As it has been for the past few years, my general reading plan in 2024 was to select more volumes from my shelves (i.e., books acquired in 2023 or earlier). The reach goal — sometimes stated, lately not — is one hundred books read from the shelves, including at least twenty-four non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of several special collections in my home library. This year I met the special collections goal handily:

Shakespeare (about or retold; the plays do not count for this goal): Dunbar (Edward St. Aubyn; 2017)
Poetry: Beowulf: A New Translation (Maria Dahvana Headley; 2021), Metamorphoses (Ovid (trans. Stephanie McCarter; 2022)), and Inferno (Dante; 1321 (trans. Robin Kirkpatrick; 2006))
NYRB: The Hearing Trumpet (Leonora Carrington; 1974)
Kurt Vonnegut (by or about): Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Joyce Carol Oates (by or about): Evil Eye (2013)
Philosophy: The Limits of My Language: Meditations on Depression (Eva Meijer; 2019/2021) and How to Tell A Story (Aristotle’s Poetics (trans. Philip Freeman; 2022))
Art: Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life (Roxana Robinson; 1989)
Children’s/YA: The Magician’s Elephant (Kate DiCamillo; 2009)
Birding: Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder (Julia Zarankin; 2020)

Although I only read twenty-two non-fiction titles from my shelves, I met the spirit of the goal, to read more non-fiction, with thirty-one titles this year. Speaking of more — DRUMROLL! — one hundred of the books I read this year were from my shelves. (The complete list of books read in 2024 is here.)

And what great books! With Night School Bar, I read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and with the Newberry Library, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain; 1885) and James (Percival Everett; 2024). With A Public Space’s APS Together, I read Graham Greene’s Monsignor Quixote (1982) and with The Deep Read, Trust (Hernan Diaz; 2022). Although I didn’t participate in the online forums, I read As I Lay Dying (1930) with Faulkner in August and with the SciFri Book Club, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Ed Yong; 2022), The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World (Andrea Wulf; 2015), Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America (Jane Billinghurst and Peter Wohlleben; 2022), and A Sand County Almanac (Aldo Leopold; 1949). With the Academy of American Poets, I finally read Ovid’s Metamophoses (trans. Stephanie McCarter; 2022), as well as The Shield of Achilles (W.H. Auden; 1952/2024) and selections of Emily Dickinson’s work. I also decided to rejoin the 100 Days of Dante group and have already reread Inferno.

The reading friend I mentioned last year and I continued meeting this year, finishing Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and our deep dive into the work of E.B. White in February, then moving on with Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels, The Sea (John Banville; 2005), Middlemarch (George Eliot; 1871), and The Bell (Iris Murdoch; 1958). She also hosted three discussions for larger groups: The Lifted Veil (George Eliot; 1869), Washington Square (Henry James; 1880), and one meeting on a selection of W.H. Auden’s poetry. 

Although I fell behind on my third “Shakespeare in a Year” project, I have no doubt I will finish the remaining plays and Marjorie Garber’s Shakespeare After All (2004) in the first few months of 2025. As I mentioned throughout the year, my other project was to read Willa Cather’s twelve novels in chronological order. What a fabulous and worthwhile experience! These were some of my favorite books of the year, especially The Professor’s House (1925). Other standout books this year included:

■ The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov; 1967. Fiction.)
■ The Michigan Murders (Edward Keyes; 1976. Non-fiction.)
■ The Guest Cat (Takashi Hiraide; 2001/2014. Fiction.)
■ James (Percival Everett; 2024. Fiction.) 
■ Sociopath: A Memoir (Patric Gagne; 2024. Non-fiction.) 
■ NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (Steve Silverman; 2015. Non-fiction.) 
■ Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson; 1985. Fiction.) 
■ The Hearing Trumpet (Leonora Carrington; 1974. Fiction.) 
■ Orbital (Samantha Harvey; 2023. Fiction.) 
■ The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World (Andrea Wulf; 2015. Non-fiction.)
■ Dunbar (Edward St. Aubyn; 2017. Fiction.) 
■ Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut; 1973. Fiction.)
■ Great Expectations (Vinson Cunningham; 2024. Fiction.)
■ Exhalation (Ted Chiang; 2019. Fiction.)
■ Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2011. Graphic fiction.)