I know - that's a ridiculous number of books. I'm pretty certain that's a record for me. Most years I read between 80 and 100 books, according to my goodreads stats from previous years.
My favorite stat here is not the amount I read, but rather that I read a book that no one else shelved on goodreads in 2024. It already existed in Goodreads database, but no one else marked it as read in 2024. This stat amuses me so much that it may now be a regular goal for me...
Also, keep in mind that one of these was just 97 pages! [the longest book I finished was 958 pages. My average was around 300 and some pages per a book] And I listened to a lot of audiobooks - especially when traveling. I can read faster than I can listen - but I can listen while on a plane, or in a car, so the combination allowed me to really increase my numbers this year - especially this year, when we took a road trip to Georgia, and also flew to England, spending a fair amount of time on trains in the two weeks I was there.
It's really not about the numbers though. If I read 100 books I didn't enjoy, or learn from, what is the point? Which is why for 2025 my goal is not a number of books - but rather, types of books. My goal for 2025 is:
6 Memoir or Biography
6 Non Fiction
12 [one a month] physical books I hold in my hands
6 Non Fiction
12 [one a month] physical books I hold in my hands
12 [one a month] Local History Books
Read at least one of Bookhouse Series [1920s series for children that I discovered this year]
Before I look back at my favorites in 2024, here are some of the apps and sites I use when reading:
 I track my reading with goodreads. I like seeing what my friends are reading, and love the year end stats - AND I find that I need help sometimes remembering what I have read, or where I left off in a series. I do not however, recommend trusting reviews on goodreads. I think too many of them are... influenced. A lot of publishers and authors give away free books, and too frequently I think those freebies influence the reviews. My daughter prefers Storygraph - and had I not already been using Goodreads for so many years, I think I may have switched over with her. |
 Free Books Each Month If You Have Amazon Prime Each month editors choose one book in each genre, for pre-release. Amazon prime members can choose one to download each month for free. They've had some really great selections, from popular and best selling authors - and even a category for book club reads. |
.png) In our area of Central Pennsylvania, Libby is the app our libraries use. Other areas may have different systems, but your local library website should have the information, or stop in and I'm sure a librarian can help! Libby allows me to borrow ebooks, and audiobooks, from our local library. From as many libraries as you want actually - so if you live in an area [like we do] with different libraries, it's often worth it to get several cards! For me, I live where 3 counties and I can get a free cards for several libraries, all with different selections available. Also, everyone in Pennsylvania can get a card for the Philadelphia Free Library online. |
.jpg) I think I have had 3-6 months at 99 cents every year for years now. I cancel at the end of the deal, but those books stay in my library, even when I am not an active member. In addition to the books I purchase with my credits, there are dozens of FREE audible books too, including a lot of the classics. |
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My 2024 Year In Reading
My Favorites, and Others I Found Most Interesting
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Book "Experiences"
Two of my favorite books this year were physical books, and in both cases, I think the experience surrounding the books had a strong influence on how much I enjoyed it. These were the "book experiences" that stood out for me this year.
Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a book I NEVER would have chosen for myself. But when my daughter and I flew to England [to visit my son, who is stationed there] we flew on a budget flight, where taking a suitcase would have nearly doubled our flight cost. So we traveled with carry on only. Which meant no room for physical books. We went with the plan of finding a bookshop once we arrived - and I'm so glad that was our plan. We ended up at a Waterstones at Bury St Edmunds. First, let me say that shopping in England was wonderful. REAL shops arranged around wide streets open to foot traffic only, with tea and chocolate shops... it may be the only time in my life where I have truly enjoyed shopping.
At Waterstone, where the books were so much cheaper than here in the US, the woman at the register, seeing my purchases suggested Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop to round out my "buy one get one half off" deal. She also mentioned that she is always shocked by the prices of books when she flies to New York...
Anyway, the book is short chapters that were so perfect for the train, and for reading on the beach at Southend- on-Sea. I loved the language and the lessons, and thoroughly soaked in the chapters one at a time. It's a book where I underlined sentences and copied various quotes in my trip journal. I would interrupt my daughters reading to read parts out loud to her. It spoke to me. I do not think I would have enjoyed this book as a "sit down and read it cover to cover" book. But as I read it, in short segments, it was not only one of my favorite reads of 2024, but it's part of my memories of that once in a life time two week trip to England.
The other 2024 book experience was traveling to Harrisburg to see Jeff Shaara, again. He was promoting his brand new book The Shadow Of War, which I did buy and IS on my 2025 To Read Pile, but I also had him sign a copy of Old Lion, because Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite.
Nineteen years ago, author Jeff Shaara was in our area, visiting local libraries & signing books. Our family went to our very small rural library to meet him. With events at so many of the larger local libraries, our little library event was somewhat poorly attended, giving our children a lot of time to interact with Mr. Shaara.
One of our sons then began reading all of his books, and developed a love of history from Shaaras various series. 19 years later, when I saw that there would be a talk & book signing in Harrisburg, 30 minutes from where Nate lives now... My daughter & I made the drive down to meet him & get new photos.
I think I would have loved Old Lion just as much if I had got a copy from our library, it's a fabulous book. But for me, there's also the added memory of the experience.
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The Series Of 2024
These are books in series that I read regularly, when new books are available. They may not be 5 star reads, but they are, almost without fail, a book I will enjoy.
 The Enola Holmes Series By Nancy Springer
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 Shady Hollow Series By Juneau Black
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 Her Royal Spyness Series By Rhys Bowen
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 Meg Lanslow Series By Donna Andrews
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 Andy Carpenter Series by David Rosenfelt
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 Miss Fortune Series by Jana Deleon
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These were a lot of my audiobook reads this year too. All of these series are light and fun, with good character development, and plot lines PG enough for family listening on road trips.
