2024: My Year in Books

The older I get the more I realize how little of my own life I remember. The big moments of course, but the smaller nuanced pleasures and pains dissolve with time.

We aren’t designed to remember it all, and that is ok. These posts are a specific avenue for discovering my past selves and a wonderful mechanism for recall.

This is the third year in a row that I’ve written a recap of my yearly reading and my only regret is that I don’t have lists from the years before. You can read the 2023 and 2022 posts here.

By the numbers

Overall I read a higher volume of books, pages and improved quality than the previous year, but by a slim margin. Here’s the breakdown at an absolutely unnecessary level of granularity.

Books completed: 32 (+1 book from last year)

Pages Completed: 11,083 (+2.49% from last year)

Books Abandoned: 1 (-2 books from last year, an improvement!)

Category Ratio (wild how close the page counts are YoY):

• 63% fiction / 37% nonfiction by page count (from 64% / 36% last year)

• 56% fiction / 44% nonfiction by book count (from 58 / 42% split last year)

Distribution of Thumbs (very scientific measurement style)

• 2 Thumbs Up 👍👍: 9 books (versus 6 last year)

• 1 Thumb Up 👍: 21 books (versus 22 last year)

• 0 Thumbs In Any Direction 😐: 2 books (versus 3 last year)

• Thumb Average: 1.22 Thumbs Up (versus 1.1 Thumbs up last year, an 11% increase)

The Full List

In order of when I finished reading each. I’ve linked them with the year published, notes on where/why I bought it and a quick debrief.

You’ll find my top picks at the end!

The first three are books I read for work, so I’m skipping the details there.

1. Gap Selling by Keenan 👍

2. The Jolt Effect by Matthew Matthew & Ted McKenna 😐

3. Selling With by Nate Nasralla 👍

1. Little (2018) - Edward Carey 👍
   purchased from Oxfam, random find

   You get lost in a story of a young Swiss girl who loses her mother, is taken in by an odd man with a strange artistic skill set and somehow you end up deep in the French Revolution, even wandering the halls of Versailles at some point. What seems like it has to be fiction is actually the origin story of a globally known female entrepreneur. Little is an engaging read with a spirit of resilience and adventure.

2. American Gods (2001)- Neil Gaiman 👍 👍

   purchased at Oxfam having remembered a friend from uni being a big fan of his writing .. real shame the recent news about his behaviour

   Is a God still a God if no one worships them?American Gods is the story of how the power of the mythological Gods has waned as their native worshipping populations have scattered across the globe and technology has ascended as the new deity. Interesting concept, strong but sometimes winding execution. This book gave me vivid dreams every night that I was reading it, which has never happened to me before.

3. Invent & Wander (2020)- collected writing of Jeff Bezos 👍
   purchased on Kindle after listening to Bezos on a podcast
   

   Honestly, don’t buy this book. Listen to the Lex Fridman podcast episode where he interviews Jeff Bezos here instead. It covers the majority of the same content but you get to hear the concepts play out in a conversation. They talk about technology and space, human development, and doing today what mankind once perceived as impossible. I actually listened to the podcast twice, back to back, and then wrote this recap called 16 Lessons in Conversation with Jeff Bezos.

4. Troy (2020) - Stephen Fry 👍👍
   purchased at the Zurich airport Easter Weekend 2022

   
   Fry presents to us a comprehensive story of the founding of the city of Troy, the families involved both god and mortal who produce Helen of Sparta and lover/captor Paris. This book goes back generations so that we gain a greater understanding of the geography, the families, and the politics on and below Mount Olympus which led to one of the most famous battles in the world's history. Fry who is both an author and comedian brings a wonderful wit to the book.
   
   I would pair this Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles and then Circe!

5. Unreasonable Hospitality (2022) - Will Guidara 👍👍
   I preordered this on Kindle and cannot remember how I discovered it
   

   Think of it as a rags to riches story of a restaurant. It’s the endless pursuit of culinary and service perfection on the journey to earning a Michelin star. Unreasonable Hospitality tells the story of the ascendance of New York Restaurant Eleven Madison Park. It’s an emotionally enthralling story considering the topic at hand. It was one of my favorite reads this year!

6. Ever After (1992) - Graham Swift 👍
   purchased at Oxfam, random find
   

   The only way I know how to describe Ever After (not the Cinderella retelling) is slow fiction, which I think might just be the quintessential 20/21st century British fiction vibe. There are two main story lines, that of sad main character Bill who is suffering from the recent passing of his wife and his own crumbling life, and a parallel struggle of one of his academic ancestors on his own search for truth who we learn of through a series of journal entries Bill has access to.
   
