How has your week been? What have you been reading lately? I took a few weeks off so I haven’t done a weekly catchup since week 48 but it was much needed. I’ve read quite a few books since then but I’ll mention The Cybernetic Tea Shop, Meredith Katz – a very cute, very short scifi novella, and the mystery novel, Talking to Strangers, Fiona Barton. This wasn’t my favorite book by Barton (that would be The Child … or The Suspect), but I still really enjoyed it. Now on to the 10+ things I bookmarked recently.
one+ Goodreads Your Year of Books is out. This is where Goodreasd does a nice graphic and gives some stats about the books you’ve read this year (and it updates through the rest of the year). Mine says so far I’ve read 60 books (including novellas), the most shelved book I’ve read is The Guest List, Lucy Foley and the least is Nameless, Dean Koontz (a collection of 6 Kindle only short stories available free to Prime members).
two+ Also, since I last did a recap – the winners of the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards were announced. I was underwhelmed this year, but it’s a nice list to see what all the cool kids are reading – and pick out something that you might like too – or avoid them like the plague!
three+ Thanks to Predicting For My EOY Reading I found out about the Amazon holiday short story collection – Under the Mistletoe. It’s free to Prime members and includes 5 short stories by Ali Hazelwood, Tessa Bailey, Olivia Dade, Alexandria Bellefleur and Alexis Daria. Now, I’m not usually one to do Christmas themed books, but I’m intrigued enough to try these out.
four+ The other holiday themed read I have on my radar is The Mistletoe Mystery (Molly the Maid, #2.5), Nita Prose. I read the other 2 books in the Molly Maid series earlier this year, and I’m all about another short mystery with Molly. Libro.fm Best Holiday Audiobooks: Top Picks to Enjoy is also a gold mine of holiday themed romance recommendations if you’re into that genre.
five+ I’m looking forward to read more horror books as a goal again next year, and adding some books from this list of Most Anticipated Horror of 2025. 2 new ones from authors I’m familiar with are Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones. And the cover for Black Flame, Gretchen Felker-Martin looks disturbingly good.
six+ Goodreads Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of 2025 breaks down what their users are looking forward to into different categories. I spy a new book by Fredrik Backman – YES to that. And S.A. Crosby. And a few other authors that I love. It looks like such an exciting year for readers.
seven+ LitHub’s 50 Biggest Literary Stories of 2024 is the roundup you need to read for the bookish stories of the year, but also with an introduction that summarizes other popular stuff that happened this year too. Some highlights for me – Romance Writers of America bankrupcy (due to lots of drama) | books became brat | romance bookstores boomed | authors opened bookstores | Neil Gaiman and Cormac McCarthy and Alice Munro … jeezus | Hugo Awards scandal … again | book bans and AI.
eight+ The person that compiles The Ultimate Best Books of 2024 List (well – it’s Emily Temple) is a saint! She processed 69 lists from 39 outlets, which collectively recommended more than 1,200 individual books – and these are the most recommended books. James, Percival Everett is the MOST recommended book making it onto 33 lists, followed by Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar and All Fours, Miranda July which made it onto 21 lists. Then Intermezzo, Sally Rooney which made it onto 20 lists. 90 books made 5 or more lists.
nine+ Which types of reviews help you decide what books to read? I get most recommendations from bloggers – and it’s typically the all caps and lots of exclamation points that get me. Seriously, if it sounds like a book that I would be into, and someone jut writes about how much they loved it harder than candy – that’s all it takes for me. Also, I’m an enthusiastic user of exclamation points myself, so I’m biased towards that form of communication.
ten+ Off the Books – What are you watching? I got in the Christmas movie season starting with My Dad’s Christmas Date (Netflix) and Nutcrackers (Hulu). Thanks to W’s Best TV shows of 2024, I’m now on to the 2nd season of Elsbeth. And seeing what I’m going to put on my 2025 watch list from the Most Anticipated Adaptations for 2025. See anything you want to read before it comes to the screen? Or you’ve read the book and can’t wait for the adaptation?
—- Cheers to the weekend and week ahead!
