2024: the year in books

Back in 2009 I started posting a summary at the end of the year of what I read during the year and people have been enjoying it so I did it every year afterward until 2019 and then restarted for 2023 (see 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023). For this year I set a goal of beating 2023 – so with 2 more books this year, success!

For the record, I mostly read ‘real’ books – i.e. not in electronic form – I really don’t like reading off a screen. Yes, I’ve seen electronic readers – we both have iPads – but I don’t like reading electronically. Having said that, I did listen to some of these books using Audible as I was driving or doing mindless jobs at Camp Savage. I also don’t ‘speed read’ – I read quickly and make lots of time for reading.

Why do I track metrics? Because I like doing it, and being able to compare against previous years. Some people don’t understand the logic in that – each to their own :-)

For once, picking my top book of the year is easy: Shōgun (read as part 1 and part 2) by James Clavell. Just an incredible book, that I listened to on Audible. I can’t remember having as much anticipation for the next reading/listening session of a book for a long time.

Now the details. I enjoy putting this together as it will also serve as a record for me many years from now. I hope you get inspired to try some of these books – push yourself with new authors and very often you’ll be surprisingly pleased. Don’t forget to check out the previous year’s blog posts for more inspiration too.

As usual I leave you with a quote that describes a big part of my psychological make-up:

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro!

Analysis of What I Read

I read 22,844 pages, which is an average of 62.7 pages a day. The chart below shows the number of pages (y-axis) in each book I read (x-axis).

The average book length was 305 pages, which is a way below average for me, because I read 25 of the mini-books from the Penguin Little Black Classics boxed set.

Pretty similar to last year, but with the addition of 6 small books of poetry, not one of my normal genres, courtesy of the Penguin classics.

The Top 10, I mean 13

I read a lot of excellent books this year and once again I couldn’t whittle it down to a top-10, so here is my top 13. If you don’t read much, at least consider looking at some of these in 2025. It’s impossible to put them into a priority order so I’ve listed them in the order I read them, along with the short Facebook review I wrote at the time.

#7; Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty Of Electronic Components; Eric Schlaepfer & Windell H. Oskay; 304pp; Nonfiction; January 18 (This book is basically porn for electronics nerds. Beautiful cross-sections of all kinds of components, cables, and devices, plus info on how they’re made. Wonderful!)

 

 #28; The Road; Cormac McCarthy; 287pp; Fiction; February 29 (I first read this in 2009 and it was my ‘book of the year’. It’s a brilliant book, about a nameless man and his son heading south through post-apocalyptic America along ‘the road’ – incredibly powerful, haunting, tragic, and ultimately sad, with a gossamer of hope remaining. Highly recommended! (and the movie with Viggo Mortensen is also amazing).)

 #34; Making It So: A Memoir; Patrick Stewart; 479pp; Autobiography; March 10 (Sir Patrick is one of my favorite actors and I immensely enjoyed learning how his life has progressed. From Amazon: “From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, Making It So, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.” Highly recommended!)

 #47; Moll Flanders; Daniel Defoe; 480pp; Fiction; April 7 (Another classic I’ve wanted to read for a long time. From Amazon: “Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe’s themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward.” Highly recommended!)

 #50; Far From the Madding Crowd; Thomas Hardy; 400pp; Fiction; April 17 (I really enjoyed Under the Greenwood Tree last year so I’m working my way through other Hardy novels. From Amazon: “In Thomas Hardy’s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy’s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.” Excellent stuff – highly recommended!)

 #55; The Bedlam Stacks; Natasha Pulley; 337pp; Historical Fiction; April 26 (Excellent book! From Amazon: “In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. On the sprawling, crumbling grounds of the old house, something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather’s pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness. When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine–essential for the treatment of malaria–from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who’s made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the Amazon where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked. Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.” Highly recommended!)

 #62; Middlemarch; George Eliot; 1088pp; Fiction; June 15 (Fantastic book! From Amazon: “George Eliot’s novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel—the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town’s equilibrium—Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea’s husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the town’s elite. Middlemarch displays George Eliot’s clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.” Highly recommended!)

 #65; Shogun; Part One; James Glavell; 704pp; Historical Fiction; July 17 (A book I’ve always meant to read, and wow – I’m just loving it! (No I haven’t seen the TV adaption and have no desire to.) From Amazon: “After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen–Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.” Brilliant – highly recommended!)

