Welcome to the Smooth Brain Bookshop: Summer Reading List 2024

My favourite books (and yours) from the year

Dec 27, 2024

Happy holidays!

I’ve had a week of family festivities, cooking, wrapping presents, shopping in crowded stores, last minute dashes to the supermarket, snack runs, time in the sun (well, mostly in the shade for me), moving around from one family event to the next and today it feels like our holiday (aka do very little) starts today.

My boxing day outfit from Lee Mathews. As dressed up as I’m going to be for the next few days.

We’re finally in that gorgeous week where no one really knows what day it is/where they are/what’s going on. And I can start to read and totally switch off. I hope the same is happening for you!

When I’m on holidays, I do my best reading.

There’s literally nothing more fulfilling than reading a book you can’t put down. That feeling when you want to take your book with you everywhere and look forward all day to getting into bed early to read for hours. If you’re like me and you’re going to try and have a phone-rotting/doom-scrolling free summer (or at least attempt to) - we need good books to get us through!

My 2024 reads

Admittedly, I didn’t have a huge reading year. I definitely bought plenty of books but I only managed to get through 7 and that’s ok. My goal is to have my own personal bookshop at home, with books for every mood and moment, waiting for me to be ready for them. I think I’m doing quite well at building this! To me, a great gift is a voucher for a bookstore so the building can continue.

My top read of the year was All Fours by Miranda July. It was fascinating, eye-opening/shocking, completely not what I expected it to be and enthralling from the first page to the last. When I recommend it to friends, I say, prepare yourself as it’s a wild ride. So that’s all I’ll say.

Here’s everything else I recommend:

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, All Fours by Miranda July, A Court Of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, Good Cooking Every Day by Julia Ostro, Happy Place by Emily Henry

This Summer, I plan to read:
Realistically, if I finish Rivals (it’s a big book) by Jilly Cooper - then I’ll be stoked. If I get through that, I’m going to read Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.

Your Favourites:

I put the call out to my lovely Instagram community to share their favourite reads of the year and they absolutely delivered! Some of these I’ve read and loved and others, are going straight on my to-be-read list:

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez, Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The Appeal by Janice Hallet, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, Butter by Asako Yuzuki

Sharp Object by Gillian Flynn, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, Insomiac City by Bill Hayes, Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, The Wedding People by Alison Espach, Foster by Claire Keegan.

Still Life by Sarah Winman, Funny Story by Emily Henry, Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo, The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Thanks for reading Smooth Brain by Ali Whittle! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Substack recs:

If you’re wanting some reading recommendations on this very platform, here’s some Substack accounts to sink your teeth into!

Angelina Hazzouri’s Lunch on Friday - beautiful, poignant essays. I adore when any of Angelina’s work hits my inbox. Some of my favourites here:

Lunch on Friday

What Makes It Good?

“Want to go to a museum together this Saturday?” my brother wrote me on Wednesday. What a nice idea. “Let’s have lunch at JG Melon first and then go to the Met,” I suggested. He was in…

7 months ago · 404 likes · 47 comments · Angelina Hazzouri

Lunch on Friday

We Should All Talk to Strangers

On Tuesday evening, I bolted out of work at 6:27 pm, knowing I had 33 minutes to make it to the bookstore before it closed. The book they had ordered for me, Brat by Gabriel Smith—not to be confused with BRAT by Charli XCX—had arrived, and I wanted to retrieve it so I could start reading it that night. I made it to…

a year ago · 2721 likes · 147 comments · Angelina Hazzouri

Lunch on Friday

Being Famous Is Probably Really Hard

I imagine being famous is a lot of work. That’s why whenever someone tells me they heard that some celebrity is a bitch or an asshole or “tough to work with,” I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Imagine your creativity being someone else’s source of income. Imagine feeling like you have a magnifying glass hovering over your every move. Imagine …

8 months ago · 195 likes · 10 comments · Angelina Hazzouri

Annie Brown’s Book’s & Nice Things - I live for Annie’s book recs and her pop culture/fashion musings:

Books & Nice Things

015 Squalid overboogie

Image: courtesy of Saint Laurent…

7 months ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Annie Brown

Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me: my go-to newsletter for news, NYC gossip, pop culture happenings. I love Emily’s POV. She’s tapped in to all the goings on we need to know about.