What was Your Favorite Book of 2024?

Peggy Turnbull: The Overstory by Richard Powers

Give me a big novel stuffed with ideas, something over 500 pages, a book so compelling that its voice murmurs to me when we’re apart. In 2024 The Overstory by Richard Powers provided that pleasure. It’s about four humans who fall in love with trees, enchanted by their intelligent systems, drawn in by their beauty, attracted by the extraordinary peace found beneath and between their branches. We meet humans so passionately connected to woods and forests that they risk their livelihoods, their freedom, and their lives to save trees from extinction. I always wondered what drives activists to challenge society for the sake of nonhuman species. Powers makes it seem inevitable: we’re all connected.

Tara Huck: The Women by Kristin Hannah

My reading interests are diverse, but I most enjoy historical fiction and nonfiction topics such as business, self-help, health, and spirituality. Of the thirty books that I read last year, my top recommendation is The Women by Kristin Hannah.

It is an historical fiction that explores the women who served in Vietnam and their struggles in adapting to life back home. Kristin Hannah is a master in the genre. I have read most of her novels. One thing that stands out from The Women is from the Author’s Notes, where Hannah explains that the book was ten years in the making as she was needing to mature as a writer to give the story the care it deserved.

Hannah’s dedication to telling the story with reverence for the women who did serve our country is unmatched.

Happy writing and reading!

Tracey Koah: The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen and many more!

While I read 46 books in 2024, I am hesitant to recommend only one. I read to learn. For me, learning makes me happy. Of the 46 books, three were non-fiction and one was poetry. Most of the books were mystery and Sapphic romance. I would recommend almost all of them.

The author has told their story well if I am haunted by it after I put it down regardless of genre and sub-genres. So which books are currently haunting me? The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes by Adam Rutherford, Fragments of the Heart by Ally McGuire, Stairs to Nowhere by J. Victoria Tobias, Those Who Wait by Haley Cass, and A Witching Time by KL Rhavensfyre.