   It’s an odd one as I remember specific scenes from the book, but not a ton about it overall, yet I am still left with a positive impression.

7. A Marriage Portrait (2022) - Maggie O’Farrell 👍
   Purchased on Kindle for our May trip to Italy at the suggestion of Caroline!

   Based on the true story, A Marriage Portrait details the short lived marriage and tragic end of Lucrezia de' Medici to Alfonso II d'Este. It's a straightforward read, great for a cozy weekend. Especially good for those who are interested in historical fiction and/or the Italian Renaissance.

8. Under the Tuscan Sun (1996) - Frances Mayes 👍👍
   purchased from Oxfam, watched the movie years ago
   

   For many years I was convinced that there are only two types of people in the world: those who believe that a life in the Italian countryside is the true route to happiness, and everyone else. I still mostly think this and still mostly fall into the former category.

   The novel is a true story written by the woman who actually bought and renovated Villa Bramasole in Cortona, Italy. She, author Frances Mayes, not Diane Lane, gives a blood, sweat, and tears account of transforming a dilapidated Tuscan estate into your dream home.

   
   The language she uses is simple yet deeply descriptive; trips to the market, the texture of the land, the constant rebuilding of the support walls on her terraced land, the leaky walls and pipes are some of my favourites. It’s a sensory treat, especially for those with this Italian dream.

9. Victorian Olympus (1952)- William Gaunt 👍
   purchased from Oxfam, random find
   

   I think the addressable audience for this book is quite small. It’s an art history book focused on the British/London-based painters of the late 1800s. This was the time just after sculptures from the Parthenon, known as the Elgin marbles, were re-homed (read: taken) from Greece and placed into the British Museum. These Greek pieces inspired in the prominent painters of the day a stylistic return to antiquity. Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s lives are covered at length.

   There is only 1 review on Amazon UK and 11 reviews on Goodreads, so I don’t know how widely this was even circulated!

10. Daughter of Fortune (1998) - Isabel Allende 👍
    purchased from Oxfam after reading another of Allende’s books

    Daughter of Fortune takes us from the house of a privileged British expat family in Valparaíso, Chile to San Francisco and all around California at the height of the Gold Rush. What starts as a story of young lovers evolves into a quest for independence and understanding that true love may be found in unexpected places and people.
    

    Isabel Allende's Eva Luna was the first of her books I read and one of my top picks for 2023. Allende's writing has a twinge of magical realism and is often rooted in historical events. I prefer Eva Luna but thought Daughter of Fortune was a good read.

11. The Interpretation of Murder (2006) - Jed Rubenfeld 👍
    purchased at Oxfam, random find
    

    This book was ok. That's it, just ok. It's a crime mystery set in New York which takes place when Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are visiting for a conference. The victim claims she cannot recall the criminal event, so the psychologists are brought in to help unlock her memories. It's written well enough and there are twists and turns as expected but overall it fell flat for me.

12. Chronicles Volume 1 (2004) - Bob Dylan 👍
    purchased from Oxfam, bought it because..it's Bob Dylan
    

    For as powerful of a song writer as Bob Dylan is, I was not impressed with his biography. I wanted more out of the writing or maybe I wanted more out of his story - likely both. I will not read the Chronicles Volume II but am looking forward to seeing the "A Complete Unknown" biopic starring Timmy Chalamet, which is up for a ton of awards.
    
    …How does it feel, how does it feel?
    

13. Greenlights (2020)- Matthew McConaughey 👍
    purchased on Amazon in 2021

    
    McConaughey has an articulate perspective on living. Or should I say L-I-V-I-N He understands challenges and the importance of resilience but focuses on positivity and capitalising off of your momentum - the green lights of life.
    
    My favorite part of Greenlights was the way this book was composed visually as it felt partly like his personal notebook. He is an avid journal keeper and used much of his old writings to inform the book. He talks about it early on in this Rick Rubin interview.

    If you're a fan of his and haven't already heard this in audio format I think it's a good book to read and maybe refer back to in sections. I am not an audiobook person but I think this would be worth listening to with his narration.

