What I read in 2024

Although some people get through 100 books a year, I got through about 25 in 2024.The exact number depends on how you count the book I finished at the start of 2024 and the book I was in the middle of at the end of 2024. My reading is a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with a lean towards non-fiction. I end up with a fair bit of history and politics in the non-fiction, while science fiction is my go-to on the fiction side. Given that there is no shortage of books that are both well-reviewed and fit my reading preferences, I tend not to be too adventurous of a reader. However, I will sometimes open something a little different, particularly on a recommendation.

The standout

This year, there was one book that clearly felt like the best I read all year: R.F. Kuang’s Babel. This was surprising to me, both because the best book I’ve read for each of the previous few years has probably been non-fiction, and because I was a little disappointed by R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy. The first book was a great read, but by the end of the third book the series felt drawn out and the ending wasn’t particularly great.

But Babel never felt drawn out (perhaps because it is a single book, even if a longer one, rather than a trilogy) and ended very well. It is hard to put down, very well-written, and is also quite thought-provoking. The real-life software industry has parallels to Babel’s fictional silver translation industry. Both are (or are portrayed as) knowledge-intensive fields that can seem magical and increasingly have the world wrapped around their collective finger. As someone working in software, I do worry about how much software engineers, like the cloistered Oxford scholars of Babel, are oblivious to the negative effects of their work.

The other good ones

There were a few other books I read which, while not quite as good as Babel, were still particularly good:

• How Not to Be a PoliticianPublished as Politics on the Edge outside the US by Rory Stewartnotes here - A political memoir that explores how politics corrodes politicians. Stewart, a former member of the UK Parliament and former UK government minister, illustrates how people who he would have looked up to outside of politics are turned into cynical, insecure pole-climbers by the political environment they are in. He also explores the toll that the environment took on him. The book is not particularly optimistic, but it is candid, revelatory, and filled with sharp (but rather grim) humor as Stewart reflects on the absurdity of the situations he found himself in on his journey through national politics.

• The Restless Republic by Anna Keaynotes here - A good history book leaves me feeling like I understood what people were thinking and how they felt during the period covered. Keay left me feeling like I understood the mindset of figures spanning a cross-section of the English Interregnum, from Royalist nobles to newspaper editors antagonizing the regime to Cromwell himself. I didn’t know too much about this time period before, but I felt like I gained a sense of it by reading this book.

• The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallisnotes here - I didn’t realize it was possible to mess up a tech project on such a large scale, for so long, and with such terrible consequences. For well over a decade, hundreds of postmasters in the UK were falsely blamed for accounting errors actually caused by faulty accounting software. In some cases, these postmasters were charged with crimes and even went to prison based on indications from this software. Wallis explores their stories, and also tells the story of how, year after year, the UK Post Office fought at every turn to avoid admitting that anything might be wrong with their system.

• Starter Villain by John Scalzi - This was a hilarious and very engaging read. It wasn’t as deep as something like Babel, and the ending may not have been quite as strong as I would have liked, but it was hard to put down. This was the first Scalzi book that I’ve read, even though I’ve gotten a few recommendations for other ones. I did read a couple more of his books this year after enjoying Starter Villain, but while those were reasonably good they weren’t as good as this one for me.

• The Dark Side by Jane Mayernotes here - It’s clear that the new Trump administration is eager to take extreme measures in order to accomplish its agenda, throwing away norms and pushing the boundaries of the law. Mayer tells the story of the last time an administration did this on a large scale, leveraging the fear and anxiety of September 11 to develop a program of systematized cruelty for questionable gain.

The Disappointments

I normally read books that I’m reasonably certain I will like, but occasionally a book disappoints me. Nothing I read last year was completely terrible, but some books didn’t live up to the expectations I had of them.

• All Systems Red by Martha Wells - I debated whether to list this one as a disappointment. It wasn’t too painful to get through, but the ending left me wanting something better (and didn’t leave me wanting to read the next book in the series).

• The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kristein - While there were some interesting ideas here, this one felt slow and didn’t have a particularly satisfying ending.

• The Slave’s Cause by Manisha Sinhanotes here - There’s no doubt that this is an expansive and significant work of scholarship, but it’s not a particularly engaging read. The book felt like a deluge of details with little tying everything together into a coherent narrative. It was also very long. I’m honestly quite surprised the book is rated as highly as it is on Goodreads.

The past year was quite a rollercoaster in a number of different ways, but I’m glad I had a good set of books to get me through it. Hopefully the ones I read in 2025 will be as good or better, and indeed from the few I’ve gotten through so far this year, the trend is encouraging.