2024 Book Highlights
I’ve started to think of 2024 as a ‘settling’ year. The calendar marked my first full year at my first full-time job, my first full year back in Boston, my first full year in a book club (!!). 2024 was also the first year where the genre of fantasy or science fiction didn’t completely dominate my reading list. Back in the summer, I found this to be out of character. It gave me the impression that I hadn’t really found any good books to read, or that I simply wasn’t trying hard enough. However, as the year rattled on, and the titles accumulated on my book list, I saw that I suddenly had too many favorites to choose from. While the majority of books I read this were weren’t in the SFF category, the ones I did read in those genres were perhaps of higher quality—or at least, more thoroughly enjoyable for me, at this stage in my life—and as a result, they were more memorable. Rather than remaining overly obsessed on quantity, I made sure that I truly enjoyed each title that I read.
Thanks to my book club, this year also saw my reading horizons continue to expanding more readily into literary fiction, non-fiction, and essays. There are of course some old favorites (I think Le Guin is now a regular appearance in these yearly roundups, and both Novik and Green have made the list before, too) but there are also as some new-to-me authors who pushed me out of my comfort zone. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, please enjoy some notes on my favorite reads of 2024:
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
I started of the year off with Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 work, Ministry for the Future. Set in the near future, this book loosely follows two main protagonists. The first, Mary Murphy, is the leader of the administrative body nicknamed Ministry for the Future, who is responsible for overseeing ambitious climate stabilization projects and advocating for the good of future generations. The second, Frank May, is an American aid worker who lived through a horrific heat wave in India that kicks of the escalating global climate response.
Like most of Robinson’s work, this book is incredibly thorough, and leans farther into hard sci-fi than I tend to usually read, without losing track of the characters. Scattered among the story are vignettes of people from around the world dealing with different aspects of life under accelerated climate change, which taken together, provide a truly empathetic, wholistic view of the future of our species. While this book is at times incredibly depressing, I like to describe it as following a “U” shape—Robinson takes the reader down a nihilistic slip-n-slide to uncover the worst of humanity before engineering solutions one-by-one, like a Lego Master Builder, to prove that maybe we aren’t so doomed, after all.
If, like me, you’ve been facing down the barrel of climate anxiety, this book is a must-read.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a professor environmental biology and registered member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Written across a series of vignettes, Braiding Sweetgrass describes the indigenous teachings and ways of knowing that help inform Kimmerer’s work as a scientist, mother, and teacher.
Personally, I grew up spending summers in southern Ontario, which features many of the plants and animals described in this work. Braiding Sweetgrass gave me a newfound appreciation for ecosystems I had once written off as simple marshes, swamps, or woods, showcasing the diversity of life across the Great Lake region. Kimmerer is a good writer and an even better storyteller; woven throughout descriptions of different plants are her own personal stories from throughout her life, in which she discusses themes of belonging, parenthood, community, and sacrifice. Braiding Sweetgrass shines in its empathy, in all its understanding.
Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994-2007 by Dan Ozzi
I’ve been told, lovingly, by both lifelong friends and people I’ve just met, that I “seem like someone who was really into pop-punk.” While I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations, I found immense joy in reading Sellout. Each chapter of this book focuses on a different band that emerged during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, detailing their origins in the underground scene all the way through their major label signing and beyond.
In some cases, I already knew a lot of the lore (Green Day and My Chem, hi) but in most cases, even if I knew their songs, I knew next to nothing about the bands that shaped my youth. Using his own extensive research and first-persona accounts from both musicians and producers, Ozzi paints a vibrant picture of the punk rock scene at the turn of the millennium, and doesn’t shy away from the issues of racism, misogyny, and substance abuse that came along with it. If you have even a passive interest in rock music, I’d give Sellout a read.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
In the first half of this year, I fell into a bit of a fantasy rut. I’ve taken a pause from Sanderson while he cranks out the rest of Stormlight (I know, I know—I just can’t hold all the plot in my head between releases, and have suffered a bit of fatigue with his style) and have so far avoided the onslaught of hunks, dragons, Fae, and other steamy mythical creatures presented by recent Romantasy titles. As I entered the second half of 2024, I was feeling a bit aimless.
But then along came Uprooted. Like most of Novik’s stories, Uprooted had the right amount of everything: magic, adventure, worldbuilding, humor, romance, and friendship, all swirling together as thought it were made especially for me. After a series of frankly disappointing modern fairytale adaptions, I was delighted to find such a cohesive, engrossing, and altogether beautiful high-fantasy take on Slavic folklore. If you’ve been pining for a standalone fantasy adventure with a well-developed protagonist and just a little bit of romance (that manages to never usurp the story’s central friendship), then look no further.
