Are you assembling your book list for this year? Or maybe you need a little extra motivation to get you back on your reading streak? Either way, you’re in luck, because in today’s episode, we’ll be chatting all about some of my favorite reads from last year that you must not miss this year! I’ll share all about my current reads and my best recommendations for children’s books, clean YA, mystery + thriller, romance, and my top book from last year.
We’ll cover:
- My current new reads and my thoughts on them
- My recommendations for newly discovered children’s books
- Clean YA recommendations
- And my new bookshop!
Find all the links for my recommended BOOKS here: https://bookshop.org/lists/10-books-you-must-read-in-2024-what-i-m-currently-reading-part-1?
CURRENT READS:
Authentically, Izzy by Pepper Basham https://bookshop.org/a/99521/9780840714985 (recommended by @karynnhecklerauthor)
10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston https://bookshop.org/a/99521/9781368027496
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE AT BIO.SITE/SHIRAJRODRIGUEZ
(I participate in selected affiliate programs such as Amazon Associates for these links, so if a link takes you to Amazon, know that it is most likely an affiliate link.)
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey listener, are you looking for new books to add to your book list this year? I've got you, because today I'm going to be recommending six new books you need to add to your reading list this year. And don't worry, I tried to get something unique for everybody. So get cozy and come with me as we hunt for your new favorite book of 2024.
Hey friend, do you love the smell of books? Maybe you absolutely delight in the sound of a pen gliding across a page as you write. Hi, my name is Shira Rodriguez and I am a Jesus follower, a writer, entrepreneur, and lover of all things boho and books. In this podcast, I want to take you on a journey of discovering yourself, discovering God and your passions, and how to make your life beautiful and so full that it overflows into the lives of others.
And over here, we are not about compartmentalizing life. Oh no. Over here, we talk about holistically taking your life and presenting it as a place where others can be blessed just by knowing you.
Are you excited? I am. So snag your favorite mug of tea or a pen and paper and let's jump in. Because you're listening to Her Reading Life Podcast.
Hello sweet friends. Welcome to another episode of Her Reading Life Podcast. If this is your first time here, hello and welcome.
My name is Shira and I'm a Christian podcaster and novelist with a passion for words, wonder, and whimsy. I want to invite you to experience the miracle of stories and words and be transformed by books, whether they're little or big, hilarious or sorrowful, famous or little known. So settle yourself down on my virtual couch with a delicious steaming mug of coffee or a cozy cup of warm apple cider and just allow yourself to revel in all things bookish and wordy.
To those of you who have been here a little longer, I'd love to hear what you've been reading recently. My reading, if I'm completely honest, has been terribly sporadic and honestly all over the place. I'm finishing up Authentically Izzy by Pepper Basham, which is such a sweet novel about a shy bookworm named Izzy Edgewood who falls madly in love with a hobbit-loving man named Brody far across the ocean via online dating.
This book is told in epistolary style, so we get to spy on their gloriously ranty emails and bantery texts. It's such fun because it actually inspired me to start writing more and longer emails to friends full of juicy and storybook-like details. I don't think I'll ever be able to see emails quite the same way again.
This book was recommended to me by the lovely Karynn Heckler on Instagram, and I'm so grateful she did. It's been a joy to discover Brody's adorable English talent and wade through Izzy's delightful witty writing. Over the holidays, I also had a gloriously fun time listening to bits of Ten Blind Dates by Ashley Elston with my sister at night since we roomed together.
It's a hilarious, endearing mashup of While You Were Sleeping and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, set in Louisiana with a big, boisterous semi-Italian family forming the full cast. The protagonist, Sophie, gets dumped by her boyfriend just before Christmas, and so the entire family conspires in much-ado-about-nothing style to set her up on ten blind dates all throughout the remaining days of December. It's also refreshingly funny and so reminded me of my family that will often start laughing together in bed as we listen to the audiobook.
Do keep in mind there is a little bit of language. It's some scenes. I like to check out this website called Rated Reads before I read any books.
Link in the description below so that you can check the review. I highly recommend Rated Reads. They have wonderful reviews if you're interested in that.
Definitely check that out and read the book because it is so insanely funny and listen to the audiobook which is really wonderfully made. Both of these books are really wonderful in their audiobook renditions. You know, there is something so unique about how a good book can grow and change and even inspire one.
Books bring light and life into our lives. They have a life of their own, I think, and enter our lives just when we need them. I personally think they're one of God's tools for tuning us up and into the people he wants us to be.
