November 2024 Wrap-Up and December TBR
Plus our next Booker of the Month pick(s) and upcoming releases on my radar
Hi, book friends.
November kicked my butt. 😅 Working full-time with the baby at home got harder week by week, which contributed to most of my brain chaos. Then add in my trip to NYC and the Thanksgiving holiday, and I currently feel like I’m behind on everything.
And yet! My heart — and camera roll — is full, and while I read fewer books than usual, they were all great (more on that below). But first, a few friendly reminders:
If you missed my recap of the National Book Awards after party, you can read it here
If you missed my big crowdsourced list of holiday gift ideas for bookworms that aren’t books, you can read it here
If you’re looking for gift ideas that ARE books, I’m giving personalized recommendations in our free Substack subscriber chat
This month’s Conversation Pusher is going to be Abortion by . Friendly reminder that if you buy the book using my Bookshop or Libro.fm affiliate links, the commissions will be donated to an abortion-related cause and I’ll be matching the total with a donation of my own.
OK, let’s dive in!
What I Read in November
I had an ambitious November TBR, but alas, I only managed to read six books. Although to be fair, The Bright Sword is almost 700 pages long, so surely that counts twice! (I told you I was determined to finally read that one in November, and I got it done. Please clap.)
And yet, while my pace felt slow, my frustration was mollified by the fact that the books I did read were excellent. Click each title for my full review.
Loved
What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson† 🎧: By far my favorite of the month. Probably my favorite audiobook of the year.
Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) by Robin Hobb 📖🎧: Feels like a classic fantasy in a good way. So excited to keep going!
Liked a lot
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood 📖: The mice will live unwelcome in my brain forever. The rest is more than welcome to stick around.
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman* 📖: A fantastic refresher on the concepts in Four Thousand Weeks, three years later.
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman† 📖🎧: Feels like a gift to our generation. And the more you know about Arthurian literature, the more you’ll like this.
Reread
Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2) by Rebecca Roanhorse† 📖🎧: Excited to buddy read Mirrored Heavens with @bibliomanicured in January!
*print copy gifted to me by the publisher
†audiobook gifted to me by the publisher
December TBR
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but I have a super ambitious TBR this month. 🙃 This list has 13 books on it, so chances are low I’ll get to them all — 10 is typically my sweet spot — but here’s what I’m pulling from.
I need to read 11 more books to hit 100 for 2024. I haven’t read less than that in many years, so I’m gonna try with all my might! (I do have a full week off for the holidays, so I’m maybe not QUITE as delusional as all that, but still. We’ll see.)
Fiction
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker*† (out this past Tuesday): A carryover from last month. I love Barker and am excited to read the end of this Greek retelling trilogy!
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor*† (out 1/14): Okorafor is a favorite author, so I’m not missing her latest.
We Do Not Part by Han Kang* (out 1/21): A new novel by this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature? Sign me up.
The Bone Season (The Bone Season, #1) by Samantha Shannon: A carryover from last month. I am eager to start this series as the fifth book comes out in late February!
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst*†: Another carryover. Everyone is raving about this!
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang*†: Yet another carryover. But it sounds so good!
Nonfiction
Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti†: This month’s Conversation Pusher.
How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom by Johanna Hedva: I’ve heard nothing but extremely compelling endorsements here.
Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De Léon†: The winner of the NBA for Nonfiction!
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss†: Say less??
Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal†: I had this on my TBR a few months ago and had to postpone it because there were too many footnotes for it to work on audio alone. Let’s see if I can pick it up for real this time.
Rereads for #BookerOfTheMonth
Orbital by Samantha Harvey*
Held by Anne Michaels†
*print copy gifted to me by the publisher
†audiobook gifted to me by the publisher
December Booker(s) of the Month
ICYMI, I run a book club called Booker of the Month, where we read one book from the Booker Prize longlist each month. There are 13, so we double up just once (that’s this month!), and by the time next year’s longlist is announced, we’ll have read them all.
As noted above, our December selections are Orbital by Samantha Harvey (which won!) and Held by Anne Michaels. They are both very short, but benefit from close attention and not rushing. Join us!!
Get yourself the print edition of Orbital and Held or the audiobook of Orbital and Held
Find Orbital on The StoryGraph or Goodreads and Held on The StoryGraph or Goodreads
Sign up for our Zoom discussion on Monday, December 30 at 8–9:30 PM ET. We’ll discuss Orbital from 8–8:45 PM and Held from 8:45–9:30 PM.
Anticipated upcoming releases
December is a slower month in the publishing industry, so the only new releases I’m really, really looking forward to are The Voyage Home, out this past Tuesday (as mentioned above); and Heavenly Tyrant (Iron Widow, #2), out on Christmas Eve.
But I will definitely have more for you next month once the 2025 “most anticipated” lists start to drop!
ICYMI, I keep a running list of new releases I’m excited for on my Bookshop storefront, plus a list of recent releases I love or expect to love.
As always, thanks for sharing your corner of the internet with me! It would mean a lot if you were to take a second to like this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, too.
Finally, if you like this newsletter, please send a few friends my way.
See you on Instagram!
— Deedi (she/her)
I loved The Bright Sword. I had read other books about King Arthur and it does help to have some previous knowledge.