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
This book is difficult to describe. In the weeks after this story slapped me hard across the face, twirled me around, and sent me spiraling through an existential wormhole, I tried to think of apt comparisons. Imagine, dear reader, that you have walked into the Cantina on Tatooine, and every person in that bar is now a bohemian communist in a run-down, multi-species city filled with crime syndicates, corrupt politicians, telepathic demon moths. Now imagine a judicial system that would make the accused at the Nuremberg trials look like Model UN students, and you’ll probably get something pretty close to Perdido Street Station. I loved everything about this book. The characters, the setting, the plot, the prose—but most of all, I loved how unashamedly weird it was. While it definitely features a bit of bloat in the third quarter that can make the pacing feel a bit off, I found the ending so heartbreakingly beautiful as to make it all worthwhile. If you’re looking for impeccable and unexplained worldbuilding alongside truly unique characters, and are feeling up for a bit of standalone tragedy, give this a whirl!
The Length of Days: An Urban Ballad by Volodymyr Rafayenko
In recent years, driven by both aging family and the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, I’ve been making an effort to reconnect with that part of my heritage. I picked up The Length of Days at Boston’s 2023 Ukrainian Festival, where there was a booth run by the Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature. Written by Volodymyr Rafeyenko and translated by Sibelan Forrestor, this book follows a strange cast of characters in the composite Donbas city of Z. Part magical realism and part black comedy, this work illustrates the horrible absurdity of life under Russian occupation through a sharp analysis of politics, philosophy, and morality, all while underscoring the true resilience of people in Z. Слава Україні!
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
The Anthropocene Reviewed is the name of both a podcast and a collection of essays by author John Green. Beginning in 2018, Green reviewed different aspects of the human experience under a 5-star rating system, and published regular podcast episodes describing each phenomena up through 2020, when he put the podcast on hiatus and instead started to adapt the work into a book. The ‘Anthropocene’ refers to the epoch of history in which humanity has become the dominant influence over the natural environment, and underscores the distinctly human element of this book. Through a series of essays, Green reviews concepts that only exist because of us: things like Dr. Pepper, the Indy 500, and the human capacity for wonder. When describing this book to friends, I feel like I can’t really do it justice; while it may sound like a desperate and often hilarious review for random concepts, The Anthropocene Reviewed manages to weave a cohesive theme straight through its central axis. After each review, I would often pause to think about the small things, the human things. This work was a breath of fresh air in a year of overstimulation, and one I will certainly read again.
Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin
I treat Le Guin’s work the way I treat European chocolate: I ration it, slowly over the months or even years, in order to ensure that I have enough to last before I can get my hands on more. This year, I treated myself to another one of her essay collections, this time focused primarily on the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres.
The essays in The Language of the Night often made me pause. I found myself having to stop, put the book down, and go for a long walk, or look up at the trees or out across the Charles, and simply think. In her work, Le Guin tackles contentious SFF issues of her time, including the necessity of good characters, the role of ‘the other’ in American science fiction, whether or not fantasy is escapist, and Tolkien’s view on Good and Evil. She’s made me rethink the way I engage with the stories I love; she’s made me revisit them with a newfound respect. For that, I’m forever grateful.
I feel like a broken record, because I’m often volleying out Le Guin’s ideas at work lunches or dinner with my partner, hoping to somehow summon her ghost to continue the conversation. She fundamentally changed the way I read and view the world; I feel as though each work I read of her’s is somehow, like Michelangelo, revealing something hidden in the stone, something had always been there.
Like Ken Liu in his introduction to The Language of the Night, I’ll give Le Guin the final word. This work reiterated to me that we should all learn to dream, to speak the language of the night; for those who fear fantasy know “its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons, because they are afraid of freedom.”
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
As I approached the end of the year, exhausted and emotionally pretty spent by the News cycle and US elections, I was recommended a simple murder mystery book by the name of The Thursday Murder Club. I’m not usually a reader of mystery. I find it kind of formulaic, and often boring, because authors don’t usually give you enough information to actually solve the mystery yourself. But this book had me at its premise. Set in the fictional Cooper’s Chase retirement village in the equally fictitious hamlet of Fairhaven, Kent, The Thursday Murder Club follows a diverse cast of pensioners who get together on Thursdays to chip away at unsolved murders—until a real murder shows up on their doorstep.
The Thursday Murder Club is a hilarious and heartfelt look at life, death, and aging. Growing up, I was raised by a single mother alongside my grandmother, and so I spent a lot of time hanging out with retirees. As I’ve grown up seeing my family age, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the way we view aging and death, and what it means to outlive our friends. Osman isn’t elderly, but he handles all of these questions with empathy, grace, and surprising insight, all while telling a remarkably tight and hilarious mystery.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
I put off reading Lolita for many years, perhaps due to the story’s ubiquity on early 2010s Tumblr, or perhaps my own misunderstanding of Nabakov as a writer; either way, I was always wary of it. It wasn’t until I had stranded myself in Italy at a conference with Lolita as my only reading material that I finally cracked open its spine, took a breath, and read the first page. From that moment I was hooked.