The Donna Andrews Series is one I have read off and on over the years, typically reading one of the Christmas themed books each December. This year I started at book one and read them all in order - and I devoured them. 29 or 30 of the books I read in 2024 are from this series. They were the books I turned to when I found something else I was reading to be disappointing.
We drove from Pennsylvania to Georgia to see my son, who had flown in from England earlier this year, and we took our time coming home, visiting I think it was 7 states.. It was a rather epic road trip, and when I realize that it happened in the SAME year I flew to England for two weeks with my daughter... wow, what a year. :-) Anyway, for any road trip with my husband, there are two authors I look for: David Rosenfelt, and Malcom Gladwell. Completely different books. The Andy Carpenter Series are good, well developed, mysteries that are also light, funny in a dry sort of humor, and relatively short. In audio form, most of the books are between 4 and 5 hours I think. We've been known to finish one of these audio books while playing a game of 5 crowns after dinner, more than once.
The Malcom Gladwell books are all non fiction, and I love them for the odd facts he presents. I don't always agree with him, but I have never found it necessary to agree with anyone, let alone an author, to enjoy learning from them. Gladwell looks at things differently - and that is something I enjoy.
Another light, fun, series - slightly less PG though. A bit more RomCom.
Veronica Speedwell Series by Deanna Raybourn
New To Me Series in 2024
 Ernest Cunningham Series By Benjamin Stevenson One of my new favorite series |
 The Emily Wilde Series by Heather Fawcett was such a surprise for me. I LOVED these books. |
 Here's another surprise - a James Patterson book on my favorites list? That's so 2010! LOL! But I did LOVE this book, which sucked me in by using those three names. Book two to be released in 2025, and I have it on my To Read List. |
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I also read most of the Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes this year. I can't explain the draw of these books - they are mysteries, but at the end I rarely really understand what happened. It's the characters and location that make the books worth reading.
And the Nita Prose Maid Series - oh how I dislike this series. And yet, unbelievably, I keep reading them! I can't explain it!
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Non Fiction & Memoirs
 The Third Gilmore Girl Kelly Bishop My daughter and I listened to this audiobook on a road trip to a Gilmore Girls Festival this year. |
 365 Days Of Unique Poems Days Like These By Brian Bilston I read one a day, most days. I also read his memoir, and I really strongly did NOT like it. But I enjoyed the weird poems. |
 The Puzzler By A.J. Jacobs This was a fun read about different kinds of puzzles and puzzle competitions. |
 The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I - By Douglas Brunt
Definitely one of my favorite reads in 2024! |
 Endurance By Alfred Lansing An incredible true story |
 The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife This would have been a fun read even if I hadn't been to the tower this year! |
Icons Of England
This was a fun read. It's edited by Bryson, not written by him. Essentially Bryson said, to a variety of people, "tell me what you love about England". The result is wonderful - stories of roads, and landmarks and tourist attractions.. all in short blips written by people who love that particular feature. We should have more books like this, on every topic.
I read a lot of light fiction this year - but I also read a lot of old history. I finished the nearly 1,000 page Daily Stories Of Pennsylvania [it took me a year and a half to finish
that one], read the beautiful and interesting All The President's Gardens, a book on the Little League World Series - A Promise Kept - written by the founder [the LLWS was founded, and is held, 20 minutes from our farm] and for our trip to England & Iceland I read books such as London Under [I wasn't impressed] and How Iceland Changed The World [Which I enjoyed very much]. I also read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures - which started out as really interesting to me, but I lost interest in before I was half way through and had to force myself to finish just in case it got interesting again...
that one], read the beautiful and interesting All The President's Gardens, a book on the Little League World Series - A Promise Kept - written by the founder [the LLWS was founded, and is held, 20 minutes from our farm] and for our trip to England & Iceland I read books such as London Under [I wasn't impressed] and How Iceland Changed The World [Which I enjoyed very much]. I also read Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures - which started out as really interesting to me, but I lost interest in before I was half way through and had to force myself to finish just in case it got interesting again...
And my favorite in 2024 - because it's the story of one of my 4x great aunts -
Eliza's Story by Eileen M. Hook
In 2024 I created a 76 page booklet with the Gregson memoirs, a few articles & our genealogical connection, along with that document from Reid [and the College Of Arms] with the Gregson lineage. I ordered a copy of the book Elizas story, to put with it on the genealogy shelf.
Eliza Gregson was in one of the first wagons traveling west to what would become California. She lived with some of the Donner Party survivors, and her husband was one of the first to find the gold in what would become the gold rush. Her husband was interviewed by the Historical Society, and she was annoyed that no one asked for her side of the story, so she wrote her own memoir.
I optimistically envision my grandchildren studying various events in history in school, and me being able to pluck a booklet from the shelf & say "here's how your ancestors connect to that event".
To go with Eliza's story, I read The Indifferent Stars Above. This is a TOUGH read, because of the subject matter.
Another tough read, for me, was the memoir The Sound Of Gravel. It was both riveting, and difficult. A memoir by one of 32 children in a polygamist family.
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Mysteries & Thrillers
My Favorites From 2024:
 The Guest By B.A. Paris |
.jpg) First Lie Wins By Elston One of my 5 star reads for 2025
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 City Under One Roof By Yamashita The setting for this one was just so unique. It's not the story line that stuck with me, but the background. |
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Odds & Ends
Assorted Books I really enjoyed -
 The House On The Cerulean Sea By TJ Klune |  The Memory Library By Kate Storey |  The Stars Don't Lie By Boo Walker |
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