Below is a chronological listing of the eighteen books I enjoyed reading in 2024. I know it’s not a huge number but I did read the craft books two or three times and also spent a lot of time doing the writing exercises.
Eleven of this year’s books were were fiction (marked with F below).
My 2024 resolve to first work through a stack of to-be-read books on my Kindle before buying any new paper ones faltered early in the year. Why? I guess I prefer the tactile nature of paper books to swiping virtual pages on screens, however convenient the latter process may be.
Nonetheless, I’ll continue picking off any digital books that appeal to me in the months ahead.
January Books:
1) A Different Story by Jules Swales
2) Stories from the Muses by Jules Swales
3) Method Writing by Jack Grapes
All three of the above are craft books focused on the method writing ideas of Jack Grapes. I’ve been fascinated with his work all year. It really is messing with my writing head but in a creative way.
4) Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson. A childhood favourite. I’ve enjoyed reading it again many decades later. (F)
February Books:
5) Method Writing Brush Up by Lisa Segal. A wonderful refresher of the main tenets behind method writing, especially the “image moment.”
6) Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Excellent. A world-building masterclass. (F)
7) 90-Day Novel by Alan Watt. This process is not for me, but I always aim to pick up some technique I can adapt to my own work.
March Books:
8) Inverted World by Christopher Priest (F). A bitter-sweet, mind-bending science fantasy.
April Books:
9) Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (F). Another cracking read from Andy. I suspect this is destined to be a science fantasy movie one day.
May Books:
10) Fitzroy by John & Mary Gribbin A tragic hero of his time. I’d heard of Fitzroy because of his fame as Darwin’s captain. I was more interested in his role as a pioneer of weather forecasting for mariners.
11) The Unexpected Universe by Loren Eiseley. Ray Bradbury recommended this book in one of his talks I watched on YouTube.
July Books:
12) Echopraxia by Peter Watts (F)
13) Holes by Louis Sachar (F)
August Books:
14) The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (F). This chilling story sat on my bookshelf for several years before I made time to at last read it. And I’m glad I did.
September Books:
15) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (F). I first read this many years ago. My second reading was motivated by contemporary events.
October Books:
16) The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (F). A clever and fascinating work of Chinese science fiction.
November Books:
17) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (F). Ahead of its time (1968) and still worth reading, but Blade Runner took it to another level of storytelling.
December Books:
18) Stuart: A Life Told Backwards by Alexander Masters. Based on a true story. Stuart’s life at times appalled and infuriated me. By the end my heart had been ripped out.
(This post was first published on my writer's blog as "Books I Read in 2024".
