Here’s the books I read in 2024. If I were Dudley Dursley, I’d be very upset that I read one fewer new book than in 2023. But then, I’d remember that I re-read a lot of Cosmere in 2024 to prepare for Wind and Truth, which was great.

  1. Iron Gold (Red Rising #4) by Pierce Brown
  2. Dark Age (Red Rising #5) by Pierce Brown
  3. Light Bringer (Red Rising #6) by Pierce Brown
  4. The Fifth Season (Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin
  5. Emma by Jane Austen
  6. The Obelisk Gate (Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin
  7. The Slow Regard of Silent Things (Kingkiller Chronicles) by Patrick Rothfuss
  8. The Narrow Road Between Desires (Kingkiller Chronicles) by Patrick Rothfuss
  9. The Three Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1) by Cixin Liu
  10. The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #2) by Cixin Liu
  11. Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #3) by Cixin Liu
  12. Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells
  13. Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells
  14. Exit Strategy (Murderbot Diaries #4) by Martha Wells
  15. A Deadly Education (Scholomance #1) by Naomi Novik
  16. Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells
  17. Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot Diaries #6) by Martha Wells
  18. System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7) by Martha Wells
  19. The Last Graduate (Scholomance #2) by Naomi Novik
  20. The Golden Enclaves (Scholomance #3) by Naomi Novik
  21. The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
  22. Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
  23. A Natural History of Dragons (Lady Trent #1) by Marie Brennan
  24. The Tropic of Serpents (Lady Trent #2) by Marie Brennan
  25. A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
  26. Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux
  27. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
  28. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  29. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  30. What You Can See from Here by Mariana Leky
  31. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
  32. The Voyage of the Basilisk (Lady Trent #3) by Marie Brennan
  33. A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR #1) by Sarah J. Maas
  34. The Stone Sky (Broken Earth #3) by N.K. Jemisin
  35. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  36. In the Labyrinth of Drakes (Lady Trent #4) by Marie Brennan
  37. Within the Sanctuary of Wings (Lady Trent #5) by Marie Brennan
  38. Indigo Ridge by Perry Devney
  39. City of Stairs (Divine Cities #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
  40. Bartleby the Scrivner by Herman Melville
  41. Beowulf
  42. Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archives #5) by Brandon Sanderson

Rereads

  • Cosmere: Stormlight Archive 1-4 and Warbreaker
  • Kingkiller Chronicles: Name of the Wind and A Wise Man’s Fear

What I Loved (minor spoilers):

  1. Every single short story in Exhalation. You can check out my favorite, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, which is about how to find meaning in time travel, even if you can’t change anything.
  2. The Alchemist. It beats you over the head with its moral philosophy about seizing your destiny. It’s great.
  3. The sci-fi in the whole Three Body Problem trilogy. Lots of great ideas, even if the characters were weak at moments. I initially didn’t like Luo Ji, but he eventually had a great arc which I’ve come to understand follows a more typical Chinese archetype.
  4. Lady Trent has such a great tone and voice as a narrator. The epistolary format worked so well for these books.
  5. Fifth ideals!

Non-superlative Comments

  1. Last year, I wrote that I wasn’t a big fan of Murderbot #1. I stand by my criticism of the first book, but I’m glad I tried the rest, because it addressed my qualms and was a lot of fun.
  2. ACOTAR would have definitely benefited from having a major revision to tighten up the story and characters, but I am sad when people trash on it. I enjoyed it.

Disappointments

  1. I started Persuasion by Jane Austen, but I didn’t care for any of the characters, so I haven’t finished it yet.
  2. I heard so many times that The Fifth Season and its sequels were great. The first book had a cool premise and cool reveal at the end, but the second and third book just didn’t have any good characters or plot to hold it together. I should have put it down after the second book, but I just assumed that since each installment won a Hugo award, that there was a massive payoff at the end. There was not.
  3. There weren’t enough Brandon Sandwiches, so I read his non-Cosmere novel, The Rithmatist, that will never get a sequel. When will I learn?
  4. I’m very disappointed by the Netflix adaptation of Three Body Problem for not doing a better job of rewriting the characters. How can anyone in Hollywood trust Benioff and Weiss after Game of Thrones?

Funny Story

When I was in Gaspé over the summer, we were hanging out at a cafe that suggested Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux as the book of the week. My sister and I figured, we could read it and make some friends that week if they also had. We didn’t find anyone else who even noticed the sign about it being book of the week.