 #68; Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories; Simon Winchester; 495pp; Nonfiction; November 24 (I love Winchester’s books (most notably The Perfectionists, one of my three favorite books of the 44 I read in 2019), and I devoured this one over a handful of evenings. From Amazon: “Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester tells the breathtaking saga of the Atlantic Ocean. A gifted storyteller and consummate historian, Winchester sets the great blue sea’s epic narrative against the backdrop of mankind’s intellectual evolution, telling not only the story of an ocean, but the story of civilization. Fans of Winchester’s Krakatoa, The Man Who Loved China, and The Professor and the Madman will love this masterful, penetrating, and resonant tale of humanity finding its way across the ocean of history.” Highly recommended!)

 #71; The Watchmaker of Filigree Street; Natasha Pulley; 336pp; Fiction; December 10 (I bought this back in 2017 and it languished until I read another of Pulley’s novels (The Bedlam Stacks) earlier this year. I devoured this book in three days – wonderful! One of the best things is the clockwork octopus, with randomized gears using weighted magnets. From Amazon: “1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a sweeping, atmospheric narrative that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through Victorian London, Japan as its civil war crumbles long-standing traditions, and beyond. Blending historical events with dazzling flights of fancy, it opens doors to a strange and magical past.” Highly recommended!)

 #72; The Lost Bookshop; Evie Woods; 448pp; Fiction; December 22 (Wonderful book that I stayed up till 2am this morning finishing. From Amazon: “‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’ On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found… For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.” Highly recommended!)

 #74; The Glass Castle: A Memoir; Jeannette Walls; 288pp; Autobiography; December 28 (Quite an amazing story that I thought would be depressing so it languished in my book pile for 7 years until last week – and it wasn’t! From Amazon: “The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing—a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.” Highly recommended!)

 #75; The Gift of Rain: A Novel; Tan Twan Eng; 448pp; Historical Fiction; December 30 (I bought this after reading the wonderful The Garden of Evening Mists back in 2019 (often books take many years to bubble to the top of my reading list after I buy them), and I was not disappointed. From Amazon: “In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang’s great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.” Beautifully written and richly evocative – highly recommended!)

The Complete List

And the complete list, with links to Amazon so you can explore further. One thing to bear in mind, the dates I finished reading the book don’t mean that I started, for instance, book #2 after finishing book #1. I usually have anywhere from 10-15 books on the go at any one time so I can dip into whatever my mood is for that day. Some books I read start to finish without picking up another one and some books take me over a year. Enjoy!

