Dragon's Library Year in Review 2024

For about the last 2 years, I was aware that social media was destroying my brain and I was addicted to mindless scrolling on my phone, but I felt powerless to do anything about it. Since the pandemic, this had manifested in a number of pathetic ways, increasingly in my reading habits, as evidenced by the sharp decline in the number of books I consumed: 42 last year, as opposed to an average of over 100 a year before covid. 

November brought a break for me and I was able to get myself 99% off Facebook, Reels, Instagram, Threads, and all the other infinite sources of garbage I had been feeding myself. It's not easy, and one thing that helped was downloading the Libby app, so that I could channel my entrenched inclination to stare at the phone into a more productive use of my time. My book consumption increased by an order of magnitude. Almost half the books I read in 2024, I read in November and December. 

Next year is going to be rough for a lot of people in a lot of ways, but for me, being on Libby instead of Facebook is going to make things a little bit better. 

Anyway, here it is: 

Dragon's Year in Review

Picture books:             12

Middle grade/YA        17

Nonfiction                   5

Graphic novel             12

Memoir                       7

Novel                          14

Poetry                         2

Short stories               2

Total:                         71

The Thin Man

Written by: Dashiell Hammett

First line: I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. 

Why you should read this book: This is the classic hard-boiled detective story, featuring tough and clever alcoholic (and retired detective) Nick Charles, and his clever and beautiful wife, Nora, who are just trying to have a relaxing vacation. Nick is dragged, very much against his will, into the case of a dead woman who has some connection to people Nick used to know, and to a lot of people that Nick doesn't care to know at all. Even though he swears he's retired, now he's consulting with the cops, interviewing suspects, getting shot at, and gathering evidence while avoiding sobriety at every turn. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I thought it was pretty unfair to the reader that the story withholds some of the evidence until after Nick solved the crime.

Return of the Dapper Men

Written by: Jim McCann and Janet Lee

First line: Long from now, in a land known as Anorev, there lived...well...not many people. 

Why you should read this book: Ayden, a boy, and Zoe, a robot, live in a strange city populated only by children and robots, where time never passes and nothing ever changes. Ayden and Zoe are best friends, but the other robots and children don't like each other and live separate lives, beneath the unseeing eyes of a broken colossal angel clock, until the day 314 dapper men float out of the sky. Now it's up to Ayden and Zoe to restore the passage of time, ensuring that robots and children reunite the way they were meant to interact, and that a tock follows every tick. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You were born middle-aged. 

Moshkeleh the Thief

Written by: Sholom Aleichem

First line: Non-Jews called him Moshke.

Why you should read this book: Billed as a "lost" novel of the great Yiddish writer (more of a short story or novella in my estimation), this is a very exciting and non-traditional kind of love story that shines a light on the once-vibrant and now-extinct world of the Jewish shtetl. Moshkele is a horse thief who is held in disdain by the entire community, a community that calls on him to solve any problem that requires wit and strength, but refuses to let him marry any of their daughters; Tsireleh is the beautiful daughter of a tavern-keeper who has seen firsthand exactly what traditional marriage has done to her sisters and determines to have no part in it. When Tsireleh runs off with a goy and takes shelter in a monastery, her father engages Moshkeleh to bring her back, unaware that Moshkeleh has been in love with Tsireleh for a long time.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your adult child has run off.

Plain Noodles

Written by: Betty Waterton and Joanne Fitzgerald

First line: One sunny day when it was neither spring nor summer, Captain Figg came whistling out of his lighthouse and nearly tripped over his wife.

Why you should read this book: Empty nester Mrs. Figg desperately misses her adult children, who have all run off to join the circus, so she is delighted the day that a rowboat containing a dozen babies and one toddler drifts to shore. She happily spends the day caring for the babies while the toddler "helps" and remembers how difficult little kids actually are. Happily, the children's mothers all return to collect their children so Captain and Mrs. Figg can enjoy their golden years in peace.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think the secret to raising a lot of kids is to get them to take care of each other. 

Normal Sucks: How to Live, Learn, and Thrive outside the Lines

Written by: Jonathan Mooney

First line: Sons, You have each asked me a question, in different ways, at different times, and, I think, for different reasons.

Why you should read this book: Framed somewhat as a letter to his children, this book braids Mooney's experience growing up with dyslexia and ADHD with an examination of the limiting and historical ideas of normality and a discussion of the power of being different. While he struggles for much of his youth to blend in and succeed according to other people's standards, he comes to understand that the conditions others call disabilities are, for him, wells of strength from which he can draw new ways of being. Through his cultural research, he discovers that there is, scientifically, no such thing as normal after all, that it is our differences that make us human and allow us to thrive, and that viewing differences as problems robs humanity of its fullest potential.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've never had to work to fit in. 

Clash

Written by: Kayla Miller

First line: Okay, okay, but picture this...in a city where crimes and evildoings are piled so high that they've blocked out the sun, only one hero can see through the dark...The Owl!

Why you should read this book: Has Olive Branche, the girl who is friends with everyone, finally met the one person she can't make friends with? Nat is the new girl in school, so naturally Olive volunteers to show her around, but Nat seems more interested in figuring out which of Olive's friends are cool enough for her, and Olive isn't exactly feeling the love. The harder she tries to be nice to Nat, the more she feels pushed out of her circles, until Halloween night, when Nat's true face will be revealed. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're two-faced and insecure. 

Tidesong

Written by: Wendy Xu

First line: Once upon a time in a kingdom by the sea, a dragon fell in love with a human fisherman.

Why you should read this book: Distantly descended from dragons, Sophie has the power to control the weather, but if she wants to master magic, she needs to get into the top academy for magic, so her parents send her to study with her cousin Sage and Aunt Lan. Sophie is eager to learn by Aunt Lan seems determined to wear her out with boring chores and keep all her secrets to herself. When Sophie takes matters into her own hands, she accidentally traps a young dragon called Lir in human form, and now his father, a dragon king is enraged, and time is running out to fix her mistakes. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have no patience for studying the basics. 

All the Lovely Bad Ones

Written by: Mary Downing Hahn

First line: Grandmother met us at the Burlington Airport, a big smile on her face and her arms open for a hug. 

Why you should read this book: Banned from summer camp due to their constant pranks, Travis and his sister Corey are spending the summer at their grandmother's quaint Vermont hotel, and when they learn that the property is supposedly haunted, they can't help themselves. Little could they know that their carefully orchestrated fake haunting is just the thing to wake up the real ghosts who slumber there, uneasy in their graves. Now it's up to these two tricksters to learn the property's chilling history and set to right the evils of the past. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: For a ghost story it's not especially scary. 

How We Fight for Our Lives

Written by: Saeed Jones

First line: The waxy-faced weatherman on Channel 8 said we had been above 90 degrees for ten day in a row.

Why you should read this book: Gripping and provocative, this memoir describes the poet's early life, his burgeoning understanding of his own sexuality and what it meant to be queer and Black and smart and sexy and living in Texas. As he grows up, he grapples with how best to express these truths to himself, his family, and to the world. Woven through Jones's coming-of-age is the story of his mother, who raised him as a single mom, and the strength of her heart, along with its weakness.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you have a problem with promiscuous gay sex, this might not be the story for you.