2024 Reading Roundup

 

Once again with a heavy but hopeful heart I am summarizing my reading activity for the previous year. After 467 hellish days we still have 98 hostages being held in Gaza by a cruel and heartless enemy.
But since I'm late posting I can at least report that a deal has finally been reached to release the hostages and bring them home. We know they are not all alive and we are waiting with open arms to welcome home those who are still among the living and to give a proper burial to those who are not. 

In 2024 I read 60 books.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

A Death in Cornwall  by Daniel Silva

Nightcrawling by Mottley Leila

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave

Finding the Words: Working Through Profound Loss with Hope and Purpose by Colin Campbell

The Last White Man by Hamid Mohsin

In Too Deep (Jack Reacher #29) by Lee Child

Your Mom's Gonna Love Me by Matt Rife

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

Playground by Richard Powers

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Verifiers (The Verifiers #1) by Jane Pek

It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1) by Colleen Hoover

The Tennis Partner by Abraham   Verghese

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

The Hunter by Tana French

The Cancer Ladies' Running Club by Josie Lloyd

Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

Black Wolf (Antonia Scott, #2) by Juan Gómez-Jurado

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Guncle Abroad (The Guncle, #2) by Steven  Rowley

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Family Family by Laurie Frankel

Red Queen (Antonia Scott, #1) by Juan Gómez-Jurado

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

Pineapple Street by Jenny   Jackson

How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

Being Henry: The Fonz . . . and Beyond by Henry Winkler

Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd

The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World by Sharon Brous

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin

The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by  ulietta Henderson

Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Noa Tishby

Lost Flowers Of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

The Trail of Lost Hearts by Tracey Garvis Graves

Slow Horses (Slough House, #1) by Mick Herron

The Book of Doors by Gareth  Brown

The One (The Selection, #3) by Kiera Cass

The Elite (The Selection, #2) by Kiera Cass

The Watchmaker's Hand (Lincoln Rhyme, #16) by Jeffery Deaver

The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World: A Novel by Laura Imai Messina

Lone Wolf (Orphan X, #9) by Gregg Hurwitz

The Selection (The Selection, #1) by Kiera Cass

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily R. Austin

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1) by Rupert Holmes

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

My Name Is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

Resurrection Walk (The Lincoln Lawyer, #7) by Michael Connelly

The Talk by Darrin Bell

Wrecked by Joe Ide

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen

I read 17 physical books, 13 e-books, and listened to 29 audiobooks. This is almost identical to my numbers from 2023.

This was my 18th year (!) tracking my reading progress. I've read 1182 books over the past 18 years, an average of 66 books a year! My goal is to someday get to 100 books a year. 

In 2024 I read 12,122 pages and listened to 339 hours and 34 minutes of audio. The longest book I read was The Year of the Locust, 797 pages, and the shortest book I read was The Night We Lost Him, 314 pages. The longest audiobook I listened to was My Name Is Barbra, which was 48 hours long! It did include her singing which was a bonus. The shortest book I listened to was Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, only 4 hours and 26 minutes long. 

I read 9 nonfiction books, which included 5 memoirs. I read 4 young adult books, 3 books that dealt with grief, 26 books by authors I've previously read, and 15 books which were part of a series. I'm not great at rating what I've read so there were 11 books I didn't rate, 2 books I thought were okay, 34 I liked, and 13 which I loved. 

Some of the books I really enjoyed were The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Ministry of Time, Here One Moment, The Women, Family Family, Pineapple Street, How to Age Disgracefully, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman, The Collected Regrets of Clover, The Book of Doors, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, and Interesting Facts About Space.

I also liked Slow Dance (I always fall in love with the male characters in Rainbow Rowell books), Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, The Cancer Ladies' Running Club (who wouldn't), Weyward, The Trail of Lost Hearts, and I Hope This Finds You Well.

There are some mystery series that I always read when a new book comes out. I liked the new Gabriel Allon book, A Death in Cornwall, and the new Orphan X book, Lone Wolf. Resurrection Walk and The Watchmaker's Hand were okay. On the other hand, the new Reacher book, In Too Deep was incredibly disappointing. hard to follow, drags, and just not interesting. I started a new mystery series translated from Spanish: Red Queen and Black Wolf. And if we're talking about mysteries, did you know that Rupert Holmes (yes, THAT Rupert Holmes) writes books? I read Murder Your Employer which was entertaining (Not to worry, I like my boss).

Terry Hayes' book I am Pilgrim was great and I (and many others) waited a long time for him to publish another book. Year of the Locust was really good... until it took a very strange plotline turn and then it was too unbelievable. 

Nightcrawling and The Last White Man, both award winning books, did not do it for me. I found Nightcrawling incredibly depressing. And I LIKE depressing books. But this just felt hopeless to me. And I just didn't understand the point of the Last White Man.

Playground and Cloud Cuckoo Land were both very interesting books. The end of Playground made me go wait, what, and I needed a SubReddit to better understand the book. Cloud Cuckoo Land also took a very long time to understand how all the different storylines tie together, but it's worth sticking it out.

I liked The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. I'm a sucker for books that take place in bookstores or libraries (see also: Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop 👍, The Cartographers 👍, Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books 👎, The Book of Doors 👍) When I finished it I thought, I can't believe I haven't read this till now. And when I went to add it in Goodreads I discovered that I had read it. In 2014. 

So that sums up 2024. I can tell you that I've already finished four books in 2025 and I'm in the middle of a Hebrew novel and a non-fiction audiobook about Menachem Begin, suggested by my daughter. I also just bought eight books which I ordered from Rebooks. If you're in Israel you should definitely check them out. It's a chain which employs differently abled people and they sell used books, each for 25 shekels. If you go to a physical store and give in a book you get a 5 shekel discount so a book will cost you only 20 shekels. I like to periodically search their website for the older books on my wishlist and I found eight! Of course, just because I bought them in 2025 doesn't mean I'll read them in 2025. We'll see.

Hoping that 2025 holds good things for all, both literarily and generally.