The hunger of a good book

Favourite five-star reads in 2024 that fed my soul.

If you want to know Ireland,
body and soul,
you must read its poems and stories.

— William Butler Yeats

I read 78 books in 2024.

I set the goal of 200 partly as a joke and also to see if I could do it.

Reading challenges can be arbitrary.

All that matters is that you read.

You cannot fail at reading.

Friends often ask me what they should read next, and I will tell you exactly what I tell them — I only recommend five-star books. 

Just like the particularly awful sushi I threw in the bin recently (too salty, no love, obviously crap) I really can't power through subpar. This includes books.

How do I rate a book? Five-stars is a feeling. I get a bodily knowing immediately when I start reading or a few chapters in that ‘this is going to be GOOD’. It makes me feel giddy, turned on, and excited to be alive.

Of course, rating books is subjective. No one has the exact same taste as you. Yet I am always shocked when I read review take-downs of books I’ve loved and think: “You missed the point!” (I’ve missed the point of many books too).

Books are nutritive.

When I don’t have a good book on the go, I feel starved of something essential.

Books are portals to other worlds. They feed our hungry souls and inspire our imaginations, give us new ideas, perspectives and sigh-out-loud satisfaction — satiating our longings and giving us that delicious feeling of cozy contentment.

As J.D. Salinger wrote, when you’re reading a really good book, “You wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”

There is nothing better than the company of a good book.

A book can also genuinely change your life. When this happens, it is magic.

Here are my five-star reads of 2024:

This Is Happiness — This book is PURE JOY and my favourite of the year. I am in continuous awe of Niall Williams’ writing and his evocative, musical turn of phrase is like no other. Set in a small village called Faha in County Clare, it follows a coming-of-age story with the coming of electricity to Ireland. Niall Williams is a master of making the characters feel so close to you like you could reach out and hug them. He is also an expert at describing rain.

It came straight-down and sideways, frontwards, backwards and any other wards God could think of. It came in sweeps, in waves, sometimes in veils. It came dressed as drizzle, as mizzle, as mist, as showers, frequent and widespread, as a wet fog, as a damp day, a drop, a dreeping, and an out-and-out downpour.

The Rachel Incident — Taking place in the city of Cork and my heart forever, Caroline O'Donoghue has written the perfect Irish chick-lit book. Recounting an “incident” that happened ten years prior, I laughed SO HARD and also held the book to my chest with recognition. Hard to put down and has Fleabag vibes ala the messiness of your twenties. All the Cork references are on point!

Snowflake — Incredible literary debut from Louise Nealon that shuttles between Trinity College in Dublin and a dairy farm in Kildare. It’s about identity, belonging, the imperfection of family, and the madness of it all.

Long Island — I was LIVING for this release as the follow-up to Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn. Part two follows Eilis Lacey married to Tony and living in New York state’s Long Island. A lot happens up front and the plot moves very quickly. Eilis returns to a small town in Wexford and is reunited with an old flame Jim who she left behind 20 years ago. It is a stinging mix of lost hopes, regret, and forlorn Irishness. I’m still convinced that the last page of the book is missing because that cannot be the ending. A support group is needed.

Sunburn — In my blaze of only reading Irish books after returning to Australia with intense soul lag, Chloe Michelle Howarth’s book caught my eye and I inhaled it. Set in the early 1900s in a small town in rural Ireland, the novel follows a forbidden queer romance between two high school girls that is dripping in desire, confusion, yearning and pain. In short, as Irish as it gets.

Basketmaking in Ireland — I hunted this down all over the Emerald Isle. A seminal book by County Galway’s traditional basket maker Joe Hogan that when I finally found in the window of The Last Bookshop (a charming secondhand bookseller on Camden Street in Dublin), I jumped a lot.

