2024’s reading list reflects the year in which it resides. It was a year that moved! 

We moved house; from NYC to New England. I was in constant motion; helping things find their place in our new home, painting window trim, and scrubbing the house clean. Audiobooks kept me company and set the mood. Little Women was the perfect accompaniment to the first weeks of playing house and an audio-reread of On The Road took me through raking Autumn’s fallen leaves on the lawn.

This year I learned how to drive! got my first drivers license! and we got a necessary second car! This was and still is a total paradigm shift on how I move through the world. It’s empowering to learn how to drive as an adult but with this relocation, gone is my perfect environment for reading; a 35 minute subway commute to and from upper Manhattan.

I moved through water this year more than any other. I started regularly swimming again at the Y in New York. When I moved to New Hampshire I joined the Great Bay chapter of US Masters Swimming club and I am finding it so valuable. This year was the perfect time to dive deep into some water themed books (which I am actually always up for). The non-fiction book Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui I found really interesting and Chlorine by Jade Song was an excellent adult horror novel about a girl determined to become a mermaid. 

I read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger for the first time — a perfect read right before leaving NYC. I finally finished a four-year long buddy-read of Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by BKS Iyengar. There were a couple sweet children’s books: The Complete Brambly Hedge by Jill Barkley, Skellig by David Almond, and The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill.

My favorite book? It’s a toss up between North Woods by Daniel Mason and Babel by RF Kuang. They were both excellent.

I’ve got big plans for 2025;

• I’m excited to bring my monthly reading wrap-ups back to Instagram.
• I would like to get back to reading about 70 books a year. I only managed 41 in 2024.
• I’ve got about 150 unread books on my shelves. Reading from them is my priority.
• I made a Reading Bingo Card!
• I’ve got a whole Midwest Princess era incoming. An American Girl: Kirsten reread paired with making a matching historic dress from a Simplicity pattern, a few Willa Cather books, and I’m gonna see if the Little House on the Prairie do it for me. Through this we will conjure a new Chappell Roan album by Summer. 

I stand on the precipice of 2025; dreaming of a year ahead where every, single books is amazing; well-written, immersive, creatively told, and fulfills its ambition, with characters that become phantom friends, and the mood always fits or ushers in new micro-obsessions. Is that too much to ask? What were your favorite reads from this past year?