So here we are, the last week of 2024, and as promised, I have the very last book recommendation for you. This time around, I’m going to talk about my top five reads of 2024. I have to say, it wasn’t an easy task trying to distill the 50+ books I read this year into just five. Some of these books are classics, while others are more contemporary, but most of them were new reads for me.

During the pandemic of 2021, after spending so many months worried about what was going on in the world and all the sad news about the many lives that were lost, being stuck at home, and trying to comfort family and friends, I felt that I needed something to help keep my sanity. I needed something to ground me a little and give me a sense of hope. Reading was definitely one of the things that helped.

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel from Bellwether with another book recommendation for you. Bellwether was this crazy idea I had when my wife and I booked an Airbnb place here in North Carolina. We wanted to celebrate our upcoming wedding anniversary in advance. My wife surprised me with this place in the middle of nowhere. As we spent three days there, we started talking about some of the things we wanted to achieve in 2024.

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel with another book recommendation for Bellwether. Last week, I had the opportunity to give a presentation on career development for the team of an old teammate, who is now a software engineering manager himself. His team had just grown, and he happened to be doing what’s called a face-to-face meeting here in Raleigh. He asked me if I would come over to talk about career development.

Hello everyone, this is Og Maciel with another book recommendation from Bellwether. If you’ve been reading my weekly book recommendations, you might remember that back in August, I wrote about The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti. In that review, I mentioned my complicated relationship with the horror genre. I’m both attracted to and scared of horror – there’s a lure that draws me to horror stories, haunted houses, ghost stories, and the like.

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel with another exciting book recommendation from Bellwether. This week, I’m thrilled to dive into one of the most iconic collections in comic book history—The Complete Frank Miller Batman by Frank Miller. Let’s rewind a bit. Back in the late 1980s, I was about 12 years old, living in Brazil, and obsessed with comic books. Marvel, DC, you name it—I read it. But it wasn’t until one day, during a supermarket trip, that I stumbled upon a Batman comic that would change everything for me: The Dark Knight Returns.

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel with another exciting book recommendation from Bellwether. This week, I’m bringing you a young adult book that I first read back in 2021—Holes by Louis Sachar. The story revolves around Stanley Yelnats, a young kid who one day finds himself unexpectedly in trouble. While walking down the street, a pair of sneakers suddenly fall from the sky and land on him. Before Stanley knows it, he’s being accused of stealing those sneakers!

A few years ago, I read this incredible book that had me hooked right from the start—City of Thieves by David Benioff, and what really spoke to me was its focus on friendship—friendship between two people who couldn’t be more different from each other. Set during the siege of Leningrad in World War II, the story revolves around two main characters: Lev Beniov, a young Russian teenager, and Kolya, a deserter from the Red Army.

Hey everyone, this is Og Maciel with another book recommendation from Bellwether. This week, I’m bringing you a classic that had me hooked right from the start—The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. A few weeks ago, I recommended Skippy Dies by Paul Murray. After reading that book, I stumbled upon an article on The Paris Review where Murray mentioned some of the books that inspired him, and one of them was The Chocolate War.

Hey everyone, this week, I’m bringing you something completely different from my previous suggestions, and as always, I’ve got to start with a little story. When I was in my early teens, I was obsessed with reading comic books—specifically Conan the Barbarian. I don't even remember who the publisher was, it was that long ago. But every time a new edition hit the shelves, I’d rush to the local magazine shop to grab a copy.