Best Books of 2024 --- After analyzing 39 end-of-year lists -- THE TOP 50!

 The 50 Best Books of 2024

Today I am sticking my neck out and exclaiming that I have discovered the top 50 books of 2024 by examining 39 end-of-year-best books lists. The sources used for this list came from a variety of places -- newspapers (ex: The NY Times), book review sites (ex: Kirkus Reviews), magazines (ex: Atlantic), book award sites (ex: National Book Award), public libraries (ex: Chicago Public Library), and a few commercial sites (Barnes and Noble). Some of the lists were short -- "Five best books of the year." [Five Books] While others were long -- "NPR --350+ books we love from 2024!" Both the too short and way too long weren't as helpful to me as lists of 50 to 100 books. Those lists seemed true. They had a variety of genres, fiction/nonfiction, and reflected different interests.

My methodology: Starting the first of December I searched sites which had created end-of-the-year-best-books lists in previous years. My first stop was Publisher's Weekly. This is a good place to start since the website is attractively organized and is user friendly, not requiring a lot of reading. I opened a spreadsheet and started typing. All adult fiction books got their own line at this stage of the game, later if a new book showed up on a list and I'd never seen it on any other list I would debate adding it or not, but in the beginning of the process I added all fiction books listed and some of the nonfiction. Even though I tried really hard to figure out which books I should add or not my spreadsheet still had over 60 titles listed from one source only and my whole list had over 200 titles on it. I admit my process was flawed because I wasn't willing to type out every book I saw on every list, call it laziness, but I am sure at least my top eleven titles are right on. These books showed up on so many lists, over and over.

A few more points I'd like to make before the big reveal--

1.  There are only four nonfiction books on the list. I was much more haphazard about searching for and marking down nonfiction titles than I was fiction. If the publication segregated out the nonfiction into a separate list, often I wouldn't even look at it. The four nonfiction book titles are italicized. These four percolated to the top of my list but I speak with less authority about their place on the list than for the fiction titles. I am not really sure if they are the best of the best nonfiction of 2024. 
2. *Orbital, Good Material, and Held showed up on several lists even though they were published in November or December 2023. I kept them on the list because they kept showing up on others' lists. I don't know the rules about what qualifies. Is it standard practice to include books published so late in the previous year? I don't know.
3. Lastly, looking over the list I find myself racing to add at least ten of the 50 books to my TBR but I know from past experience, just because a book is listed here doesn't mean it is going to be a good fit for me. I still need to do my homework before I decide if it is a book which will work for me and my reading preferences. I've only read five books out of the 50 listed. I am not making personal recommendations here, with one exception: JAMES. It was by far the book most likely to end up on a Best Books of 2024 list. It is astonishing how many times it was listed. Only eight publications didn't name it and it made me wonder about those publications. "What is wrong with them," I thought. The book is THAT good.

Title	Author	Total BB-2024 Lists
James	Percival Everett	31
Martyr!	Kaveh Akbar	23
All Fours	Miranda July	21
Creation Lake	Rachel Kushner	18
The God of the Woods	Liz Moore	18
Intermezzo	Sally Rooney	16
The Ministry of Time	Kaliane Bradley	15
Colored Television	Danzy Senna	13
Long Island Compromise	Taffy Brodesser-Akner	13
My Friends	Hisham Matar	12
Playground	Richard Powers	12
Rejection	Tony Tulathimutte	11
The Safekeep	Yael van der Wouden	11
Small Rain	Garth Greenwell	11
Wandering Stars	Tommy Orange	11
Orbital*	Samantha Harvey	10
The Familiar	Leigh Bardugo	10
The Book of Love	Kelly Link	9
The Bright Sword	Lev Grossman	9
The Coin	Yasmin Zaher	9
Headshot	Rita Bullwinkel	9
Knife!: Meditations After an Attempted Murder	Salman Rushdie	9
You Dreamed of Empires	Alvaro Enrigue	9
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space	Adam Higginbotham	8
Glorious Exploits	Ferdia Lennon	8
Good Material*	Dolly Alderton	8
Held*	Anne Michaels	8
Long Island	Colm Tóibín	8
The Mighty Red	Louise Erdrich	8
Our Evenings	Alan Hollinghurst	8
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension	Hanif Abdurraqib	8
Be Ready When the Luck Happens: a Memoir	Ina Garten	7
The City and It's Uncertain Wall	Haruki Murakami	7
Clear	Carys Davies	7
Enlightenment	Sarah Perry	7
Funny Story	Emily Henry	7
Great Expectations	Vinson Cunningham	7
The Hunter	Tana French	7
Tell Me Everything	Elizabeth Strout	7
This Strange Eventful History	Claire Messud	7
Wedding People	Alison Espach	7
Anita de Monte Laughs Last	Xochitl Gonzales	6
Entitlement	Rumaan Alam	6
Fire Exit	Morgan Talty	6
The Husbands	Holly Gramazio	6
The Hypocrite	Jo Hamya	6
Sandwich	Catherine Newman	6
Someone Like Us	Dinaw Mengistu	6
A Sunny Place for Shady People	Mariana Enriquez	6
Wild Houses	Colin Barrett	6

