The Books of 2024: Stats & Nattering
What were my favorite (new-to-me) books of the year?
The top rated were Mortal Follies & Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall, Shady Hollow by Juneau Black, The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch, and Lady Ambition’s Dilemma (2024) by Jane Steen
All of the books belong to series–only two stand-alone books had a rating 8 or higher, but then only 10% of the books I read this year were not part of a series.
Of those books, Vintage topped the publishers, with self-published coming in a respectable second.
- Vintage: 7
- Self-Published: 4
- Berkley: 3
- Del Rey: 2
Book Covers
My favorite covers:
Mortal Follies series by Alexis Hall
I love how these covers are both beautiful and openly queer. But mostly I love how pretty they are.
A Grave Robbery (2024) by Deanna Raybourn
I have loved every single Leo Nickolls cover in this series. They are clearly part of this specific series, but most importantly, they are gorgeous.
The Masquerades of Spring (2024) by Ben Aaronovitch
This series (excluding the early American releases) has covers that are clearly part of this specific series (even when they are not set in London and don’t feature London rivers) while still being different, and usually with Easter eggs for that book.
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies (2023) by Alison Goodman
I noticed this cover and decided to give the story a chance because of it. There are so many little bits of the story present, but gives nothing away.
Self-published books dominated my favorite covers, which really should put the professional publishers still putting out terrible covers to shame.
- Self-Published: 10
- Vintage: 7
- Berkley: 5
- Del Rey: 2
I want to note the artists who had more than one cover I loved this year–especially those who created covers for more than one author.
- Perry De La Vega: 7 (Shady Hollow series)
- Nicole Lecht: 4 (Lily Adler series)
- David Baldeosingh Rotstein: 3 (The Nightingale Mysteries series)
- Leni Kauffman: 2
- Regina Flath: 2
- Rita Frangie: 2 (Mortal Follies series)
- Stephen Walter: 2 (Rivers of London)
- Radiante Mozzarelle: 2 (Mortal Follies series)
- Patrick Knowles: 2 (Rivers of London)
- Kim Killion: 2 (Kat Holloway)
- Jenny Zemanek: 2 (Uncanny Romance)
- Larry Rostant: 2
The Statistics
This was a slow reading year for me–2015 was the last time I read so few books in a year.
I don’t feel bad about it–the ridiculous streak had to end some time. And to keep myself from worrying about it, as always, I set my reading goal to something I knew I’d easily meet.
For many reasons, there was a lot of rereading this year. (Go ahead, ask me about TIAA. Just get comfy because we’ll be here awhile. And I will use a lot of profanity.)
66% rereads in fact.
This was due in large part to the fact I listened to 56 audiobooks–a full third of this year’s books were audiobooks.
I don’t speed up my audiobooks like a lot of people do, because I’m not trying to get through them to read more. I’m just trying to distract myself while doing other tasks. Audiobooks allow me to read when I can’t focus, and allow me to remain on my feet and moving when I can’t settle down.
Since I can (and have) easily finish two books in a day, needing a week or two to finish an audiobook slows things down significantly.
But, as I said, audiobooks allow me to enjoy reading when I am unable to sit down and focus, and keep me from just lying on the sofa playing solitaire games on the computer.
I did read new-to-me books this year, however, I realized that most of the new books I read were part of a series.
If I read a new (or new-to-me) book, it was likely to be part of a series.
This is because the same factors that lead me to reread also come into play with an ongoing series: I already know the characters, I already know the authors style and writing, and I generally know the feel and flow of the book (is it cozy? is there a HEA?)
Although I read more mysteries than anything else, when you add in secondary genres (romantasy, fantasy mysteries) things evened out.
Am I frustrated my TBR pile continues to grow and is overwhelmingly huge? Yes. But if I’m lucky, this year will be less complicated (and less miserable than the past five years) and I’ll be able to read all the new books that interested me, but I couldn’t bring myself to start.
So this year I read 173 books. I listened to more audiobooks than ever, and if I had more reareads than ever, at least I enjoyed most of the books I read. My lowest rated book was a 3 (that was for a comic I was expecting not to like but read primarily for completion) and my average rating was 8, which meant it was quite enjoyable.
And that’s 2024.
