I read more books this year than i ever have before

last year, I reckon I read 3 books. The year before that, possibly 2. There have been many years where the number has been 0, and I just forgot what books were like because I was too busy focusing on my own writing and scared that reading other people’s writing would mess with my head. I was so wrong. So naive. If you are thinking the same, stop thinking and start reading. I don’t think anything bad can come of it. I think reading books is actually so cool. So, now that you understand how bizarre it is for me to read so much, here’s everything I got through in 2024:

JANUARY

📖 Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

📕 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin (1968)

💧 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (2020)

🌊 Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield (2022)

👼🏻 Poor Things by Alasdair Gray (1992)

FEBRUARY

🐋 Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan (2004. Translated in 2023)

🛣️ The Concrete Island by JG Ballard (1974)

🌃 High Rise by JG Ballard (1975)

MARCH

🌊 The Drowned World by JG Ballard (1962)

🪐 Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles (2021)

🐈‍⬛ Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson (2016)

🖼️ Second Place by Rachel Cusk (2021)

🍆 All Fours by Miranda July (2024)

APRIL

👥 How to be both by Ali Smith (2014)

🌻 The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (1951)

🚨 Crash by JG Ballard (1973)

MAY

❌ Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (2023)

🔥 The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (1962-3)

JUNE

🔢 We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920)

🛣️ Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993)

JULY

🍺 May God Blast the Woman Who Writes About Me by Aura García-Junco (Dios fulmine a la que escribe sobre mí, 2023, translated by Heather Cleary, 2024)

🗽 Severance by Ling Ma (2018)

🏚️ In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (2019)

🗡️ Malarkoi by Alex Pheby (2022)

AUGUST

🎭 Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (2014)

🏊‍♀️ Private Rites by Julia Armfield (2024)

🦠 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (2018)

💤 My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (2018)

SEPTEMBER

0️⃣

OCTOBER

🥟 Slugs: A Manifesto by Abi Palmer (2024)

🌠 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)

🕊️ The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin (1974)

NOVEMBER

🕯️ Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut (1976)

🌚 We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

🚬 The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (2024)

👥 Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor (2017)

📉 Culture Is Bad For You by Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor (2020)

DECEMBER [HALFWAY THROUGH BOTH THESE BOOKS BUT IT STILL COUNTS]

🍊 Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (2022)

🪨 The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (2015)

…

that’s…

38 holy moly.

favourite? concrete island. least favourite? slapstick i reckon. book I read the quickest because I couldn’t put it down? yellowface. Book i feel most inspired by? May god blast the woman who writes about me. Book i have bought everyone for christmas? Severance. i fucking loved severance!

September, too sick. I began by reading the things my friends had been speaking about, and then I tried to read widely to see what I liked in a book. Got really deeply into the-world-has-ended-,-now-what? stories. And then when it got closer to the end of the year, I started asking friends for book recommendations again.

I mostly did audiobooks, combined with knitting, or just lying in bed in the sicker months. I had sessions with an occupational therapist this year who asked me how I relaxed and I told him about this, and he said I sounded like quite a full-on person. What I didn’t say is I sometimes also have a video playing in the background at the same time on mute, just nice pictures to glance at every so often. All senses covered. But I think in the new year, I should try doing one thing at a time more often and see if my health is better for it because, despite enjoying maximum stimulation, chronic fatigue fucking sucks.

And so, I have a stack next to my desk of physical books that I want to work through. There’s A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Pedro Lemebal, there’s A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar, and It Lasts Forever by Anne de Marcken. I’m still trying to read Hace Tiempo Que Vengo Al Taller Y No Sé A Lo Que Vengo very slowly too.

And then lastly I will say that two nights ago, I couldn’t find my phone before I went to sleep. I didn’t have to be up in the morning so I just went to bed with Ling Ma’s Bliss Montage instead. Read a chapter, read another one, and then fell asleep into such a deep phone-less book-spell of a dream that I half awoke at one point and saw my black cat on her back legs looking over the edge of the bed. I reached a hand out to touch her nose but it was not a cat. It was my boyfriend’s guitar. This is all to say, my new year’s resolution is to sleep with an alarm clock, not a phone, and to read in bed instead of wasting my fucking time on tiny videos. I hope I hallucinate guitar cats forever.