A Year in Books

I missed last year's reading goal by a smidge and intended to go a little easier on myself this year — it’s not how much you read but the quality, right? Unexpectedly though I’ve already surpassed that goal with over a month to go before the end of the year. The daily commute to San Francisco is the major contributor to more quality reading time, which also happens to make that time feel less like an often frustrating time suck.

And so to shake up the end of year recaps I’ve been pulling together the last few years (mostly for my own interests), I thought it might be fun to look a little more closely at the books that carried me through the year if only so I can highlight a few particular favorites.

Broadly this worked out to be 1 poetry collection, 14 fiction and 18 non-fiction books, and 2 graphic novels¹. The male-to-female author ratio was pretty heavily lopsided with only four of the thirty-five not written by men. Five of the books were also re-reads², typically a thing I do to fill the gap between finding the next new book.

Highlights from the Year

This is How You Lose the Time War, which has been on my reading list for a while turned out to be brilliant and easily one of my all-around favorites from the year. Clever, inventive, surprising and fast-paced, it was everything I tend to enjoy in a good book — and everything I wish Moonbound was. Maybe it’s just me on that one though.

Bill Watterson’s surprising and unexpected return with The Mysteries was also a treat in its visual weirdness and pointed message which arguably is still very much open-to-interpretation. I want to spend a bit more time with this again over the holidays to see what new things I might see in it that I missed the first time around.

Burn, the latest from Peter Heller (author of the fabulous The Dog Stars) was gripping from the get-go and did not let up the entire way through. Heller’s books can often meander like a river but I could have easily read this in a single sitting. I don’t know if he’s quietly leading up to something, but Burn also felt like a continuation of stories he’s been telling through his last couple novels and that could lead directly into The Dog Stars. But I might be reading too much into it and personally wanting him to go there…

Hugh Howey’s Silo trilogy, Wool, Shift, and Dust like Peter Heller’s Burn had me enticed all the way through with an intriguing concept, well constructed mysteries and considered character development throughout. I picked up the first book at the end of 2023 after watching the first season of the adapted series on AppleTV. Unsurprisingly, the books are even better and I’m excited to see how the show deviates or follows the arc of the books.

Bonus: I continue to avoid reading the Water Issacson biography despite it sitting on the shelf for many years, but since I managed to acquire a physical copy of Make Something Wonderful recently and it carried me happily through a week of morning train rides.

The Duds

Only one (yay), and it pains me to say that it was Robin Sloan’s Moonbound³ (boo) which I found to be a real slog. I’m not sure why exactly but it might be party that this one had a lot of hype around it, and I distinctly recall expecting some great reveal about its cleverness that ultimately never arrived.

Looking Ahead

I expect I’ll aim for a similar target next year in terms of how many books I want to read, but we’ll see. I found myself really enjoying the two Jack Reacher books this year and expect I’ll grab a few more since these are also readily available through our local library’s monthly book sales which have turned out to be a good way to find new reads. Seven of this years’ books came from those regular visits to the library.

What’s on your reading list? What favorites should I add to the list for next year?