My year of reading

And my holiday gift to you: my top 10 books under 200 pages

In 2024, I published 11 themed monthly reading lists, plus essays bringing the books on the list into conversation with each other. This method of creating a little syllabus to share with you each month led me to read more, and more intentionally, than I otherwise would have done.

Reviewing across the months, I noticed a number of authors who I read more than once this year, including:

• Louise Erdrich, The Sentence and The Mighty Red

• Percival Everett, James and So Much Blue

• Helen DeWitt, The English Understand Wool and The Last Samurai (my favorite book I read this year)

• Claire Keegan, Foster and Small Things Like These

• Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers and Creation Lake

• Octavia Butler, Kindred and The Parable of the Sower (dnf)

• Jennifer Croft, The Extinction of Irena Rey and Homesick, plus her translation of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery

This happened mainly by accident; realizing this makes me want to choose a few authors to read deeply and with intention in 2025.

When I look across th…