It’s that time of year again!  Here’s my list of the best fiction and non-fiction I read in 2024, regardless of when it was originally published.

Fiction

5. Conversations With Friends (2017), by Sally Rooney

Just like Rooney’s Normal People, this was excellent. She has really perfected the art of the incomplete conversation. As with Normal People, this book is filled with characters who can never say exactly what they want and what they mean, and because of that a slow tragedy of sorts plays out. What results is beautifully painful. Rooney also has a way of making it feel as if she’s using her characters to write about herself, which is another way of saying the writing and the characters feel extremely authentic. If you like literary or contemporary fiction at all, I highly recommend this.

4. Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022), by Shelby Van Pelt

This was excellent. It’s rare these days to find an acclaimed book that’s able to live up to all the hype it has received, but this one does. Marcellus the octopus is one of the best animal characters I’ve read in a long time. This novel is the epitome of what the book industry refers to as “literary with a highly speculative element” and was an absolute treat to read.

3. Klara and the Sun (2021), by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is typical Ishiguro, which is to say it’s full of beautifully poignant scenes, understated storytelling set against deep and serious themes, and quiet moments of sadness that leave you loving his brand of literary fiction. This wasn’t even his best (The Buried Giant, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go) and yet it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year. I wish more writers were able to tap into Ishiguro’s humanistic style of quiet dystopian fiction, because it’s a wonderful thing to read.

2. The Gone World (2018), by Tom Sweterlitsch

In terms of reading experience, this reminded me of Michael Crichton’s Sphere, which is excellent and the first half of which I’d argue is the best thing Crichton ever wrote, with one perfectly executed plot twist after another. With ‘The Gone World’, Sweterlitsch is able to execute the same masterful string of plot developments for almost the entire book. If you’ve and enjoyed Blake Crouch’s Recursion or Dark Matter, you absolutely have to read this.

However, this book came very close to doing that and was still excellent. If you enjoy sci-fi and haven’t read this, I highly recommend adding it to your to-read list. In the weeks since I finished reading it I still found myself constantly thinking about the story, and that’s the mark of a really good book.

1. The Jungle (1906), by Upton Sinclair

Easy 5 stars and will definitely be one of the top 5 books I read this year. I absolutely love Steinbeck but this book surpasses The Grapes of Wrath as the best novel I’ve read about how tough it was for the American worker in the early twentieth century. This book also constantly reminded me of the tag line for Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night: “History as a Novel, The Novel as History”. While reading Sinclair’s The Jungle, the novel constantly felt as if I was reading true accounts of how incredibly unfair the conditions were for workers by companies. The journey that the book takes you on and the in-depth research and statistics that Sinclair provides along the way makes this feel like nonfiction.

A fun fact I was reminded of when reading this: more U.S. troops died in the Spanish-American War from eating spoiled and rotten meat provided to the War Department by unscrupulous companies than from battlefield wounds.

 

Nonfiction

7. The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018), by Heather Morris

Easy 5 stars for me. I’ve seen reviews that call into question if parts of the story were fabricated and reviews talking about the author not being up to the task, but neither of those detracted for me at all. I actually thought Morris did a great job because she’s dealing with secondhand accounts of everything that happened, so she can’t talk about stuff like sounds, smells, or other sensations, which makes a lot of the writing more ‘telling’ than ‘showing’. But for me, that worked great with such a sad story.

The truly discouraging thing for me is that books like these should teach us to treat people better, and yet no matter how many books relay historical accounts of human depravity, every chance people get they still continue to take away other people’s humanity.

6. The Body (2019), by Bill Bryson

I’ve read nonfiction about things like WWII and Mt. Everest summit attempts that should have been fascinating but even given the subject matter were somehow boring. Meanwhile, Bill Bryson writes 450 pages about the human body and every page is compelling. Human anatomy and biology is just something that has never interested me at all, but there were multiple times while reading this that I thought it would have been a great topic to study in school. Highly recommended if you’ve ever enjoyed one of Bryson’s other books, enjoy human anatomy, or just like quirky nonfiction.

5. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (2018), by Patrick Radden Keefe

I’d never read anything by Keefe before but this was exceptionally written nonfiction, and after reading it I’ll keep my eye out for his other books. He does a great job at every point of remaining neutral and letting actions, quotes, and events speak for themselves. He also does a great job of noting when differing accounts contradict each other. The result is a book that feels objective, reliable, and worthwhile. A couple key takeaways:
– Gerry Adams is an absolute garbage human and the stereotypical career-driven politician interested in nothing but power.
– Colleges and Universities (in this case Boston College) don’t have the same legal protections as actual journalists. The Boston College professors came off as hugely naive and irresponsible.
– As always, the ways that humans treat each other, based on imaginary boundaries on maps, is incredibly discouraging.

4. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck (2016), by Mark Manson

This was surprisingly good. I only say “surprisingly” because books that employ obscene titles typically rely on humor over substance, but that wasn’t the case here at all. Manson does a great job discussing how to lead a happier, less stressful life in a way that makes it almost impossible not to connect with what he’s saying. This book is far superior to other titles in the genre, including:
– Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier
– Brain Wash: Detox Your Mind for Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships, and Lasting Happiness
– Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want

If you’ve ever read any of these books and enjoyed them, definitely try Manson’s book.

3. The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap (2014), by Matt Taibbi

400 pages of true journalism exposing the polar difference between how the criminal justice system preys on poor people and minorities while going out of its way to ignore / forgive the criminal conduct of investors, banks, and Wall St. This is one of those books that is necessary to read but will leave you absolutely disgusted the entire time. Highly recommended if you enjoy dystopian nonfiction, want to better understand one of the forms of systemic prejudice embedded in our society, or want to understand one of the reasons for wide unrest within this country.

2. Killers of the Flower Moon (2017), by David Grann

I would have liked for Grann to add in more of the personal element for some key characters. That’s part of what makes Erik Larson so great. But the story is still well-told and there was never a time I lost interest. This is an easy 5-stars just for telling the truly disturbing story of the extent to which the Osage people were treated inhumanely in just about every way possible.It’s also amazing that there are stories like this that almost no one (including mself) is familiar with until a book comes along and tells the story.

1. A People’s History of the United States (1980), by Howard Zinn

One of those rare books that lived up to 100% of the hype. Zinn’s focus on history from the perspective of the people who were slaughtered, arrested, kept down, etc. is brilliant as an alternative to the mainstream history most of us are taught. While reading this, I was reminded throughout of the quote “If you’re proud of history you’re a victim of propaganda.” That’s not to say there weren’t some great moments and some great people that should rightfully be celebrated, but it’s also true that there is a long history of genocide, brutality, and abuses that shouldn’t be ignored and that we should learn from.

I include this along with War Is a Racket and Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media as the most important non-fiction anyone can read to understand the world we live in today.