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

If you have a favorite book of 2024 and it isn't listed here, make a comment below and I'll look on the list for its placement and let you know.

Update: highlighted titles are books I've completed by 2/1/25.

-Anne

Review: PIRANESI

Title: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Book Beginnings quote: 

When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of Three Tides.

Friday56 quote:

They were all enamoured with the idea of progress and believed that whatever was new must be superior to what was old. As if merit was a function of chronology!

Summary: 

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Review: I decided to read Piranesi for a variety of reasons. One, though I don't recall anyone's actual review of the book, I had a general feeling everyone loved it. And when I peeked at what others' said in their Goodreads reviews, I was right. Two, Piranesi is offered as a book club kit at my library and the thought struck me that some librarian somewhere thought this would be a good discussion book. I like books I can talk about. And lastly, I noted Piranesi won the Women's Prize in 2021 and since I am making an effort to read the past winners, it was a no-brainer I should read it sooner than later.

My husband and I decided to listen to it on a recent car trip, thinking it was short enough we could finish it on the roundtrip. I had no idea, one doesn't see the printed words when listening, that the book was full of capitalizations seen in the opening quote. The main character, Piranesi, which is not really his name but you don't learn what his real name is until late in the book, writes in a journal every day. Perhaps the frequent use of capitalizations is meant to show us that the journal is for personal writing. Who follows all the rules of grammar in their own personal journals? Someone on the Internet said it is meant to represent another world. Well, Piranesi lives in a different world, that is for sure. His world is a house made up of an infinite number of rooms, halls, floors, and vestibules. It also has an ocean inside the house and when the tides are just right (or wrong) they can cause terrible flooding. The house is also filled with millions of unique statues, like the one on the cover of a faun playing an instrument. Piranesi loves the house and feels responsible for taking care of it, as best he can.

Now I must admit based on my summary the book sounds boring. Piranesi walking around in different rooms endlessly. A book about nothing. But this book is full of drama and a mystery. It is also about misconceptions, love, acceptance, and friendship. But as another blogging friend, Jinger, said in her comment on Goodreads, I'm not going to tell you anything about the good stuff because I want to read it for yourself and experience it without preconceived expectations. My husband and I had no idea what we should expect. It took us a while to adjust to fantasy -- you know, get a picture in our heads of what the house was like -- and we had to stop the audiobook several times to discuss aspects of the story. But we both ended up really liking the book and felt the story ended on just the right note.

Rating: 4 stars from both of us.

-Anne

TTT: Books Where Snow is Featured In the Story

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Where Snow is Featured In the Story

It doesn't snow much around here so sometimes I have to experience snow through books!

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

Gather by Kenneth Cadow 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Miracle Christmas Dog by Dave Barry

"Master and Man" by Leo Tolstoy

The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen

-Anne

Sunday Salon --- Stuff!

Too many mugs

Weather: RAIN.

Stuff #1 --  We put out our Christmas decorations this week. Most of those decorations are stored in five storage tubs which we lug in from the shed once a year. As we open each tub we paw through to find the favored decorations and place them around the house in particular spots. The non-favored items seem to live endlessly in the tubs, never getting pulled out to decorate the house. Why do we keep this stuff? Clearly one of the reason is sentimentality -- "Oh, here is the ornament C. made in daycare." "Oh look, here is the sweet decoration we bought our first year of marriage." "I remember when your grandma gave us this bobble." -- Other decorations were given to us by relatives and we wouldn't want them to think we aren't grateful, even if they probably don't remember giving us that gift. So why keep them. Every year we say we are going to sort through the decorations in the tubs and offload the stuff but by the time we are putting things away in January, we don't feel like taking the extra time and just cram stuff back in for another year. Ha!

