I am having a spectacular reading year, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Sally Rooney released a new novel in September. I checked my library every week after its release to see if they had a copy yet. When it finally showed up in my Libby app, the wait list was already eight weeks long. After two weeks, I didn’t want to wait anymore, so I made the rare decision to buy the book. I reserve fiction purchases for books my library doesn’t own, but I also sometimes buy novels I know I will love and will likely read again.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney fell in the latter category. I recognized the second chapter as a short story she published this year in The New Yorker and that I heard on their Writers Voice podcast, which is where I learned she would have a new novel out this year. I listened to the story on a morning walk on our Fourth of July trip to Missouri to see Brian’s cousins. I remember exactly where I was when I heard it: the steep hill next to the condo’s pool, the fresh cement sidewalk white in the sun, another steep hill down to the Lake of the Ozarks. “Opening Theory” is a story with characters I was instantly captivated by. I wanted to spend more time with them: a ton was unsaid in the story, and I wanted to go deeper with Ivan and Margaret.

I finished Intermezzo in four or five glorious days of reading, and I finished with a smile on my face and the deep satisfaction of having just read something that rings all my bells. Rooney builds the characters’ layers slowly, or maybe it’s more accurate to say she unpeeled them like onions. Either way, she created complex characters who I understood and had compassion for by the end of the book. I love her for it. My week was happy last week because I got to read this book.

And this was just one book of many greats this year! Another joy is Karen Russell, who didn’t publish a new novel in 2024, but who Louise Erdrich read a story from on The New Yorker‘s Fiction podcast. I enjoyed the reading and Erdrich’s delight and respect for the story. She appreciated Russell unabashedly, and I remembered that “The Ghost Birds,” one of my favorite short stories I’ve ever read, is by Karen Russell. I loved her collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, and particularly the title story, which is sweet and funny and also a little ghastly. Russell is quirky and fresh, and she sets scenes that are memorable. I’d never read Swamplandia!, so I picked it up after I heard Erdrich read her, and I do not regret it.

Speaking of quirky and memorable, Miranda July had a new book out this year, which I also loved. As did Lauren Groff, with her The Vaster Wilds, which is unlike any book I’ve read, and was phenomenal. I plan to slowly read everything Lauren Groff has ever written.

And I revisited favorites this year, like Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, Hemingway’s Garden of Eden, and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. I read some thought-provoking nonfiction, like Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon about growing up as a Rasta girl in Jamaica, William Irvin’s Guide to the Good Life about the art of stoic joy, Jonathan Eig’s MLK, Jr. biography King: A Life, and Bianca Bosker’s Get the Picture which made me appreciate art even more, and helped me learn how to connect with it, and made me want more art in my life.

I bought a new e-reader this year. I read outside in the Blue Ridge mountains on quiet summer mornings. I read a couple of books in actual book form.

I hit some reading doldrums in 2023, and it bummed me out. I didn’t end up reading as much as I’d have liked, or as much good stuff. This year is so much better. I don’t know what made the difference, but whatever it is, I want to keep doing it. Maybe it’s because I started 2024 with something fresh and excellent: Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory. This was a gift from our son, and I loved every page. With 2025 coming up soon, I’ll try to find just the right book to set the tone for the year.