2024: My Year in Reading

My reading this year was pretty sporadic. I had some trouble concentrating off and on throughout the year, so I spent long stretches of time vegging out watching YouTube instead of sitting with a book. I’ve noticed, though, that I sleep better and I’m overall more content when I prioritize reading over watching TV. I need and benefit from both, but the balance was off this year. This seems to be a recurring theme for the past few years, honestly.

I still managed to get through a goodly number of titles, methinks: 46 total, 29 nonfiction (63%) and 17 fiction (37%). This continues my nonfiction-heavy habit of the past few years. I read 20 titles for Booklist this year, accounting for 43.5% of my total. Most of what I read this year was very good, so quality makes up for quantity.

Despite going long stretches without reading anything, I continued to impulsively check out books from the library as they caught my fancy. This resulted in very tall stacks of books sitting on my end table for months, as I renewed them over and over, or had to turn them back in and put them back on hold, because I just wasn’t reading them. By mid-November, I got sick of them sitting there, so I plowed through 12 titles all in the last month and half of the year (9 in less than two weeks, which I think is a personal record for me!)

I became shockingly lax about turning in my book reviews on time, trying the patience of my Booklist editor far more than she deserves. I should make a resolution for next year to be more on top of these.

I read several books about the development of artificial intelligence, which have made me both more and less concerned about this technology and how it’s evolving (see my list of Tech Books for People Who Don’t Trust Tech). I continued to seek out a diversity of perspectives and experiences of the world. I also read a handful of titles about professional leadership, and reassessing our culture’s deeply unhealthy and inhumane relationship to work.

I think next year I want to go back to mostly fiction. I’ll still get a decent amount of nonfic from Booklist, but I think it’s easier for me to want to read more if I’m reading fiction.

For a list of my favorite books I read this year, go here >

Books I Read in 2024

Asterisks (*) indicate titles I reviewed for Booklist.