Mary McDaniel Cail's 3 favorite reads in 2024

The Covenant of Water reminded me more than anything else I’ve ever read of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth trilogy in the writing style and in the way it swept me into a country, an age, and an extended family. I remember this book the way I remember a trip, like I’ve been there and met the characters as real people. Interestingly, I usually avoid medical drama but in this book, it was okay; even the graphic descriptions. I read parts of it twice, just to enjoy the writing. It is clear, complex, heartbreaking, and life affirming, all at once.

It’s hard for me to say that an author has somehow improved upon Charles Dickens, but I must admit that I liked Demon Copperhead better than David Copperfield. I was stunned by Kingsolver’s reweaving of Dickens’s story, both in clever plot elements and detail. The book gave me a sense of what it must be like for a child utterly trapped within an impoverished world of dysfunctional adults and systems. Although I know about addiction, this book helped me go beyond knowing. It helped me imagine. Kingsolver handles pacing and plot like a great musician handles a long complicated piece of music. I liked it almost as much as The Poisonwood Bible, which is one of my all-time favorite books.

Anthony Horowitz was brilliant, and I am sorry he's no longer with us, writing more books. I love whodunits and thrillers, especially when they can be described as equally literary and riveting, so I was most pleased to discover Horowitz's clever (very) series of 5 Daniel Hawthorne mystery detective stories, in which he, the writer himself, is a character. I arbitrarily chose this one as my favorite of what I’ve read so far, but I’ve enjoyed them all. It was impossible to choose honestly. (However, I would have enjoyed the first one more if the second murder hadn’t been so bloody—In the end, though, I understood, and the violence didn’t seem gratuitous.) I have, throughout my reading of these books, found myself impressed by Horowitz’s smartness and humor, and I LOVE the way he subtly, at times, reminds the reader of all of the characters and their various roles, so you don’t have to scribble them down somewhere to refer back to as you read or, rather, in my case with these books, listen. I highly recommend listening. The narrator is terrific.