My 12 Favorite Books of 2024 (and how I read 137 of them!)

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It’s a new year, and a new year brings a new shiny page to start writing down the books I’m reading. (I’m on #8, so far.)

But first, a recap of 2024.

Background: I read a lot. (See: how I read 100 books a year.)

In 2024, I started 137 books. I didn’t finish about 15-20% of them, because good people shouldn’t have to read bad books. Of the ones I did finish, some were truly golden (see this early round-up of my faves from mid-way through 2024.)

As for the ones I didn’t finish?

See this post to understand why only martyrs finish all their books.

I’m a big quitter of books I don’t like, mostly because I’m not a sadomasochist, but also because I have other shit to consume, like television.

So, all that to say, here are my overall faves from all of 2024.

TLDR?

A great year in reading.

Photo by Tom Hermans on Unsplash

Favorite Reads from 2024

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

The NYT called this, “A love letter to the literary gamer.”

Since I’m not a gamer, I’m so glad I didn’t listen. This book is so much more than video game adjacent! A pal (and librarian) gifted me a signed copy, saying something along the lines of, “Best book ever. The end.”

And it was. It was! If you haven’t read this sad, funny, sweeping novel, run.

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

I lived in Kenya in my twenties, and had a nonprofit based there for 13 years. If there is one theme in our bookshelves at home it is this: Africa. That’s why it’s such a surprise that I still have not read any Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize winning author known for her many novels and memoirs about Southern Africa. This 1950 novel, Lessing’s first, is set in Southern Rhodesia in the 1940s, and is a searing portrayal of a woman, her husband, and their servant. Three lives, sickly entwined, on the brink of ruin. A fantastic read, and I quickly ordered Lessing’s backlist.

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon

I loved this book, and like with Solitude, I saw it previewed in The New Yorker and was waiting for it to publish. Part memoir and part essay collection, it is based around the events surrounding the author’s hospitalization for a psychiatric condition in the 1990s. Extremely well written, thought provoking, and a quick read.

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt

Each winter, we spend a week in winter at an estancia in the Northern mountains of Argentina with several families. While the kids run wild in a huge old mansion (it has its own chapel!) the adults eat well, drink well, and (occasionally) read well. I found this book on a dilapidated bookcase in the “orphanage”, the room where most of the kids sleep in cozy little beds with weird dormer windows and a smattering of former hornets nests that overall looks like Madeline once lived there.

I picked up the ragged copy and was like sure, I’ll try it. And also, who is this famous author anyway? (I laugh and laugh at my former self for not knowing!)

A sweeping novel about a family in New York, I still carry the characters with me.

So, so good.

Solitude: The Power and Silence of Being Alone

I was waiting for this one to release, and was so excited when my pre-order arrived to quench the desires of my non-fictional heart! In such varied chapters as “Solitude, not just for poets, hermits, and billionaires,” the book breaks down why solitude matters, and what some of its unexpected benefits are. I loved the part on solitude and creativity, and can’t agree more with that connection.

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

With this book, I did a thing I do a lot. As more and more people talked about it, and as more and more of my podcast feed was littered with interviews with Ina, I retreated, buoyed by a bad cover and a bad title in my belief that it was just another “bad celebrity memoir.”

Not so!

I listened to the audio, which I rarely do, and highly recommend. What a fun, fascinating life story. And so thrilled so much of it takes place in the Hamptons, a placed I’ve had the chance to love this year several times.

Splinters by Leslie Jamison

Almost 25 years ago, I met Leslie Jamieson when she came to visit my best friend at college. (My BFF from college is Leslie’s BFF from high school.) Since then, I’ve read all of Leslie’s books. And, despite our nonexistent 1:1 relationship (although her other high school BFF actually introduced me to my husband here in Argentina!), I always feel compelled to tweet at her to tell her everything I think about each and every one.

Case in point: When another friend went to one of her recent book tour readings, Leslie told her something along the lines of, “Yeah, I hear from Claire…” And although she said it with kindness, we all had a big laugh at that one, because, THAT’S CLAIRE, generally running around bugging people on the freakin’ internet!

So, the book. I loved Splinters. I had high hopes, and they were more than met, and you should read it. She opens up so much that I was on pins and needles, and there is zero slowness (I admit to being weighed down at times by that in her last book, The Recovering.) LOVED.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

One of my best friends threw this at me at our annual reunion, saying something along the lines of, “The cold! Writing! Swimming! An anthropologist-adjacent researcher!” I swooned.

Before, and after.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

This book hit me like a truck. First, though, I needed to understand what the heck I was reading. I went in, blind, and by page 10 had to stop, Google, and figure out what was up.

Are these citations? From historical documents? Like real sources? And what about over here on these other pages? All these names, who seem to be talking in paragraphs?

I found this article, which is an interview that

George Saunders

did with The Friends of the Lincoln Collective, to be the best guide. I recommend this step to everyone who tries this one.

Once I understood things as well as they can be understood, I read it in a day and had so many lovely and sad moments in the process.

So many tears! A must read.

Bonus: Favorite re-reads from 2024

I wrote about these in this post, I re-read 3 of my favorite novels of all time, so I won’t belabor them here. Suffice it to say, rereading these greats makes it onto the list of fave books read in 2024.

Sea of Tranquility

The Poisonwood Bible

Trust

So, that’s my list.

What did YOU read?

And what do I need to be buying and borrowing for 2025? Would love suggestions!