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My favorite book of 2024

I’m a slow reader. Usually, I’m glad if I can get to two books a month (although when I’m teaching, even one can be ambitious). So I was surprised to look back and realize I read 32 books this year. I even finished a couple of them because I was reading them alongside two students I was working with in an advanced fiction class. It was a good year for reading.

If I had to pick a favorite out of all these books, it would be Catfish Rolling by Clara Kumagai. There’s a catfish under Japan and when it turns, it sets off earthquakes. Clara’s novel takes place after an earthquake so strong that it cracks time itself, creating temporal zones where time moves faster or slower. Sora lost her mother in this quake, but is she really dead, or just trapped in one of these zones? When her erratic researcher father disappears into one of these zones, she sets off in search of him along with Maya, the girl she’s developed an unexpected crush on. Will she find him in time, and what else will she find?

This book had my whole heart. Sora’s journey into the zones is both harrowing and magical, and I never knew where the story was going next, but I was hanging on to the catfish’s tail until I got to the end.

Full disclosure: Clara is a friend from graduate school. I can’t quite put into words how much it means to be able to read books by friends when you’re thousands of miles apart. My writing community is so scattered, and their words let me feel like they’re close. Clara also has a book coming out next year, Songs for Ghosts, and I can’t wait to read it. You can learn more about it in a review here.

There were loads of other books I loved this year, too. In no particular order, here are my favorites.

1. ​Maggie and Me by Damian Barr
2. ​A Darker Mischief by Derek Milman
3. ​The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton
4. ​Still, I Cannot Save You: A Memoir by Kelly R. Thompson
5. ​Rogue Community College by David R. Slayton
6. ​Fit by Rebekah R. Weatherspoon

If you’re a reader (I hope you are!) and you read something in 2024 that made an impact on you, let your friends know. Post a picture, write a review, tell someone about it who you think would like the book, too. Word of mouth can give a writer’s work a potent boost, and we’re more grateful than you may realize.

Greece in Pictures

I feel like I could say so much about my trip to Greece in October/November, but mostly I just wish I hadn’t left. Maybe some of the photos in this album (this large, not even organized album) will show why.

And that’s it for this month. Sorry for being late with this again. Hopefully January will see me back on track.

Yeah, I’m not holding my breath, either.