Firstly, Happy New Year to all. The last week or so has been a blur of stretchy pants, movies, excellent eats, naps, and family time. 2024 was ‘mid’ as my daughter would say so we are all ready to embrace 2025 in the calmest, softest, most forgiving and patient ways we can, and hope for the best.

Now on to the content – the big 2024 reads post!

The stats: I read 75 books / 27,617 pages.

Favorite fiction: Without a doubt, the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells get top honors for fiction this year. I’m not usually an enormous science fiction fan (although maybe I really am but just don’t think I am) but her writing style was addictive and SecUnit was the most fascinating and loveable character I spent time with all year.

Favorite author: Martha Wells. In addition to Murderbot, I also read her Witch King and Cloud Roads series and liked them enormously, though not as much as Murderbot.

Runners-up in favorite fiction: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I loved this book and devoured the rest of the series although I confess that after Annihilation I was completely baffled by the Southern Reach / Area X tale as it unwound; but it was undeniably fascinating. Also, honorable mentions to The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Favorite nonfiction: After seeing the Georgia O’Keeffe ‘My New Yorks’ exhibit at the Chicago Institute of Art, I picked up her biography by Roxana Robinson and loved it – it was like reading a novel. Runner up in favorite nonfiction would be Red Comet by Heather Clark, about Sylvia Plath.

There were definitely novels that did not do it for me this year, but I’m going to focus only on the positives this year – I think reading is very subjective and just because I didn’t love them doesn’t mean others would feel the same.

I hope all the readers out there had a very satisfying year and look forward to more excellent hours spent with books in 2025.