I always struggled to convince myself that reading for pleasure was actually pleasurable.
Lemony Snicket provided plenty of entertainment as a kid, and I tore through John Grisham thrillers in high school. Novels fell by the wayside in college once professors assigned enough reading for several lifetimes. I graduated and immediately leapt into a career slinging words for a living—and too often found myself itching to escape them in my downtime.
My love of physical books never wavered, though, and it wasn’t until I forced myself to sit down and read Ken Jennings’ Maphead last year that I finally started to enjoy reading for the sake of reading again.
I set a modest goal for 2024: read one book per month.
The bar was more than easy to clear—I managed to read 21 books this year, up considerably from the 14 books I read in 2023. Some of them will stay with me forever and a few of ’em were slogs that I couldn’t wait to put down.
It’s fitting that the year of the aurora started out with my reading Aurora, a fantastic dive into the potential calamity that would follow a historic solar flare pointed toward Earth.
- Aurora by David Koepp (12/31–1/7)
- Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara (1/19–1/28)
- The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen (1/29–2/17)
- Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara (2/18–3/8)
- A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan (3/10–4/7)
- Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke (4/12–4/14)
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (4/19–5/4)
- The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (5/6–5/18)
- Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout (6/1–6/22)
- The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen (6/22–7/12)
- Our Lady of the Prairie by Thisbe Nissen (7/12–7/18)
- The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt (7/25–7/30)
- Hostage by Claire Mackintosh (7/31–8/10)
- American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin (8/27–9/14)
- Tornado Watch #211 by John G. Fuller (9/14–9/16)
- The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (9/17–9/30)
- How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (10/1–10/21)
- Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin (11/7–11/13)
- Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen (11/14–11/16)
- Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid (11/16–12/13)
- Follow Me by Kathleen Barber (12/15–12/25)
Some of the books were five-star reads I would absolutely recommend, while others were…absolute clunkers. Oh my goodness. One of ’em was about dead people and I started to think they were the lucky ones by the time I finished that book.
My top five were…
- Aurora by David Koepp
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
- Follow Me by Kathleen Barber
- Our Lady of the Prairie by Thisbe Nissen
If you’re interested, I wrote some thoughts on each book below. Follow me on Goodreads to keep up with what I’m reading any given day.
1) Aurora by David Koepp
Dec. 31, 2023 — Jan. 7, 2024
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
You have seven hours after reading this sentence to gather what you can to survive a global blackout that might last weeks or possibly months. What do you do?
Aurora follows one family on one street as they navigate the world in the aftermath of a massive solar storm, a modern-day Carrington Event that destroys the world’s power grid.
I’ve spent more than a decade writing about the weather. The premise of Aurora terrifies me. It’s scary to think about how many of us are unprepared for a short-lived power outage after a thunderstorm. I don’t think I’d have enough to get through more than two days without power.
The book made me think about my own vulnerability and mortality while we follow this family through a society-changing ordeal.
Aurora’s plot heavily follows the main characters, providing us a hyper-local view of a global disaster. We only hear bits and pieces of what’s going on in the outside the world–just like the characters would.
I loved it. I loved that it plucked at my anxiety a bit. I cared about the characters and hoped for their survival. But I’m definitely gonna go get some cans of ravioli now.
2) Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
Jan. 19 — Jan. 28
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Aki Ito and her family were ruthlessly uprooted by the federal government and thrown into the Manzanar internment camp during World War II. The story follows Aki as she and her family relocate to Chicago to start a new life after their release from the camp. Aki’s sister Rose arrived in Chicago first—where she died under mysterious circumstances. We join Aki in her quest to uncover the truth about Rose’s death.
Clark and Division pulls you into Aki’s story and invests you in finding the truth alongside her. I randomly stumbled upon the book in Barnes & Noble, and I’m glad I did.
3) The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
Jan. 29 — Feb. 17
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hendrik Groen’s chronicles of a year in his Dutch old-age home struck me as the novelization of the British sitcom Waiting for God. Funny, sweet, mundane—all with a healthy dollop of existential angst.
It’s just a novel, I know, but it still felt a little voyeuristic reading the personal diary of a sweet old man in North Amsterdam. I’m glad I did. I can only hope to be as full of life and down to earth as Hendrik by the time I’m half his age. And I’m a little envious that my own life isn’t as exciting or even worthy of writing down as Hendrik’s.
4) Evergreen by Naomi Hirahara
Feb. 18 — Mar. 8
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I wasted no time heading to the library to pick up the sequel to Clark and Division. It’s a solid follow-up to Aki’s story after she leaves Chicago and returns to Los Angeles to rebuild her life.
5) A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan
Mar. 10 — Apr. 7
⭐⭐⭐⭐
This history of the Ku Klux Klan is a must-read if you’re interested in American history or current events. Egan does a fantastic job plunking you 100 years into a frightening past where hate rules and nobody gets in its way. It took the words of a dying woman and a series of lucky breaks to take down the leader of the Klan before he took over the country.
This is our history. It’s also our present. The parallels between what happened then and what’s happening now are uncanny. It’s required reading for anyone worried about our future.
6) Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
Apr. 12 — Apr. 14
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A short read, this novel is presented as a collection of Slack chats at a workplace in New York City. The main character somehow Freaky Fridays himself with the chat software’s AI chatbot—he’s now stuck in the computer, and the chatbot is free to experience human existence. It surprised me how much I enjoyed this book.
7) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Apr. 19 — May 4
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Millions of readers weren’t wrong. This book flowed like water and deserved every accolade it earned. Evelyn’s story drew me in right away and kept me hooked until the bitter end. I gasped out loud at the big reveal.
8) The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
May 6 — May 18
⭐
Well, they can’t all be winners. It dragged on…and on…and I completely lost interest once the focus of the plot shifted from “here’s how they wrote the dictionary” to “here’s the main character’s love life.”
9) Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout
Jun. 1 — Jun. 22
⭐⭐
Another clunker I struggled to get through. Ghost Radio tackles an overarching question: Where’s the line between the world of life and the world of death? The book started with Joaquin alive and ended with me almost dead.
10) The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen
Jun. 22 — Jul. 12
⭐⭐⭐⭐
A sequel to his first diary, we follow another hilarious, touching, and occasionally heartbreaking year in the advanced life of Hendrik Groen. I enjoyed it almost as much as the first book. Groen actually inspired me to start keeping my own diary shortly after finishing this sequel.
11) Our Lady of the Prairie by Thisbe Nissen
Jul. 12 — Jul. 18
⭐⭐⭐⭐
I found this book at Ollie’s, of all places, and the tornado on the cover is what drew me in.
It’s a whirlwind story of a liberal professor in Iowa who turns her life upside down in the midst of the 2004 presidential election. I devoured this book in less than a week. I deeply appreciated Thisbe Nissen’s confident command of language—some of her sentences ran on for a page or longer, but you never skip a beat.
12) The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
Jul. 25 — Jul. 30
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I adored this peek into the average life of a quiet old man pondering his years. Bob lived with the sore sorrow of love lost and friendship betrayed. His biggest adventure unfolded at age 11. The rest of his life was mundane, just the way he liked it.
The story moved like an old television show I’ve seen before. You could practically hear the transatlantic accent dripping off the rapid-fire dialogue at times.
I wonder how this book would’ve hit me if I hadn’t just come off reading The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen.
13) Hostage by Clair Mackintosh
Jul. 31 — Aug. 10
⭐
It was almost a good book. Almost a great book, even. The author completely ruined it with the final three pages. I actually threw the book down and cursed over it.
14) American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin
Aug. 27 — Sept. 14
⭐⭐⭐⭐
This detailed history of Patty Hearst’s life, kidnapping, and trial is the ultimate read on the topic. I came into the book with a preconceived notion that was flipped on its head by the time I flipped the last page.
15) Tornado Watch #211 by John G. Fuller
Sept. 14 — Sept. 16
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Tornado Watch #211 is a compelling history of the tornado outbreak of May 31, 1985 as told by the survivors. The event was Pennsylvania’s worst tornado outbreak on record. The devastating storms that swept the northwestern part of the state that day killed more than 80 people.
16) The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Sept. 17 — Sept. 30
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Just about everyone is on the run from something, someone, or some memory at some point in their lives. Some make peace with it. Some don’t.
This was an exceptionally good and thought-provoking read.
17) How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Oct. 1 — Oct. 21
⭐⭐⭐
“What if I lived forever?” is an interesting question. How to Stop Time answers that hypothetical by walking you through the nightmare of living for centuries—losing everyone you’ve cared for, having to change identities, the occasional witch trials. It was a fine read, even if the ending was underwhelming.
18) Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emiliy Austin
Nov. 7 — Nov. 13
⭐⭐⭐
This book wasn’t what I expected, but not in a bad way. Austin did a fantastic job capturing the zest of depression and anxiety with this novel. I felt some second-hand anxiety just reading it. I appreciated the satisfying, no-loose-ends conclusion.
19) Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
Nov. 14 — Nov. 16
⭐⭐
I borrowed this book from the library several days after the 2024 presidential election in the hopes of girding myself for his second term in office.
The book should’ve been called “How To Spot Autocracy” rather than “Surviving Autocracy.” Published in spring 2020—just as COVID began—it’s a diagnosis of all the things he did in the lead-up to the pandemic, without much prescription for how to actually get through it. The book feels especially premature given that we’ve lived a hundred lifetimes since those dark days.
20) Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Nov. 16 — Dec. 13
⭐⭐⭐
Hannah went to a party after moving back to Los Angeles. Hannah has a choice: does she leave the party with her old flame Ethan, or does she just go home? We get to follow Hannah into two alternate universes, one in which she leaves with Ethan and the other in which she boogers out and goes home instead.
I’m a sucker for entertaining life’s “what ifs.” This is a fun read if you’re interested in how seemingly small decisions can have life-changing consequences, even if it’s about 100 pages too long. (That’s why I only gave it three stars.)
21) Follow Me by Kathleen Barber
Dec. 15 — Dec. 25
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Your social media followers seem to know everything about you. How much do you know about them? Follow Me is a creepy, fast-paced read about a social media influencer finding herself the target of a stalker’s obsession. I didn’t see the final two twists coming. What a great read.
