My 2024 Reading

Hello, hello, and Happy New Year everyone!

Wow, it has been too long since I’ve written a blog post. Luckily, today I’m back with one of my all-time favorite posts to write: my yearly reading recap!

This year, I read a grand total of 86 books! Of that number I listened to 16 audio books, and reread 18 different books. I found so many new favorite books and discovered several wonderful authors.

I hope you enjoy reading the breakdown of the best I read in each of my categories this year. 🙂

Three Best Audio Books

Some of my favorite reads this year were ones that I listened to on audio. I love turning on a good book while I work on some other task. Here are three books that made me excited to fold clothes, wash dishes, or do whatever else was on my to do list that day.

• The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry, by Anna Rose Johnson
• Meet the Austins, by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Impossible Journey, by Gloria Whelan

Three Best Nonfiction Books

I read a lot of nonfiction books that year that fascinated me, but few of them were on subjects that I would actually read about again. The three books below were phenomenal books that exceeded all other nonfiction. I will enthusiastically recommend each of them to just about anyone.

• Keep a Quiet Heart, by Elisabeth Elliot
• Do Hard Things, by Alex and Brett Harris
• Kisses from Katie, by Katie Davis Majors

Three Favorite Rereads

One thing you should know about me is that I am a huge rereader. Nothing makes me happier than enjoying one of my favorite stories for a second, third, or even fourth time. Honestly, this list was the hardest for me to narrow down. There were several times during the year where I faced burn out with the books I was reading and decided to return to something I knew I would love. But these are the three books that were significant in my reading life this year, even as rereads.

• Peter Pan, by J. M. Barry
• Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
• Anne’s House of Dreams, by L. M. Montgomery

Three Classics I Read for the First Time

As the enthusiastic reader I am, I’m often embarrassed by the number of well known classics that I have yet to read. Here are three classics that I should have read years ago but actually discovered for the first time this year (and enjoyed them all). Bonus fact: Persuasion was actually the first Jane Austen book I’ve ever read.

• Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
• Persuasion, by Jane Austen
• The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

(Four) Best Books Overall

Whenever I try to decide on my favorite books in a year it feels like an impossible task. So this year I will be breaking my own rules (just this once!). Here are my four overall favorite reads of this year. Each of these books is absolutely phenomenal. I know that I will return to them in future years, and I simply cannot wait for the experience of rereading them someday.

• A Ring of Endless Light, by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas
• The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Three Books I can’t Wait to Read in 2025

Now I have a small confession to make. Last year when I wrote this post I listed out three books that I anticipated reading over the course of 2024. And I didn’t finish a single one… I contemplated leaving this category off my 2025 list completely this year, but in the end I decided to add it anyway. Maybe I won’t get around to any of these books either (my reading plan is always changing), but it is still fun to come up with one. And who knows, maybe I will actually read them this year.

• Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan
• The Wilderking Trilogy, by Jonathan Rogers
• The One-In-A-Million Boy, by Monica Wood

Final Thoughts

As this year comes to a close there is something so satisfying about looking back over the past year and seeing what pleasures filled it. Reading is one of the things I find the most pleasure in, so it is especially lovely to recollect all of the stories I enjoyed over the past year.

What about you? Have you taken time to look back over your 2024 reading, and, if so, which books stood out to you?