Best books of 2024

📘 Books

• In 2024, I read 112 books (for 61414 pages) which I gave an average star rating of 3.87 out of 5.

You can see the full list here: Books Read in 2024.

I usually keep three books going at once: A classic, a modern fiction, and a fantasy / science fiction. I also had a few nonfiction books this year.

Below are my favorite reads in each of these different categories for this year, excluding rereads:

Classics

• Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) - I really enjoyed the story and the characters. There are several asides - all of which are good, but I wish they were more tightly integrated with the main story. That said, this was an easy favorite for me.
• The Long Valley (John Steinbeck) - I've never before been interested in reading a short story collection, but these were great mini-Steinbecks. Some hit harder than others.

Modern Fiction

• The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) - Fantastic story of a family who goes to Congo to be missionaries.
• The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien) - A rough, rough read about a soldier's experiences in the Vietnam war and his reflections after the war.

Fantasy

• Shadows of the Apt series (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - An interesting world and great plots with high stakes. The people are bugs. I read books 2-8 so far this year. Book 5, The Scarab Path, was particularly good.
• The Tainted Cup (Robert Jackson Bennett) - This is a great mystery set in a crazy world of plant magic and gigantic monsters.

Science Fiction

• Disquiet Gods (Christopher Ruocchio) - Book 6 of the Sun Eater series came out this year and these are always great reads with the overall plot unfolding very slowly.
• Children of Memory (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - Very cool followup to Children of Time, which I read last year.

Historical Fiction

• Centennial (James Michener) - Really enjoyed this generational story of a place. I read "Hawaii" by Michener last year and it was great, but this one worked better for me for some reason.
• The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) - Eco writes this in an authentically medieval setting, with characters who think and act differently from us.

Nonfiction

• The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (Tim Alberta) - Subtitled, "American Evangelicals in the age of extremism". It's a big, comprehensive look at the rise of right-wing extremism in the American Evangelical church- well-researched and well-written, and authored by a Christian who is able to discuss this topic humbly and scripturally.

Some Good Rereads

• The Count of Monte-Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
• The Little Friend (Donna Tartt)
• The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton)
• Piranesi (Susanna Clark)

Also:

• Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis) - I followed along with an online course on this book by the Tolkien Professor: Till We Have Faces - YouTube. It was an enriching experience and this book is so well written.

Bring on 2025, I'm looking forward to seeing what I can find out there.

Check out my 2023 recap: Best books of 2023