better, ethically, but the community aspect on GoodReads is much stronger.)