They're old friends that age rather better than worse. And you know, during New Year's time a lot of us want to start diving into new genres or start reading more. We set our goals for the books that we want to read this year whether we've read a lot last year or haven't read any at all.
So after asking my sister and you all for suggestions, I've come up with a New Year's guide to must-read books for 2024. I hope that you enjoy this and honestly this was really fun for me to whip up. Our first category is nonfiction and this was actually a collab effort with my sister so some of her recommendations will end up here as well.
So for all of you who love nonfiction I would recommend Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson. This is not the only book that I'm going to recommend. I'm going to recommend two but for those of you who want to dive deeper into books I would highly recommend Book Girl just because it's a beautiful half memoir half booklist book that will just inspire you to start reading.
I have this right above my desk right now as I'm speaking and it's such a refreshing book. I turn to it perennially because it always inspires me to continue reading to find more delight and anytime that I need either a challenging book or a comforting book I can always turn to that book and find something either that will inspire me to read more or an author that I may find another of her works interesting or something like that and it just really fans that flame of book girlishness when I'm in a slump. Actually I'm kind of inspiring myself to read that book again so if you are into nonfiction and would love to dive more into reading this is the book to inspire you.
When I talked with my sister she also mentioned to me that not everybody is as much a book girl as I am and that's okay and some of you may not be girls at all so um she recommended Atomic Habits by James Clear which is another one which is actually on my bookshelf opposite me right now and I'm looking at it. Atomic Habits as most of you know is a number one New York Times bestseller over 10 million copies sold and I've wanted to read this for a really long time. My sister this is actually my sister's book so probably gonna steal it um sometime soon and take a peek but this book is basically about making habits that will actually last and that has really helped a lot of people create systems that help them with making their life so much smoother.
Honestly he draws from proven ideas from biology, psychology, neuroscience and this is basically just an easy to understand guide to making good habits inevitable and making bad habits impossible as the blurb says and along the way readers will be inspired and entertained with stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians and star comedians who have used this science of just changing small habits in their life to create greater ease in their life and just bringing that to your own life. It's really interesting because I believe James Clear developed these strategies for himself when he had a head injury that kept him from being able to do even basic things that most kids around his age could do. I think he had um I think he was hit by a baseball bat or something like that and it was a pretty serious injury and so they had to take him to the hospital and everything but it affected his brain and thankfully he was able to to build his life back up um using these habits that he teaches in this book and ironically this thing that would have been something terrible actually turned into something wonderful for him because he's now been able to work with actors and speakers and world-class celebrities to help them apply these things and make their life so much better.
So definitely read this book if you are interested in habits. I think I am going to take a peek as well myself because I definitely need to implement a lot more habits and you know that I'm a huge fan of habits. Some other book recommendations that I would give for this year is The American Story by David and Tim Barton if you're into history.
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki if you're into finance and business. The Universe Next Door by James Sire if you're into philosophy. How Should We Then Live by Frances Schaefer if you're into philosophy and religion.
And Radiant by Priscilla Shire. You probably already heard me recommend this one if you're into faith and religion. Our second category up is little bookworms.
So for all the little bookworms in your life I would recommend Basil of Baker Street the Great Mouse Detective by Eve Titus. This was actually named one of the 13 detective book series you obsessed over as a kid by buzzfeed.com and apparently Disney also made a movie based on it. I did not know until I researched this.
The reason why I stumbled upon this book was because my sister recommended it to me. I think my mom looked for this book for my younger sister. I don't know how it came up but I remember that she was my little sister was obsessing over this book and she came up to me and she's like you really have to read this book.
You have to read this book. It's so so good. So I listened to the audiobook and it really was wonderful.
It's basically about a mouse who lives in the cellar of Sherlock Holmes's house and he's a devoted admirer of this detective and learns his craft by listening at the feet of Holmes himself. And so when one day the mice come up to him with a mystery he needs to solve because two little twin mice have disappeared and nobody can find them so they call upon the Great Mouse Detective Basil of Baker Street to help them solve this problem. This is basically like a clean version of Sherlock Holmes so that kids can really get exposed to Sherlock Holmes without some of the more difficult things.
It's a beautiful series and I highly recommend it. I listened to the audiobooks. I think there were this is a series so I listened to the first one the second one I think I don't know if I listened to the third one but I personally found them so intriguing and so funny and sweet and the lovely thing is that you have the wonderful dressing up parts.
