{"id":3942,"date":"2025-05-11T12:28:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T17:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/?p=3942"},"modified":"2025-05-11T12:28:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T17:28:59","slug":"favorite-books-of-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/crankymonkeybutt.com\/snip\/archives\/2025\/05\/favorite-books-of-2024.html","title":{"rendered":"Favorite Books of 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let’s start with the numbers: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>. 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<\/strong>. Nuts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a repeat-author offender. I read eight books by<\/strong> Percival Everett<\/strong> 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<\/strong> Veronica Roth<\/strong> (three rereads), and three each by Naomi Novik<\/strong> (one re-read), Nghi Vo<\/strong>, Elle Kennedy<\/strong> (sometimes a girl needs her smut), and Neal Shusterman<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highest of Highlights<\/strong><\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My very, very favorite read in any genre, but particularly fiction, for 2024 was “Wounded” by Percival Everett<\/strong>. Yes, I read James<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong> who put out my<\/strong> favorite nonfiction of 2024<\/strong>, a breathtaking memoir “There’s Always This Year.”<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And my<\/strong> favorite poetry of 2024<\/strong> was Victoria Cheng’s <\/strong>collection “With My Back to the World.”<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favorite graphic novel reads in 2024<\/strong> were the three books that comprise the Friday series by Ed Brubaker, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente<\/strong>: 1) Friday Book One: The First Day of Christmas<\/strong>; 2) Friday Book Two: On a Cold Winter’s Night<\/strong>; and 3) Friday Book Three: Christmas Time Is Here Again<\/strong>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Very Favorite Fiction: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n