2024 Year in Review: Books

First things first: Merry Christmas! I hope you are having a sixth day of Christmas which is just as lovely and joyful as the first.

Last year I did a review post of all the new books I had read in the year, and I think that would be a fun tradition to continue. I sadly didn’t read as much this year as I had last year (I’m blaming it on Ben-Hur, though to be perfectly honest I hadn’t been reading as much before I started that in any case.) I indulged in fewer re-reads this year, however, so my number of new books is quite similar to last year’s.

That being said, let’s do this thing!

1. A Story of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Brother Flavius, C.S.C

Catherine was just a frail young woman, yet she had the courage of a brave knight. Let us follow her example. With the help of God’s grace, we, too, can overcome all that is keeping us from loving Jesus more.
~

Not too much to say; this is just a sweet simple little saint’s book written for kiddos.

2. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.
~

Whereas here I have almost too much to say. Very well-written, very engrossing, and very depressing. In fact, although I know it’s all to make a point, I do feel like the world Waugh paints is too dark to be a truly accurate painting of reality. But then there’s the ending, which I know there are mixed opinions about, but I personally loved. It has the rare ending (like one or two later books on this list) that sort of abruptly shows that the whole rest of the book that preceded it doesn’t matter. But in a good way. Read it and you’ll see what I mean.

Noddy said something about the book (I don’t remember his initial comment, sadly) which made me ponder the characters in the story and realize they don’t exactly feel real. It feels a bit like they’re only there to make Waugh’s point and tell his story. (For instance, although in many ways I would say Charles Dickens is a technically less sophisticated author than Waugh, and though he paints in much broader and more fanciful strokes, many of his characters in David Copperfield feel like vivid, living, breathing characters to me, in a way that the characters in Brideshead (or most of them, anyway) don’t exactly.)

3. The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford

(I have to include two quotes, because the quotes from this are just too much fun.)

Here Mr Salteena thourght he had better go to bed as he had had a long jornney. Bernard always had a few prayers in the hall and some whiskey afterwards as he was rarther pious but Mr Salteena was not very adicted to prayers so he marched up to bed.
~

It was a sumpshous spot all done up in gold with plenty of looking glasses. Many hansome ladies and gentlemen were already partaking of choice food and rich wines and whiskey and the scene was most lively. Mr Salteena had a little whiskey to make him feel more at home. Then he eat some curry to the tune of a merry valse on the band. He beat time to the music and smiled kindly at the waiters and he felt very excited inside. I am seeing life with a vengance he muttered to himself as he paid his bill at the desk.
~

Well, this was great fun to read. It was written by a little English Victorian girl, and you know how much fun it is to read stories written by little children. That fun is doubled when it’s a Victorian child trying to write a serious romance and social commentary. It’s just so cute and quaint and little-kid-logic-ish – you want to pat Daisy on the head and give her a hug. I will say, though, that it had a surprisingly unhappy ending for some of the main characters. I suppose she wanted to show her audience the seriousness of her work.

4. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

“I don’t think, Trotwood… I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.” – Agnes Wickfield
~

I did an in-depth chapter-by-chapter look at this as I was reading it (you can find all the posts under my David Copperfield tag). The short version is that the last ten chapters or so were very emotionally draining, it wasn’t my favorite Dickens book, but I enjoyed it quite a lot regardless.

5. Padre Pio and America by Frank M. Rega

Since it has been primarily the sanctity and personal qualities of Padre Pio that have drawn Americans toward him, this book will emphasize the spirituality and humanity of the Saint. Yet, stories of signs and wonders are also recounted in this volume, as they invariably are when telling of Padre Pio. The book attempts to illustrate the remarkable connection between the Saint and Americans, and hopefully it will shed some light on the mystery of Padre Pio’s affection for us and how it has been reciprocated. Of course, the complete story of Padre Pio and America will only be told in Heaven.
~

I really enjoyed this one! I learned a lot about Padre Pio that I hadn’t known, and about the people who surrounded him (especially American-heiress-turned-Padre Pio-follower Mary Pyle, who is a very cool person and who I’d love to read more about). The focus on Padre Pio’s influence on and relationship with the American GIs in World War II was especially interesting to learn more about.

6. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.
~

Sadly, I didn’t love this one as much as I thought I would, from all I’d heard about it beforehand. I had thought it would be similar to P.G. Wodehouse’s work, and I love Wodehouse…but this fell short for me. I didn’t mind its lack of plot – if a book is just meant to be funny, I don’t get too hung up on the plot – but I think that while some of the humor feels very Wodehouse-ian (and I really liked that aspect of it) the charm was missing for me. I’ve come to the conclusion that for me to enjoy comedy, there has to be at least one character that I can really like…and though they were amusing I couldn’t really like any of the the characters in Three Men in a Boat. (Except perhaps the dog. But he’s a comparatively minor character.)  

Also, there were a few abrupt tonal departures into romantically-written tangents which seemed very out of place with the rest of the story. I didn’t mostly mind that too much, but there was one bit that was surprisingly dark and really took me out of the otherwise light and fluffy tone of the rest of the story.

7. Miss Manners’ Basic Training: The Right Thing to Say by Judith Martin

Miss Manners does not for a minute think that all people are selfish – or even that all rude people are. Relieved of etiquette, even the highest sentiments can be offensive.
Those with the strongest moral fervor became, when relieved of the polite pretense of respect for the opinions of others, the most obnoxious. Even those most conscious of not wanting to offend helped lower the tone of society by pretending not to mind vulgarity and insults.
~

This book is a mix of pieces from Miss Manners’ advice columns along with her musings on etiquette-related topics. Miss Manners is always great fun to read – she’s a very humorous writer – and while I don’t agree with her all of the time, I think she’s right and makes very good points much of the time. (Though I don’t remember what exactly comes up in this book specifically (since I read portions of another book of hers later in the year), I will just mention that some of the questions Miss Manners is asked (and thereby the responses as well) can lean a bit too much into the category of TMI.)

8. Rebuilding Catholic Culture: How the Catechism Can Shape Our Common Life by Ryan Topping

Read for school

Against those who would deny faith altogether we have suggested that trust is necessary to sanity, and further, that most sane of all would be those who trusted God, should He wish to speak. The Catholic claim, of course, is that God did speak. But that revelation, if it is to be heard, requires both inner conversion and attention to the outer forms of revelation.
~

I have no complaints about this book, but I somehow wished it could have gone deeper, or been more specific, or something. I didn’t feel like once I had finished it I could say “yes! Great! Now I know what we’ve got to do to rebuild Catholic culture!” Topping did touch on important aspects of Catholic culture, i.e. liturgy, prayer, &c., but somehow to me it didn’t feel as cohesive or as informative as it could have been. (Though maybe I’m just being impossibly hard to please. I don’t know.)

9. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.
~

Oh man, I began tearing up just re-visiting some quotes from this.

This book is amazing. Perfect. Wonderful. So thought-provoking. C.S. Lewis is a genius. Read it.

This is another one (like Brideshead Revisited) in which the ending sort of turns the whole rest of the story on its head and shows how little it all really means (in a good way). It’s great.

10. Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition)

Read for school

1951. Law is a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good. The moral law presupposes the rational order, established among creatures for their good and to serve their final end, by the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator. All law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law. Law is declared and established by reason as a participation in the providence of the living God, Creator and Redeemer of all.
~

I had never read through the whole Catechism before, and to be perfectly honest it’s quite possible I never would have read it all through if I didn’t have to for class, but I’m really glad I did! Honestly, I think that many issues people have with Catholicism could be either cleared up or just better understood by reading what the Catechism actually has to say on the topic. (It did seem a little dense at times, but I don’t know how much of that is just because of my attention span.)

11. The Four Teresas: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Teresa Benedicta, Mother Teresa by Gina Loehr

The hows, the whys, and the whats of life all fall in line behind what Jesus Himself told us is most important: the great commandment of love.
The four Teresas – Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and Mother Teresa – are masters and models of living out Christ’s command.
~

I can’t really think of anything of substance to say about this one, but I enjoyed it and enjoyed reading about all these great saints.

12. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

Ivan Iylich saw that he was dying, and was in continual despair.
At the bottom of his heart Ivan Ilyich knew that he was dying; but so far from growing used to the idea, he simply did not grasp it – he was utterly unable to grasp it.
The example of the syllogism that he had learned in Kiseveter’s logic – Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal – had seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all regards himself. In that case it was a question of Caius, a man, an abstract man, and it was perfectly true, but he was not Caius, and was not an abstract man; he had always been a creature quite, quite different from all the others.
~

Absolutely wonderful and quite possibly the best thing I read this year. I’ve read War and Peace (some years ago when I was probably too young to get a lot out of it) and liked it just fine, but the shorter stories of Tolstoy’s that I’ve read this year have been absolutely magnificent. He’s simultaneously so direct and so subtle, and also just so chillingly correct about reality and the human psyche. Just read that bit I quoted above. All of us have felt that at some point – an abstract knowledge that we as mortal beings must die, but an incomprehension that we, we personally, could ever really die.