You have so much of Sherlock Holmes in here but you do have some of the violence or the intense parts that aren't really for kids honestly removed from them with the delightful substance still there and it's really interesting because it made me want to read the original Sherlock Holmes books when I read them and later on in the year I did actually end up reading them but I think I probably wouldn't have been as excited and as prepared to read Sherlock Holmes unless I had read this children's book series before. This is just a wonderful wonderful series that I would highly highly recommend. Do you love browsing the lovely books at indie bookstores? I do too! They're so lovingly curated and decorated.
It makes you want to curl up and read the whole afternoon. The one downside about indie bookstores is that it can sometimes be difficult to drive over and look for the book you want especially when they don't have that particular book in stock. Friends, I have really exciting news! I've partnered with bookshop.org to curate a 2024 must-read guide just for you.
I'm so thrilled and grateful to be working with them because each book you buy goes to support a local indie bookstore near you and to make this even easier I've created a list of all the books I recommended here that's available now on their website. This includes reader tags and even cleanness notes that I've added to help you find the book that is just right for you. Head over to the link in the show notes below to get a glorious new book now and support a local indie bookstore and this podcast.
Hey listener! Are you enjoying this podcast? I hope so! If this episode has blessed you today, would you let me know by rating this podcast and leaving a review? This helps other listeners just like you find this podcast and be inspired and encouraged. I'm so grateful to have the blessing of sharing this sweet haven with you. Thank you so much for listening and now let's get back into the episode.
Another book that I would definitely recommend for little bookworms is The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson and if you've been here for a little while you know that I love The Star That Always Stays. I actually had Anna Rose Johnson on my podcast for my last episode, the one before this one, and oh my goodness this is such a good book. I don't even know what to say about it because it's so good and I love it so much.
I still listen to it easily once a month at least because the audiobook is so beautiful and the story is so inspiring. But to kind of give you a summary of what it's about, it's about this young girl named Norvia who moves to a big city from Beaver Island which was like a coastal town where her dad used to work as a sailor and she has to adapt because her mother is actually getting remarried after a divorce which at that time was kind of scandalous. So she has to move to a new school in a new city with a new family and really learn how to adapt to this new situation and really bring beauty out of it especially as her mother has forced her to pretend that she's not a native at all even to Mr. Ward, her ma's new husband, and to Vernon, Norvia's irritating new stepbrother.
And there's a lot of changes in the city because at this point this is 1914 so you have Tencent movies, you have gleaming soda shops, speedy automobiles, and ninth grade because she's going into high school. It's dizzying for a girl who grew up on the forested shores of Lake Michigan and again this is also right before World War I. So despite the move, the upheaval, and the looming threat of world war, Norvia and her siblings, all five of them, are determined to make 1914 their best year ever. And so this is just such a beautiful beautiful story especially one of my favorite parts is that as a book girl I love it when books inspire you to read other books in addition to these.
So throughout the book Norvia is given the opportunity to read some beautiful children's classics such as Anna from Gables, Little Women, Pollyanna, What Katie Did, and so many others that just weave through the story and the climax of this story inspired me so much. There was a point in this book that I could not put it down. I literally could not put it down because I was so excited to see what was going to happen next and this is a very calm story so you would not expect it to be kind of like a book that you can't put down but it is so beautiful and so inspiring.
I can personally tell you that I have been changed by this book. I know that I've become a better person because of this book and Norvia's determination to bring beauty out of brokenness and her determination to be a heroine, a true heroine who does the right thing and is brave enough to step up even when things are difficult but to be brave in the face of uncomfortable circumstances in her ordinary life and to be a true heroine in her own life. Such a beautiful book.
It was also won NPR's best book of the year as well as junior library guild gold standard selection, Parnassus books spark club pick and more recently it also won a Christie award. I think it was like the children's Christie award. I might be wrong.
I think it might have been something like that but I forgot what exactly it was but it did win the Christie award which was incredible and so exciting because it was actually the week that I recorded the episode with Anna as well so that was so exciting. Third up is YA reader. So for all my YA readers, I actually did get a request on Instagram for clean YA books.
So for clean YA books, here are some of my favorites that I think you should definitely read this year. The first one up is Breakwater by Catherine Jones Payne and Breakwater is one of my favorite books especially for the beach. I love to take this book to the beach and I know this is winter so I should really not have started this over here but I highly recommend this book.
This is, it's amazing. This book is about 17 year old Jade who is engaged to a high ranking noble in the mermaid society but one day she catches him murdering a naiad and this plunges the underwater city of Thessalonica into uproar. Tensions surge between the mer and the naiads and Jade learns too late that the choices that she makes ripple further than she could have ever imagined.
