2024 Reading Roundup

You cannot be a good writer of any sort if you are not an avid reader. This is surely the reason that I have never met a grants professional that does not read voraciously – books, newspapers, magazines, journals, RFP’s, reports, guidelines, etc.

As the year comes to a close (and what a year it’s been!), let’s look back on some of the best books we’ve read in 2024 (in no particular order):

• Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon – Maine, 1789. A historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife. “Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists.”
• By Any Other Name, Jodi Picoult – Set in the current day and 1581 the novel explores the challenges confronted by women playwrights with such insights as: “When it came to history, absence of evidence was not evidence of absence.”
• The Berry Pickers, Amanda Peters – Maine, 1962. “”A harrowing tale of Indigenous family separation . . . [Peters] excels in writing characters for whom we can’t help rooting . . . With The Berry Pickers, Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mi’kmaw ancestors. ‘White folks been trying to take the Indian out of us for centuries,’ a character tells Norma. ‘But now that you know, you gotta let people know.’ Peters is letting people know.” —Eric Nguyen, The New York Times Book Review.
• The Women, Kristen Hannah – Vietnam, 1965. This story explores the women who served and who have been almost entirely overlooked by history with such insights as, “Maybe happy now, happy for a moment, is all we really get. Happy forever seems a shitload to ask in a world on fire.”
• Here One Moment, Liane Moriatry – This one is hard to describe and so worthwhile: “Life is full of twists and turns you never see coming. But what if you did?”
• The Life Impossible, Matt Haig – This wasn’t my favorite Matt Haig book which just means that it was slightly less brilliant than the others. “What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…”
• The Beartown Trilogy, Fredrick Backman – Every single book of his is fabulous but this trilogy is worth endless re-reads. “Being a parent makes you feel like a blanket that’s always too small. No matter how hard you try to cover everyone, there’s always someone who’s freezing.”
• You Like it Darker, Stephen King – This collection of short stories should be read slowly, one at a time to let each of them sink in; “When intelligence outraces emotional stability, it’s always just a matter of time.”
• Variation, Rebecca Yarros – A beautifully written romance between an elite ballerina and a coast guard rescue swimmer that offers a peaceful counterweight to King’s darkness.
• Fourteen Days, a Collaborative Novel – “Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice—from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham (as per Amazon).”
• Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout. Two of the author’s best written characters, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, finally meet. “People did not care, except for maybe one minute. It was not their fault, most just could not really care past their own experiences.”
• Spirit Crossing, William Kent Krueger. I always love spending time with Cork O’Connor and family and the constant mysteries that find them. It’s like visiting with an old friend.

Drop us a line and let us know what you’ve been reading this year, recommendations always welcome!