52 books read (my highest since I started tracking in 2020).

More stats:

  • I read 2 nonfiction (both memoirs) book, Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories. That’s besides the parenting books I skimmed but didn’t include in my tracker.
  • Of the 52 books, 15 were published between 1900 and 2000. 9 were published before 1900.
  • Oldest book read: Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811 (rating: 5). This was a reread.
  • Newest books read: Intermezzo, The Ministry of Time, Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, Long Island, and You Should Be So Lucky, published in 2024. I read 5 books published in 2024. It’s unusual for me to read so many new books.
  • 7 rereads, which is typical for me!
  • 21 5-star ratings, similar to last year.
  • August and December were the months in which I finished the most books (8 in December, 7 in August). December and either July or August are almost always my highest reading months.
  • April was the month in which I finished the least amount of books. This was the same as last year, but this year it was because I gave birth!

Of the 16 new (not reread) 5-star ratings, my five favorite books were:

  • Bel Canto (2001): Rich and famous people at a birthday party get taken hostage by a group of leftist revolutionaries. Definitely not the kind of plot I usually go for. But this book isn’t about the politics of negotiations of a hostage crisis, but about the dream-like world the hostages and captors build for themselves. The first third of the book, I was interested but was wondered where it was going. Surely this is moving too slowly? But then things began to happen – not really events, but small moments and connections and everyone slowly moves into a fantasy world where they convince themselves that this is their life, and this is their future, and that was fascinating.
  • A Month in the Country (1980): Lovely story about recovering from trauma and uncovering the past. The author was inspired by Hardy and one of the characters waxes poetic about Tess Durbeyfield. The framing (man goes to the countryside to restore a mural in a church) feels very Hardy-esque. The book was slow but it built throughout the book, and gradually revealed characters’ backstories. You slowly realize how interconnected all of the plot threads and characters are. The main “action” (uncovering an ancient mural on a church) was the driving force. The backstories were almost incidental, but their almost casual, offhand revelation made the story so much more rich. I got this book from a free box in someone’s driveway.
  • East of Eden (1952): I hadn’t read John Steinbeck since reading Of Mice and Men in high school. East of Eden was so much better than my memory of Of Mice and Men. The book really hooked me early on, where the Chinese-American servant Lee drops the pidgin-speak he’s been using in the early pages of the book, revealing he speaks normal English and uses the pidgin as a protective device. I love a good multigenerational family epic and this certainly delivered. It was also cool to read a book set mainly in the Bay Area.
  • The Wreath (1920): I read the whole Kristin Lavransdatter series during my first few postpartum weeks. It was engrossing and bingeable and exactly what I needed. The book is another family saga that takes place in 14th century Norway. The Wreath, the first book of the trilogy, was truly fantastic. The second and third books were less good (some of the characters got annoying) but I still enjoyed them a lot. Throughout the whole series, the characters accept the truth of both paganism and Catholicism. The narration also accepts both of these paradigms as truth, seriously relating characters’ occasional encounters with angels and demons. It’s not magical realism, but just how the characters interpret the events that take place.
  • The Rachel Incident (2023): I literally hate this title so much, but the book was fantastic. I read it in less than 48 hours. It’s a coming-of-age story that follows protagonist Rachel as she goes to college in Cork, Ireland, and later moves to London. There were a number of very satisfying twists.

I read two 1-star books this year, Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton and the Neuromancer by William Gibson. Everything I Know About Love I read after reading and loving both of Alderton’s novels. The memoir was a crushing disappointment.

I don’t have any real goals for my reading in 2025. I just want to keep reading at a steady pace – with a very active baby, this isn’t a given anymore.