For a few years, I tried to be clever when setting my reading challenge goal. In those days, I matched the goal to the year. For instance, I read 20 books in 2020 and 21 books in 2021 and 22 books in 2022, until
last year, when I #epicfailed to meet my complete my challenge, 23 books in 2023.
I did, however, read 20 books in 2023, and that seemed like a nice round number, and it's a multiple of 5 (I like round numbers and multiples of 5), so I stuck with that for my 2024 reading challenge.
I know a 20-book-challenge doesn't seem like a lot to the more voracious readers out there. I totally intend to read more books after I retire in a decade or so.
But for my busy musician, performer, and/or music teacher friends with full-time jobs that require you to direct or participate in performances, concerts, and programs outside of your regular workday (ALL. YEAR. LONG.), this goal is for you!
Becky's 20 Books of 2024
JANUARY
1. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Notes and Favorites: Everything Whitehead writes is a little different from the last, and I have loved every one of them. I’ll be interested to see what Ray Carney is up to in the next installment.
2. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Notes and Favorites: What a ride! At one point, I said out loud, while sitting by my husband on the couch, “What the hell just happened?!”
FEBRUARY
3. We Are All the Same In the Dark by Julia Heaberlin
Notes and Favorites: I might be turning into my grandmother in my middle-age, reading and loving quick, twisty mysteries.
MARCH
4. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit
Notes and Favorites: I recently watched the musical adaptation of this story and decided to read (and finish this time, having started it a few times in my preteen days) the book. It's a well-written story, but I felt like the conclusion in the live theater version is truer to the theme of the cyclical nature of life.
APRIL
5. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Notes and Favorites: Although a little chick-lit-y for me in places, I did enjoy this read in the end. The characters and plot points were a little derivative, their dialogue anachronistic at times, but the book started piquing my interest once it got into the history of the Dust Bowl, the migrant camps in the California, and the politics of the time. She's no Steinbeck, but I ended up enjoying it and really invested in the characters.
MAY
6. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.
Notes and Favorites: Oh boy! Did I pick up on the tension between Margaret's parents and the in-laws on both sides this time! It went completely over my head when I was a kid. No wonder my parents related to this book as much as I did back in the day LOL. Also, I remember doing ALL of these things with my friends when I was a preteen (and moving to a new school/state during at about the same age as Margaret).
JUNE
7. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Notes and Favorites: After a road trip this summer that included touring the Laura Ingalls Wilder historic places in De Smet, South Dakota, I decided to go back and attempt to get through the entire “Little House” series. I started with this one because I read the first book fairly recently, during my last challenge.
8. Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese
Notes and Favorites: This book speculates that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne might have been more than just a fictional character. It's also a survival story about women in young America.
9. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Notes and Favorites: This third book is an interesting (notice I didn’t say accurate or positive) depiction of relations between America’s indigenous population and its early pioneer settlers. It’s definitely written through the lens of a product of that era, white westward expansion settlers. “Pa,” surprisingly, has a more sympathetic take on the Native Americans, acknowledging they have been pushed off their land over and over again by the government. However, it’s obvious that the Ingalls and their neighbors are illegally squatting in Native American territory in an attempt to grab the best land plot before the government opened it to homesteading.
10. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
Notes and Favorites: I can't really say much about this one for fear of giving something away, but I'll just say it's a quick, twisty ride, perfect for summer.
JULY
11. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Notes and Favorites: I enjoyed rereading this one in the Little House series. Some of the characters from the TV show are introduced (the notorious Nellie Olson, for one).
12. All's Well by Mona Awad
Notes and Favorites: Part Macbeth, part All's Well That Ends Well, throw in some magic realism, witchcraft, and “what did I just read?” . . . This book was a fantastic ride. I loved Bunny, but I think I loved this one even more.
AUGUST
13. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Notes and Favorites: We don't read about this “Reign of Terror” in our history books, but we should. As Americans, we need to understand the values that truly saturate our country. “The blood cries out from the ground” (p. 316).
SEPTEMBER
14. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Notes and Favorites: These next few books are set in the area we visited this summer, which was the reason I started rereading these stories. This is the book where baby Grace suddenly appears and where Pa plants the five Cottonwood trees. We saw those very trees on their South Dakota homestead.
OCTOBER
15. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Notes and Favorites: It's that time of year again, time for some spooky short stories to end October. This one was especially interesting after recently having read about Hawthorne's family connection to the Salem Witch Trials.
16. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
Notes and Favorites: I kept thinking I had read this one in high school, but, actually, I might be remembering it from The Twilight Zone episode.
NOVEMBER
17. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
Notes and Favorites: If you like the current trend of Greek myths being retold through a fresh lens, this book is an entertaining read. But don't expect it to be as well-written or moving as Circe or Song of Achilles.
18. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Notes and Favorites: While rereading this book in the series, I was reminded that I wrote my own version of this story in 3rd grade about a pioneer family getting pounded by blizzards. In my story, Pa was upset that he didn't have any sons, just plucky daughters who could do anything boys could do. This was possibly my first foray into exploring feminism as an 8-year-old.
DECEMBER
19. The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden
Notes and Favorites: Again, just like The Housemaid, it's so fun and twisty. And I'm pretty attached to Millie now.
20. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Notes and Favorites: Christmas Day seemed like the perfect time to reread this one. I listened to the Tim Curry audiobook version after it was recommended on a podcast, and, yes, I would second that recommendation.
Also, Republicans would benefit from reading this story . . . "Are there no prisons? . . . And the Union workhouses? . . . Are they still in operation?"
Just sayin' . . .
