Books I Read in 2024

I decided at the beginning of this year that I would read less, but better. I finished forty-nine books this year; that’s a lower number than I’ve logged in nearly a decade of keeping track. But it was still nearly a book a week, and I wrote something about every one of them.

I’ve already decided not to do this again next year. I have a newborn, and a toddler, and a job, and I’d like to still make time for other writing, much of which you’ll be able to read here or at Trials (trialsjournal.substack.com). But I’m proud of what I’ve written this year. I’m not going to pick any favorites, but I think if you read the pieces below you’ll pick up on some trends in what I like and what I have to say about it. As usual, an asterisk denotes a reread.

1. The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power - Gary Wills
2. A House With Good Bones - T. Kingfisher 
3. The Door in the Hedge - Robin McKinley 
4. Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King 
5. The Last House on Needless Street - Catriona Ward
6. Krik? Krak! - Edwidge Danticat 
7. Hemlock Island - Kelley Armstrong 
8. The Future of Another Timeline - Annalee Newitz 
9. The Stone Gods - Jeannette Winterson 
10. Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophesy, and Radical Religion - Garry Wills 
11. Company of Liars: A Novel of the Plague - Karen Maitland 
12. Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins - Emma Donoghue* 
13. A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie - Dan Evans 
14. Looking Glass Sound - Catriona Ward 
15. Beloved - Toni Morrison* 
16. Jackal - Erin E. Adams 
17. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America - Garry Wills 
18. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen*
19. The Fraud - Zadie Smith
20. Meet Me at Infinity: The Uncollected Tiptree, Fiction and Nonfiction - James Tiptree, Jr. 
21. Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories - Terry Bisson
22. The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro* 
23. Mister B. Gone - Clive Barker
24. Untouched by Human Hands: Stories - Robert Sheckley
25. The Reformatory - Tananarive Due
26. A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
27. James - Percival Everett
28. Starve Acre - Andrew Michael Hurley
29. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century - Amia Srinivasan
30. The Vaster Wilds - Lauren Groff
31. Warm Worlds and Otherwise - James Tiptree, Jr.
32. Transcription - Kate Atkinson
33. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
34. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder - David Grann
35. A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine - David K. Seitz
36. Assumption - Percival Everett
37. When the Reckoning Comes - LaTanya McQueen
38. Matrix - Lauren Groff*
39. 14 - Peter Clines
40. An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
41. The Violins of Saint-Jacques: A Tale of the Antilles - Patrick Leigh Fermor
42. The Aleph and Other Stories - Jorge Luis Borges
43. Horror Movie - Paul Tremblay
44. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton*
45. Salvage: Readings from the Wreck - Dionne Brand
46. In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware
47. The Creeper - A.M. Shine
48. Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories - Agustina Bazterrica
49. Fates and Furies - Lauren Groff