14. Everything is Illuminated (2002) - Jonathan Safran Foer 👍👍
    purchased at Oxfam having read two JSF books in the past
    

    Jonathan Safran Foer is one of my favorite authors. His style feels especially human, like healing a wound that I didn't know I had. I've read three of his books now; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close back in 2014, Here I Am in 2023 and this year his debut novel from 2002, Everything is Illuminated.

    Foer writes beautiful stories about the connection which take place at the forefront of dark backdrops including New York in the aftermath of 9/11, Ukraine post-WWII, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    Everything is Illuminated is a fictionalised story of a young Jewish American man who travels to Ukraine to find the person he believes saved his grandfather during WWII. It's a multi-generational story with two threads, the history of his grandfather's village of Trachimbrod and the young narrator's experience in discovering what he can in the present day. It’s not magical realism but does have something a little bit magical about it, which is maybe just his special brand of humor.

    This story made me want to more deeply understand the Jewish community, culture and experience and has informed some of the other books and movies I read this year. Highly recommend it!

15. Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982) - by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and Richard Leigh 👍
    purchased from Archive Bookstore after watching 2004 Documentary The Da Vinci Code Decoded on Amazon
    

    The Archive Bookstore is a small, crazy book shop in London. Books are piled onto shelves, stacked in and on top of boxes cluttering up the majority of the walkways. You get a sense partly of overwhelm and disarray but also that treasure must certainly be buried there. No better place to buy a book full of history, secret societies and centuries old secrets exposed.

    
    We start with a 19th century French priest who begins to live a lifestyle well beyond the means of a humble clergyman. This sparks an investigation as to where these funds could have originated from; what item or knowledge could he have possessed worth such a price? This is simply the tail end of a long and winding thread that twists back through religious entities, European aristocracies and to the Holy Land centuries ago.

    Has there been a concerted effort for thousands of years to cover the truth around one of the world’s largest religions? Holy Blood and the Holy Grail authors think so. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but note that this 1982 book was key source material and inspiration for Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.

16. Origin (2017)- Dan Brown 👍
    purchased at Oxfam after having read several of his books in the past
    

    Clearly primed after my last read, I picked up the only Dan Brown book I had on my shelf, Origin. If you haven’t read any of his books (or seen the movies), where have you been the last 20 years? Our boy Robert Langdon is back again, getting into trouble and using his knowledge of history, art and connections to solve it all.

    Origin is the story of a tech billionaire due to release a major announcement around the story of creation. On stage just before he is due to broadcast his claim on a global webcast, he is shot in the head and the announcement is stopped. Robert Langdon is then off to the races to find out who is behind the murder and determine whether or not the announcement should be released to the world.

    
    Origin felt relevant today as we think about super-computers and when they are able to model and achieve (looking at you DeepSeek), so I’m certain it felt ahead of its time to readers when it debuted. If you like Dan Brown, you might as well read this one, but I think the other novels in the Robert Langdon series are better.

17. Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018)- Stuart Turton 😐
    purchased at Oxfam having read one of his novels previously
    

    I read Stuart Turton's Devil in the Dark Water two years ago and LOVED IT! A great adventure story with a fun twist!

    The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle felt like a good idea with murky execution. There were too many twists, turns, and characters. It was too easy to get lost. That, or it didn't grab my attention enough to keep all of the details straight. If you're into a whodunnit murder mystery with time travel and body swapping then this book may be for you.

18. Hotel Du Lac (1984)- Anita Brookner 👍
    purchased at Oxfam, random find
    

    Along with Ever After by Graham Swift I am going to have to classify this one as slow fiction that again, felt very British. Reminded me a bit of The Enchanted April, which I read last year.

    Our main character is a British lady who is hiding out in the South of France after a socially embarrassing incident at home. She spends her time with a few specific guests at Hotel Du Lac and the rest of her time trying to avoid other guests.

    Ultimately the story is about a woman choosing independence when a time that independence was not in fashion.

19. La Lacuna (2009) - Barbara Kingsolver 👍.5
    purchased from Oxfam having read Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible last year
    
    It’s a long book that could have been shorter (much like my own recap here!). I found myself reflecting on some of its larger themes and twists weeks after finishing the book and appreciating them more and more. There is a point in the book where the main character, a writer, is asked how he starts a story and he responds “begin at the end,” which turns out to have a meaning more significant than you realise at the time. This was the ONLY book which I couldn’t really decide if it was 1 or 2 thumbs.
    
    La Lacuna is a story of artists and politics woven into a narrative across Mexico and the US spanning several decades.

