This felt like my slowest reading year in recent memory. I only made it through some 22 books. I am not sure quite why, maybe because I read more non-fiction books or simply that I had trouble getting into fiction. With age, I am much more interested in the story and narrative than I am in clever writing. I don’t have time for detail and flowery language or for being impressed by the writing. I want good story telling. For example, I am currently reading Cold Mountain. The story keeps me going, but the artisanal writing style annoys the heck of me.
So here’s the 2024 list, including a few books that I read out loud to my kids:
- Cold Moutain by Charles Frazier (currently reading)
- What I talk about when I talk about running by Haruki Murakami
- The Borderland by Edwin Shrake
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
- Wish by Barbara O’Connor
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it by Chris Voss
- The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History by Ned Blackhawk
- The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
- The Man who Stayed Below by Alan Gould
- New of the World by Paulette Jiles (re-read)
- Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry
- The Pilars of Hercules by Paul Theroux
- Holes by Louis Sachar
- Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
- To Walk the World’s Rims by Betty Baker (re-read)
- Sir Vidia’s Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents by Paul Theroux
- The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination by Staut A. Reid
- The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut
- The End of the World is Just Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan
- The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi
- The Armor of Light by Ken Follet
- Bridge over Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (re-read)
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
By far, my two favorite books of the year where The Maniac and The Copenhagen Trilogy. In terms of great, simple stories, even though it’s middle and high school kids, I loved Wish. And as you can see, I continue with a Texas theme. I have spent a lot of time in Texas the past few years visiting, and I really enjoy learning about its history and reading novels set there. In this vein, I read The Rediscovery of America about Native Americans and the history of settler colonialism in the U.S. which reminded me too often of Khalidi’s The Hundred Year War on Palestine (also highly recommended).
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