Compiling a reading list last year was fun so I’m going to keep the trend going. Besides, isn’t everyone doing reading lists now? Here’s the highlight reel from 2024:
Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead was an easy favourite. A portrait of forgotten children and victims of the American opioid crisis. The narrator’s idiosyncrasy is addictive.
Claire Keegan’s Foster and Small Things Like These. Books so short that transport you so far. Painful memories of Ireland’s past.
Hugh Howeys’s Silo series. I read a lot of sci-fi this year and this was by far my favourite. Howey reveals just enough to satisfy, and no more. The world he constructs is palpable, the characters believable. A rare blend of imagination and delivery.
On the flipside, the most tedious reads were Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. I knew, almost immediately, that I wasn’t going to enjoy finishing either of these and yet I persisted. Why? The faint hope that maybe it’d turn around? More likely that I’d feel like a quitter. That was dumb and I’m resolved to give up on books more often this year.