I read a lot of books this year. Not as many as some people, but I’ve read 76 books so far this year (with 3 days left). Fortunately, most of them came from the library. I actually checked out 69 books from the library, but a few were books for work (elementary-aged books), and several were cookbooks.
Randomly, at the start of the year, I saw a blog post from the Hennepin County Library of their most checked out books of 2024. I decided I wanted to read all of them!! The list was Top 10 books and Top 10 e-book so there was some overlap, resulting in only needing to read 14 books. I really enjoyed reading outside some of my typical genres, and surprisingly, I hadn’t read any of them yet, though we did have some at home. This project also required doing some pre-reading because you can’t just randomly jump into a series!
- The River We Remember: A Novel by William Kent Krueger (also #5 ebook)
- The Women by Kristin Hannah (also #1 ebook)
- Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett (also #3 ebook)
- Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus (also #9 ebook)
- The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
- Demon Copperhead: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham (also #10 ebook)
- Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (also #6 ebook)
- Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea
- It Starts With Us: A Novel by Colleen Hoover
- Funny Story by Emily Henry
- Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
It is hard to recommend only one of these since they were all so good!! I was surprised that I got into Fourth Wing (read the whole series and anxiously awaiting the next book). Demon Copperhead was powerful in how relatable it is and also the fact that Kingsolver donated proceeds to support the community she wrote about. Okay, fine I’ll go with Lessons in Chemistry with its slightly meta format and engaging story about feminism.
More bookish thoughts to come!