While I do love all the year in review recaps that start popping up in early December, I can’t help but feel that means the last 20 or so days of the year become a black hole lost to time. And maybe because my birthday is in late December, I’m especially sensitive to making sure that those days get their due.
Thus, I’m sharing my favorite books of 2024 with you once the year has officially come to a close. Perhaps that makes me behind the times, but so be it! If I hadn’t waited, one of my absolute favorite reads of the year wouldn’t have made the cut. (Thank god Goodreads can remind me what I read last January).
This was a somewhat weird reading year for me – I struggled to find fiction I wanted to engage with, and my ADHD was strong when it came to starting new books while also reading other ones. (By current count, my “reading” shelf contains 26 different books…) Nevertheless, I ended up getting through another 100 books this year, and these were the best of them.
Note: this post contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org – if you follow a link and purchase a book you’ll a) be supporting independent bookstores! and b) supporting my work, as I’ll get a small commission.
Intellectual Nonfiction
I read a TON of these books, and this year was especially skewed toward books about how our brains and emotions work, how we can take better care of ourselves and each other, and how to let go of the bullshit that gets in our way. January kicked off with probably my most-cited book of the year (What Happened to You?) and December closed out with the book that I dreamt of writing someday but am instead delighted that Ingrid Fetell Lee beat me to it so that I can share it with you and eventually write something else (Joyful).
What Happened to You? by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey
Probably the most accessible book on trauma I’ve come across, I’ve been citing this on the podcast all year. If you want to understand how trauma works, how and why it shows up seemingly out of nowhere, and how we can hold each other with greater understanding and compassion – this is the place to start. Highly, highly recommend to anyone in the helping professions or anyone who just wants to show up better for yourself and others.
The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change without Losing Your Joy by Karen Walrond
The subtitle alone should give you a good clue as to why I love this book. Walrond does a beautiful job making the idea of activism accessible to all of us in whatever ways we have to offer – even and especially if we don’t feel equipped to be “on the front lines.” Given the shit-show of American politics right now, and the darkness of the year to come, this book seems like a vital read for all of us. (I will definitely be re-reading it again in 2025!)
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
Okay, duh. I LOVED this book and am only sad it took three years for it to find its way into my hands. Honestly, it’s kind of my new bible? Lol. It’s definitely going to be amongst the core texts informing my work in the world. Again, Joyful feels like the book I would have written in ten years, but I’m totally glad that someone else wrote it so that I can cite it and preach its gospel to everyone. Plus she traveled and talked to fancy people and did a ton of research! Consequently, Fetell Lee offers ten principles of joy that I was delighted to discover are all pretty much part of my general way of being in the world – so nice to have my approach to life verified and articulated by a third party. 😍
On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen
Oh, boy. This book. It’s so good. And also will probably make you very angry. I’d classify this as a must-read for any woman who wants to better understand the impact of the patriarchy in contemporary society and on our day-to-day lives. It feels like a really important book for moving toward individual and collective liberation. Among other things, it helped me to see/understand my own fraught relationship with pride and why it’s by design that women hide or downplay our accomplishments. UGH.
The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane by Matthew Hutson
One of my surprise discoveries was this delightful book from 2012. It’s a well-researched investigation into all the ways that we indulge in irrational beliefs about luck, karma, superstition, and magic – and how all of that can serve us pretty well on the whole. Basically, it offers a whole bunch of science about how belief shapes reality, how optimism provides health benefits, and about how humans are not at all as logical as we often like to think (and that’s a good thing).
The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices by Casper ter Kuile
Another book you’ll likely be hearing me cite in the year ahead is this lovely, non-religious exploration of the power of ritual. Written by a queer and oddly skeptical divinity scholar, the book provides a wonderful discussion of how to bring sacred and spiritual practices into our daily lives without having to ascribe to any particular religious beliefs. Connecting to each other (and to the collective source/divine/sacred energy of the universe) has measurable health and wellness benefits, and ter Kuile offers simple strategies for creating practices that feel right for each of us.
The Journey Toward Wholeness Enneagram Wisdom for Stress, Balance, and Transformation by Suzanne Stabile
I haven’t yet talked about this much around here, but I am more than a little bit obsessed with the Enneagram. I’m a certified Enneagram coach, and I find it to be an incredibly helpful tool for understanding ourselves and the people in our lives. This book by Suzanne Stabile is my new favorite comprehensive introduction to the Enneagram as a framework for understanding personality and motivations (and y’all, I’ve read over a dozen books on the topic). She’s a sweet, Southern Christian lady, so keep that in mind (she does talk about God).