This is part political commentary, part fantasy. It's really wonderful and beautiful because the world building is so exquisite and so beautiful and so well written. I remember every time that I would read this book I would come away and literally feel that I should be surrounded by water because this takes place, all takes place underwater and I wasn't.
Obviously, I'm on land. But you get so enveloped by the beautiful world building in this story but also by the story itself and I love the themes of how love overcomes hate and how even in a torn society there is always a way to mend and heal the broken parts and love and kindness always have a place. It really wrestles with a lot of themes and issues on society, on how to deal with family matters when beliefs of your family clash against the society that you're in.
It's really wonderful and beautiful and I definitely recommend this. All the books in this series, there's three books in this series and the first one is Breakwater. I think the whole series is called the Breakwater series but there's Breakwater and the second one I think is Crosscurrent and the third one is Maelstrom.
The first one really explores politically, I just find it interesting, explores politically what a society looks like as a monarch slash republic driven society. Then the second book kind of delves into what it's like to have a more democratic driven society and then the last one is really about what makes a good society and the kind of the overarching question of all these books which I loved was what does it mean to have a good society? Is a good society more about our systems or about the people who rule our systems? Is it about having a perfect system or about having people who have good morals and virtues and know how to be good people at their core? Such a good book, such a good series, and again reading this at the beach was priceless. So good.
You can hear the water lapping against the sand and turning the page and bury your feet in the sand as you read and envelop yourself in this ocean-y themed book. So good. So definitely read this either now I would recommend leaving this for a summer book read because it's so good.
Another book that I would recommend is The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson and this is a novella. This is actually one that I have recommended to every single friend of mine in high school especially if they came up to me, as some did, and told me, hey um I really am not much of a book reader. I really don't read much but what's a book that you can recommend that I can really start and jump into? And this was the one that I unequivocally recommended.
The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson is a book about a girl called Fern who has been told that she's crazy. That she has something like schizophrenia. Doctors have claimed that since her childhood she's had this kind of form of schizophrenia because of a traumatic event that happened in her past and at the beginning we're not even told what it is.
Eventually we discover what it is but she's pretty much one step away from her psych ward and despite her desire to appear normal she's constantly repressing this young man flickering at the edge of her awareness. A blonde warrior only she can see. She also gets these strange visions where things seem to be crashing and metal bars seem to be coming up through the floor and destroying things in her world and when she blinks it's not there anymore.
She sees buildings toppling over and she's been able to predict some things before they happen because she sees them before they happen but then at one point her city is rocked by the unexplainable and she is forced to consider the possibility that the young man who she thought was a hallucination may not be a hallucination after all and the creature that decimated his world may be coming for hers. So it's such an interesting story. It's short.
It's gripping. I remember I read this one in a period of 24 hours. I've recommended this to every single friend of mine who told me that they were not a reader and they have every time come back and said that was such a good book.
So this is one of my favorite books to recommend so definitely read this one as soon as possible and the fact that it is so short and easy to get into and quick and fast-paced really does set you up for success if you're looking to kind of get yourself back into reading. Some other recommendations that I would give if you love YA or are a YA reader are When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. This is a middle grade book but it kind of goes with YA.
I read this when I was like 16 I think and I thought it was really wonderful. Such a good time travel kind of book. Sci-fi, non-sci-fi.
It's really good. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle is another one that I really enjoyed and this is one of the classic YA books and The Wonderland Trials by Sarah Ella which I read recently this year and I highly recommend. So so good. It's basically about Alice in Wonderland but set in a dystopian London and it's YA. So so good. I highly recommend it.
Hey friend! I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode today. If you'd like to hear my recommendations for mystery, romance, and my absolute top book of 2023 that you must not miss in 2024, tune in for part two of this episode where we'll dive into all this and more. And again, if you'd like to get any of the books I recommended in this episode for yourself, I have them all listed in the link below and on my bookshop where I have them all neatly listed on my virtual shelf.
I hope that you have a beautiful and very blessed day, friend. Until next time, keep living, giving, and repeating.
Yay! You did it! I'm giving you a lovely big virtual hug because you just finished another episode of Her Reading Life podcast.
If you'd like to access all the wonderful links I mentioned in this episode, visit my website at bio.site slash shirajerodriguez. That's bio.site slash shirajerodriguez. There you can access my blog posts, resources, and so much more.
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