With not much opportunity for author interviews or live event coverage around the holidays and 2024 coming to a close, I thought this week’s Read would provide a great opportunity to look back at my year in reading. I read 44 books in the past year, 18 of which I gave five out of five stars and 15 of which I gave four. So much good reading made it hard to narrow things down, but I selected a few fiction and nonfiction favorites that stuck with me.
Here are my top five reads of 2024.
“My Brilliant Friend” by Elena Ferrante
I’m listing these books in no particular order, but it’s appropriate that “My Brilliant Friend” is at the top because not only is it one of the best books I read this year, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. The novel introduces readers to two young girls, the diligent Elena and her less tame friend Lila, growing up in a rough neighborhood in Naples in the 1950s. Both fiercely intelligent as children, the girls end up on vastly different path. As their lives change, so too does their friendship. “My Brilliant Friend” is a gripping portrait of female friendship set against the harsh backdrop of postwar Italy, the first in a “Neapolitan Novels” series that follows Elena and Lila through middle age. Named the best book of the 21st century by The New York Times, as soon as I started it I understood the hype, and as soon as I finished it I started the sequel. Ferrante’s writing (and Ann Goldstein’s translation) is almost cinematic, this story is so vivid. “My Brilliant Friend” is beyond worthwhile on its own, but reading the quartet is even better. As their lives unfold, Ferrante tells the story not only of her protagonists but also of a neighborhood, a city and a country in transformation, in a narrative that runs like a fever through to the end. Elena and Lila are unforgettable.
“These Precious Days” by Ann Patchett
I have a certain penchant for essays and have long been a fan of Patchett, but I had never read “These Precious Days,” her more-recent book of personal essays. The center of the collection is the title essay, a deeply moving reflection on an unexpected friendship that explores what it means to love and be loved. Patchett writes on the experiences and the people who have shaped her, from travels through Europe during a summer in college to her “three fathers”: her biological father, stepfather and her mother’s third husband. As a Patchett fan, these essays provide a look into who the author is that gave me a new way of looking at her other books. (From one, for instance, I found out where Lara’s daughters’ names came from in “Tom Lake,” which was a fun addition to another of my favorite reads of the year.) There’s one on the power of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books that especially struck me, as a former DiCamillo diehard, and I was moved by Patchett’s perspective on her bookstore’s community. Reading “These Precious Days,” made my heart feel warm, like Patchett was a favorite aunt sitting down to tell me some stories. I think there’s truly something for everyone in this one.
“Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver
In pulling “David Copperfield” out of Victorian England and placing him in modern-day southern Appalachia, Kingsolver finds a way to make an already-gripping story even more interesting. In “Demon Copperhead,” we follow the life of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer as he moves through foster care into high school athletic success and then into addiction. It’s tense all the time and dark most of the time, but the depth of Demon’s despair makes his wins all the more touching. With an unrelenting pace that matches the speed at which life flies full force at Demon, Kingsolver’s voice is evidently the product of a deep understanding of the world she’s writing about. It helps create an incredibly rich illustration of this culture, and raises some not-so-subtle points about the state of our country.
“Three Women” by Lisa Taddeo
In the nonfiction “Three Women,” Taddeo undertakes an enormous task. She spent eight years following the sexual and emotional lives of three women: Lina, a mother in suburban Indiana whose life is turned upside down by the rekindling of an old flame; Maggie, an underage high school student in North Dakota who has an affair with her older, married English teacher; and Sloane, a successful restaurant owner in the Northeast whose husband likes to watch her have sex with others. “Three Women” is an incredibly deep dive into Lina, Maggie and Sloane’s inner lives, and while their circumstances are different, their stories are remarkably connected. I came across “Three Women” after reading Taddeo’s “Animal,” a similarly fierce social commentary, and it hooked me in the same way. She writes on desire, passion, sex and love with an immediacy that burns through the pages.
“Free Food for Millionaires” by Min Jin Lee
Min Jin Lee might be better known for “Pachinko,” her historical epic, but I came across her first book “Free Food for Millionaires” this year and found myself enthralled by the story and its characters. The book centers around a young Korean-American woman, Casey Han, who falls out with her immigrant parents after graduating from Princeton. It follows her familial, professional and romantic challenges in 1990s New York City with a sprawling cast of characters who all have various interconnected relationships. Inspired by 19th century novels such as “Middlemarch” and “Vanity Fair,” the book integrates societal observations and analysis seamlessly into the narrative. It portrays the haves and have-nots of New York through the contrast between the fancy investment bank where Casey works and the bare-bones dry cleaner run by her parents, underscoring the chasm that exists between the two. I found the book riveting, and highly recommend it.
A stronger
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