What I Read – 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, I’m looking back at the reading goals I set at the beginning of the year. What were they?

• Read 30,000 pages
• Read 15 translated works
• Read 30 books I already own.
• Read 25 books that have been on my TBR since before 2023.

And how did I do?

I read 22, 205 pages. I set a page goal rather than a books read goal because I wanted to prioritize reading some real goliaths of books in 2024. I categorized any book over 500 pages as a Goliath. In the end, I only read 3 books that fell into this category. At the same time, I did read some big books and and I ended up DNFing some others big books that would have been Goliaths had I finished. Counting pages gave me the freedom to read a little further before DNFing because I could still count the pages I had read. (I don’t count books I don’t finish in my total year book count.) And so while I didn’t hit that 30, 000 goal, I feel like I came decently close and I’m satisfied.

I abandoned 8 books without finishing them this year and have no regrets.

I read 8 translations, representing 7 different languages. So-so on the goal reaching.

I read 12 books that I owned before the start of 2024. Fortunately this doesn’t mean I bought a ridiculous amount of books in 2024, it means I use my library a lot. I have some ideas about increasing this number in 2025. Stay tuned…

I read 13 books that have been on my TBR since before 2023. They had been languishing there since as far back as 2015. Some of my oldest titles on the list are ones I am now having trouble finding via the library and not ones I necessarily want to buy new.

Some stats on what I read in 2024:

• 16 were non-fiction
• 52 were fiction
• One was a poetry anthology and one was a graphic novel.
• 7 were short story collections.
• 48 were written by women.
• 21 by men
• The library provided 38 of my 2024 reads.
• 14 of these were audio. In 2024 all of my audiobooks came from the library but I’m exploring new audio opportunities in 2025.
• 8 of my books were purchased new. (At some point, not necessarily in 2024)
• 6 were purchased secondhand.
• 1 was a gift
• 8 were borrowed.
• 8 were ARCs
• 3 were in e-book format
• I read books by authors from 13 different countries. USA dominated with 30 writers. Canada and England were tied for 2nd place with 12 writers each. Ireland came 3rd with 6 writers. Japan, Australia, France, Poland, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Ancient Mesopotamia were also represented.

And, for posterity’s sake, here are all the books I read in 2024:

