Easton Connell

Ten years ago I shared the list of books I’d read in the preceding year here for the first time, although I admittedly took a break from sharing the lists publicly in the last five years. It seems that the relentless “unprecedented times” that pushed posting 2019’s list off my plate in early 2020 have only persisted. And yet, so do I. My love of reading has persisted and so has my desire to connect people with books they might love as much as I do.

While I was typing up the lists of books I read from 2019 – 2024, I remembered the source that first inspired me to record the new books I read each year: a late 2000s livejournal post by the creators of A Softer World, one of my favorite webcomics. I remembered that era of the internet, when it felt more like an open conversation than a sleepless panopticon. I remembered some of my favorite A Softer World comics and was grateful to find that they still exist online:

In the spirit of that era of the internet, when it was more about sharing with our friends and strangers and less about monetizing our personalities in subservience to the almighty algorithm, here are my favorite reads from 2024.

Our Share of Night – Mariana Enriquez

Easily my favorite thing I read all year, and also the first thing I read last year. I haven’t been able to shut up about this book since I finished it. Anytime I talked books with a friend I recommended it. Anytime I saw a social media post asking for book recs I shared a link. Our Share of Night is phenomenal. I spotted it when it was on the new arrivals shelf up front at Northtown Books and was intrigued by the cover and title. The summary on the back sounded interesting, and the book was covered with recommendations by other authors whose work I love. Seriously covered – the printers even stuck one on the spine. I love a good horror story and Our Share of Night is among the best. It’s also a story about the complexities of family, love, queer yearning, vengeance, greed and power, the occult, and where people go when they disappear in the middle of the night. I read everything else I could find translated into English from Mariana Enriquez after Our Share of Night and would just as readily recommend her short story collections.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace – Justinian Huang

Another divine intercession at a bookstore – I saw this on the new releases table at Dandar’s, was lured in by the beautiful cover and intriguing title, and absolutely sold by the description on the inside flap. Huang’s debut novel is a love story woven across three periods in history with threads of palace intrigue, Chinese myth, and queer life in the modern world that boldly asks the question, what if being tied together as lovers from lifetime to lifetime wasn’t a good thing? For fans of modern fiction informed by ancient folklore and thirsty fantasy that goes beyond the tropes. I highly recommend reading this during peach season to fully savor The Emperor and the Endless Palace in all its richness.

The Familiar – Leigh Bardugo

If you read my posts from previous years you’ll find no shortage of me singing praises of Leigh Bardugo, and her newest novel pushes the high water mark of her work even higher. The Familiar is her third novel written for an adult audience after the page-turning brilliance of the Grishaverse series. The Familiar slips the fantastical into the real like Bardugo does with her Ninth House novels (hyped for the forthcoming third installment!), but this time Bardugo takes us into the life of a young Ladino woman living through the Inquisition. Luiza’s simple household magic propels her into a competition of “miracleworkers” trying to garner the king’s favor and schemes and subterfuge abound. There’s chicanery and heresy and true magic in equal measure, beautiful descriptions and statements that will make you start a commonplace book if you don’t have one already. I love the epic pronouncements Bardugo peppers into her work and The Familiar is perhaps the most quotable of her novels yet. I went into it vaguely expecting something vampiric (I can’t see the word “familiar” without hearing it in the voice of Nandor the Relentless) and was delighted to discover a world so much richer than I expected. I should know by now how high the bar is when it comes to Bardugo.

The Truth of This Life: Zen Teachings on Loving the World As It Is – Katherine Thanas

I’ve read a number of Buddhist books in my recent years of study and Katherine’s is among my favorites. Katherine was a student of Suzuki Roshi and went on to found Monterey Bay Zen Center. She was abbot of Santa Cruz Zen Center for over twenty years. One of her students and dharma heirs was Eugene Bush, my teacher. Katherine’s book is a selection of transcribed dharma talks and reflects the depth of her practice. I found that having some familiarity with the teachings of the Buddha and some experience with seated meditation enriched my reading, but I think readers can still get a lot out of it without any of that background. Even with my familiarity, I know this is a text I’ll return to over the years and am sure I’ll discover new layers on each successive visit. A thread running through Katherine’s teachings is the encouragement to face the circumstances of our lives as they are, to “stop arguing with life for being life”. I won’t attempt to say more about that here and Katherine does a much better job than I could anyways. If you find that phrase stokes your curiosity or you’re looking for something to read that may help you navigate the insanity of the world we’re living in, The Truth of This Life is short, approachable, and memorable.

The Warm Hands of Ghosts – Katherine Arden

I was floored by the Winternight Trilogy when I read it in 2019. Katherine Arden’s new novel brings that same blend of mythology and painstakingly researched historical fiction to World War I. It’s rapturous. It’s brutal. It’s incredibly moving. It’s an underworld story – a tale of love, loss, and the lights we can be to each other in dark places when all other lights go out. When I think of The Warm Hands of Ghosts, I hear the chorus of one of my favorite songs from Hadestown: wait for me, I’m coming.

Those are the highlights. As for this year, I started the year by rewarding and then immediately punishing myself: first up was Zachary Zane’s inspiring memoir / manifesto Boyslut, a rare dose of relatable writing by a fellow bisexual. (Not rare in that it’s relatable, rare in that it exists. I’d love to read more bi authors. Please drop any recs in the comments below!) I really went for it by immediately following that with reading The Parable of the Sower for the first time, just in time for the inauguration and ensuing chaos. I would both highly recommend and really not recommend reading that book right now. It’s painfully prescient and particularly poignant for those of us living in Humboldt, the last hope and final destination of the book’s arduous journey. The brilliance of Robert Egger’s Nosferatu sent me into the pages of Carmilla for the first time and back to Dracula for the first time in a long time. Next up, I’m excited to dive into But: Life Isn’t Like That, Is It? by Boff Whalley of Chumbawumba in anticipation of his reading at Northtown Books next month.

If you’d like to see the other books I read in 2024 and years previous, click the images below for the full lists. What books kept you turning their pages last year? What are you excited to check out this year? My to-be-read list is ever expanding and I’m always rarin’ to receive recommendations.