2024 Books
I did read some great books this year
Okay, I lied when I said I didn’t want to look back on this past year but some of the books I read in 2024 deserve to be shared. I always try and challenge myself when it comes to what I read, even this year, which had just about every up and down that I could imagine. I read classic books to memoirs to auto fiction to fantasy to horror. Pretty much all written by women, too. I read some longer books, too, which are so intimidating to me, for some reason.
Here are some of the standouts from this year:
Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - a fantasy as complicated as Game of Thrones but centered around women. One of those long reads that I challenged myself to stick with.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth - a super fun gothic horror, centered around a girl’s school where horrible things tend to happen.
A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux and Consent by Jill Clement - I lumped them together because they both look at their early memories with men and how it shaped the rest of their lives. Clement’s book is a master class in memoir, too. Both short reads but very impactful.
Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save The Earth by Nancy Marie Brown - a fascinating way to look at nature - through the lense of an imaginary (or not, depending on what you believe) creature. It also made me want to visit Iceland.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte - the least talked about Bronte sister. The book is described as a gothic horror and why I picked it up, but it does not fall into the classic tropes. It really is about domestic violence and alcoholism, something that was, and is, hard to talk about. It is definitely a book that is still so relevant.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - another classic that is described as a romance but is very much about the fight for worker’s rights during the Industrial Revolution.
How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ - very interesting read about how to do just what the title suggests and how not to fall prey to suck tactics.
The Prime of Miss Brodie by Muriel Spark - she is a writer I never heard of until I came across her name in (I think) the above book. She created a fascinating character, Miss Brodie, a teacher with too much power over a group of girls, who did not leave me for a long while after I closed the book.
Milkman by Anna Burns - I would recommend listening to this book. It has a cadence that I rarely see in novels. It takes place in Ireland during the Troubles. No one has names and the narrator calls everyone by their descriptors like “maybe-boyfriend” and “middle sister,” which lends to the cadence.
Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words by Jenni Nuttall - super fascinating read on where words like cunt, bitch and other words associated with women originated from. Usually not where one would think.
Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontang - after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease this year I had to pick this up and see how we’ve assigned metaphors to certain illnesses and how devastating that can be. She looks closely at cancer and tuberculosis but it was hard not to look ahead and see something similar play out with AIDs (this book came out in 1978 right before the AIDs epidemic in the 80’s). And I couldn’t help but think what is next?
Funny Story by Emily Henry - I am always amazed at how Henry creates these characters that seem so real. The romance is always fun but it’s a class in how to create multidimensional characters.
My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera by Beth Kephart - as someone who is particularly attached to her journal and the act of writing, this book was a delight. Each short section focused on some way that we still use paper, how it was made, and ultimately tied to Kephart’s memories, which is what brought this book alive. It’s one of my favorite ways of writing - creating connections between impossible things and seeing it’s not so impossible.
Cemetary Boys by Aiden Thomas - this young adult novel focuses on a young transboy whose traditional latinx family struggles to accept him and so he does what any brujo would do: summon a ghost. A very fun read that is probably being banned in certain places in the US right now and shouldn’t be.
Lastly, anything by Casey McQuiston, Anne Patchett, Patti Smith, and Leigh Bardugo.
There are others but these books I thought deserved to be shared. All the books above were either borrowed from the library or purchased at a local bookstore. And if you have book recommendations pass them along! I love adding to my to-be-read pile.