Five Books I Loved in 2024 | July to December
Three more days in the year and I am scrambling to finish the reading goals I set for myself. According to Goodreads, I’ve read 267 books in 2024 but I still have a dozen or so to finish before my master list can be checked off. I know how I’ll spend my New Year’s weekend!
Interestingly, I only had a handful of five-star reads in the second half of this year, so it was easy to pick my favorites. They include two nonfiction books focused on a topic I’m making a big goal for the new year, getting OFFline and focusing on what’s truly important — social media gets way too much attention and I’m ready to break up with it. The other top books from my list are fiction, one romance that centers on the video game world, a Japanese fantasy pick, and a book I can’t stop thinking about. Here are my faves from July to December.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
(Blurb) On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
If you haven’t heard about this book, you’re probably living under a rock because it’s been all over Instagram and TikTok since it was published in 2022. I am beyond words for how much I love this book. The characters, the video game metaphor used to describe life, death, and love. It was perfect in every way.
The Unplugged Hours: Cultivating a Life of Presence in a Digitally Connected World by Hannah Brencher
(Blurb) No matter what you do for a living, how much time your apps save you, or how much entertainment your phone brings, it is possible to unplug--and find an even better life on the other side.
In the spring of 2021, Hannah Brencher found herself depleted and exhausted--and she knew the culprit was her constantly plugged-in lifestyle. Like so many of us, Hannah had been turning to her phone to cope with life in a time of isolation and uncertainty. Those coping mechanisms had calcified into habits she didn't know how to break. Sound familiar?
That's when the nudge happened. Turn off your phone and keep turning off your phone. And a challenge was 1,000 unplugged hours in one year. Soon after she shared her tracker sheet on her website, thousands of people downloaded it and signed up for their own 1,000-hour challenge.
Now in The Unplugged Hours, Hannah demonstrates how the act of powering down changed her entire life. It's a strikingly small thing to do and a surprisingly difficult habit to maintain, but turning off your phone has a substantial impact on your mental health, relationships, time management, and outlook on the world. A powerful weaving of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual insights, this life-changing book helps
Reclaim your ability to be present and engaged with the world around you, swap the hurried, constant pace of technology for a steadier, more rooted way of livingEstablish your own unplugged rituals and rhythms in daily life, uncover the magic within the ordinary awaiting you just beyond the screen. The Unplugged Hours gives you the practical ideas and spiritual inspiration you need to stop scrolling and start living.
One thing I've been struggling with for years is curbing my addiction to devices and setting them aside to enjoy LIVING, and this is exactly what Hannah Brencher is good at. She's been preaching this message on her website and social media platforms for a long time about the importance of taking time away from the hustle of the digital world and getting back to what's truly important. I'm so glad she put all of her wisdom and advice into a book. This is a good read for anyone, given how glued we all are to our phones. I will be adopting many of these practices moving forward. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review as part of my membership in the book launch team.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
(Blurb) Seven students are avoiding going to school, hiding in their darkened bedrooms, unable to face their family and friends, until the moment they discover a portal into another world that offers temporary escape from their stressful lives. Passing through a glowing mirror, they gather in a magnificent castle which becomes their playground and refuge during school hours. The students are tasked with locating a key, hidden somewhere in the castle, that will allow whoever finds it to be granted one wish. At this moment, the castle will vanish, along with all memories they may have of their adventure. If they fail to leave the castle by 5 pm every afternoon, they will be eaten by the keeper of the castle, an easily provoked and shrill creature named the Wolf Queen.
Delving into their emotional lives with sympathy and a generous warmth, Lonely Castle in the Mirror shows the unexpected rewards of reaching out to others. Exploring vivid human stories with a twisty and puzzle-like plot, this heart-warming novel is full of joy and hope for anyone touched by sadness and vulnerability.
This was so good!! The characters, the message, the world-building, I loved it all. I will be searching for more work from Tsujimura soon.
Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human by Carlos Whittaker
(Blurb) In the summer of 2022, podcaster and author Carlos Whittaker spent seven weeks entirely screen-free, splitting his time between a monastery, an Amish farm, and home with his family. Blending the inspiring story of this experiment with practical guidance, Whittaker reveals how you can reset your relationship with screens and step into a life of real connection.
Not many people have the opportunity to spend weeks entirely devoid of phone and computer screens, but Whittaker's radical, screen-free experiment yields hope and wisdom to everyone who has felt the loneliness, low-key despair, and paradoxical disconnectedness that accompanies the always-on, always-plugged-in nature of modern life.
Readers who take this journey with Whittaker will learn how to cut through the divisive, polarizing effects of social media and build real community, even with people who are very different from them; rediscover the joy of noticing and savoring the beauty of the world beyond their phone screens; remember how experiencing boredom, solitude, and even getting lost (all but eradicated by smartphones) can bring opportunities for new discoveries about themselves and the world around them; and reset their relationship with screens and social media forever.
Blending wisdom from the past, practices of intentionality and community, and Whittaker's engaging communication style that has led to the explosive growth of his social media presence over the past few years, this book is a compelling story, a guide for resetting your life in a tech-saturated world, and an invitation into the connection and community that feels so elusive today.
I could listen to Carlos Whittaker's stories for hours, so to hear him talk about his experience of spending seven weeks without digital devices was enlightening and entertaining. For most of us who have spent the better part of a decade glued to our phones and tablets, we've lost a bit of humanity behind the screens, and this book helps reestablish it by giving practical ways for us to put our devices down and get back out into the world with the people around us. There are so many good reminders and I will be more intentional and focus on living my life instead of letting my phone take it from me.
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
(Blurb) Colum McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Apeirogon—named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides—is a tour de force concerning friendship, love, loss, and belonging.
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to drive on, to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend, to the checkpoints, both physical and emotional, they must negotiate.
Their worlds shift irreparably after ten-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet and thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn of each other’s stories, they recognize the loss that connects them and they attempt to use their grief as a weapon for peace.
McCann crafts Apeirogon out of a universe of fictional and nonfictional material. He crosses centuries and continents, stitching together time, art, history, nature, and politics in a tale both heartbreaking and hopeful. Musical, cinematic, muscular, delicate, and soaring, Apeirogon is a novel for our time.
Breathtaking. This is my first experience with Colum McCann but I loved his writing style and how he told this story. Can't wait to read more from him.
Stay tuned for my 2025 master reading list, which will be published soon. In the meantime, you can check out what other books I’ve read in 2024 or connect and follow along on Goodreads. Happy reading!
