My Top Reads of 2024

Five favorites, a mystery book ranking, and reading goals for 2025

I unironically love all the Top Reads of the Year posts that pop up around this time. One of my primary hobbies is reading, and I always love adding new books to my never-ending TBR list. What avid reader doesn’t? That is why, not only am I going to share my reading highlights of 2024 with you, but we have also asked a few of our bookish friends to share theirs as well. So over the course of the next month, you’ll get a number of different book suggestions from a number of different readers, which means there’s sure to be something you’ll enjoy as well. Get your wish lists ready! Without further ado, here’s the first list, by yours truly.

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This year, I read more books than I have in many years, blowing my goal of 45 books out of the water with a whopping 63. Of these, only 13 were rereads, which is an unusually low number for me, as I am a chronic re-reader. However good those books may be, (and they were great- Mansfield Park, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Hobbit, The Silver Chair, The House at Pooh Corner, etc), I never consider these for my top 5 list of the year, since I don’t want my lists to cycle through the same books every time.

This year was mystery novel heavy, as I read 14 different mysteries this year, mostly following along with the Close Reads podcast list, plus a few others thrown in. I love mysteries, and I loved having a short and easy book every month to break up the big books I read. While I am not choosing any of them for my top five, I am going to give you a ranking of those at the bottom of the article. It was also a year heavy in homeschool reads (as every year will likely be for the foreseeable future). Highlights in this category were D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths, Jennie Hall’s Viking Tales, and Rosemary Sutcliffe’s retellings of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I also loved reading Nicky Raven’s Beowulf and Emma Sterne’s King Arthur. Sharing these classic myths and legends with my daughter has truly been our favorite part of school.

A few other honorable mentions before we get into the official top 5: The Road by Cormac McCarthy was haunting and dark but so good and so beautiful. I’ve thought about that book many times since closing it. The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri was a delightful and fun children’s story with a perfect opening line (“The first time I was stoned to death by an angry mob, I was not even a criminal.”) Finally, I wrote an entire article about Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont already, but suffice it to say that it only missed the top five by a hair’s breadth. I have thought about that book weekly ever since reading it, which you’ll keep hearing me say because it is something I love in a good book. Which brings us to the top 5:

• The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis. It feels laughable that I had never read this before, but yet it felt like I had because of just how much other Lewis I’ve read and loved. This is the non-fiction counterpart to one of my favorite novels ever, That Hideous Strength, and I think it’s a must read for anyone interested in education or modernity (and you should be interested in both!) I especially loved the debunking of debunking and the famous discussion of ‘men without chests.’ He reminds those of us involved in education of any kind that the goal of education is to teach a child to love things as they ought. “The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likable, disgusting, and hateful.”

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. If it seems like everyone is reading this book right now, that’s because everyone should read this book. This book describes the mental health crisis young people are dealing with today, shows how it is a direct result of the rewiring of childhood from play-based to phone-based, and describes what we can do about it. This book is written from an evolutionary worldview, which gets a little tiring at times. However, I think it is such an important book, dealing with topics that everyone needs to consider and come to terms with, that I am wholeheartedly recommending it despite the atheistic worldview. Smart phones, social media, and safetyism are making us worse, and there are things we can do about it. Seriously, go out and buy this book today, read through it, mark it up, and talk about it. You won’t regret it. I read this with one of my bookclubs, and we got hours and hours of great discussion out of it.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. A post-apocalypse story about monks told in three parts? I was frankly not expecting this book to have the impact on me that it did. This was the first book I finished in 2024 and it has haunted me ever since. I loved seeing the church play a prominent role in a post-post-apocalpyitc story for once, and found it both full of despair and full of hope. There are so many heavy, difficult questions brought up in this book, and some very interesting answers given and suggested. While I do think there are some flaws to it, I can’t possibly leave it off my list when it has stayed with me all twelve months of the year. My reading list features heavily the tension between scientific progress and humanity/spirituality, and this book fits right in with that conversation.

• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. I read this novel at the recommendation and loan of a friend while I was in the hazy newborn days in bed. It was a perfect read. It tells the story of two couples and their friendship together, in a beautiful and melancholy story. You might say nothing much happens in the story, just as you might say nothing much happens in a Jane Austen story, but only if you miss entirely what it is actually about. I thought this book was a profound and beautiful meditation on friendship and literature and art and place. The descriptions of the land were breathtaking, the characters were wonderfully drawn, and the relationships between them were painfully, sweetly true, without ever lapsing into the realm of the saccharine. I bought it for myself immediately, and I can’t wait to read it again.

• Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. Of course this was going to be my number one read of the year. I spent so much time on this book, both in reading its 900-some pages and in thinking about it constantly. I was so engrossed and taken in to this story. I was frequently on the edge of my seat, begging the characters to make good decisions, and reading between my fingers to see what would happen next. This book reminded me of reading Anna Karenina, in that both books had a chokehold on me despite being intimidating long classics. I talked about it so much, and needed to talk about it more, so I convinced my husband to read it this year also. I adore this book. The world building of medieval Norway is immaculate. The characters are so human and so real. I loved following Kristin for good or for ill through her life story, and I am seriously tempted to read it all again already now. There is so much to say and think about regarding this book, that I truly think I could read it a hundred times and never reach the end of what it has to offer.

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If you are a mystery novel lover as well, here is my ranking of the 14 (mostly) new to me reads of the year:

Top tier:

The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey

The Chill by Ross Macdonald

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

Mid tier:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley

Post after Post-Mortem by E.C.R. Lorac

Bottom tier:

Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers

Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G. K. Chesterton

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

The Maid by Nita Prose

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My goals for the new year? I hope to read 60 books again, including my staple of at least one Tolkien, Lewis, Austen and Education book. I’m going to attempt to finally tackle and finish War and Peace by reading a chapter a day (I’ve failed to get into this book at least three times, but maybe this approach will work). As usual, I plan to read along with the Close Reads podcast again, keep up with my other book clubs, and fit in some reads on my own TBR as well.

We’d love to hear about the highlights of your 2024 reading life as well! Leave us a comment below! And look for more book lists in the coming month, from many other perspectives!