Last year I joined a book club to discover new authors and genres.

Looking back on 2023, I read some remarkably good non-fiction: Cuba, Boomtown, Justice for Some, Disability Visibility, The Art of Living, Crying in H Mart, Outlive, Wilmington’s Lie, and Scenes from My Life. Yet, for 2024, I since joined a book club and committed myself to reading a more balanced mix of fiction, non-fiction, and memoir. Here’s how it went.

1. The Snowman (Jo Nesbø, 2011) — My first book club book. We had a fun time trashing this murder mystery. Not the best attempt at neonoir.
2. Games Without Rules (Mir Tamim Ansary, 2012) — A must-read if you want to know how the West got Afghanistan wrong. A land easy to conquer, but impossible to rule. I’m hoping for a Taliban Strikes Back follow-up.
3. The Covenant of Water (Abraham Verghese, 2023) — My favorite book of the year. I couldn’t resist putting down this sweeping romantic epic, set on the backwaters of Kerala and urban sprawl of Kolkata.
4. The City and the City (China Miéville, 2009)
5. Dust Child (Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, 2023) — This novel gives voice to Amerasians and their Vietnamese mothers. You’ll be daydreaming about this story well after you finish reading the last sentence.
6. Apples Never Fall (Liane Moriarty, 2021)
7. Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros, 2023) — I can’t say I loved this. Not worth the virtual ink on this page.
8. The Women (Kristin Hannah, 2024) — Not as good as The Nightingale, but still quite good. Hannah is one of my go-to authors for historical fiction.
9. The Lost Bookshop (Evie Woods, 2023)
10. The Last Bookshop (Emma Young, 2021) — Accidentally picked up this book. I’d pass on this, unless you are a lover of cliché romance novels.
11. “You Should be Grateful” (Angela Tucker, 2022) — Tucker tells us her story, and the story of other people of color who were adopted by white parents.
12. The Maid (Nita Prose, 2022)
13. Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker, 2017)
14. The Traveling Cat Chronicles (Arikawa Hiro , 2018) — A nice read from my book club. You’ll likely find this parable about love and grief relatable, whether or not you’re a cat lover.
15. Blood Sugar (Sascha Rothchild , 2022)
16. It’s Not You (Ramani Durvasula, 2024) —- If ever a book shifted my perspective on relationships and friendships, this is it. Durvasula tells us about how to escape and heal from narcissistic people. Two big thumbs up.
17. Babel (R. F. Kuang, 2022)
18. Beartown (Fredrick Backman, 2017) — A tale of masculinity gone wrong. This novel cements Backman one of my top authors. (See prior blog with A Man Called Ove.)
19. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments (Saidiya Hartman, 2019) — Hartman narrates and contextualizes the experiences of black women in early 20th century New York and Philadelphia. I learned how, just a few decades after emancipation, these women (and their decedents) had to survive new forms of subjugation and moral denigration. A must-read.
20. Medium Raw (Anthony Bourdain, 2010)
21. In The Country Stories (Mia Alvar, 2015) — Sometimes a book catches your eye while you’re perusing your local library. I’m pleased to have found this collection of essay-like short stories about Filipinos living abroad, and at home.