Stuff #2 -- My mother, aged 95, has been sorting and off-loading her stuff for years. She still lives on her own but wants to see her treasures rehomed while she is still alive so she can enjoy them in their new homes when she visits. Every time we drop by she has a little pile of items she wants to go though, hoping we will take her old stuff to our house. Most of the items in the piles are indeed stuff -- dusty candles, linens with stains, stemware with chips -- but every once in a while there is a treasure or two. This past week she gave my grandsons, her great-grandsons, a pile of old children's books. Not sure all of these are special books, but my daughter was delighted to see Moses the Kitten by James Herriot. It was one of her childhood favorites. Diamonds in the rough.

Stuff #3 -- Like mother, like daughter. I've started off-loading my stuff onto my daughters, too, though on a much smaller scale. Rita inherited old cookie cutters from me last week. I tried to get her to take the jello molds and Rice Crispy treats molds, too, but she was not tricked. Carly willingly took my unique gourd nativity set from the tub where it has lived for a few years. But she couldn't help teasing me for turning into my mother as an off-loader of stuff.

Stuff #4 -- Over a year ago we moved a lot of stuff out of our bonus room, where old stuff had gone to die for years. We were getting new carpet so we boxed up everything and put the boxes in the garage. We never moved the stuff back and they are still in the boxes in the garage. A few weeks ago I contemplated out loud how we should just throw the boxes out without looking inside. We lived for all this time without missing the stuff. Why not?

Stuff #5 -- Thinking about stuff has got me noticing all the stuff. Right before the housekeeper was set to arrive, I looked around my kitchen and noticed all the stuff on the counter. This is the stuff I use frequently but have no room in the cupboards because of the stuff I don't use that is taking up space. Stuff like the espresso maker we haven't used for years; the George Foreman grill which we used to use all the time when my husband was serving in the military overseas but haven't used since then; the teacups and saucers that match my dishes but we don't use because everyone prefers to use coffee mugs; and then the plethora of mugs in general. Here is an irony -- I have a variety of boxes of teabags I don't use which were given to me by my sister because she didn't like them. Oh man, everyone is moving their stuff around.

Stuff, a plan -- Today, coincidentally, I read one of my old blog posts where I talked about a project I was doing during of the 40 days of Lent that year. I got rid of a bag of stuff every day. 40 bags in 40 days. Lent is the season before Easter. This coming year Lent starts on March 5th. I commit right now to getting rid of 40 bags (grocery bag size, not garbage bags) of stuff before Easter. Hold me to it.

Don and his brother talking football.

Football and soup: We have technically entered the soup time of year. We try to eat a nice warm bowl of soup every evening for our dinner. If you have a favorite soup recipe, please share! / Football. Our team UO Ducks, is doing well. Saturday evening (today) they play for the league championship. If all goes well, they will be in the 12-team tournament. Fingers crossed. Don is absolutely in his element these days.

Books: If I remember correctly, I offloaded several bags of books to the library for their book sales during my last 40 in 40 challenge. Glancing over at my bookshelf which I can see from where I sit, it is clearly time to tidy it up and bag up books for a donation. 

Here is what I am reading right now:

• Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford. Published in the 1930s, the book is certainly a look at a bygone era. I meant to read this during November for my novella challenge. Print. 14%.
• Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. Another short book I'd hope to read in November. As you know, Rushdie was nearly killed by a knife attack. He lost an eye. This is a look at his life and reflections since that event. Print. 19%.
• The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende. A book club selection. Audio. 40%.

Books I've recently finished:

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. A Women's Prize winner. What a special book. Audio.
• Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss. A National Book Award finalist. Print.
• How to Be More Tree by Liz Marvin. One of those cute little inspirational books which is illustrated. Love it. Print.

Blog posts you may have missed:

• Six Degrees of Separation from Sandwich to ...
• Review: How to Be Both
• TTT: Christmas/Holiday Books I'd Like to Read/Reread
• Novellas in November Wrap-Up
• Review: The Women in the Castle

The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Award: If you need a smile today, visit this website to enjoy photos of all the comedy wildlife antics. Here is my favorite:

Christina Haines. "Saying my prayers."

