December Books & Top 5 books for 2024

Happy New Year’s Eve! Where did 2024 go?

I’m cutting it close with it being the last day of the year, but one of my favorite posts to write is this one…

I had a pretty good year of reading. I think some of the best books that I read were at the start of the year. Unfortunately, there were some months where I only got one book read, but I always look forward to the next book after finishing one.

December Books:

This month was a little different December reading month for me. I usually try to read only Christmas books, but when the month started off with a couple of books becoming available, I decided to start the month off with those before transitioning to holiday reads.

This month I read:

{As always, book summaries are from Goodreads…}

Ina Garten, Be Ready When Luck Happens:

Summary:

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

Quick Thoughts:

I could not have loved this book more. It was so interesting to read about Ina’s life –her difficult childhood, her time at the White House, how she is a self-made businesswoman and more! I loved reading the Jeffery stories too. They only thing that would have made this book “better” is if I had listened to the audio book, but that wasn’t available at my library.

Rating:

Leanne Morgan, What in the World?!:

Summary:

From dealing with your mean teenage daughter to rebelling against the latest diet trend, America’s newest standup sensation packs a hilarious punch with her real talk about what it’s like to be a regular woman today. For a long time, no one pulling the strings in the comedy world thought that an over-fifty woman from rural Tennessee could make it in the industry. But Leanne Morgan has defied the odds, reaching millions with her musings on menopause, Weight Watchers, and her opposites-attract relationship with her husband, Chuck. In her charming, Southern-accented voice, Morgan brings readers inside her quest to find her calling after so many years trying to figure out what that meant. Along the way, she discusses everything from growing up as a butcher’s daughter, to her strategy for landing a husband with health insurance, to the glories of aging and the comfort of wearing big old grannie panties. Equal parts warm and hilarious, this book is a must-read by one of comedy’s rising stars—reminding you that every time life leaves you asking, “What in the world?”, something good is going to come out of it someday.

Quick Thoughts:

I love Leanne Morgan. She’s sooo funny. I love following her on Instagram, and I would love to see one of her comedy shows one day. She was actually in Lexington this fall, but we were about of town. Like Ina’s book, I loved hearing Leanne’s story — her ups and downs in life, starting her family, and her journey to becoming a comedian who finally “made it” in her 50’s. She’s so funny…and listening to the book made it even better!

Rating:

Home Sweet Christmas:

Summary:

Until Camryn Neff can return to her “real” life in Chicago, she’s in Wishing Tree to care for her twin sisters. She’s not looking for forever love, not here. But handsome hotelier Jake Crane is a temptation she can’t resist, so she suggests they pair up for the season. No golden rings, no broken hearts. At his side, she sees her hometown through Christmas-colored eyes. The cheer is cheerier, the joy more joyful. She thought she had put her future on hold…but maybe her real life was here all along, waiting for her to come home.

New in town, River Best is charmed by Wishing Tree’s homespun traditions and warmhearted people. When she’s crowned Snow Queen, she’s honored but wary. Dylan Tucker, her king, seems like the stuff of sugarplum dreams, but she can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something big. As they perform their “royal” duties—tasting cookies, lighting trees—Dylan’s good humor and melty kisses draw her to the brink of love. But she can’t let herself fall until she uncovers his secret, even if her lack of faith means losing him forever.

Quick Thoughts:

This is book 2 in the Wishing Tree series. I believe I read the first book, The Christmas Wedding Guest, last December. The town of Wishing Tree is the perfect setting for these books. The four main characters were fun to follow along, and all the Wishing Tree/Christmas touches made for a great book to read in December.

Rating:

Bright Lights, Big Christmas:

Summary:

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family.

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Quick Thoughts:

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but this is one of the best Christmas books I’ve read in a long time. Sometimes with “lighter” reads, I read quickly, but with this one, I read every word and was hooked from the first page. I liked the setting being in New York as most of these kinds of books are set in a small town. The other thing I liked about this book was that there were so many characters…but not too many. Again, in many fiction books, there are just a couple of characters. This is a great Christmas read!

Rating:

It’s rare that I think a holiday romance book is five stars, but that’s what I rate this one.

Recap of 2024 Books:

This year my goal was to read 40 books which has been my goal the past few years. I started the year off strong reading some of my favorite books of the year. The summer is always a great time to read, but then once school started, I had less time to read…and some of the books I read weren’t my favorites. No matter how many books I read in a year, reading is still one of my favorite hobbies, and I always have a book on my Kindle to read whenever I have time to do so.

I read 35 books in 2024:

Here are my Goodreads stats:

• 35 books read
• 11,923 pages read
• The shortest book I read was What in the World?! with 240 pages
• The longest book I read was All the Light We Cannot See with 544 pages
• Average book length in 2024 …340 pages

My 2024 Reads:

Another year of reading in some of my favorite places:

I enjoyed making the book trackers and share what I’d read on Instagram.

The books I read this year:

January:

• The Last Love Note
• All the Light We Cannot See

February:

• The Berry Pickers
• Class

March:

• The Frozen River
• John Stamos: If You Would Have Told Me
• The Heiress

April:

• The Women
• None of this is True
• Killers of the Flower Moon

May:

• Darling Girls
• Mama Love
• A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

June:

In June, I listened to my very first audio books…

• After Annie
• The Last Lifeboat
• This Summer Will Be Different
• The Summer of Songbirds
• Birdie & Harlow (audio book)
• The Office BFFs (audio book)

July:

• The Darlings
• A Hundred Summers
• The Boys in the Boat
• The Summer Pact
• Greenlights (Matthew McConaughey – audio book)
• Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing (Matthew Perry- audio book)

August:

• Swan Song (and summer reading recap)

September:

• The Secret Book of Flora Lea

October:

• The Girls in the Garden
• She’s Not Sorry

November:

• The House in the Pines

December:

• Ina Garten’s Be Ready When Luck Happens
• Leanne Morgan’s What in the World?
• Home Sweet Christmas
• Bright Lights, Big Christmas

Top 5 Books of 2024:

With the books I loved, it’s pretty obvious my two favorite genres are “history fiction” and “memoirs.”

Before I share my Top 5 reads of 2024, these books deserve honorable mention recognition.

Here are they are in the order that I read them:

• Berry Pickers
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• The Many Lives of Mama Love
• The Summer of Songbirds
• The Boys in the Boat
• What in the World?

Here are my top 5 reads of 2024…

Frozen River:

I read this book thanks to Shay’s book club.

The Last Lifeboat:

I’d had this library book on my shelf for quite some time. I’d forgotten about it, so I returned it, but then found the book to download to my Kindle. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read it.

Ina Garten’s Be Ready When Luck Happens:

I love Ina. I need that on a bumper sticker.

The Women:

The library wait list was long for this one, and I know why! I couldn’t put this book down.

All the Light We Cannot See:

This is the #1 book I read this year. Again, I love historical fiction, and this was a gripping, serious, and inspiring novel. I started 2024 off right reading this book in January.

I highly recommend it as well as the series on Netflix. It was SO good as well.

Previous Top 5 Books:

What was the best book you read this year?