2024 Year-in-Review

In which I share my reading journey for 2024

Exploring Life and Literature

I feel that each year passes more quickly, and 2024 was no different. With so many changes in my life, it has come and gone in a blink. Yet, in general, life stays the same. There is security in that constancy, the established rhythms and routines of our days. I live in this moment, looking with wonder at all that has come before and eagerly anticipating all that is to come. This Year-in-Review is seen only through the optic of what I read. It is one lens into my life. There are many others but this one I share with you today.

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2024 Year-in-Review

This year, I read books ranging from bestsellers to classics to the complete works of John Steinbeck. My experiences as a reader helped shape and form my writing, which has brought me much joy. Here is the complete list of books I read in alphabetical order by author. If I wrote about the book, I have linked to those articles for your reference.

Adler, A. Jay (

A. Jay Adler

)

• Footnotes: A Literary Journal of History

• Waiting for Word

Adler, Mortimer

• How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book #1

Backman, Fredrik

• The Winners

Box, C. J.

• Long Range

• Off the Grid

• Stone Cold

• The Disappeared

• Vicious Circle

• Wolf Pack

Brackston, Paula

• The Little Shop of Found Things

Brooks, Geraldine

• People of the Book

Calvino, Italo

• The Baron in the Trees

Cather, Willa

My Willa

• A Lost Lady

• Death Comes for the Archbishop

Cisneros, Sandra

• The House on Mango Street

Cole, Donald

• Martin Van Buren and the American Political System

Collins, Jody (

Jody L. Collins

)

• Mining the Bright Birds

Conroy, Pat

• The Great Santini

Corey, James

• Abaddon’s Gate

• Caliban’s War

• Cibola Burn

• Leviathan Wakes

Cox, Tom (

Tom Cox

)

• Villager

Denfeld, Rene

• Sleeping Giants

Dickens, Charles

• David Copperfield

Didion, Joan

• The Year of Magical Thinking

Eggers, Dave

• The Circle

• The Every

Ellis, Brett Easton

• American Psycho

Ferrante, Elena

• My Brilliant Friend

Flaubert, Gustave

• Madame Bovary

Galgut, Damon

• The Promise

Harding, Paul

• This Other Eden

Heaney, Seamus

• Beowulf: A Verse Translation

Holiday, Ryan

• The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

Homer

• The Iliad

Ishiguro, Kazuo

• Klara and the Sun

• The Remains of the Day

Kerouac, Jack

• The Dharma Bums

Kingsolver, Barbara

• Demon Copperhead

Krueger, William Kent

• The River We Remember

L’Amour, Louis

• Brionne

• Flint

• Long Road Home: Stories

• Lonigan

• The Burning Hills

Lamott, Anne

• Bird by Bird

La Tray, Chris (

Chris La Tray

)

• Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home

Lopez-Barrantes, Samuél (

Samuél Lopez-Barrantes

) **Book of the Year**

• The Requisitions

Someday, you might want to remember...

Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt

• The Coddling of the American Mind

Malamud, Bernard

• The Fixer

Mandel, Emily St. John

• The Glass Hotel

Maynard, Rona

• Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging and Loving This World

McCarthy, Cormac

Dark Frontiers

• All the Pretty Horses

• Child of God

• Cities of the Plain

• The Crossing

Meacham, Jon

• American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Murakami, Haruki

Murakami’s Maze

• A Wild Sheep Chase

• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

• Men Without Women

Owens, Robert M.

• Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy

Parini, Jay

• John Steinbeck: A Biography

Pendergrast, Mark

• Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World

From Bean to Brew and Beyond

Pillsbury, Michael

• The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower

Pynchon, Thomas

• Inherent Vice

Robinson, Kim Stanley

• The Ministry for the Future

Ruiz, Miguel

• The Four Agreements

Saramago, Jose

• Blindness

Smith, Betty

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

St. Clair, Kassia

• The Race to the Future

Steinbeck, John

The Complete Works of John Steinbeck

• A Russian Journal

• America and Americans and Selected Non-fiction

• Bombs Away

• Burning Bright

• Cannery Row

• East of Eden

• In Dubious Battle

• Journal of a Novel

• Of Mice and Men

• Once There Was a War

• Sweet Thursday

• The Forgotten Village

• The Grapes of Wrath

• The Log from the Sea of Cortez

• The Long Valley

• The Moon is Down

• The Pearl

• The Short Reign of Pippin IV

• The Wayward Bus

• The Winter of Our Discontent

• Tortilla Flat

• Travels with Charley

• Viva Zapata

• Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath

Tolkien, J.R.R.

• The Silmarillion

Verghese, Abraham

• Cutting for Stone

Vuong, Ocean

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Zafon, Carlos Ruiz

• The Shadow of the Wind

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Have a blessed and joyous year!

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Until next time,