Books of 2024

31 Dec 2024

I’ve always enjoyed reading, both fiction and non-fiction, and try to make time for it as much as I can. A few years ago I thought it would be nice to keep a record of what I’ve read, but I’ve never got on with reading-based social services such as GoodReads and BookWyrm. Hence, I decided to go for something more basic: for a while now, I’ve recorded what I’m reading, and when, in a simple Jekyll data file as part of this site. This is mainly for my own notes, but also helps generate the /now page. What’s more, now that I’ve been using the system for a full calendar year (I started mid-2023), I can use it to look back on what I’ve read over the last twelve months.

(The yellow bars indicate when I started and finished each book; the open ones are the end are for books I still have on the go.)

This year, the standout discovery was Nichola Griffith. I picked up Hild in January as it’s set in a part of the world with which I’m a little familiar, at an interesting period in history. Hild delivered on that, but more importantly it’s enormously evocative of a very alien period, has a plot that rattles along, and one of the best cast of characters I’ve read in a long while. A truly surprisingly bombshell dropped literally in the last couple of pages make the follow-up Menewood pretty much non-optional. I also read and enjoyed Griffith’s first novel, Ammonite, and will definitely be returning to her again.

I’ve also returned to a familiar author: William Gibson. He’s mostly know for his pioneering role in the development of cyberpunk, in particular Neuromancer and its sequels. The Bridge trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties) is less well known, but reading it for the first time I’ve been struck how many ideas that are real today — cybercrime franchises, social media, deep-fake sextortion — turn up pretty much fully-formed in fiction from a quarter-century ago. They’re also excellent books in their own right, and I’m very much looking forward to the concluding part of the Jackpot trilogy coming out (hopefully) in 2025.

Moving to non-fiction, The High Frontier and The New World on Mars was an interesting look at the arguments in favour of humanity moving beyond this planet, and made an good counterpoint to the more sceptical A City on Mars that I read at the and of last year (my brother was keen I got both sides of the picture). Rereading The Humane Interface provided an interesting perspective on the 40th anniversary of the Mac, and I’m working on-and-off through both Understanding Deep Learning and Google’s Site Reliability Engineering in the context of work. Both are available online for free if you’re interested in the subjects.

Overall, I’m glad I started recording what I’m reading, and have enjoyed taking the time to look back over it as I write this review. I think this might become an annual feature.

For reference, here’s a full 2024 list:

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