Newsletter: December 2024 Edition

Not a Political Post, My Favorite Books in 2024, Latest Author Interview, and More

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Welcome to the December 2024 edition of my newsletter and the beginning of the December holiday season! My family celebrates secular Christmas, a version that focuses on our family. For many including Linus on A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special, this holiday is also about the birth of Christ. But in America, we all know that Christmas is really about Santa Claus and a decorated tree and presents and candy and watching classic Christmas movies and drinking spiked eggnog and… y’all know the holiday drill. So whether you believe in Christ or believe in Santa (or BOTH!), this is the perfect time of year to argue about that, but also to enjoy treats and movies and stuff. Anyway, onward to the newsletter content / wordy part / my thoughts and ramblings!

One thing I promised myself NOT to write about after the 2024 U.S. election was politics. Even though for some fucked-up reason, America elected a sexual predator / felon / narcissist / moron who can barely string a cogent sentence together as our next president, I promised myself to move on and discuss other more important topics, preferably books or publishing or creative writing, all of which are much more interesting than an orange fascist man-baby regurgitating word-salad. So, as promised, this is NOT a political post. What are the books I liked best in 2024? Well, let me tell you.

Best classic book reread: Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. Funny and empathetic, what a great read about the comradery of downtrodden friends. If you thought Steinbeck only wrote downers, then you’d be wrong. Steinbeck wrote several comedies. I know! Hard to believe, but it’s true. Start with this novel.

Best literary fiction: The Turtle House by Amanda Churchill. A fantastic story about a wily grandmother—also a WWII war bride—and her relationship with her granddaughter. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll love this novel.

Best historical crime fiction: Hollow Out the Dark by James Wade. This is a novel about greed and survival set against a Depression-era landscape where a whiskey war threatens to decimate a small Texas town. Protagonist Jesse Cole is forced to spin his moral compass and enter a violent and volatile underworld. There he encounters corrupt lawmen, hired assassins, and a dark family secret that will upend all he once knew. And while reading this epic novel during the run up to our election and even afterwards, I kept wondering how could we, as a country, elect a petulant asshole who is terrible at business, who was found responsible by a court of law to have sexually assaulted a woman, a 34-count felon, an orange fascist who claims he can make our country great again when he didn’t do that during his first term, who left millions dead during a pandemic because he preferred shoveling shit-lies about pouring bleach in our veins, who single-handedly selected Supreme Court judges who torn down the hard-fought rights of the women in our country to make their own choices concerning their bodies, a moron who has lied, cheated, and stolen his entire life, who is a racist slumlord, AN INSURRECTIONIST, A TOP-SECRET-STEALING TRAITOR, AND JUST AN ALL-AROUND PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh... uh... Sorry, this will not be a political post. I got carried away there. Please forgive me. And I’m sorry James Wade. I didn’t mean to taint my review of your fine novel with politics. I hope you can forgive me. I hope y’all can forgive me. I mean, we could have elected our first female president, who also happened to be of Black and Indian descent and was vastly and supremely more qualified to be president than you-know-who. But I guess people claimed to be more concerned about the price of eggs and whatnot (checks local grocery store for price of one dozen eggs… oh, $3.75. Wow.) Anyway, back to books.

Best historical literary fiction: James by Percival Everett. Yes, THAT book. It’s that good.

Best story collection: (TIE) Monarch by Emily Jon Tobias and It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories by Ramona Reeves. I couldn’t decide between these two top-notch collections. Both are sad, adventurous, biting, funny, and excellent. You can’t go wrong with either collection.

Best non-fiction: The Absinthe Forger: A True Story of Deception, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Dangerous Spirit by Evan Rail. The true-crime story of an obsessed man who forged aged absinthe to sell on the collectors market for thousands of dollars per bottle. An exceptional how-done-it by New York Times food & beverage columnist Evan Rail.

My FAVORITE book I read in all of 2024 was Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson. For me, this was THE perfect novel. At a mere 179 pages long, this short novel managed to pack so many things into it: mystery, existentialism, suspense, humor, and great writing. A marvel of a novel, it’s like a literary puzzle that you won’t be able to put down!

So, there you have it. The best books I read in 2024. AND, I didn’t talk about politics on purpose. Some political editorial content may have slipped out while I was typing, and I’m sorry about that. It’s been a tough year in that department. But everything in the book department was great. And the family department. That was great, too. Oh, and the writing department. I wrote a lot in 2024. More to come on that later.

Recent Author Interview

My latest Austin Liti Limits interview is with Amy Gentry! I read her novel Bad Habits, a nail-biting, whip-smart psychological thriller, and another great book I read in 2024. This was a fun chat! Watch the interview here:

https://austinlitilimits.com/episodes/episode-62-amy-gentry.html

My Latest Books

I can’t sign off without mentioning the book I have out now THE CODGER AND THE SPARROW (Paperback from TCU Press, Audiobook from Vibrance Press). It’s a humorous yet moving story about a 65-year-old widower’s unusual friendship with a 16-year-old troublemaker. You can find paperbacks and eBooks here: Bookshop, BookPeople, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo Books, and TCU Press (publisher). Audiobooks here: Audible, Libro.FM, Apple Books, Amazon, Nook, and Vibrance Press (publisher).

I also have a new book scheduled to be released on March 4, 2025 called STARMAN AFTER MIDNIGHT, a quirky novel-in-stories about two beer-drinking next-door neighbors who couldn't be more different. When they discover a naked man roaming their street late at night, they decide to form a posse and investigate. BlueInk Review declares, “Starman After Midnight is effortlessly funny, likably odd, surprisingly moving, and imminently relatable—a genuine pleasure to read.” Find links to preorder it on my website: https://scottsemegran.com/books/starman-after-midnight.html

Happy Holidays, y’all! This is my last newsletter of 2024, so Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a blessed Kwanzaa, or just wishing you the best this holiday season. Please consider supporting this newsletter by buying one of my books. Until January 2025, read more books, support your local bookstores, be good to each other, and above all else: peace out.

Sincerely,

Scott

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