1. The Warship: Rise of the Jain; Book Two; Neal Asher; 408pp; Science Fiction; January 3
2. The Last Battle; C.S. Lewis; 240pp; Fiction; January 6
3. Traffic; John Ruskin; 56pp; Nonfiction; January 6
4. Wailing Ghosts; Pu Songling; 55pp; Fiction; January 7
5. A Modest Proposal; Jonathan Swift; 52pp; Nonfiction; January 13
6. The Human: Rise Of The Jain; Book Three; Neal Asher; 480pp; Science Fiction; January 15
7. Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty Of Electronic Components; Eric Schlaepfer & Windell H. Oskay; 304pp; Nonfiction; January 18
8. Three Tang Dynasty Poets; Various; 53pp; Poetry; January 18
9. Infoquake: Jump 225 Trilogy; Book 1; David Louis Edelman; 421pp; Science Fiction; January 22
10. Revenger; Alastair Reynolds; 425pp; Science Fiction; January 24
11. On the Beach at Night Alone; Walt Whitman; 55pp; Poetry; January 25
12. A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees; Yoshida Kenko; 55pp; Fiction; January 25
13. Multireal: Jump 225 Trilogy; Book 2; David Louis Edelman; 522pp; Science Fiction; January 30
14. How to Use Your Enemies; Baltasar Gracian; 54pp; Nonfiction; January 31
15. The Eve of St. Agnus; John Keats; 56pp; Poetry; February 2
16. Whalefall; Daniel Kraus; 320pp; Fiction; February 5
17. Woman Much Missed; Thomas Hardy; 55pp; Poetry; February 5
18. Shadow Captain; Alastair Reynolds; 450pp; Science Fiction; February 10
19. Femme Fatale; Guy de Maupassant; 55pp; Fiction; February 10
20. Tycho and Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership That Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens; Kitty Ferguson; 390pp; History; February 12
21. Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls; Marco Polo; 56pp; Travel; February 12
22. And the Mountains Echoed; Khaled Hosseini; 448pp; Fiction; February 14
23. From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow Of Byzantium; William Dalrymple; 496pp; Travel; February 18
24. Caligula; Suetonius; 58pp; History; February 20
25. Bone Silence; Alastair Reynolds; 604pp; Science Fiction; February 20
26. The Great Hunt; Robert Jordan; 734pp; Fantasy; February 27
27. Geosynchron: Jump 225 Trilogy; Book 3; David Louis Edelman; 500pp; Science Fiction; February 28
28. The Road; Cormac McCarthy; 287pp; Fiction; February 29
29. Jason and Medea; Apollonius of Rhodes; 50pp; Fiction; March 2
30. Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years; John Bisney; 288pp; History; March 3
31. Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China; Paul Theroux; 480pp; Travel; March 4
32. Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History; John Bisney; 224pp; History; March 5
33. Olalla; Robert Louis Stevenson; 55pp; Fiction; March 6
34. Making It So: A Memoir; Patrick Stewart; 479pp; Autobiography; March 10
35. The Communist Manifesto; Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels; 52pp; Nonfiction; March 16
36. Houseboy; Ferdinand Oyono; 122pp; Fiction; March 19
37. Moonshots and Snapshots of Project Apollo; John Bisney; 272pp; History; March 20
38. Greenmantle; John Buchan; 352pp; Fiction; March 21
39. Trimalchio’s Feast; Petronius; 55pp; Fiction; March 22
40. The Dragon Reborn; Robert Jordan; 704pp; Fantasy; March 23
41. So; Anyway…; John Cleese; 392pp; Autobiography; March 26
42. The Vivaldi Cipher; Gary McAvoy; 285pp; Fiction; March 27
43. How A Ghastly Story Was Brought To Light: By A Common Or Garden Butcher’s Dog; Johann Peter Hebel; 52pp; Fiction; March 28
44. The Opus Dictum; Gary McAvoy; 337pp; Fiction; March 31
45. The Tinder Box; Hans Christian Anderson; 55pp; Fiction; April 3
46. The Petrus Prophecy; Gary McAvoy; 307pp; Fiction; April 6
47. Moll Flanders; Daniel Defoe; 480pp; Fiction; April 7
48. The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows; Rudyard Kipling; 52pp; Fiction; April 13
49. The Dark Forest; Cixin Liu; 512pp; Fiction; April 14
50. Far From the Madding Crowd; Thomas Hardy; 400pp; Fiction; April 17
51. The Avignon Affair; Gary McAvoy; 320pp; Fiction; April 18
52. Circles of Hell; Dante Alighieri; 52pp; Fiction; April 19
53. The Elephant to Hollywood; Michael Caine; 352pp; Autobiography; April 19
54. Of Street Piemen; Henry Mayhew; 46pp; Nonfiction; April 25
55. The Bedlam Stacks; Natasha Pulley; 337pp; Historical Fiction; April 26
56. Islamic Empires: The Cities that Shaped Civilization: From Mecca to Dubai; Justin Marozzi; 400pp; History; April 29
57. The Nightingales are Drunk; Hafez; 46pp; Poetry; April 29
58. The Jerusalem Scrolls; Gary McAvoy; 314pp; Fiction; May 4
59. The Return of the Native; Thomas Hardy; 496pp; Fiction; May 6
60. The Seawolves: Pirates and Scots; Eric J. Graham; 272pp; History; May 17
61. The Wife of Bath; Geoffrey Chaucer; 52pp; Poetry; May 18
62. Middlemarch; George Eliot; 1088pp; Fiction; June 15
63. Jude the Obscure; Thomas Hardy; 528pp; Fiction; July 5
64. The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Charles Dickens; 200pp; Fiction; July 8
65. Shogun; Part One; James Glavell; 704pp; Historical Fiction; July 17
66. Shogun; Part Two; James Glavell; 864pp; Historical Fiction; August 6
67. How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing; Michel de Montaigne; 6pp4; Nonfiction; August 18
68. Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories; Simon Winchester; 495pp; Nonfiction; November 24
69. The Smale Collection: Beauty in Natural Crystals; Stephen Smale; 204pp; Nonfiction; November 29
70. The Galileo Gambit; Gary McAvoy; 324pp; Fiction; December 6
71. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street; Natasha Pulley; 336pp; Fiction; December 10
72. The Lost Bookshop; Evie Woods; 448pp; Fiction; December 22
73. The Summer Queen; Elizabeth Chadwick; 512pp; Historical Fiction; December 27
74. The Glass Castle: A Memoir; Jeannette Walls; 288pp; Autobiography; December 28
75. The Gift of Rain: A Novel; Tan Twan Eng; 448pp; Historical Fiction; December 30