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Favorite reads of 2024

For nearly a decade now, I've tracked my annual reading on my web site. (You can see this year's list and previous years here.) And each year I try to do a brief roundup of my favorites. Nothing too indulgent this year; it was mostly a year of comfort reading and downtime. I read sixty books, which is fewer than usual, but there was a lot going on this year. A job search. A family upheaval or two. Middle school. Creative cratering. Et cetera.

In any case, I want to share the books that meant the most to me this year, or left some kind of mark. Not all are new books; some are re-reads. Not all are Big Important Tomes; some are pulpy and delicious. These are the ones that I loved most, in alphabetical order by author:

Meditations for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman

I've enjoyed many of Burkeman's past books, and quoted from many in my previous newsletters, but this book, from the earliest pages, was clearly written just for me, at this particular moment in my life. Early in the book, Burkeman writes this:

The late British Zen master Houn Jiyu-Kennett, born Peggy Kennett, had a vivid way of capturing the sense of inner release that can come from grasping just how intractable our human limitations really are. Her teaching style, she liked to say, was not to lighten the burden of the student, but to make it so heavy that he or she would put it down. ... Kennett's insight was that it can often be kinder and more effective to make their burden heavier—to help them see how totally irredeemable their situation is, thereby giving them permission to stop struggling.

And then? Then you get to relax. But you also get to accomplish more, and to enjoy yourself more in the process, because you're no longer so busy denying the reality of your predicament, consciously or otherwise.

With this and the rest of what he writes, Burkeman is trying to make the point that we're all chasing after a perfection—a perfect physical state, mental state, a perfect window of time with the perfection conditions for all the things we've always thought we'd get around to doing perfectly someday—that can not exist. Accepting that grants us the freedom to live within the complexity of it all, finding peace and happiness in what is, not what we continue to dream will someday be.

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

It took me far too long to get to Butler's prescient (and unfinished) series, but this year I read the first book, Parable of the Sower, in a hungry rush, unable to put it down even as it felt painful to read. In The New Yorker, Abby Aguirre writes:

In her lifetime, Butler insisted that the Parable series was not intended as an augur. “This was not a book about prophecy,” she said, of “Talents,” in remarks she delivered at M.I.T. “This was a cautionary tale, although people have told me it was prophecy. All I have to say to that is: I certainly hope not.”

I wonder what Butler would feel about the book now, against the landscape of the United States's last decade or so.

I have Parable of the Talents, the sequel novel, on my shelf. It hasn't made its way onto my reading list quite yet, but soon.

The New Wilderness, Diane Cook

I read Diane Cook's first book, the short story collection Man v. Nature, ten years ago, and the thought I had with every page was, gosh, I hope she writes a novel someday. Well, she did, and it was harrowing, violent, strange, and beautiful, and I loved it. I hope she does it again, but I'm grateful she did it this time.

The Hawthorne Series, Anthony Horowitz

The year of the comfort read was dominated by mystery novels. I'd never read Horowitz before this year, when I found one of his novels on the shelf at a small bookshop on the Oregon coast. I read four of them consecutively—The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, A Line to Kill, and The Twist of a Knife—and I'm eager to read the next. The books have a fun premise: Horowitz writes a fictionalized version of himself, a novelist who is swept off his feet by a detective, Hawthorne, who wishes a novel written about a case. Their relationship is tempestuous and cranky, and great fun. I hardly remember what the mysteries themselves were; what carries these books is the grand banter between writer and subject. And it's a real thrill trying to separate fact from fiction in these pages!

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

A beloved favorite that always makes my shortlist when I revisit it. I just adore this novel. What more can I say?

Shopkeeping, Peter Miller

I love reading books about hobbies, crafts, or disciplines that I have no actual relation to, at least when they're written this well. Miller runs a design bookshop in Seattle, and writes beautifully about his experiences and philosophies of shopkeeping. One of the very best books I read this year, simply because there's nothing better than listening to experts share their expertise, no matter the subject.

The Eighth Detective, Alex Pavesi

This was another coastal bookshop find, and wow, what a fantastic little delicacy of a mystery it was! An editor travels to a remote island to track down a long-forgotten mystery writer in hopes she might republish his collection of stories. Together they take a journey through each of the perfect little stories in his book, and while the writer reminisces about each one, the editor unearths little inconsistencies that puncture the writer's picture-perfect backstory... So good. I'll definitely be watching for what Pavesi does next.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith

I'll just say this is a beautiful, essential book for anyone struggling with upheaval in their most private life, and leave it there.

Grief is the Thing With Feathers, Max Porter

I missed this book when it was published years ago, and came around to it at last this year. An elegant and terrifying modern-day fairy tale, written with incredible vividness and power.

The Prey Series, John Sandford

John Sandford is, as I know I've written before, my go-to comfort author. Every year, like clockwork, he produces 1-2 novels in his long-running series, and every year, the moment they're announced, I preorder them and wait, and wait, and then gorge in two days. This year I decided to circle back to the beginning of his most famous series, the Prey books, and read from the beginning. It's exciting to see how his writing has evolved over the years; his early novels show all the hallmarks of his journalism career, rich with detail, and over time, as author and reader develop a relationship of familiarity, Sandford's shorthand style emerges, until he becomes a looser, more confident writer. Read him long enough and the rich detail is still there, hanging in the spaces between the sparer descriptions and dialogue. This year I re-read the first nine books: Rules of Prey, Shadow Prey, Eyes of Prey, Silent Prey, Winter Prey, Night Prey, Mind Prey, Sudden Prey, and Secret Prey.

And what am I reading currently? The Mystery Writer, by Sulari Gentill. I've just begun it, and expect it'll wind up being the first book I complete in 2025.

Happy reading to everyone, and may 2025 bring you stacks and stacks of wonderful books.