    Harrison Shepherd is an enterprising and creative boy who finds employment with Diego Rivera and companionship with his wife Frida Kahlo in Mexico in the 1960s. Frida is in the height of her pain and Diego in the height of his political dissident as they house political refugee and Soviet politician Leon Trotsky. Harrison gains an intimate perspective on the philosophy of life, art, politics and war.

    He moves to the United states and finds success as an author. Though he has found a new life in the US, as the Cold War intensifies Harrison is scrutinized for his communist sympathies from his associations with the Riveras and must make a decision to control his fate and freedom.
    

20. Neverwhere (1996) - Neil Gaiman 👍
    purchased at the airport in Mexico City on my way to Puerto Vallarta
    

    Second Gaiman of the year. Neverwhere takes place in ‘London Below’ - a parallel London for those forgotten or overlooked. What exists in London exists in London Below but in a different physical form. Blackfriars Station is guarded by Friars, Angel station inhabited by a an angelic spirit. There is a whole city with its own mythology and operating systems.

    When Londoner Richard Mayhew who is unhappy with his life above accidentally encounters an injured Lady Door from London Below he ventures out to help her. Unknowing at first if he is truly willing to risk it all, he incidentally discoversan entirely new place and potential existence.

    As a London resident it was fun to see how Gaiman created the parallel world, but overall it was a bit more fantastical than what I normally read. If that's your cup of Earl Grey, then go for it.

21. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges (1999) - Nathan Englander 👍👍

    purchased from Oxfam, random find

    
    I had never heard of Nathan Englander or this book of short stories when I found it on the shelves of my local Oxfam book store, but I am so glad that I picked it up.

    Englander writes distinctively of the Jewish experience which Kirkus Review described as "explores the condition of being Jewish with an often hallucinatory, epigrammatic eloquence." … what they said.

    The first two of the nine short stories explore how the ramifications of the Holocaust influenced risk taking, mindset and resilience in the face of and aftermath of persecution and genocide. The stories explore relationships, obligations to heritage and how religion plays a part in our interactions and experiences.

    
    My favorite of the nine short stories was "The Twenty-Seventh Man" about the Jewish writers of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 1952 under execution orders and how one of them deals with his fate.

    Though the stories are short they are heavy, so if you're looking for something lighter, pick up Everything is Illuminated. It inspects similar topics in a longer format which gives the text more time to breathe and incorporate humor in a respectful manner.

22. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (2009) - David Eagleman 👍👍
    purchased from Oxfam with no previous introduction
    

    This is one of the books I did write about this year (post here) and I was delighted that it kicked off some really thoughtful conversations between a few friends. Hi Arley and Casey!

    No matter what we are taught, or what we believe individually, what is true is that none of us really know what happens in the afterlife.

    So what does this leave us with? The ability to ideate on what it MIGHT be, and to make a decision for ourselves, while in the present life, what we want to believe and determine how that influences our actions.

    It's a topic I am still keen to explore, so if you'd like to ideate on your understanding of or questions about the afterlife, let's talk.

23. Crime and Punishment (1866) - Fyodor Dostoevsky 👍
    purchased at Waterstones/Hatchards sometime in 2022/3
    

    Long novels often take place over many places, times, or generations. Crime and Punishment is 720 pages long and covers a small section of St. Petersburg over a few weeks time. It’s a laborious read with sentences that go on for a full page. Sometimes I got the “this meeting could have been an email” vibe, but it’s a classic and does dive deep into the psyche and ego of the main character which has no real bounds of time, space, or page limit.

    Our narrator is a seemingly smart young man but has recently dropped out of university and has now decided to kill someone just to see if he can get away with it. The book covers his plotting the murder, the quickly executed murder, and then the period after where he spirals as he is trying to cover his tracks and stay out of suspicions of the police.

    To make matters worse, his social circle keeps him in close confines with the police, his mother and sister move to town, his sister calls off her wedding engagement, and he meets a potential love interest, all within days of the murder. He is a wreck and talks about it... at length.

24. The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) - Mitch Albom 👍
    purchased at Waterstones, reread
    

    The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the first book that made me cry when I read it for the first time, 20 years ago, in the summer of 2004 as required reading the summer going into 9th grade.

    I wanted to reread it after having read Tuesdays with Morrie at the end of last year and having read Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives this year. My main goal was to refresh myself on Albom's perspective of Heaven and to recall the specific stories. The first story, the Blue Man, is the one that has always stuck with me, in that a small innocent act by one person could have an immediate, fatal and unknown impact on another.