Nabakov possesses a command of the English language that I find frankly astonishing. His prose is a delight; his characters, multifaceted and complex. H. Humbert is all at once detestable, deplorable, and downright dangerous, but through him, Nabakov presents a masterclass in writing the unreliable narrator. As I began Lolita with very little knowledge the plot (beyond, of course, the obvious) I was surprised by how much Americana was present throughout the work. Underneath the a story of a monster and a girl, Lolita is all at once a love letter and a laundry list of complaints about America, written from the poignant perspective of a man who has spent significant time both here and abroad. If, like me, you’e been on the fence about reading this classic, I would highly recommend that you take the plunge.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
The final book on my 2024 favorites list was a late addition. I picked up Martyr! from the library on a whim after a recommendation by a member of my book club, and I’m so glad I did. This debut novel by Iranian-American poet, Kaveh Akbar, follows Cyrus: a queer Iranian-American poet who is struggling to come to terms with his parents’ death after a long struggle with alcohol and drugs. As part of his search for meaning, Cyrus flies to New York City to speak with a terminally-ill artist who has chosen to spend her final days speaking strangers. This book is a well-balanced interrogation of love, death, friendship, art, history, and redemption all wrapped up in beautiful prose. Definitely give it a read.
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder
In 2024, I read three of Snyder’s books: On Tyranny, On Freedom, and The Road to Unfreedom. I’m highlighting The Road to Unfreedom as the chosen representative of the bunch, as I think it most succinctly hones in on what I was interested in learning, and ultimately best conveys what I needed to hear.
I’ll start with what I sought out. The Road to Unfreedom is Yale professor and historian Snyder’s exploration of the 2014-2018 political landscape, in which he explorers the Russian attempts to influence Western elections in both the United States and Europe. He also discusses the influences of authoritarian philosopher Ivan Ilyin on Vladimir Putin’s authoritative ideology, which further unpacks the root of fascist philosophy.
Through this lens, he proposes two distinct worldviews that have arisen in the 20th century. The first is the politics of inevitability: in an American lens, this idea is centered around the narrative that communism will ultimately be replaced by capitalism, and that the market will fix all wrongs and lead us all to democracy. For Europeans, it is that Empire will give way to the Nation, and peace will be maintained forever more. However, in this worldview, the future is just more of the present; history has an end, and once we reach it, we arrive at what Snyder describes as the politics of eternity. In this worldview, failing to reach some inevitable perfect end, autocrats and cynics are left reaching for a glorious past, a previous golden age with which to compare our present doom. While discussing these more nebulous ideas, Snyder draws on real-world examples, showcasing how easy it is to slip from populism or libertarianism straight into eternity; he states that “Authoritarianism begins when we can no longer tell the difference between the true and the appealing. At the same time, the cynic who decides that there is no truth at all is the citizen who welcomes the tyrant.”
Now on to what I needed to hear. While discussing events that are depressing or even downright horrific, Snyder maintains the remarkable ability to avoid the nihilism he warns against. This is, in fact, the central thesis of the work: a call for presence, for ownership, for accountability. As a historian, Snyder reiterates that history hinges on the tiniest of actions, and that there is no pre-destiny, no inevitability. In The Road to Unfreedom, he illustrates this point through the Ukrainian Maidan Revolution, which took place in February 2014. The Maidan, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, was a series of deadly political protests started over then-president Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the EU. Realizing their future was at stake, students in Kyiv took to the city’s Independence Square to protest for their right of self-determination. The peaceful demonstrations was interrupted on February 18th, 2014, when riot police shot and killed 82 people. Following this brutality, the protests grew: tens of thousands of protestors from across the country descended on the Maidan (the square in Kyiv) to support the restoration of the 2004 constitution. Civil institutions were erected overnight: healthcare, schools, libraries, and resources were all distributed across the makeshift camp. Snyder later described the event on Substack: '“Putin (and many others) were mistaken about Ukrainians’ capacity to believe in themselves and in ideals, and to organize themselves to resist. Important as it is to analyze the war as such, there is also the impalpable element of choice, a choice of one kind of life over another.”
When thinking about our nation’s future, I often find it useful to learn from history, from other people, and from other places. Though of course America is not Ukraine, we can learn a lot about collective action from the events of the Maidan Revolution, and what it means to take our future into our own hands. By examining events such as the Maidan, UK’s Brexit, and the 2016 American election, the Road to Unfreedom provides a salient overview of our current political landscape, how we got here, and how we can possibly move forward. In 2024, it was exactly what I needed to hear.