Books read in 2024:
Reign by Katharine McGee – teen fiction if the US had maintained a monarchy for the past 200 years. Wealth and cell phones and SUVs while saying “your Majesty” to the President of the United States. (Hmm … maybe not so much fiction anymore …)
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett – never on any reading list I’ve put together, but it was banned in Florida so I read it out of spite. And the main character was very spiteful. I didn’t like her at all, so I didn’t really like the book. But that’s still no reason to ban it.
Of Time and Turtles by Sy Montgomery – grabbed it from the New Books shelf at the library, who knew that an animal hospital for turtles could be so fascinating?!? For real!
A Most Tolerant Little Town by Rachel Louise Martin – my Black History Month read for the year, which took me until April because it was a hard read. A high school in Tennessee was the first to desegregate in 1956, before Little Rock. It got a lot of publicity at the time, and two years of fighting later, the entire school building was literally blown up. The Black students were traumatized to the point of going silent, and all the white people buried the story. It is only recently resurfacing in the 2020s. The last line of the entire book is the kicker:
“When I talk about school integration, I often call it a failure, but what I really mean is that it is an experiment we have yet to try.”
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant – a psychology book mixed with memoir.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry – random adult romance fiction because sometimes you need some brain candy. It appears that sex scenes are now called “spice.” There’s spice in this book.
The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Rosary by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn – a religious book about the Divine Feminine, this couple says they are not Catholic but have found deep spiritual meaning and connection with rosary beads and Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
If the Tide Turns by Rachel Rueckert – fiction based on Cape Cod 1700s mythology of a pirate who was real, a woman accused of witchcraft who may or may not have been real, and a story connecting the two involving a shipwreck. The shipwreck was real – there’s a museum with artifacts recovered.
A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan – I need to try this one again because it’s about the woman who “took down” the KKK in Indiana, but I’m not seeing how that claim comes to fruition. Maybe that’s because it hinged on the fact that the woman was basically murdered and people were offended by that, and I don’t think the general population would give a damn now.
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston – part of my Black History challenge, from the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was a major writer during that period, and this was her memoir.
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris – if only she had been elected President … and that’s all I have to say about that …
- Total: 11
- Editing projects: 2 – finished Cherish 2, did most of the work on Cherish 3
- Fiction: 4. Favorite – If the Tide Turns
- Memoir: 4. Favorite – The Truths We Hold
- Religion: 1
- History: 2
I haven’t read anything since the first of November because election shock was pretty overwhelming. I’d like to get my brain back to proper function and that involves books rather than the incessant rage bait of social media.
Reading goal for 2025: always, to fully read 24 books. Specific targets: The Artist’s Way, Madsi the True, and The Law of Love.