Reading Roundup: The 35 books read in 2024 + my top Christmas gift recommendations
I’m always interested to see the trends in my own reading and what they reveal about the year just gone. There’s way more “light” reading in this year’s lot, reflecting that in many ways it was a bit of a dark year, personally and professionally: no glittery awards, no rush of publishing a new novel, just a lot of hard graft and a fair few disappointments and setbacks. But what the list shows is that books can provide enormous comfort as well as learning and inspiration, and further, that when you’re struggling to make it to the bookshop, you can get just as much pleasure out of a dog-eared classic or random library book as you can something freshly printed. Having said that, books remain one of the most affordable and best value art forms around and if we don’t actively support these independent shops, most of which in my home city of Perth barely break even, they will disappear. So wherever I’m planning to cut costs next year, it’s not in books. Here are some for you to look out for on your next visit. Note the key below:
🎄 Likely to be on shop shelves now, and a good gift idea (though a good indie bookshop will always order any in-print title for you and these are all in print)
* Australian author
** West Australian author
My top 5 fiction reads of 2023
Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout (2024) 🎄– A truly stunning read, domestic in plot but global in significance and unputdownable. Bonus: the beautiful small hardcover edition available in Australia is very gifty.
Juice - Tim Winton** (2024) 🎄– Another read I found difficult to put down; one of Winton’s most exciting ever novels and perhaps the most ambitious. Compulsive and should be compulsory reading. Another bonus is the stunning hardback cover makes for good gifting.
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens - Shankari Chandran* (2022) – Full of love and rage, with powerful narrative drive and characterisation, layered world-building, leading you surely through extremes of darkness and light. This novel proves that you can have a cosy holiday read and significant literature in one package. Might not still be in the shops, but the author’s latest book, Safe Haven, is on shelves now and looks like another cracker.
The Bookbinder of Jericho - Pip Williams* (2023) 🎄– A follow up to the bestselling The Dictionary of Lost Words, but is a standalone story and moreover I think the superior one. I don’t read a lot of historical fiction but was utterly engrossed in this; like Chai Time and Tell Me Everything, manages to be cosily absorbing while yet culturally significant.
Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens (1841) 🎄– Sorry to include an old book on the list, but none other on the below master list could hold a candle to it except Franzen’s Freedom, and that was also an older novel and a re-read to boot, so didn’t seem appropriate either. The prize must go to Dickens, for sheer absorbing storytelling magic.
My top nonfiction read of 2023
Fathoms - Rebecca Gibbs** (2020) – A multi-award-winning, utterly original work on the past, present and future of whales in a world shaped by humans; the fascinating deep-sea life that thrives from whales’ bodies, whether dead or alive; the history of the whaling industry and its role in the world’s economy and consumption culture; the unique global conservation movement that began in the 1970s and the significance of that movement today; and the current global crisis of marine noise and plastic pollution. Gibbs takes these scientific and anthropological subjects and uses them as a lens through which to examine humans’ relationship with nature, and the multiple connected crises emerging regarding it. Unforgettable.
Full lists
Fiction
Literary
The Book of Elsewhere - China Mieville and Keanu Reeves🎄
Juice - Tim Winton** 🎄
Gut Symmetries - Jeanette Winterson
Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens
The City & The City - China Mieville
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens - Shankari Chandran* 🎄
Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout 🎄
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen (re-read)
Flash fiction/short stories – my first time including this category!
The Little Journal - Various** (Writing WA) 🎄
Greater City Shadows - Laurie Steed** 🎄
Thriller
The Venice Hotel - Tess Woods** 🎄
Year of The Locust - Terry Hayes 🎄
Home before Night - J. P. Pomare* [full review]
The Couple at the Table - Sophie Hannah
The Telling Error - Sophie Hannah
Historical
The Bookbinder of Jericho - Pip Williams* 🎄
Sci-fi
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert. A. Heinlen
Young adult
The Cult of Romance - Sarah Ayoub*
Crime
Past Lying - Val McDermid
Regency romance – a lot of these but by God it was a long year. Seems to have temporarily supplanted my usual comfort/amusement genre of crime fiction. Give these a whirl if you need cheering up – they’re smile-out-loud funny, clever and the escapism is absolute.
Friday’s Child - Georgette Heyer
These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer
Sprig Muslin - Georgette Heyer
Sylvester - Georgette Heyer
The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer
Devil's Cub - Georgette Heyer
The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer
Smut (very classy smut though. While formulaic, some literary fiction authors could learn a lot from this tight plotting and characterisation).
Sinner - Sierra Simone
Priest - Sierra Simone
Nonfiction
Journalism
Fathoms - Rebecca Gibbs**
Memoir/essay
The Time Of Our Lives - Robert Dessaix*
How to Avoid a Happy Life - Julia Lawrinson** 🎄
Crime Wave - James Ellroy
Biography
Emma Hamilton - Julie Peakman
Poetry
The Fire of Joy: Roughly Eighty Poems to Get By Heart and Say Aloud - Clive James* 🎄
Personal development
Less Hustle, More Happy - Claire Seeber**
The outtakes: abandoned reads
None this year!
Did you read any of these, or are any on your list? Want further info or more tailored gift recommendations? Got your own top reads for the year to inspire my next bookshop visit? Reply to the email or comment on the blog post and let me know.
Finally, thank you for reading along this year. I'll be back with more reviews, newsletters and events from February.
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