Jinny Alexander's 3 favorite reads in 2024

I've only recently discovered the delight that is Fredrik Backman, and I particualrly love listening to his books on Audio. Anxious People is a clear winner for my 2024 books due to its mix of laugh-out-loud observations on how people behave combined with a sometimes serious, sometimes satirical look at why we behave the we do and how the stresses of the world can affect us profoundly. The characters interact brilliantly and even though most of the characters are quite unlikable, I ended up rooting for them all in the end. This book is sad, happy, fun, and serious all rolled into one, and holds up a witty and moving mirror on human behaviour, and I've listened to it again and again throughout the year. I've also enjoyed other books by this author and have the rest on my enormous TBR list (or, more likely, to be listened to!).

I chose this book because partly I’ve had a lot of bereavement this year – it’s been a tough year, for sure – and this ‘people dealing with death’ novel jumped out as soon as I read the first line of its blurb. Don’t be fooled – I may have mentioned bereavement and death, but this is, ultimately, a light-hearted and uplifting novel. It’s both funny and sad, but far more funny than sad, what with the man-dressed-as-a-frog-beside-the-grave thing setting the scene for the whole story. It also resonated with my own tendency to make friends with strangers and get chatting to people in the most unlikely of situations. In fact, I was reading this while we were getting ready for a family funeral, and now count the undertaker (that’s a mortician to the Americans out there!) as a friend I’ll stay in touch with – we hit it off immediately. Not words I ever expected to say about an undertaker! “What’s the point of this rambling?” I hear you ask… Well, overall, this book is a touching, funny story of life after someone dies, living through immense sadness but finding things to laugh about nonetheless, because when someone dies, the world doesn’t stop. It’s also a story of making new friends and opening up to strangers and I loved it!

I have really enjoyed getting to know Fiona Leitch's Cornish Village world and have become fully invested in the characters in her delightful series. I read this at first because I was reading 'books like my own books' for comparasion and a knowledge of the market (which sounds terribly boring and sensible but has been a lot of fun as I've discovered many new authors I love), but I was quickly drawn into the series and have enjoyed all the Cornish Village mystery books I've read (the first 4 in the series, I think, so far). All these books are easy reads - I'm too tired for deep-centred literary masterpieces most days - and light-hearted, making them a great escape after a long day, but they all are well-written which is hugely importan to me as a reader. They also give that element of mystery solving and reader interaction as I suss out whodunnit and piece together the clues. I love a well-written mystery, and this sereies tick all the boxes. It's true that this series is also the most similiar in writing style and storytelling to my own series I've read yet, but that actually makes me love it even more as it reassures my confidence in my own work!