The very best I can say for 2024 is that it was a good reading year. Personal? Not so much. But this blog, despite all my rantings and diatribes, is about the more literary aspect of my precious little life, so we’re going to focus on that, instead of… the rest.

(The one great thing that happens to overlap both aspects of my life is the fact that I started writing for Booklist, something that makes me incredibly happy and proud. It’s been a great experience thus far, and I think I’ve already learned a lot in the few months I’ve been with them. Exciting!)

I read some really fine books this year. These are some of them:

CHRISTMAS DAYS by Jeanette Winterson

This is, so far, the only Jeanette Winterson book I’ve read, but I was ready to call her a favorite author upon finishing it. I fell absolutely head-over-heels in love with her writing—so much so that I found the vignettes written before the recipes she’s included here almost as beautiful as the short stories themselves. (It’s a true testament to her skill that she took what was essentially a meme in the online culinary world—the drawn-out preambles before cooking instructions—and made wonderful art with it.)⠀

A true Christmas collection, in the purest sense of the term, as Winterson runs through the absolute gamut of wintry tales: from unsettling ghost stories down to charming, sickly-sweet romances—all written with sublime grace and aplomb. Christmas Days quickly became synonymous with the holiday season for me, and I may just make it an annual tradition to read it. Wonderful stuff.

THE WEE FREE MEN by Terry Pratchett

Genuinely don’t know why I torture myself by depriving myself of these wonderful books for such long intervals. This was my first Pratchett book in a handful of years, and reading it felt like coming back to a home full of love and understanding that was also, maybe, just a tiny bit disappointed in me.⠀

Because The Wee Free Men is a brilliant showcase of Pratchett’s famous righteous anger. Tiffany Aching, like her creator, is an angry person, positively full of rage. She just uses that rage to make the world a better, more compassionate place—if only to spite the darkness. Beautiful and necessary. 

MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER by Chris Offutt

Chris Offutt’s less-than-flattering portrait of his flawed father is a challenging, thought-provoking, and undoubtedly fascinating read. I flew through this in a day, despite the difficult subject matter. It helps that Offutt writes a hell of a sentence, crafting with them a tale of obsession, melancholy, and forgiveness that’s equal parts insightful and heartbreaking. A hell of a read.

DUNE by Frank Herbert

A mesmerizing reading experience through and through. What really drew me in was the writing, which I found to be the complete opposite of its reputation for being dense and dry. “Organic” was the word that kept coming to mind. This book felt like a living, breathing thing. It helped that Herbert’s world-building was downright virtuosic—the sheer scope of the thing is truly staggering, and I was captivated throughout its countless psychedelic pages. 

Also, once again: big worms!

TRIGGER MORTIS by Anthony Horowitz

While I genuinely adore Ian Fleming’s writing (in particular his exceptional eye for detail), I find Anthony Horowitz’s Bond books, in general, much better constructed. Which is probably a sacrilegious thing to say. But where Fleming was a brilliant stylist, Horowitz is a master craftsman. The man simply lives and breathes thrillers.

Enjoyed this one a little less than Forever and a Day, his first Bond outing, but found it brilliant all the same. Can’t wait to read his final 007 story.

MOONBOUND by Robin Sloan

I loved Moonbound in a way I haven’t loved a book since probably Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Which is apt, seeing as how they’re both stories that are inherently optimistic about humanity and what the future holds in store for us. Despite my deep-rooted cynicism, stories about radical optimism always resonate with me in profound and lasting ways.⠀

This is also a story about stories, which have always been my favorite kind of stories. Sloan plays around with a lot of tropes and archetypes here, and the fun he has with it all is palpable and infectious.⠀

Also, this book has the literary equivalent of a cinematic needle-drop, and it is, without hyperbole, one of the raddest moments I’ve ever read.⠀

My favorite book of the year.

THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED by John Green

That pesky radical optimism again (hi Dua Lipa was my top artist on Spotify Wrapped this year). John Green delivers a wonderful collection of essays reviewing the myriad ways humans have–for better or worse–made an impact on this planet–and then proceeds to rank them on a five-star scale. The premise may be slightly facetious, but Green never fails to consider his subjects in a thoughtful, measured, and inherently hopeful manner. ⠀

A humorous and heartfelt celebration of humanity, I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five out of five stars.⠀

DIAVOLA by Jennifer Thorne

My favorite Hallowe’en read not actually read during the Hallowe’en season. A Gothic and thoroughly modern ghost story that explores family dynamics in a more visceral and brutally honest manner than most high-brow contemporary novels. ⠀

I loved a lot of things about Diavola, but mainly I adored its Dumpster-fire protagonist, a veritable harbinger of chaos, and how the story proceeded to validate her nature rather than condemn it, making this an exceedingly fun and cathartic read.⠀

THE BLACK SLIDE by J.W. Ocker

There are few things I respect more than children’s horror novels that aren’t afraid to go dark and still remain full of heart. J.W. Ocker’s middle grade work is characterized by this trait, but he took it up a few considerable notches with The Black Slide, and it’s all the better for it. Harrowing, haunting, and heartfelt. More children’s horror like this, please. 

LUCY UNDYING by Kiersten White

My favorite Hallowe’en read actually read during the Hallowe’en season. I just loved the hell out of this. Very much a spiritual companion to Kiersten White’s previous novel, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. Lucy Undying is likewise gloriously Gothic, unreservedly feminist, and meandering in the most interesting, fascinating ways. A hell of a read.

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I hope you all had a great year, and I hope the next one treats us well.

See you on the other side.

📖