by Joe Miller,
Director of Development
Happy New Year!
I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today. As I write this column, it’s the week before Christmas and this is the last Library Lines I’ll write in 2024. That seems like a good time to look back on the year in books.
Last January, I set myself a goal of reading a book each week—52 over the course of the year.
I should hit 74 by the end of the year. That’s not quite a record—I read more than 100 during the pandemic lockdown year, when there was little else available to do. Normal years are closer to 45.
My jobs require reading a lot of nonfiction, so my pleasure reading is mostly novels. I read 64 of those, mostly on my Kindle. An e-reader is my preferred way of reading fiction. It’s light, doesn’t require a hand to hold open the pages—helpful, given that I read while eating breakfast and lunch most days—and it has adjustable text. (A curse of middle age is that print gets smaller every year.)
My book-length nonfiction reading was light this year—just seven books, one of which was a re-read. Almost all of my nonfiction reading was about West Virginia. JD Vance’s selection as vice presidential candidate prompted me to re-read Hillbilly Elegy, which in turn led me to Appalachian Reckoning, a series of essays written in response to Vance’s book.
I rounded out my reading with three plays—one of which I performed in (Tom Dulack’s Breaking Legs), but I’m counting it because, hey, I did read the entire thing!
Most years, the majority of my reading is science fiction, and I certainly read some of it this year. Exit Strategy and System Collapse—the two most recent novels in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries series—were back-to-back January reads.
But once I got started working with the library, folks began asking me for book recommendations. So, I thought it seemed like a good time to explore some other popular genres.
While I’m not usually a big fan of horror, I did really enjoy Mira Grant’s Newsflesh novels featuring intrepid reporters and lots of zombies. Feed Back is a solid, standalone entry in the Newsflesh universe. Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds convinced me to add Black River Orchard to my reading list for 2025. Douglas Preston’s Extinction straddles the line between horror and thriller.
Earlier this year, I reviewed the 6:20 Man, David Baldacci’s answer to Jack Reacher. In The Edge, the 6:20 man’s Travis Devine investigates a series of murders in rural Maine. In the interest of making proper comparisons, I checked out The Secret, which is approximately the 752 book in the Jack Reacher series. (Wikipedia tells me it’s actually the 28th entry, though the second chronologically.)
I encountered 14 Evelyns this year: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is an historical drama novel from Taylor Jenkins Reid, part of Reid’s “famous women quartet.” The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a locked room mystery with a Groundhog Day twist—the protagonist relives the day of a murder seven times from seven different perspectives.
Romantasy is a relatively new genre, popularized by Sarah J. Mass’ best-selling A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing features a plucky heroine, a tall-dark (literally)-and-handsome love interest, dragons, and fairly extended NSFW scenes. A third book in the series is due out in 2025.
And speaking of 2025, my reading list includes John Scalzi’s When the Moon Hits Your Eye, The Mercy of Gods from James S.A. Corey—the writing duo responsible for the Expanse series—and Olivia Waite’s Murder by Memory, an Agatha Christie style mystery set on an interstellar passenger ship.
Anything you’re looking forward to reading this year?
Be sure to let us know so we can order a copy for the library.
In the meantime, here’s to another year of reading!