Vote: Which books should I read for my One Big Book 2025 Challenge? Help me decide!

-Anne 

6-Degrees of Separation -- from SANDWICH to ...

It’s time for #6degrees of separation. We all start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where we end up.

This week I created a spreadsheet of Best Books of 2024 End-of-the-Year 

(BBEOTY) lists. I found seventeen lists, to be precise. All the books on this 6-degrees list are mentioned on some of these lists. 

Six Degrees of Separation

Today we state with 

↓

Sandwich by Catherine Newman. Is on five of the best-books-end-of-the-year (BBEOTY) lists so far. My book club is considering this one for an upcoming meeting.
↓

Playground by Richard Powers. Is another book the my club is considering. It is on six of the BBEOTY lists. This is a favorite author of mine.

↓

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. Another book with six BBEOTY mentions. This is also written by a favorite author. 

↓

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. I hadn't heard of this books until I started looking at the BBEOTY. This book is on seven lists. It is a collection of interconnected stories.

↓

You Like It Darker by Stephen King. Another story collection. This one by a very popular author but not on as many BBEOTY lists, only two.

↓

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Another very popular author. But this book is on eight BBEOTY lists.

↓

James by Percival Everett. The only book on this list I've read. It is one of the best books of the year. It's on thirteen BBEOTY lists. It is also our next book club selection.

-Anne

Review: HOW TO BE BOTH

Title: How to Be Both by Ali Smith

Book Beginnings quote: EYES, page 1

Friday56 quote: EYES, p. 47

Summary: 

How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance.

A NOTE TO THE READER:
Who says stories reach everybody in the same order?
This novel can be read in two ways and this book provides you with both.
In half of all printed editions of the novel the narrative EYES comes before CAMERA. In the other half of printed editions the narrative CAMERA precedes EYES. The narratives are exactly the same in both versions, just in a different order.

Review: Oh boy. This book is unique. First, you can start it at the heading CAMERA or EYES. Together the two sides make up a complete story told from a different vantage point. The audiobook I listened to began at CAMERA which is a more modern story of a girl who is deep in grief after the death of her mother, thinking back when she and her mother interacted with art. One episode led them to Italy to visit a fresco done by a group of artists where one artist's work was clearly better than the others in the room. After finishing the CAMERA side I listened to the EYE side, which was the story of that good artist, what life was like during the Renaissance for artists. The first quote is when this artist is pulled into the 21st century and can see the girl as she goes about her daily life beginning with her sitting in front of a painting in an art museum.

The book is extremely clever and odd, frustrating and satisfying, and very unique. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I began the book and from the audio I heard the directions about starting at CAMERA or EYES. Oh boy, hang on, I thought. Why did I pick How to Be Both? Earlier in the year I set myself a challenge to read the winner or finalist for the last decade of Women's Prize Book Award winners. How to Be Both won the prize in 2015. It also won a ton of other awards that year, obviously because the book is so unique. It also ended up on the NYT list of 100 best books of the 21st century. I am attempting to some read books from that list, too, so I double-dipped with my selection of How to Be Both. That said, just because a book wins an award or ends up on a prestigious list doesn't make it popular or easy-to-read. And How to Be Both is not easy to read, as evidenced by the (pages-long) poem which starts the EYES half of the book. I think listening to the audiobook helped prevent some confusion but might have caused other issues. For one, I wasn't aware of the poem format, which may have been a blessing. And look at the punctuation in the second quote with all those colons. There are no colons in audiobooks!

An interesting side note: the photo on the cover of the two women makes it into the storyline several times. I found myself looking at that photo over and over again. Once again, the versatility of art!

My rating: 3.5. I liked the book but didn't fully understand it.

-Anne

TTT: Christmas/Holiday Stories I'd Like to Read or Reread

Top Ten Tuesday: Christmas/Holiday Stories I'd Like to Read (for the first time) or Reread (again and again)

I grew up in a household where How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Seuss) and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Robinson) were read aloud every year, year after year. I've heard them both so many times I'm sure I could recite them word-for-word from memory. Several years ago I added a third must-read holiday book to the mix: The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Miracle Christmas Dog (Barry). Will I read them, all three, again this year? Yes! Will I ever get sick of them? Never! That said, variety is the spice of life and I am ready to add more holiday-themed books to my yearly repertoire. Here are a few I want to read or reread this year:

The Mitford Snowman: A Christmas Story by Jan Kanon. Years ago I read several books in the Mitford series and I'm sure there will be recognizable characters in this short, 23 page booklet. I just got a copy from the library today so I can safely say this one will get read this year..

