My Top 2024 Reads
Reflecting on Reads and Reading Habits
A very frank neighbor once said to me, point blank: “Average the number of books you read in a year, multiply it by the number of years you likely have remaining, and that’s how many books you have left.”
Did that jolt you? Her words certainly jolted me because I like to pretend I’ll live forever and get to all the books I plan to, plus more (and re-reads of course). Remember the father in About Time played by Bill Nighy? I wanted to be like him; he used his time-traveling abilities to read more books than he possibly could in a lifetime. I started to keep track after my neighbor’s comment and found that though I’m often thinking of books, reading about them, shopping for them, and indeed reading, the number I actually finish in a year is less than I’d like to admit. I share this with you because it may give you the prod it gave me, if you’re someone with an ever-growing TBR list. This year I really wanted to get to 50: I squeezed in #47 on December 31st. Better than last year, but not where I’d like to be given the many books I’d like to read and re-read before my time runs out. I’ve always had a terrible habit of reading half of a book, getting bored, and moving on, which makes me feel like I’ve read many more books than I actually have. I go back-and-forth on the debate: finish a book even if you’ve lost interest once you’ve made it halfway versus life’s too short. (If you have strong opinions on this, please share). All that to say, out of the 47 books I did finish in 2024, below are my faves. This year I may keep a second list: “Books I Started & Didn’t Finish,” to shed more light on my reading habits. I’d love to hear your faves of 2024 and if you’ve read, or plan to read, any of these :)
I hope I didn’t make you feel inferior or superior based upon your own reading habits. I share this to inspire you to spend more time reading if it’s what you wish – and often, in order to do that, you first need to be aware of just how much you do read. Remember: everyone’s list and reading needs are different. There are days I realize I’d rather not be reading – for instance, sitting on a beach, forcing myself to focus on the page when a dolphin leaps from a wave and I say to myself: what the hell am I doing reading poems about the ocean when it’s right in front of me? So, I close the book and wade into the sea. Other days, though, awaiting the metró or subway, scrolling through reels, I stop myself and say: pull the book out of your bag and read instead. You know in your gut when life’s better lived than read, and when you’re better off reading than whatever else you’re doing!
Without further adieu, here are my top reads of the last year – though, I must say, I read many wonderful books that aren’t on this list!
My 2024 Top Reads (in the order in which they were read):
Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza: This memoir set between Mexico City and the mysterious volcanic valley city of Toluca is a powerful reclamation of Garza’s wish to honor her sister’s name and identity beyond simply a 20-year-old woman murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend. (Mexico has one of the world’s highest femicide rates and Garza wants to raise awareness about this). Throughout she intersperses snippets from her sister’s journals so that the book feels as if it were written by the two of them – and, in this way, Liliana, 30 years post-death, speaks. The Mexican authorities never convicted her murderer and Garza hopes that through writing this book justice will be served. I was thrilled that after I read it the book received a Pulitzer Prize and was also a National Book Award Finalist. It deserves both! Pair it with Garza’s short story, “Dream Man,” a magical realist account inspired by Liliana’s death featuring volcano mermaids.
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros: Cisneros is a favorite and this is a colorful, semi-autobiographical novel inspired by her family history. You’ll read through several generations of the Reyes family as they move between Mexico City and the U.S. You can tell Cisneros is Mexican and began as a poet because her prose sings, shimmies, and shakes. (This was actually one of those books I read half of years ago, put away, and restarted and finished the second time around…)
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard: I loved this memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh for the way Dillard describes her intellectual parents and contrasts the city’s Gilded-Age roots with its poverty and racism. She’s a gorgeous writer.
The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick: This slim book about memoir writing totally transformed how I think about writing creative nonfiction. Highly recommend if you write or want to get into writing.
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Stephen Millhauser: Several of my favorite writers have cited this novel as one of their faves, so I had to read it. It’s a fairy tale warning about dreams versus their achievement, set in New York in the late 1800s, when the possibility felt palpable. Martin Dressler, the son of a lower middle-class tobacco seller rises up in the world, eventually building fantastical hotel after fantastical hotel, each one outdoing the last, until the hotels go too far and the dream crashes. I especially liked the book because it was largely set on the Upper West Side where I grew up in a former early 20th century hotel, The Ansonia, which I’m convinced inspired some of the descriptions!
The Glass Palace by Amitav Gosh: My grandfather is Burmese so whenever I spy the unlikely novel set in Burma I want to read it. This one didn’t disappoint – a family saga spanning generations across India, Bengal, Malaya, and Burma from the takeover of the British to the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi. You really grow to care and cry for the characters. Everyone should read this, especially since Myanmar (formerly Burma) has such a terrible totalitarian government at the moment.
North Woods by Daniel Mason: I love books about houses and this novel follows a cabin in Colonial New England as it transforms over the centuries, witnessing murders, ghosts, renovations, wars, climate change, and more. In each chapter we meet the next set of inhabitants, from lovers fleeing Puritanism to a fervent apple grower and his daughters to a Schizophrenic…you never know what’s in store next. There’s even a hint of the metaphysical!
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín: This one has a slow start but it’s worth it, trust me. A beautiful, spare love story about a young woman’s move from opportunity-less Ireland to bustling Brooklyn after World War II, and the choice she must make about who to love and where to live. Watch the film!
Long Island by Colm Tóibín: It was purely coincidental that just after I finished Brooklyn, Tóibín released a sequel (14 years and many books after writing Brooklyn later). I read this in a day. From the very first page you’re dying to know what happens!
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm: I loved this classic, part-philosophical, part-psychoanalytic-for-lay-people text for its gentle and patient ideas about love. It contrasts Hollywood’s depiction of love as something you feel and know to be true immediately with the idea that love is something to be learned, like an art. And, like any art, it takes time to get good at.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: This one surprised me. What an adventure! It filled me with wonder for the seas.
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron: An incredible read for its depiction of the guilt and trauma associated with The Holocaust. Sophie is an unforgettable character.
Happy New Year and I wish you your best year of reading thus far!