Reading Round Up 2024
In 2024 I wanted to read more. It wasn’t a goal, or a New Year’s resolution, just something I wanted to do more of.
So I’ve read 66 books this year. Some hardback, some paper back and some audio. I still haven’t ventured into the realms of the ereader and I keep revoking my Library sign on which requires human interaction to reset.
In order to read more I adopted a few tactics.
I’ve been open to more genres and suggestions and shifted my rather snobby perspective. If books were easy to write we’d all do it AND writing an easy to read book is actually a massive skill!
I’ve revisited books I’ve already read. After visiting a Fantasy and Fairytale exhibition at the British Library I reread the Susan Cooper books of my childhood. I wanted to read the latest in the Rivers of London series but needed to reacquaint myself with the characters to read the first 3 books again.
I revisited authors I liked. I loved the Chaos Walking Trilogy so read 3 more books by Patrick Ness. I love Clover Stroud’s honest prose so went back to the comfort of her writing. (She writes about trauma but there’s strangely still a comfort in her words)
Being in a book club encourages me to read books I wouldn’t necessarily pick up. When it was my turn to chose, I opted for Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. She was local to where I live and the NT now own her house. So we met in her gardens, had a picnic, swam in the river where she did…….. but I just couldn’t get on with her book. I liked the idea of reading her books rather than actually enjoying it! I hate not finishing books! Don’t know why, just do. Another book clubber loved it and explained it was a culmination of the narrative of
the thoughts in the characters heads. Makes more sense, now so perhaps I’ll revisit in 2026.
My favourite book of the year was a book club choice. Still Life by Sarah Wineman. I’m utterly in love with all of the characters she bought to life who were anything but still. I went on to read the rest of her books, and although good, none hold a candle to Still Life.
If I’m stuck for ideas on what to read or to listen to, I ask a few trusted friends. They know what I like to read and they never disappoint with their recommendations. We’ve now added a recommend document to our book club WhatsApp group and we swap and borrow from each other. I watch the BBCs Between the Covers - I’m always gutted it’s only 30 minutes long and 6 episodes in a season. But I love the eclectic mix of recommendations.
I read lots of mythology from the female perspective this year. I loved Circe. I borrowed a friends hard back copy, a mother of 3 girls who’ve all read it, and it was held together with masking tape and pages were crisp and curled with water damage. How precious! I read it in 2 days. I bought it for my daughter for Christmas and my son declared it’s his girlfriend favourite book. I will always love fantasy and fairytale but I also read other female centric non fiction books this year.
We did a family secret Santa of books last year. This encouraged me to read books I wouldn’t normally pick up. Put a book you recommend into a sack and take it in turns to pull one out. I read my sons and my husbands as well as my own. We’ve done it again this year but this time no get together so names out of a hat. I am sure I will read my family’s as well as my own again.
I still struggle with making time to read. A lot of shame associated with sitting down and doing ‘nothing’. And a lot of internal and external noise about the privilege of having the time to read. But fuck it I’ve had whole afternoons, sometimes days on the sofa reading, despite the clumsy (sometimes hurtful) comments from others and years of production line conditioning. If I love a book I can devour it in a couple of days forgoing TV, talking, cooking or cleaning!
Like a lot of people, I am an optimistic book buyer. And used to have piles on my bedside table. The overwhelmed this caused just created a freeze response in my nervous system. (Hence the adopted tactics to read more.)
So instead I hid them away, out of sight and wrote a list of the books I was going to read, which wasn’t all of the books in the pile but rather a curated list. Some new (second hand) or borrowed books made their way onto the list throughout the year, some pushing themselves to the top, but I still kept only the one I was reading at the time on the bedside table.
This has really helped and I’ll be doing it again for 2026.
My favourite reads of 2024 in no particular order were;
Still Life by Sarah Wineman. It made me feel happy and hopeful. The characters are incredible.
There are Rivers in The Sky by Elif Shafak. It was recommended by a stranger on the beach after a sea swim. I’d love to be able to find them and thank them. I love everything to do with water and I had read a previous book by the same author but I wasn’t prepared for how much you learn about tribal conflict in the Middle East.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. When you consider the circumstances under which this book was written it becomes even more beautiful. And it’s strangely not sad. This was my husband’s Secret Santa book from last year.
In Memoriam by Alice Wynn. I find books about, and thinking about, the First World War utterly horrifying yet I’m drawn to these war stories. Birdsong will forever be one of my all time favourite books. I’m a LOTR geek and the influence of the horror and cruelty it had on Tolkien’s writing is obvious. So I went into this book prepared. There was a beauty to the love story and humanity in this book. All intertwined around Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade poem. And I hate poetry!
Circe by Madeline Miller. Very late to the party and recommended by so many. I read it in two sittings because I just could not put it down. A whole new perspective on Greek mythology for the modern day.