 

Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford. Set in England between the 1st and 2nd wars, published in 1932. This author was recommended to me by another person participating in the Novellas in November Challenge. I have also received a copy of this book from the library so it is likely I will read it for the first time in 2024.

The Autobiography of Santa Claus As told to Jeff Guinn. This book is right up my alley. A little mythology mixed with a bit of real history. I am checking my library to see if they have an available copy to borrow.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Believe it or not I read this Christmas classic for the first time ever this year. I was obviously very familiar with the story but still found out a few new parts of the story, which delighted me.

The Secret History of Christmas by Bill Bryson. Only available in audio format. Read by the author. This was the first book I finished in 2024 and I'm ready to listen to it again this Christmas season. I actually learned a lot first time through it. 

A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd. Pulling stories from several volumes of stories by the author and gathering them together to make up this book and the movie we all know and love. I've read this several times. Maybe 2024 would be a good year for a reread of this hilarious gem.

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg. Every book I've read by this author, I've loved. I am pretty sure I had this book in my high school library so it is shocking I never read it during my days as a librarian. Time to change that. 

A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote. Just last week I read this story collection about holiday memories by Capote. What remarkable stories! What a remarkable author. Since I bought a used copy of this book I bet this book, of all the books I've listed, will become my must-read holiday book.

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke. A new book by a new-to-me author. I just finished Piranesi today and then saw this book. Adding it to my TBR and getting in line for the library copy!

Dinosaur vs. Santa by Bob Shea. I discovered this book last Christmas and read it with my grandsons. They loved it and read through the whole series of Dinosaur vs. books with their parents. When I saw it at the library today I snapped it up immediately and had a fun reread with my youngest grandson. "Dinosaur wins!"

What holiday book(s) do you read/reread often? Please leave a comment for me. Help me expand my holiday reading options. Thanks.

-Anne

Novellas in November Wrap-Up

Novellas in November is over for 2024 and I had a very successful month of reading. It even surprised me to note how many books I was able to read and review. 

In total I completed 19 novellas, or short books. I DNF'd one book. I reviewed all but one of the books. To my delight I was able to finish several classic novellas which have long resided on my TBR pile: A Christmas Carol, Giovanni's Room, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Turn of the Screw, A Room of One's Own. I read several books I never would have picked up if not for this challenge (All Systems Red, A Strange Library) and found new favorites (Foster, Truman Capote's Stories, Orbital). I even read the best novel noone has ever heard of: Pedro Páramo. It was a good month!

Here are my reviews, many posted in batches of three:

1-2-3: Review batch number one:

A Christmas Carol by Dickens

Dept. of Speculation by Offill

A Strange Library by Murakami

4-5-6 Review batch two, all classics:

Giovanni's Room by Baldwin

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy

The Postman Always Rings Twice by Cain

7-8-9 Review batch three:

Foster by Keegan

Buffalo Dream by Duncan

All Systems Red by Wells

10 Single review and group read:

Orbital by Harvey

11 Single Classic review:

The Turn of the Screw by James

12-13-14 Review batch four:

Whereabouts by Lahiri

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by King

House Made of Dawn by Momaday

15 Single Classic review:

Pedro Páramo by Rulfo

16-17-18 Review batch five:

Truman Capote Stories (A Christmas Memory; One Christmas; and The Thanksgiving Visitor)

A Room of One's Own by Woolf

Another Brooklyn by Woodson

-Anne

Three Novella Reviews: TRUMAN CAPOTE STORIES; A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN; ANOTHER BROOKLYN

Today is November 30th. It is my last chance to highlight three more novellas completed this month. And what a way to go out.

Truman Capote: A Christmas Memory. One Christmas & The Thanksgiving Visitor. Modern Library, 1996. 107 pages.