Maybe there’s something to these Russian novelist fellows, eh?

13. Middlemarch by George Eliot

...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~

I’m realizing that I discovered a lot of great new books this year, because I loved this one too! I don’t think Eliot is a perfect author by any means (she has a bit of what we can call Hugo-ism, defined as the tendency to ramble and an overall impression of smugness exuding from the author), but I really loved what she was doing with this story. Characterization, and looking at how characters interact with each other, is one of my favorite things about storytelling, and that’s pretty much all that this story was. And all the characters were so complex and layered. I loved it. There were very few characters that I was able to completely despise (though there were a couple – I’m looking at you, Rosamund), because even those who did despicable things tended to have at least understandable – if not sufficient – motivations.

I started making a dream cast for this some time ago, in fact, which I should actually finish and put on the blog at some point. (I know a mini-series was made of Middlemarch, but I’m not sure I want to see it. I have such fixed ideas in my mind of how everything should be, you see.)

14. Heart Gifts by Helen J. Steiner

God, open my eyes
so I may see
And feel Your Presence
close to me…
Give me strength
for my stumbling feet
As I battle the crowd
on life’s busy street …
~

Recommended by Emi, this little book of poems was like a sweet breath of fresh air. The poems were very simple, but very sweet and heartfelt, and there were a couple that I wouldn’t mind printing out to keep by my desk.

15. The Glorious Folly by Louis de Wohl

“Who art Thou, Lord?”
Out of the light came the answer. “I am Yeshua…”
And now Saul saw. He saw a man, the face of a man who was taken up in the glory of God and his mind was filled with it and yet could not contain it.
In a flash he knew what Beauty was and what Goodness was and Purity and Truth and Peace and he could not at once grasp what the Voice was saying: “…whom thou art persecuting.”
~

I’d heard most of this one before, but I’m not sure if I ever experienced the entire book before, so I decided to count it. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it quite as much as I remembered. I really like the idea of looking at St. Paul’s life by looking through the eyes of people connected to him (in this case largely St. Longinus, and later his daughter), and I appreciate how much research obviously went into this book. But the writing, the characters, and the dialogue felt a little stilted and un-subtle to me. That being said, I think this was written for a younger audience than yours truly, so it probably isn’t fair to complain too much.

16. Manners and Morals of Victorian America by Wayne Erbsen

Many a man would give much to be rid of habits fastened upon him in youth, and which have been clogs and fetters, making every step of progress in certain directions toilsome and painful. He has accomplished only half of what he might have accomplished but for these annoying and irritating shackles. (1889)
~

This is actually just a compilation of quotes and sayings from Victorian (and Edwardian; my dear Mr. Erbsen, 1916 is not the Victorian era) etiquette books, and quite fun to read. I will say, though, as someone who has read some of the actual original books he’s quoting from, that I think he sometimes likes to quote things out of context to make them sound funnier to our modern ears, or to prove a point that he wants to make about the time period.

17. The Geranium, The Enduring Chill, Parker’s Back and Revelation by Flannery O’Connor

Asbury saw he had made a mistake and that it was time to get rid of the old
fool. “Listen,” he said, “I’m not a Roman.”
“A poor excuse for not saying your prayers!” the old man snorted.
Asbury slumped slightly in the bed. “I’m dying,” he shouted.
“But you’re not dead yet!” said the priest, “and how do you expect to meet
God face to face when you’ve never spoken to Him? How do you expect to get
what you don’t ask for? God does not send the Holy Ghost to those who don’t ask
for Him. Ask Him to send the Holy Ghost.”
“The Holy Ghost?” Asbury said.
“Are you so ignorant you’ve never heard of the Holy Ghost?” the priest asked.
“Certainly I’ve heard of the Holy Ghost,” Asbury said furiously, “and the Holy
Ghost is the last thing I’m looking for!”
– The Enduring Chill

Mixed thoughts. On the one hand, Ms. O’Connor is undoubtedly talented at writing and at creating characters. That being said, I have serious reservations about her writing. Her view of the world (as it appears to me from reading these stories, in any case) is that life is horrible and dark, and people are horrible and selfish, but God exists and He is the only thing above all that. And I’m not saying that that view is wrong per se, but I do think it’s an incomplete view of reality. I think that the world, as God’s creation, is inherently a good place however much sinfulness warps it, and that human beings are inherently good creations however much sinfulness warps us. I don’t really get any sense of that from O’Connor’s stories.

