📚 My 2024 Reads
in which I promise this is not a repeat of the "best books of 2024" lists you've read already!
One thing I love about December: the year-end lists! Music, movies, books, TV shows! I love all the lists.
I especially love reading and disagreeing with them. It really fills me with the Grinch-y spirit. As I was considering some lists of my own earlier this week, I decided to start with my biggest love, books.
I initially thought I’d go all in and tell you the books I liked, disliked, loved, and loathed. Then I remembered I’ve read a lot of books this year, and I felt extremely tired. So for today, we’re sticking only to the reads I loved and liked in 2024. As you’ll see, not all of these were necessarily published in 2024.
I hope you enjoy, and that you’ll share your favorite reads of 2024 with me as well. Maybe when I see you over the Christmas holiday, because if you’re reading this, we’re probably related.
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
— Scout, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The end of an era — finishing Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Series
In early April, I finished Y is for Yesterday, the final book in Sue Grafton’s Alphabet series, starring one of my favorite fictional characters, private investigator Kinsey Millhone. I loved reading this mystery series over the years, talking about Kinsey’s antics with my cousin Claire and aunt Linda, and more recently, with my friends Lauren and Beth as they’ve picked up the series, too. Whether it was an old copy of my mom’s or a library loan, each letter proved to be a great escape from day-to-day reality. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: Kinsey Millhone forever!
The best book about aliens sending faxes — Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino
Oh, I loved this book. This one landed on The New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2024” list, so here’s that blurb for your context and consideration:
“In 1970s Philadelphia, an alien girl sent to Earth before she’s born communicates with her fellow life-forms via fax as she helps gather intel about whether our planet is habitable. This funny-sad novel follows the girl and her single mother as they find the means to persevere.”
As I texted my friend Adam while reading it: early on, the protagonist Adina reminded me so much of Sally J Freedman (one of my most beloved Judy Blume characters), and then “high school Adina is really getting me in my feelings.” He pointed out how great it was that the sections are broken down by phases in a star’s lifecycle, and he was quite right.
Someone named Claire wrote my favorite review, though:
I highly recommend this, and another book of hers, Parakeet, both of which I purchased at Exile in Bookville, one of my favorite bookstores in Chicago.
My favorite read of the year that’s on the ‘best of’ lists — All Fours, by Miranda July
“Everyone’s going to be talking about this book.” — Isabelle McConville, “Best Fiction Books of 2024,” Barnes & Noble Reads
“July’s novel is hot and weird and captivating and one of the most entertaining, deranged, and moving depictions of lust and romantic mania I’ve ever read.” — Christine Smallwood, “Miranda July’s New Novel Will Ignite Your Group Chats,” Vulture
“Was Miranda July’s sensational tale of a midlife turned upside down occasionally a little too arch for its own good? Yes. Did July, in some sections, crawl up her own ass to an astonishing degree? Sure. Did any of the subsidiary characters, even the child the artist narrator loves and the man-child for whom she lusts, seem like actual human beings? Barely…but even I found that there was no book that was more fun to talk about this year. America needs more books that make everyone a little crazy! Thank God we had this one.” — Dan Kois, “The 10 Best Books of 2024,” Slate
The most unexpected sex scenes I’ve ever read on an airplane — Me
Listen: I’m not sure if it’s because I turned 40 this year or what, but in 2024 I heard and read the word perimenopause nearly as frequently as my own name. It’s everywhere! My group chats, my Instagram feed, my Google searches! (“When does perimenopause start?”; “Am I dying, or is it perimenopause?”; “Do I feel like a monster because it’s perimenopause?” etcetera.)
Certainly, July’s 45-year-old unnamed protagonist was dealing with it: “Her perimenopausal protagonist’s desire is insatiable, unfathomable, roving across genders and generations: a kind of supernova of lust preceding what she anticipates will be the black hole of senescence,” writes Alexandra Jacobs for The New York Times.
Here’s what you need to know, if you haven’t read it. She leaves on a cross-country road trip, only makes it 30 minutes away from home, and from there makes some of the wildest decisions imaginable, including redecorating a motel room and embarking on an exceptionally weird affair with a younger man.
I picked up All Fours while in Denver this July, at a fantastic independent bookstore where I also bought a purple MUJI highlighter and a LaCroix. (The LaCroix is important. They had a cooler of LaCroix behind the counter! An actual dream!)
All Fours was the perfect travel companion: engrossing, surprising, annoying, even infuriating at times. I finished it on the plane ride back to Chicago. What a deranged delight.
The slow read I would not shut the f— up about all year long! Yes, duh, it’s War & Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Shoutout to my brother Jay for joining me on this slow read of War & Peace in 2024! Should we have joined our father in reading the abridged version instead? Maybe!
In all seriousness, although we’re still not done with War & Peace — it’s an intentional year-long read, after all — I’m so glad we committed to it, and I’m not sure if I’d have been able to carry on with it without the incredible character guide, the reading schedule, and daily and weekly summaries. Considering how long it’s taken me to write this single post, I’m in awe of what Simon Haisell has built and maintained!
I like to think that our English teaching mother would have appreciated this slow read, and most likely have joined along for the “fun” if she were still here. And yes, I had some fun with it. Other times I wished to never read the name Napoleon ever, ever again.
What will I bore my handful of Substack readers with in 2025, I wonder? (After all, I’ve mentioned W&P here, here, here, and here!)
Join the 2025 W&P slow read here:
Honorable Mentions — Other reads I enjoyed this year
Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, by Chanel Miller
The Eyes & The Impossible, by Dave Eggers
“Chicago on the Seine,” a short story by Camille Bordas, The New Yorker
Sandwich, by Catherine Newman
“Kaho,” a short story by Haruki Murakami, The New Yorker
Good Monster, by Diannely Antigua
The Anthropologists, by Aysegül Savas
More, pictured:
Connect with me on Goodreads! Or, tell me your favorite reads this year in the comments below, if only to prove to me you made it this far! 📚
related:
Reading My Journal, Considering Some Lists
About ten years ago, I was home for the Thanksgiving holiday, cozied up in my childhood bedroom reading before bed when I started receiving a flurry of texts from my then-boyfriend.
to be sorted later #13
You ever spend so much time writing one section of a blog post, then realize you didn’t write an introduction, and it’s now 11pm and you’ve also rewatched “Beetlejuice” tonight and your cat is snoring with his head directly next to…
to be sorted later #10
June’s almost over, and that means we’re halfway there! No, I’m not talking about the calendar year: I’m now 50% of the way through War & Peace!