Taking its place next to Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood on the bookshelf is this new and original edition of Capote's most famous short stories: "A Christmas Memory, " "One Christmas, " and "The Thanksgiving Visitor." All three stories are distinguished by Capote's delicate interplay of childhood sensibility and recollective vision, evoking a strong sense of place. (Publisher)

I dropped by a used bookstore the other day, looking for a gift for my mother, a 95-year-old voracious reader. I found a few good books I know she will like but while I was perusing the shelves for one more, to round out the lot, this used Truman Capote short story collection caught my eye. I've read, in fact, I own a copy of "A Christmas Story," but was not familiar with the other two stories. Of particular interest to me was "The Thanksgiving Visitor" since we just celebrated that holiday. Since my husband was driving I started it before we left the store's parking lot. I completed the book this morning, devouring all three stories before handing it over to Mom.

Truman Capote had an especially hard childhood. One bereft of love from either parent. As a very young child he was shunted off to live with his mother's relatives in Alabama and there he found love and solace from a distant cousin, Miss. Sook, a 60-year-old who was very much like a child. Capote considered her his best friend. All three of the stories involve his adventures with Miss Sook. In "A Christmas Memory", Buddy, as he was called, and his friend make fruitcake and prepare for Christmas. Neither task was easy because it was The Depression and money was scarce. But the love and the fun were abundant. In "One Christmas," Buddy has to travel to New Orleans by himself to spend the holidays with his father, who he barely knows. His friend enticed him to go with the promise of possible snow. Buddy had his belief in Santa Claus shaken by a father who did not believe in magic. In the last story, "The Thanksgiving Visitor," Miss Sook invites Odd Henderson to join their family for Thanksgiving dinner. Odd is Buddy's tormentor at school and he wants nothing to do with the bully. Thanks to his best friend, a truce of sorts is reached and lesson is learned.

I loved all three stories and I hope to add this book to my Christmas-book reading rotation next year, after I retrieve this copy of the book from my mother.

Though not officially a novella, I am counting it as part of my Novellas in November challenge. At 107 pages it looks and feels like a novella.

Rating: 5 stars

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. Harper Collins, 2016. 175 pages.

Running into a long-ago friend sets memories from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them.

But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion. (Publisher)

I finished up my Novellas in November challenge with an author I am very familiar with, Jacqueline Woodson. This book, Another Brooklyn, is her first foray into adult fiction, but it is every way just as poetic as her poetry-in-prose novels and memoirs meant for teens and preteens. Those books, however, were more straightforward. I found this book confusing as the narrator wanders around in her memory circling around the question of what happened to her mother. None of the characters were fully fleshed out, either, so when bad/sad/frustrating things happened to them I felt little compassion or empathy as a reader. Set during the early 1970s, there were a few cultural references to the events of the times, but most didn't really impact the story so their mention was just window dressing. Honestly, I like Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming much better than this book if you are thinking of giving this author a try.

My rating: 3.5 stars.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Original publisher: Hogarth Press, 1929. 112 pages. Audiobook published by Fort Raphael Publishing Co., 2025. [Not a typo. This is the date stated on the audiobook.]

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister. A sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary women never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. If only she had found the means to create, argues Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those without. Her message is a simple one: women must have some money and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create. (Publisher)

In 1928 Woolf was asked to give a series of lectures at Newnham and Girton colleges on the topic of 'Women and Fiction.' This small volume is a collection of essays based on those lectures. Though the book has a fictional narrator who tells the story of not only the research Woolf did in preparation but also her opinions about other female writers, of whom only Jane Austen and Emily Bronte gained her praise. The book is considered nonfiction, shelved in the social science section of a library, specifically under feminist literature. Technically, it is not a novella either, but we were assured tby hosts of Novellas in November that nonfiction titles were allowed. Woolf is a spectacular writer.

I don't know how I managed to live over 60 years without reading this classic very feminist book about what women need to be self-sufficient and equal to men in power and talent. Even a hundred years after these essays were written we are still struggling to reach a true level of equality, which completely gauls me. In fact, I couldn't help thinking of the results of the 2024 US election being, at least in part, due to misogyny. Grr. 

I started out reading the print edition but found it very difficult to read due to the pages-long paragraphs. I switched to the audio version, narrated by Sara Nichols. Since I purchased it with an Audible credit I can urge my daughters to listen to it and there will be no impediment to their access. I want my daughters to grow up believing they can do anything they want, not held back by their gender. I also want to reread it in a year or two as I'm sure I will get plenty of new insights from it on each reading.

My rating: 5 stars.

-Anne