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 a difficult start in life, of forgotten children and victims of the American opioid crisis. The voice Kingsolver adopts for the book is beautiful in its idiosyncrasy.
Claire Keegan’s Foster and Small Things Like These. Rarely can a book so short transport you so far. Painful memories of Ireland’s past. They left me in tears.
Hugh Howeys’s Silo series. I read a lot of sci-fi this year and this was by far my favourite. Howey leaves much to speculation but reveals just enough to satisfy. The world he constructs is palpable, the characters and their actions believable to the last. A rare blend of imagination and eloquence.
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. Maybe even re-reading some old favorites.
Until next year!