Scenes of a Graphic Nature — Another Caroline O'Donoghue hit. Partly a mystery tied up in the main character Charlie getting to the bottom of her dad’s childhood as the only survivor of a schoolhouse fire on the island of Clipim, off the coast of Kerry. A failing filmmaker, she is catapulted back there with her best friend and look, a lot happens. It is funny, dark, and will bring up a lot of mixed feelings (it discusses the abuse of women and children at the hands of the Catholic Church). It also made me very homesick for a pint of Guinness in a pub with a trad sesh rocking on. I can smell the peat.

History of the Rain — Once I started my Niall Williams bender, I could not stop. Another supreme stand out of 2024, set again in the small town of Faha (of This is Happiness fame). Told through the eyes and literature of 19-year-old Ruth Swain who is bedridden in her attic bedroom surrounded by her late father’s 3,958 books and tells the story of her family and County Clare community. Achingly beautiful and deeply moving, with constant rain and Irish-isms abound.

There's a book inside you. There's a library inside me.

Weyward — I knew from the first page that I was going to FALL HARD for Emilia Hart’s extraordinary story that spans three generations of women across five centuries in 1619, 1942 and 2019. It’s about feminine power, suppression, the early roots of witchcraft (as a connection to the natural world) and the true meaning of the word ‘witch’. A historical fiction meets modern-day drama; an easy five-star read and I am eagerly awaiting her next book Sirens. I could have cancelled all plans to read this in a day.

Once There Were Wolves — Life at this point is just a wait between Charlotte McConaghy releases. I found this book in a charity shop in Clonakilty and the synopsis had me in three words: Scottish Highlands and wolves. The story tracks Inti Flynn and a team of biologists trying to reintroduce wolves and rewild Scotland then morphs into a murder mystery (not my usual genre) with lush descriptions of nature and WHOLLY HECK THAT SUBLIME SCENE IN THE SNOWY FOREST THAT I CAN’T GIVE AWAY. I adored her debut Migrations and have already cleared my calendar for when her 2025 book Wild Dark Shore comes out.

She opens her eyes.
And looks at me.
I am halved and doubled at once.

The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding — I didn’t read this book, I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Holly Ringland, YOU GOT ME GOOD. My soul friend Louise gifted me this book for my birthday which was bold and it paid off — it was my second favourite book of the year! It was enthralling and I am still in this story set in Tasmania, Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands (which coincidentally is on my current vision board). It’s about the tenderness of sisters, the immensity of loss, Nordic folktales and a quest to uncover secrets tattooed on the body. I was late for work many times reading this engrossing tale and I happened to see Eivør live just before I started this book — magic!

Ceremony — Brianna Wiest is a profound channel for the simplicity of the truth. This book has really good zinger lines and life advice from someone who has been to the depths. It is beautiful to practice book divination with (ask for a message, open a page) and I read it at the Mid-Winter’s Deep Rest, Reading and Ritual Retreat I co-hosted last year - we have another one in Late Summer this March 2025 with a few spots remaining!

The Universe is not making you wait for what will be yours, you are waiting for your own readiness, and it’s okay if that takes time.

The Creative Act: A Way of Being — The lord Rick Rubin delivered one of the best books PROBABLY EVER for demystifying the act of creating something with crystal clear clarity and actionable instructions. I would give this book 5000 stars. It will find you at the exact moment you need it, and it will be perfect. I dog-eared almost every page and wrote out a thousand quotes that are like holy transmissions.

Inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.

Instructions for Traveling West — Joy Sullivan had me in rapture from the first line in the first poem in her debut collection: “First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living.” COOL, heart on the floor. Following her own advice to a T — she left the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west across America. These glorious word nuggets tumbled out of the landscapes and into her to birth for us. For anyone seeking, questing, and longing to truly live.

All Fours — I spent the first half of this book wondering HOW IS THIS A BOOK. Then I submitted to the gall of it all, and let Miranda July’s brilliance woo me. Impossible to explain this plot except to say: the hype is real.

The Practice: Shipping Creative Work — Seth Godin wrote a ‘snippet’ style advice book and many sentiments have stayed with me. I always think of this line when I’m procrastinating on writing or go into perfectionism overdrive and re-edit for the hundredth time to remind me to PRESS PUBLISH.