1. Monsters – Claire Dederer (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023)
2. What You Are Looking for is in the Library – Michiko Aoyama (Harlequin Audio, 2023) (translated from Japanese by Alison Watts)
3. The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers – Sarah Tomlinson (Flatiron Books, 2024)
4. Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders (Random House Audio, 2017)
5. Restless Dolly Maunder – Kate Grenville (Canongate Books, 2023)
6. The End of the World is a Cul-de-Sac – Louise Kennedy (Riverhead Books, 2023)
7. Antarctica – Claire Keegan (Grove Press, 1999)
8. The Flanders Road – Claude Simon (New York Review of Books, 2022) (translated from French by Richard Howard)
9. The Secret Adversary – Agatha Christie (Blackstone Audio, 2009)
10. The Future – Catherine Leroux (Biblioasis, 2020) (trasnlated from French by Susan Ouriou)
11. The Double Life of Benson Yu – Kevin Chong (Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023)
12. Games & Rituals – Katherine Heiny (Penguin Audio, 2023)
13. Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit – Nadine Sander-Green (Anansi, 2024)
14. The Other Valley – Scott Howard (Scribner Canada, 2024)
15. Unearthing – Kyo Maclear (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2023)
16. What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? – Kevin DeYoung (Crossway, 2015)
17. The Fire Still Burns – Sam George (Purich Books, 2023)
18. The Matisse Stories – A.S. Byatt (Vintage, 1994)
19. Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano (Books on Tape, 2023)
20. The Leap Year Gene – Shelley Wood (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., 2024)
21. Doppelganger – Naomi Klein (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2023)
22. Kingdom, Grace, Judgement – Robert Farrar Capon (Eerdmans, 2002)
23. Held – Anne Michaels (McClelland & Stewart, 2023)
24. The Last Woman – Carleigh Baker (McClelland & Stewart, 2024)
25. The Book of Goose – Yiyun Li (MacMillan Audio, 2022)
26. Present Over Perfect – Shauna Niequist (Zondervan, 2016)
27. The Damages – Genevieve Scott (Random House Canada, 2023)
28. I Cheerfully Refuse – Lief Enger (Grove Press, 2024)
29. Woven – Meredith Miller (Worthy Publishing, 2023)
30. Our Crumbling Foundation – Gregor Craigie (Random House Canada, 2024)
31. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton (Tantor Media, 2018)
32. Brotherless Night – V.V. Ganeshananthan (Random House, 2023)
33. Clear – Carys Davies (Scribner, 2024)
34. Introduction to First Nations Ministry – Cheryl Bear-Barnetson (Cherohala Press, 2013)
35. Slow Dance – Rainbow Rowell (William Morrow Books, 2024)
36. God in the Dock – C.S. Lewis (Collins, 1979)
37. The Whalebone Theatre – Joanna Quinn (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)
38. The Little Friend – Donna Tartt (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)
39. Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter (Graywolf Press, 2015)
40. The Capital of Dreams – Heather O’Neill (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd. 2024)
41. The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo (Henry Holt & Company, 2024)
42. A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf (Penguin Modern Classics, 1975)
43. In the Woods – Tana French (Penguin Books, 2007)
44. The Likeness – Tana French (Penguin Books, 2007)
45. The Coast Road – Alan Murrin (Harper Via, 2024)
46. Lifelines – Heidi Diehl (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019)
47. The Names of all the Flowers – Melissa Valentine (The Feminist Press, 2020)
48. Land of Big Numbers – Te-Ping Chen (Mariner Books, 2021)
49. Really Good, Actually – Monica Heisey
50. The Epic of Gilgamesh – translated by N.K. Sandars (Penguin Classics, 1964)
51. The Husbands – Holly Gramazio (Doubleday Canada, 2024)
52. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride (Penguin Audio, 2023
53. Small Animals – Kim Brooks (Flatiron Books, 2018)
54. Margo’s Got Money Trouble – Rufi Thorpe (William Morrow, 2024)
55. Whose Body? – Dorothy L. Sayers (Blackstone Audio, 2004)
56. I, Claudia – Mary McCoy (Carolrhoda Lab, 2018)
57. Liars – Sarah Manguso (Hogarth, 2024)
58. Good Material – Dolly Alderton (Doubleday Canada, 2024)
59. The Empusium – Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead Books, 2024) (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
60. Intermezzo – Salley Rooney (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024)
61. The Office of Historical Corrections – Danielle Evans (Penguin Audio, 2020)
62. The Stolen Bicycle – Wu Ming-Yi (Text Publishing, 2017) (translated from Mandarin by Darryl Sterk)
63. The Mythmakers – John Hendrix (Abrams, 2024)
64. The Leopard – Giuseppe di Lampedusa (Pantheon Books, 2007) (translated from Italian by Guido Waldman)
65. Tyll – Daniel Kehlmann (Pantheon Books, 2020) (translated from German by Ross Benjamin)
66. Rainbow Valley – L.M. Montgomery (Seal Books, 1976)
67. James – Percival Everett (Doubleday, 2024)
68. The Christian Book of Mystical Verse edited by A.W. Tozer (Moody Publishers, 2016)
69. Mans Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl (Blackstone Audio, 2004)
70. Shy Creatures – Clare Chambers (Mariner Books, 2024)
71. Foundations – Ruth Chou Simons & Troy Simons (Harvest House Publishers, 2020)
72. The Wood at Midwinter – Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury, 2024)
73. The God of the Woods – Liz Moore (Riverhead Books, 2024)
74. On Screen and Off Again – Caitlin Cross (8th Note Press, 2025)