Ep. 186: The Best Backlist Books We Read in 2024 with Catherine (@GilmoreGuide)
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.9 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 186, Catherine (@GilmoreGuide) and Sarah share the best backlist books they read in 2024. They discuss their top 5 backlist books from last year, highlight some underrated backlist gems, and review their backlist reading statistics. Devoting an entire episode to backlist reading is now an annual tradition at Sarah’s Bookshelves Live — a team and listener favorite!
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Announcement
- 2024’s Best of the Backlist Guide is available now! 25 of the Sarah’s Bookshelves Live Patrons share the best backlist book they read last year in a beautiful PDF guide. To get the guide, you can sign up to be a Superstars patron here. You’ll also get access to a 3 bonus podcast episodes per month and my Rock Your Reading Tracker and our all-new Lite Reading Tracker.
Highlights
- Sarah and Catherine share their full stats for backlist reading in 2024.
- Backlist reading quantity was down a bit again last year for Sarah, but backlist reading quality increased.
- Catherine had a slight decrease in the number of backlist books she read, but backlist reading remained incredibly successful for her.
- Sarah’s backlist reading included several atypical choices for her, maybe shaping how she approaches 2025.
Our Top 5 Backlist Books We Read in 2024 [6:27]
Catherine
- Ghosts by Dolly Alderton | Amazon
| Bookshop.org [6:33]
- Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson | Amazon | Bookshop.org [12:19]
- Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell | Amazon | Bookshop.org[17:38]
- Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots by Jessica Soffer | Amazon | Bookshop.org[24:10]
- Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson | Amazon | Bookshop.org[32:11]
Sarah
- The Hop by Diana Clarke | Amazon
- The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore | Amazon | Bookshop.org [14:26]
- Water by John Boyne | Amazon [20:57]
- Starter Villain by John Scalzi | Amazon | Bookshop.org [27:32]
- Empire Falls by Richard Russo | Amazon | Bookshop.org [36:33]
Other Books Mentioned
- Good Material by Dolly Alderton [8:54]
- The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore [14:37]
- The Holdout by Graham Moore [16:58]
- Earth by John Boyne [21:09]
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne [22:18]
- Fire by John Boyne [22:57]
- This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer (coming Feb 4) [26:57]
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson [32:42]
- Case Histories by Kate Atkinson [32:54]
Underrated Backlist Gems [38:56]
Catherine
- The Reformatory
by Tananarive Due | Amazon | Bookshop.org
- The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons | Amazon
Sarah
- Home Stretch
- The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters | Amazon
Other Books Mentioned
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead [41:33]
- Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro [43:51]
- Frankie by Graham Norton [45:12]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. |
| 0:14.2 | Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. |
| 0:19.5 | Let's get rolling. |
| 0:20.7 | Welcome to the best backlist |
| 0:22.4 | books we read in 2024. We know how much y'all love hearing about backlist books. So every year |
| 0:29.3 | we devote an episode entirely to Backlist. Catherine is here joining me today. Welcome back, |
| 0:36.0 | Catherine. Hi, thank you. Before we get to our best backlist books we read last year, I do have a quick |
| 0:44.6 | announcement. For the first time last year, we launched the best backlist you read last year, |
| 0:51.0 | PDF guide. This is a gorgeous PDF that Chrissy, my assistant, puts together, |
| 0:56.6 | and she's really good at graphic design. And it features the best backlist books around 25 or |
| 1:03.6 | so of our patrons read the previous year. And we're bringing it back again this year. |
| 1:08.5 | This is a great resource compiling just the tippy top backlist recommendations from readers |
| 1:14.4 | who are most likely to share your reading taste since y'all are all listeners of the show. |
| 1:19.7 | For this year's guide, which we have recommendations from 25 patrons, and we have four |
| 1:26.3 | additional recommendations from our team members. There are books |
| 1:29.8 | that have been published from 2023 all the way back to 1957 in the guide, and the picks cover |
| 1:37.1 | a range of genres and moods. So if you would like access to the best backlist we read last year, |
| 1:43.7 | PDF guide, there is a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio to join our Patreon community for $7 a month. And also I should say, while we are including the books we talk about on the show today just as a reference, all the actual 25 picks from patrons, none of those are books we're talking about today on the show. |
| 2:03.5 | So this is a whole extra crop of backlist gems. |
| 2:06.9 | Love it. |
| 2:07.9 | I love it too. |
... |
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