We don’t ship because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship.

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle — No exaggeration, this book forever changed my life. I’ve had longstanding difficulties with understanding my father and how this has adversely played out in my default attachment style. Mark Wolynn’s book was recommended by a new psychotherapist in my first session, and along with Systemic Family Constellations work, it radically changed my understanding of intergenerational trauma and how ancestral history (going back several generations) has been passed down to me. “It didn’t start with you” is often true and impactful examples in the book show this. I learnt that inherited family dynamics can be healed, father/mother wounds can be resolved, and unhealthy patterns can end with you too.

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World — Robin Wall Kimmerer's newest book (of Braiding Sweetgrass lore) is a short and sweet look at how nature offers its gifts freely. A meditation on harvesting a Native American berry and sharing what is plentiful in a gift economy vs hoarding in hyper-capitalism. I loved the "Harvest Honourably" pointers and the thought-provoking ideas for how to share resources with others.

Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more.

Ashes and Stones: A Scottish Journey in Search of Witches and Witness — An investigation into witches' monuments across Scotland and the women’s lives that were lost there. Author Allyson Shaw went on a pilgrimage to record and uncover all the “witches” (meaning wise woman in Latin) tortured and persecuted in the witch hunts of the seventeenth century. This is a very dense book, I don’t mean that as a criticism but rather a quality. I visited a few of the sites on my Scottish travels in 2023 to honour the souls lost, and this book does an admirable job of condensing all of the harrowing history.

In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss — Not great for my sensitive nervous system but an important read by Amy Bloom who accompanied her husband Brian who had an Alzheimer's diagnosis to Switzerland for him to gain access to end-of-life treatment by assisted suicide. Heartwrenching and incredibly brave storytelling with surprising lightness. The ending will stay with you.

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.

The Journey: Big Panda and Tiny Dragon — A children-meets-adult picture book by James Norbury that tells the adventure of two unlikely friends (a panda and a dragon) in a similar vein to The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Whimsical illustrations are woven in with ancient proverbs and Buddhist philosophy (including a tea scene!). I was clutching my heart many times. You can read it in 20 minutes, and shed a tear by the 18-minute mark.

It's natural to be scared but sometimes we must carry on anyway.

Fear will not stop you dying, but it may stop you from living.

Nature Devotional — My beloved friend Jill found this book for me in a Byron Bay op shop and I gasped - it is me in a nutshell. Split into six seasonal chapters, it is a guide containing meditations, observations and musings on The Wheel of the Year and nature cycles from early spring to deep winter. A cute little yellow book that I tote around from my tea room to cafe chai dates.

Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses — Another Robin Wall Kimmerer gem. If you share my life goal to become moss, this scientific yet elegant exploration of mosses will melt your moss soul. As a fellow reviewer wrote: “She made me want to shrink down and live in a forest of moss.”

Faeries — A gorgeous coffee-table book featuring elemental beings and illustrations of the ‘otherworld’ realms of the fae (fairies), supernatural entities, and nature beings. Five stars for the enchantment factor and the intricate details, I’ve never seen anything like it.

Wabi Sabi — The perfect children’s book. A truly phenomenal Japanese tale (tail) about a cat who goes on a quest to find the meaning of her name ‘Wabi Sabi’ - and makes every adult who reads it cry in the process. It’s like Shrek (multi-layered meanings) but in Kyoto (stunning) and Zen (wise). Kids will love the hand-cut paper illustrations and lyrical story. I love that the whole book orientation is upside down and there’s a tea bowl scene. I rest my case.

Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone — Amy Key charts her history of love, relationships and loss alongside Joni Mitchell's album Blue. I got this in as a special request at my library and it blew me away. Although I am not exceptionally versed in Joni (Both Sides Now forever), I could follow the song-by-song mirroring per chapter. Most of the book is about Amy being partnerless (‘single’) and childless (or ‘child-free’) and the absence of romantic love in her life, and how living alone changes you. I was enthralled by the radical honesty and her courage to express such deep personal intimacies like coming to terms with her life as a perceived failure. A poignant and powerful read.

