2024 was a slower reading year than usual for me. Reading is usually a favorite escape from my busy life raising 9 kids. However, the sale of our home in the suburbs and moving to the farm definitely affected my reading time! My goal for 2024 was to read 50 books by New Year’s Eve. I almost made it, having read 47 books on various topics throughout the year. Having my Good Reads goal not read “complete” would have REALLY disappointed me in past years. In fact, I probably would have changed the goal when I realized I wasn’t going to achieve it. Don’t judge!
But THIS year I have worked hard to make room for progress over perfection. And 47 books during a busy year is FOR SURE progress. That doesn’t mean I’m not hoping 2025 will allow me to read even more. Reading brings such joy and knowledge into my life; whether I read 1 book a year or 100 I’ll never stop!
And now, I’m excited to share some of the 47 books I read in 2024 here with you! Here are my top book picks!
NON-FICTION
House Rules: How to Decorate for Every Home, Style, and Budget by Myquillyn Smith came into my life at the perfect time. Moving to the farmhouse from the suburbs made us rethink our home decor in a major way. Myquillyn’s gift is guiding her readers to think about their homes with practicality. And she always gives lots of grace for making mistakes and trying again. This book was no different. She goes through 100 “rules” for the home, with #1 being “Learn the rules to break the rules”. I think that sums things up perfectly! Every picture is taken in her beautiful home and gives inspiration to the novice decorator. I took screenshots of quite a few pages to take to antique stores with me!
If you enjoy this one, you’ll love Myquillyn’s other books Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff, The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful, Welcome Home: A Cozy Minimalist Guide to Decorating and Hosting All Year Round. She also has a fun podcast called House Rules with Myquillyn Smith, The Nester.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt is a must read for parents. I would also suggest it to anyone who has influence over tweens and teens. The youth ministry staff at our church even read it together and discussed what they learned. The contents are VERY well researched. It gets to the scientific reasons technology is taking our kids down a dangerous path of addiction and dependence.
Haidt shares tangible ways to guide our children, starting at a young age, AWAY from screens. While also TOWARDS a real world focus. I don’t agree with everything Haidt says (he comes at his research from a very evolutionary world view). But I think this is one of the most important books I read as a parent this year.
The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond by Alisa Childers. This is a book I read and immediately shared with my college aged son. Today, the faith community is digging in deep to figure out what we believe and why. Which is not a negative thing if it’s centered on scripture and done under strong guidance! Unfortunately, so many come at their desire to learn spiritual things for themselves in a “burn it all down” fashion. This way of thinking leaves them more confused than when they started.
“Deconstruction” aims to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy. This book explains in easy to understand terms why this movement is dangerous to the less grounded in our churches and communities. I highly recommend this book to Christian parents and their teens!
Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are by Lisa TerKeurst. This is one of the many books I’ve read by this author. I had it on my shelf for a while before a conflict with a close family member had me finally digging deep into its pages. And when I say deep, I mean highlighters, notebooks, pens, the works. The question the book seeks to answer is whether or not it is unloving or selfish to set boundaries with family members or friends. And also at what point we as Christians are called to walk away from a relationship that is no longer safe or sustainable.
Reading this book was almost like sitting on my therapist’s couch. Terkeurst gives real life examples, factors to consider when implementing healthy boundaries, and therapeutic wisdom directly from her real life counselor. She includes powerful use of scripture and biblical truth (including times that Jesus himself walked away from situations). Setting boundaries with and/or walking away from people we love is always hard. But this book is an excellent resource for someone trying to navigate those difficult relationships.
Mother Culture by Karen Andreola was such a refreshing read. As a homeschooling mama, it’s easy to completely forget about our need for the input of truth, beauty, and knowledge. This book offers beautiful ideas about growing in the Lord and encouragement for mothers interested in being lifelong learners.
The premise is mothers have so many duties they MUST do that they must not avoid taking time to cultivate a love of learning in themselves. That’s the heart of Mother Culture: mothers work hard to create an intentional atmosphere in their home in a skillfully artistic way. Our children are watching and so much more is “caught than taught”. Learning alongside our little ones is the biggest blessing of homeschooling. This book has the most BEAUTIFUL and inspiring pictures and is sure to renew your purpose in Mothering!