Regarding these individual stories, I liked Parker’s Back and Revelation well enough, I really didn’t care for The Geranium (I don’t like stories where I feel like the only way you can view it is through symbolism, and on the obvious natural level the story just seems pointless) and I like The Enduring Chill quite a lot. I didn’t enjoy it at all as I was reading it, but having finished it and read the ending, I think it’s very good. I very much like the way it expresses the sort of inevitability of God and His existence, no matter how we like it or what we do in response. And it was just really well-written. It’s the only one of these stories I can see myself re-reading.

18. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati by Maria Di Lorenzo

I enjoyed this one. I love Blessed Pier Giorgio, and I think he’s a great example of a modern young adult saint, with modern interests and struggles and a strong and charismatic personality. I’ve heard that there’s talk of his canonization next year, which I’m super excited about!

19. The Green Ember by S.D. Smith

“Growing up is terribly wonderful. But often it’s also wonderfully terrible.”
~

I will be honest with you; this isn’t my preferred genre. Stylistically, modern fiction isn’t my preference, and content-wise action stories aren’t my preference. It did bug me a bit, for instance, that it felt like there were a couple action scenes that were just there for the sake of being an action scene. That whole scene where whats-his-name was training, for one. That could have been described in about a tenth of the time that it was.

Also, I found Pickett’s arc very frustrating and hard to read. That boy was giving me so much second-hand embarrassment.

That being said, though, I did enjoy the book on the whole (and teared up at the end, though to be fair it’s by no means the only book on this list to make me do that).

20. Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex and Brett Harris

What is possible when a generation stops assuming that someone else will take care of the brokenness in the world – or that someone else will capitalize on current opportunities – and realizes that they are called to take action?
~

This was good! I enjoyed it. ‘Twas useful and inspiring and all that. Ironically enough, I think I cut them a little slack stylistically because they were teenagers…but hey, it’s not that it was bad stylistically, and I do think that with skills like writing there is a certain maturity that can only come with age and experience. (Not that I actually think that contradicts their message, since the only way to gain that experience is through practice, which should ideally be done in younger years.)

21. The Hidden Power of Kindness by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik

A certain amount of candor in expressing your opinion is a charming thing, but it can be pushed too far. There is no virtuous necessity for expressing all the dislikes that flash across your feelings. Very often it is necessary as a matter of virtue to spare others the hurt that would be given by freely expressing your opinion.
~

This was very interesting to read as well. I actually was a little bit put off by Fr. Lovasik’s style at times, but that could be a me problem – he was very direct, so it’s highly possible that made me feel called out and/or defensive. I would like to re-read this one at a more leisurely pace; I think I’d probably get more out of it that way.

22. Lots and lots of poems by lots and lots of people

I took a poetry class, and in this class (who would have thought it) I read a lot of poetry. I read too many poets to go into detail about all of them, but I’d say that my favorites were probably John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur. I think Hopkins in particular manifests what poetry is all about – expressing truths in an unusual but accurate way, and using the structure of the poem as well as the actual words to express what he’s saying. (Also, it makes me feel smart and sophisticated to read him, and that is always a plus.)

A couple of favorite poems from the class were “October Maples, Portland” by Wilbur and “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection” by Hopkins, so I’ll share the former with you because it’s fairly short and it’s a goodie.

The leaves, though little time they have to live,
Were never so unfallen as today,
And seem to yield us through a rustled sieve
The very light from which time fell away.

A showered fire we thought forever lost
Redeems the air. Where friends in passing meet,
They parley in the tongues of Pentecost.
Gold ranks of temples flank the dazzled street.

It is a light of maples, and will go;
But not before it washes eye and brain
With such a tincture, such a sanguine glow
As cannot fail to leave a lasting stain.

So Mary’s laundered mantle (in the tale
Which, like all pretty tales, may still be true),
Spread on the rosemary-bush, so drenched the pale
Slight blooms in its irradiated hue,

They could not choose but to return in blue.

23. The Spirituality of Fasting: Rediscovering a Christian Practice by Msgr. Charles Murphy

…the ascetics who lived the Christian life in the Egyptian desert in the fourth and fifth centuries, through their witness and teachings, have given us great wisdom about the necessity of fast and abstinence in our lives. They became convinced that the condition of the body reflects the condition of the soul. An undisciplined body reveals an undisciplined soul. Body and soul have a reciprocal influence on each other because they are dimensions of each person’s identity.
~

Another very interesting read! I do think it’s important to try to incorporate fasting into my life more – both exclusively fasting from food, and incorporating things like technology fasts.

24. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace

The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is willing to do for others.
~

I must admit that I didn’t enjoy this. It wasn’t because of its length or oldness, since I like many long old books…I just didn’t think the quality of the writing was quite on the same level as the classics that I really love. I didn’t find that Ben-Hur himself had much personality, and the personality he did have was not very compelling to me (and there were so many physical descriptions of him…yes, Mr. Wallace, I get that he has muscles, thank you). Also, SPOILERS why did he wait so long to try to find his mother and sister after he got back to his hometown?? Supposedly he cared so much about them, but he seemed to care a lot more about getting vengeance than actually finding out if they were alive. Which could have been an interesting dynamic to explore, actually, but it wasn’t clear to me if Wallace himself realized that dynamic was there. END SPOILERS

Also, there were some bits that didn’t completely work/didn’t make sense, in my opinion – I thought the tweaks that were made for the 1959 movie made the story much better. (Including the cutting of the love triangle, which I think was a good decision. The way the triangle was written and presented in the book just didn’t do it for me.)

I do like the story itself a lot – the 1959 movie is one of my favorite movies – and the Maidens of Green Gables have recommended an audio drama version which I want to check out; I think that maybe the written word is just not the right medium for this story.

25. St. Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton

Read for school

If grass grows and withers, it can only mean that it is part of a greater thing, which is even more real; not that the grass is less real than it looks. St. Thomas has a really logical right to say, in the words of the modern mystic, A. E.: “I begin by the grass to be bound again to the Lord.”
~

To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not sure that biographies are where Chesterton excels. I do feel like this book gave me a good picture of St. Thomas Aquinas as a man, and I have a much better idea of his personality than I did before. However, many of the actual circumstances and details of his life are rather foggy in the book, beyond the most well-known bits that, for the most part, I already knew (like his brothers kidnapping him).

Chesterton definitely enjoys his rabbit-trails off into very-slightly related topics, which I think is not quite the best tack to take when writing a biography. I realize, of course, that Chesterton is not really trying to do the same thing that most biographers are…but I’m still not quite sure I think it works.

26. The Burglar’s Christmas by Willa Cather (under pen name Elisabeth L. Seymour), Where Love Is, There God Is Also by Leo Tolstoy, and A Country Christmas by Louisa May Alcott

If you’re wondering why I’m clumping these together, it’s because they’re all short Christmas stories that I read together for a book club. (I read several of the entries on this list for said book club, actually, though the only other one I ended up attending was for The Death of Ivan Ilyich.) I’ll list off my thoughts on each:

The Burglar’s Christmas: I liked the premise of the story a lot, but I don’t think it concluded as well as it could have. The main character came across as rather passive throughout, which made it feel like he didn’t really have any development, which in turn made the story as a whole feel a little lacking. We see in the story that he really isn’t used to or comfortable with the idea of stealing, even while he’s angry at himself for being uncomfortable with it, and I think that could easily have been used for plot/character advancement purposes. For instance, suppose he steels himself to rob a man, then finds the man is coughing up blood or something and needs urgent attention. Almost against his will, he finds himself trying to find help for him, he goes to a rich house to do so, and then the twist happens that happened in the original story.

Where Love is, There God Is Also: Tolstoy is keeping up his streak, because this, again, was fantastic. I had heard this basic story before, but I don’t believe I had ever read the whole thing in its original form (well, you know, not truly original since I didn’t read it in Russian, but close enough), and, well, it’s wonderful.

A Country Christmas: I have to confess that Alcott’s style hasn’t really grown on me with time. I really wasn’t enjoying this when I started it, but it began to grow on me as I was reading. The best part was definitely when whats-his-name was telling his story from the war; that was legitimately moving. There was a general lack of subtlety throughout, though, and I’m not sure that I unequivocally agree with all the points Alcott was making. (Also, SPOILERS why on earth didn’t the sweet girl whose name I can’t remember tell the author guy that she was engaged? Whether or not his attentions were serious, he was obviously flirting with her. It would have been only decent to tell him she wasn’t available before he started actually getting attached to her.) END SPOILERS

Well, that’s all for now; congratulations if you reached the end! I’ll be posting my movies year in review later in the week.

Have you read any of my new books of 2024? What’s your bookish 2024 year in review?