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg
Finally, I want to put in a plug for this exceptional book about neurodivergence. I’d call this an absolute must-read for any nuero-spicy women reading this post. It offers a caring, compassionate guide to current research on how neurodivergence (ADHD, autism, sensory processing disorder, etc.) shows up in and impacts women in particular. I felt very seen in this book, and I’ll probably revisit it again in 2025 to continue my perpetual journey of self-awareness, self-compassion, and self-care.
Nonfiction Re-reads
This gets its own category in part to break things up (I did say I read a lot of nonfiction this year!), and because these books are essentially among my all-time recommendations. The Art of Possibility was my first re-read of the year, but since it made my 2023 best of list, I won’t repeat it below.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Funnily enough, Big Magic was my first introduction to Elizabeth Gilbert, and I’ve still never read Eat, Pray, Love. But I fucking love this book. I’ve probably read it seven times at this point? Maybe more. It was hugely influential for me on my first read back in 2020, and it continues to be a go-to read when I’m feeling freaked out about pursuing my dreams. It’s about creativity, yes, but it’s also a beautiful, supportive text for all of us seeking greater connection to ourselves and the universe. She calls it creative living, but I would say you could swap that out with joyful living, or intuitive living, or wholehearted living.
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Any book by Brené Brown would make my recommended reading list, but this is the one I revisited in 2024. Since it’s been at least six or seven years since the first time I read it (originally published in 2015!), it felt like rediscovering an old friend. Brown’s work shows up everywhere in my own thinking, teaching, writing, and speaking, and this one felt especially relevant and supportive in my first year of entrepreneurship (and the radical courage and vulnerability that entails).
Literary Fiction
Okay, on to the fiction! Since I made distinctions last year between types of fiction I’ll retain them, but I only have one recommendation in the literary fiction category since I only made it through a small handful of fiction that would remotely fit this bill. (I abandoned many more than I finished in this category).
When Women Were Dragons
by Kelly Barnhill
So, this book is delightful, and weird, and a feminist allegory of sorts. It’s the 1950s and a whole mess of women turn into dragons and leave their husbands and lives behind. I really enjoyed it, probably because there are dragons involved and nothing especially terrible happens (though maybe that means this doesn’t actually belong in the literary fiction category? Lol).
Fluffy, Joyous Fiction Series
This is where I like to hang out when it comes to reading. Unfortunately, I really struggled to find books in this category this year. I mucked around a lot and ultimately ended up mostly returning to authors and series I was already familiar with. If you have recommendations for me, please hit me up! I’m getting a little desperate.
Super Powereds by Drew Hayes
Forever and always, this series will be on my mental list. Though, I’ll only put it on these annual lists if I read it again – which I did. I gushed about it on the 2023 list, and I’ll gush about it again here. I love Drew Hayes‘ work, and I love this series to the moon and back. It is, however, deeply epic. So, I only recommend it if you are an audiobook fan or a kindle reader, since the 4-book series probably adds up to six thousand pages? It’s like a hundred hours of audio, and I am SO here for it.
The Tinkered Starsong Trilogy by Gail Carriger
I’m kind of glad I waited until all these books were out before diving in. Gail Carriger is my other favorite author (sharing the podium with Drew Hayes above), and this series was a treat I blasted through rather obsessively. It’s a queer teenage pop-band intergalactic romance, and it’s totally cozy, adorable, and just a little bit steamy. The overt metaphor is definitely heavy-handed (pop stars in this universe are actually considered gods), but once you accept that and ignore it, the series is a total delight.
Emily Wilde Series by Heather Fawcett
I really enjoyed book one of this series in 2023, and book two came out in 2024, so it now qualifies as a series that I can add to this category. It combines academics with faeries and magic, which makes it right up my alley! Book three is coming out in February of 2025, so it’s an option to dive into that will yield at least a few weeks of entertainment. (I do feel the need to add the disclaimer that I liked book two less than book one, but I’m optimistic that it’ll swing back upward on the third book).
Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
Last but certainly the most – shout out to The Discworld Series, which I dipped back into this year. I got through the entire series sometime in grad school (all 41 books!), and I dabbled in around 10-12 of them this year. On the second read, I’m more interested in the Death and Nightwatch books than the others, but it was a delight. And if somehow any of you reading this haven’t heard of the series – it’s a very long list of silly, charming, satirical books set in a magical world of bumbling wizards, moody gods, and all the usual magical creatures. The world is also flat and held up by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle.
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2 Responses
Great list, curious if you read “all fours” – would love to discuss with someone that doesn’t have kids or a marriage to leave!
I haven’t! But I’ll add it to my list and let you know if/when I get through it. 🙂