Until the Streetlights Come On: How a Return to Play Brightens Our Present and Prepares Kids for an Uncertain Future by Ginny Yurich. We have been convicted over the years to bring things back to the way we grew up. While we are not anti-technology, we try to use it sparingly in our home. No personal devices for kids under 13 and LOTS of free-time playing and exploring outside have been a great start. Which is how I found Ginny Yurich’s movement, 1000 Hours Outside. Did you know the average American spends 4-7 MINUTES outside each day? And our society has greatly suffered because of it.
According to Amazon, in this book, you’ll learn…
- the importance of unstructured play for children
- what boredom actually contributes to our brains
- the value to sunlight and social play
- the role of play in lifelong learning
- how to make time outside more attractive than screen time to your child
I think those are ALL worthy of studying up on!
Homestead Tsunami: Good for Country, Critters, and Kids by Joel Salatin. Salatin is known as the “lunatic farmer” to the homestead community and this is his 16th book. This man KNOWS farming after 66 years of practice! This was a great book for beginners who want to learn more about food security, health, and overall life satisfaction.
He wrote this book with 3 people in mind; those afraid to take the plunge, current homesteaders who are feeling burned out, and people who just don’t “get” the homestead movement. We all come to homesteading with different reasons and goals. But I think we’d agree that homesteading offers benefits for mind, body, & spirit and is a worthwhile lifestyle. I can’t wait to read more books by Salatin!
FICTION
The Women by Kristin Hannah is the 7th book I’ve read by this author. She is by far my favorite historical fiction writer. I was excited to read this one because I know so little about the Vietnam War. Especially the roll women played in healing the sick and wounded. “Frankie” McGrath follows her brother to Vietnam after joining the Army Nurse Corp on the notion that women can be heroes. And this book proves that to be true over and over again. War brings so much trauma to the Army Nurses as they are on the front line of combat. But even more so when they return to the States and a country who wants to pretend the conflict in Vietnam wasn’t happening.
My favorite quote in the book was, “The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.” And thank God they were.
My other favorite Kristin Hannah books are The Nightingale, The Four Winds, and Winter Garden.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is a BEAUTIFULLY written novel. Amazon sums up the plot better than I ever could…
Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.
Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.
Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.
This is the first book I’ve read by Ariel Lawhon, but I have “I Was Anastasia” and “Code Name Helene” on my TBR list!
Drowning The Rescue of Flight 1421: by T.J. Newman is a suspense novel that kept me on the edge of my seat from page one. Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. The remainder of the book focuses on the 12 surviving passengers and their emergency rescue. I learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about underwater rescue! Newman used her experience as a flight attendant to make the scenario as authentic as possible.
I was also a fan of Newman’s first book “Falling”, though I wouldn’t recommend reading either while you fly to your next vacation destination!
The Only One Left by Riley Sager was the last fiction book I read in 2024. And I’m so glad I saved the best for last! There isn’t much I love more than a page turner thriller. And that’s exactly how I would describe this book. It is a duel timeline story (also a favorite of mine!) switching between a murder that happened in 1929 and a women hired to take care of the accused in her old age in 1983. One of the first things the accused expresses to her caregiver is “I want to tell you everything”. This story has SO many twists and turns! Just when you think you have a handle on what happened on that tragic day, another layer is exposed.
I also loved “The Last Time I Lied” by Sager. Though I didn’t enjoy “The House Across the Lake” or “Home Before Dark” as much. After this one, I’ll definitely be reading more by Sager!
Memoir
I’m not a person with a lot of “reading-rules”, but I have a strict one for All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore. You MUST listen to this one on audio book. Listening to Beth’s accent change as she recounts her childhood adventures is worth the price of admission. Trust me.
That being said, this book is hilarious, heartbreaking, infuriating at times, and yet honoring to the family members who inflicted so much childhood pain Moore. I have known Beth Moore as a women’s bible study creator and author for all of my adult life. And I watched the controversy that arose as she split with Lifeway and the Southern Baptist Convention. I was eager to hear her side of the story but went into these pages having partially made up my mind about her. I could not have been more surprised by the tenderness I felt towards Moore as I listened to her final words.
HAPPY READING IN 2025!
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