Hannah's top three of 2024

December is here and it's time to round up the Lighthouse team's favourite books of 2023! As usual, the brief is simple but strict (although there are those who find creative ways of expanding it…): three books you read, although they may not necessarily have been published, this year. The publishing schedule is swift and unforgiving and we also want to share the love with all those older books we fell in love with in 2024.

Welcome to Hannah's favourites!

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers - Such a beautiful, insightful, and meaningful sci-fi novella. I devoured the Wayfarer series by the same author so I’d been saving this one for a while! Meet Dex - a successful but restless nomadic monk who travels their moon providing solace to others (through the medium of tea and a chat) is finding it difficult to do the same for themself. That is, until a whim to visit the wilderness and an encounter with a curious robot who has set out to discover ‘what humans need’. Join the unlikely travelling companions as they navigate the literal and metaphorical rocky road of life and its meaning.

Very glad there's a second instalment to turn to when I need another dose of comfort and hope (A Prayer for the Crown Shy).

Other authors you might like if you enjoy daily life amongst fantastical settings include Emily St John Mandel, Terry Pratchett, and Travis Baldree.

How to Protect Bookstores and Why : The Present and Future of Bookselling by Danny Caine - I love bookshop origin stories so this was an absolute treat! Caine profiles 12 independent bookstores with obvious enthusiasm and adoration for his fellow bookstore owners and their varied causes and specialisms. Each case study ends with an action step on how to support and protect bookstores, which looks beyond simply showing up and spending, to consider the roles bookstores play in community, society, and economy.

Caine's first book looks at why we should resist (and boycott) the behemoth that is am*zon - which might be worth a read if you're not already convinced!

If you like books about bookshops and bookselling then take a look at The Bookshop Woman, A Bookshop of One’s Own, and The Bookshop Cat (highly recommended by my nephew).

Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius (translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles) - Stolen paints an icy picture of the prejudices faced by Sámi people and their reindeer, alongside their rich culture and intergenerational struggles. We meet Elsa as a nine year old beginning to understand why they are othered, and the dangers faced by the community (after she witnesses a violent crime against their herd). Then again at nineteen when Elsa is furious, frustrated with the authorities, and determined to take matters into her own hands.

The pace really picks up in the last third of the book and I was rooting for her thrilling vengeance, but the reality of her situation means there’s no neat happy ending for anyone - but perhaps some hopeful change.

Punished will be the next in the trilogy, and focuses on five Sámi children in state mandated 'nomad school' where their language and traditions are suppressed (out in February 2025).

Special mention to The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer which I've just started but it's fast becoming a favourite... "all flourishing is mutual"

Find more top three lists of 2024 from the team HERE