I know sex isn’t analogous with intimacy — and sex doesn’t require intimacy to be hot. So more than sex, I crave physical and emotional closeness, the intimacy that comes through trust, honest reckonings, love that sees you at your most flinty or gruesome times and accepts you.

I crave someone letting themselves go enough to sleep on my shoulder. I crave letting myself do the same.

Boy Friends — When Michael Pedersen lost his cherished friend Scott Hutchison to suicide, many of us felt that loss immensely too. Scott was the frontman of the widely-loved Scottish band Frightened Rabbit — the soundtrack to my university days and unrequited crushes. As a longtime fan, I didn’t even know this book existed. Michael writes an ode to one of the ‘loves’ of his life - his friend Scott - and the shock that followed, as well as a window into the transformative power of male bonds. As someone who reads a lot about female friendship, this memoir feels like a privileged peek into the language that men create together and the inner world of one of my favourite songwriters and musicians.

Outlander — Okay, I do harp on about this show a lot, but I’d never read any of Diana Gabaldon’s famous series. That is until I was housesitting in Halfway near Cork over the winter and voila — the entire Outlander series was on the bookshelf. I am still floored that Diana had never visited Scotland when she wrote the first book that inspired a generation of Jamie-obsessed Sassenachs. My POV for the ‘Is the show or book better?’ debate is that the book provides richer descriptions of Claire as stronger and sassier than in the show and I didn’t think it was possible: but Jamie is even hotter in the book. In the course of my lifetime, I plan to read one over each winter solstice.

You can see all the 78 books that I read in 2024 and the ones that didn’t make the cut.

And then there are the enduring soul favourites that I pick up and re-read all year around: Blessings by John O’Donohue, The House of Belonging by David Whyte, Clarity and Connection by Yung Pueblo, plus Women Who Run With Wolves, Nature and The Human Soul, Letters to a Young Poet, The Way of Tea, and the one I always wish I had written — The Book of Qualities.

If you read all these, you might just become me.

Notable Misses

Intermezzo was a solid four stars for me, Sally Rooney’s fourth novel is exceptionally written but I didn’t get swept up in it until Chapter 11. Evenings & Weekends was very close to five stars as was Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun (hanging to watch the film!). And I read Animals — the book that Dolly Alderton told me (via a Q&A at her event) that she wishes she had written — and revealed she is co-writing a movie script with Caroline O’Donoghue (!!).

Looking back, some things are clear: If I love an author, I am loyal to them. I don’t generally like slow books, there has to be some momentum and candour to hook me. I didn’t read as much non-fiction as I usually do. Fiction is still high on my list of life’s everyday pleasures. I probably should ‘challenge’ myself to read more classics and diverse genres, but I probably won’t.

Reading on retreat by a crackling fire with a live pianist and my Irish wool.

My friend Rebekah asked how do I keep track of the books I’ve read? Great question. I’ve written about this before in How To Read More — A Guide (mealtimes, at first light, before bed) and the short answer is: Goodreads. Their UX is still lacking and I have much feedback, but it does the job for tracking books you ‘want to read’ and the limitless satisfaction of marking a book as ‘read’ which is the cheapest dopamine going around.

My friend Bri recommends The StoryGraph. I had a play around and it's got appeal (it reports on your reading moods) however, I can’t switch over as I’ve got eight years of reading data in my Goodreads app, so I’m hooked for life.

If you want to know yourself - body and soul - you must read.

A good book is the closest thing to being touched without actual contact.

A good book makes your inner world richer.

A good book feeds your soul.

Don’t deny yourself the pleasure.

Another life pleasure: sharing a homegrown watermelon for lunch in West Cork.

Tell me, what was your favourite book of 2024 and what should I read in 2025?

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