2024: The Year In Books

As 2024 comes to a close, my fourth full year of remote working, I managed to once again surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 61 books, two books more than my previous high set last year and my fourth consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in mid-November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read 22,622 pages, by far my highest total of all time and just the second time I’ve managed to surpass 20.000 pages.

Of those books, only five were non-fiction and, of the remaining 56 novels, only five were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with two hard covers, two paperbacks, 53 e-books and no audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 46 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 69% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 19 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Jessica Knoll Isabella Maldonado Kathleen McGurl Lisa Taddeo
Lisa Jewell Millie Bobby Brown J.M. Dillard Lee Goldberg
Avery Cunningham Margot Douaihy R.F. Kuang Jessica Simpson
Jeffrey Lang Dayton Ward Holly Wilson Karin Smirnoff
Walter Beede Michael Connelly Rob Harvilla

Karin Slaughter, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Elin Hilderbrand, Jessica Knoll, Michael Connelly, Minka Kent, Lee Goldberg, Rebecca Forster, Stephen King, and Sarah Pekkanen were the authors that I read multiple titles from during 2024.

17 of the books I read were released this year, while only three of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1997.

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Book 51 (of 52) – Resistance

Resistance – J.M. Dillard

When the Borg return, Captain Picard must do the unthinkable to attempt to stop them before the new queen awakens: turn himself into Locutus once again.  Meanwhile, Worf, struggling with his decision to sacrifice a mission to save the life of his wife, turns down a promotion to become the new first officer of the Enterprise, but must take command when Picard is re-assimilated by the Borg.  Can he subvert the expectations of his captain to come up with a way to save him and stop the Borg from advancing against humanity and the Earth?

J.M. Dillard, author of many a Star Trek movie novelization, helps to set up a new status quo for the Enterprise E following the aftermath of Star Trek: Nemesis in Resistance.  With Riker and Troi off to a new ship and Data destroyed, Dillard introduces a new, yet familiar first officer, a new counselor, and starts to round out the senior staff with new characters who will propel the future novels set in this universe.