    It's a quick read and one that’s probably work picking up from a "life perspective" POV.

25. Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (2015) - Tim Whitmarsh 👍
    purchased from Hatchard's with no prior introduction
    

    This book explores Atheism in the ancient polytheistic world of Archaic Greece, Classical Greece and the Hellenistic Era. It entwines perspectives of the challenges of Atheism in a time that religion is deeply entwined with government and how the notion of what an Atheist is has changed with the development of modern Christianity.

    Atheism exists not only as a philosophical position but as a social category and is not an affront to Christianity itself but a belief that has existed far before this popular monotheistic religion.

    This is not a heavy academic read but is not a breeze to get through. I thought it was super interesting and Kaos debuted on Netflix while I was in the middle of reading it - an interesting complement.

26. Kokoro: An Intimate Portrait of Japanese Inner Life (1896) - Lafcadio Hearn 👍
    purchased from Waterstones Gower street while perusing the section for Japan
    

    Kokoro was the first book I purchased in preparation for our trip to Japan. It's a bit unorthodox as it is a book of essays over 125 years old. My goal here was to understand less about the hard facts of history or geography but to understand more of the essence of the people themselves.

    This brought an interesting perspective as it was written in the late 1890s which took out the element of modernity/technology from the picture, it preceded the world wars, and was written by a foreigner (Greek Born, Irish Raised and lived in the States for some time before moving to and dying in Japan) who lived in and loved Japan.

    If you're interested in Japanese culture and history it's a good read.

27. Hiroshima (1946)- John Hersey 👍👍
    purchased from Waterstones Gower street while perusing the section for Japan
    

    Hiroshima is written by a Westerner who visited Hiroshima just after the bomb dropped to interview several victims of the attack and then returned 40 years later to interview them again.

    Reading first hand accounts of the havoc wreaked on bodies immediately and in the aftermath and on the city itself can only give you a sliver of an idea of what these survivors faced once the bomb was dropped.

    
    When we visited Hiroshima in December 2024 I was able to attend a lecture given by a legacy successor of a survivor at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The experience shared in this lecture was well aligned to the stories shared in this book, so if you’re looking for an introduction to the aftermath, this book is a great place to start.

28. The Hare With Amber Eyes (2011): A Hidden Inheritance - Edmund De Waal 👍👍
    purchased from Oxfam, bought in prep for our Japan trip
    

    The Hare with Amber Eyes is the story of Edmund De Waal's research into a collection of Japanese Netsuke (carved charms used to secure Kimono ties) which had been passed down in his family for several generations.

    While it did not turn out to be entirely informative around Japan itself (motivation for purchasing it), it was an incredible opportunity to learn more about the late 1800s in Paris and early 1900s in Vienna. The history unearthed and shared in this book provided a view of the antisemitism growing in these respective cities at these times, which helps me better understand how the antisemitic narratives were being crafted in Europe leading up to the World Wars.

    Really, really good read for anyone interested in European History and the Jewish experience.

29. A Personal Matter (1964) - Kenzaburō Ōe 😐
    purchased at Oxfam, random find
    
    This was a strange one. When a first time father who is an alcoholic and not in love with his wife finds out that his baby is born with severe deformities, he goes off the wagon and spends several days in a drunken stupor with an old female classmate of his.

    Originally written in Japanese, I thought this could be an interesting read, but it felt depressing, without redemption, and was painful to watch this man spiral.
    
    Ōe is an esteemed Japanese writer who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature - "who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today.”

    I wouldn’t read this one again but would be open to exploring more of his work to see if it’s more interesting to me.

    Abandoned

    There is only one book that I started this year which I just could not finish - Don Fernando by W. Somerset Maugham. It was slow and painful. If you’ve read it and I am missing something, please enlighten me.

🥁 …..and the 2024 winners are…

Everything is Illuminated and The Hare With Amber Eyes!

Though the books themselves are very different, both are written from the perspective of young Jewish men in the present day who take journeys to distant lands to learn about their family and heritage. Each story goes back generations with Illuminated kicking off his ancestor’s story in Polish Trachimbrod in 1791 and Amber Eyes beginning in Odessa and then Paris in the 1860s. Both flip between present day and the different points throughout the past as we meet different ancestors as time passes. The Holocaust plays a key event in both of their histories and their interest in understanding the impact drive them to each make their journeys.