2024: A Year in Reading

Yearly reading-list time, sprinkled with those coveted asterisks.

It was a rich year for memoirs; Ullmann, Herzog, and Ernaux knocked it out the park. And long-time favourite writers continue to impress: namely Levy, Cusk, Jamie, and the oh-so-lamented Mantel. Hitler's Horses was fun––I love an art scam––and Rumor Gordon’s Black Narcissus proved better than expected. I’ve given Orbital an asterisk after some swithering; I'm not convinced it was Booker-worthy, but it's the best of the three short-listed for 2024 that I've read so far. And I discovered two new-to-me fabulous writers–––Han Kang (I know, I'm late to this awakening...) and Carys Davies. While working with students, I revisited some absolute belter classics––namely Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, and Waiting for Godot––which only become more astonishing with every read.

If I had to pick a favourite for 2024? Well, it would be The Hare with the Amber Eyes by award-winning potter Edmund de Waal. On my to-read list for too, too long and well worth getting around to. Can't help it, I'm a sucker for Proustian memoirs kindled by family bric-a-brac. It’s a stunner.

Fiction

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray *

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Tranto

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf *

An Honorable Exit by Eric Vuillard

Columba’s Bones by David Greg

Three Fires by Denise Mina

Erasure by Percival Everett

Middlemarch by George Eliot *

To The Dogs by Louise Welsh

The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez Reverte

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Ann Tyler

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Orbital by Samantha Harvey *

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

James by Percival Everett

The Vegetarian by Han Kang *

August Blue by Deborah Levy *

Parade by Rachel Cusk *

Black Narcissus by Rumor Gordon

The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns

West by Carys Davies

Clear by Carys Davies *

What Hetty Did by J.L. Carr

Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie

John the Revelator by Peter Murphy

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

Consider the Lilies by Iain Crichton Smith

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie

Long Island by Colm Toibin

Nonfiction

Unquiet by Linn Ullmann *

The Recovery by Leslie Jamieson

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalamithi

Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel *

We Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

The Creative Act by Ricki

The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal *

The Years by Annie Ernaux *

A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux

Stolen Lens by Johann Hari

Knife by Salman Rushdie

Short Life in a Strange World: Birth to Death in 42 Panels by Toby Ferris *

The American No by Rupert Everett

She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Towney

The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer

Hitler’s Horses by Arthur Brand *

Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog *

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench

The Professor and the Parson by Adam Sisman

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

A Memoir of My Former Self by Hilary Mantel

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie *

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila

Just One Thing by Dr. Michael Mosley

Plays

The Wife of Willesden by Zadie Smith

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett *

Poetry

Patrick Kavanagh Selected Poems

Mayday by Jackie Kay