Best Books I Read in 2024 (Shallow Thoughts)

Best Books I Read in 2024

My annual "Best Books I Read Last Year" is a little sparse for 2024. When I look at my reading record, I see I only finished 17 books all year, the lowest count by far since I started keeping track in 2004.

There are a couple of reasons for that, some good, some bad. The good reason: I've been sleeping better. As a life-long insomniac, most of my book-reading happens at night when I'm trying to get to sleep. Typically I read for at least half an hour, but over an hour isn't uncommon. But this year, possibly because I've been more diligent about getting outside on the bike or on foot most days, I'm a lot more tired at bedtime, and this year it's not uncommon to drop right off to sleep. Which is great, but it means that if I want to get books read I'd better carve out some other time in my day.

The bad reason: I actually started a lot more than 17 books, but a lot of them were bad. In 2024 I tried a lot of new and indie authors I hadn't read before, especially ebooks that I could check out from the local library's various e-book services. But most of these services, especially Hoopla, carry a lot of first time/indie authors rather than established authors or well-known, popular titles. So they usually don't have the books I'm searching for, and I end up settling for some random title that catches my eye. This didn't result in a very good hit rate, and I gave up on a lot of books anywhere from Chapter 2 to halfway through. I also got tougher about quitting books if I felt I wasn't getting anything from them, including several books from excellent authors that just didn't seem to be going anywhere.

So I didn't actually finish many books this year. That said, there were a few gems.

Nonfiction

The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis

Highly recommended by one of the economics podcasts (I think it was Planet Money), this book is about ... um, it's hard to say what it's about. It starts by talking about the transition from the Obama White House to the first Trump presidency (and how Trump's team wasn't actually interested in transitioning), but it ends up being an examination of the inner workings of some of the larger US federal departments, like DOE and their oversight of nuclear aterials around the world; Agriculture and their control over many important anti-poverty programs, such as school lunches and food stamps; Commerce and the weather service/NOAA. Despite not being about to answer "what is this book actually about?", it's a fascinating read, and I learned a lot about some of the important services the US government provides.

The Light Eaters, Zoë Schlanger

Full of fascinating facts, things I never would have suspected plants are capable of. I was occasionally frustrated that the author left out details or seemed to be jumping to conclusions without showing the reader the evidence, but that was a small part of the book. Overall it was fascinating and well worth reading.

Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake

An excellent, very comprehensive discussion of fungi and the many unexpected ways they play a part in larger ecosystems.

Petroglyphs & Pueblo Myths of the Rio Grande, Carol Patterson-Rudolph

A friend in my hiking group loaned this to me. It's not a general overview of petroglyphs, but rather a deep dive into two particular panels of petroglyphs near Santa Fe that we had seen on a hike a few years ago. She has an interpretation, based on talking to people in some of the local tribes, that the petroglyphs depict two specific stories, despite show animals and objects that seemingly aren't particularly related to the stories.

I have to admit that I remain skeptical. Patterson-Rudolph asserts that petroglyphs aren't "rock art" but rather "rock writing", and claims that petroglyphs are highly metaphorical — for example, a mountain lion isn't a mountain lion, it represents a specific person who's hunting for/seeking something. A petroglyph of a deer track, or bird tracks, represents humans moving in a particular direction. It's possible, but I'm not convinced. Nevertheless, it was an interesting read, especially since it concerns petroglyphs I've seen in person..

Fiction

The Hunter, Tana French

It's always a good year when a new Tana French book comes out. This one continues the story of her last book, The Searcher. The only problem I had with it is that it's been four years since I read The Searcher, and I didn't remember anything about the plot. The Hunter very much depends on its predecessor — it's all about Trey hunting for the real story behind what happened in the earlier book — and a lot of it wasn't making any sense to me. I finally gave up, went back and skimmed through the whole earlier book, after which The Hunter was much more enjoyable.

The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey

I've read and enjoyed several of Abbey's nonfiction books over the years, but somehow I had never gotten around to reading his fiction classic. This year I finally did, and it holds up just fine. It's particularly fun to read if you've spent a lot of time in the four-corners southwest, so you know the territory they're passing through and the areas they're trying to protect.

Red Team Blues, Cory Doctorow

I've become kind of a Cory fangirl lately. I don't like all of his fiction, but I like some of it a lot (especially the Little Brother series — what does it say about me that my favorite is a young-adult series?) Red Team Blues is a new series, and perfectly fine in its own right. I'll be reading the sequel.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers, Karawynn Long

I'll end with something that's not even a novel, just a short story from the July/August 2023 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine — but it's the best short story I've read in a long time. I quite enjoyed the relationship between a young autistic person and a flock of genetically engineered corvids, and was sorry to see it end so soon.