13 From '24
The Best Books I Read in 2024
I read 31 books in 2024. To be more precise, I FINISHED 31 books. I find that as I get older, I am less inclined to stick with a book if I’m not “feelin’ it” after 100 pages. Thus, I’m not counting the half-dozen I gave up on. I’ve included a link to purchase each book from Watermark Books, or if not available there, from Amazon. Grouped by arbitrary categories entirely made up by me, here are the 13 (-ish) best books I read in 2024:
Novels by people named “William Boyd”:
Read these two novels if you like stories that cover the length and breadth of a man’s life and/or are curious about the events and fascinating real-life characters of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
This is a first-person account by the fictional character Logan Mountstuart of his life alongside many of the pivotal people and events of the 20th century. Any Human Heart is set in various locales and pretends to be Mountstuart’s journal. A writer, Mountstuart is deeply flawed, and thus a very relatable human character.
On behalf of the Royal Navy, he spies on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor during World War II in the Bahamas, is then imprisoned in Switzerland as a POW for the remainder of the war, writes an existential novella, accidentally joins the Baader-Meinhof Gang, hangs out with the artist Jackson Pollock, and briefly teaches writing in Nigeria. It’s a helluva trip.
Along with the next book, these Boyd novels are probably my favorites of the year.
Buy it HERE from Amazon.
The Romantic by William Boyd
Cashel Greville Ross comes from a less privileged background than Logan Mountstuart and is no less fascinating. Like Any Human Heart, this novel portrays the entire life of its subject. However, this novel paints a picture of life in the 1800s. Amazon says it best:
Cashel seeks his fortune across the turbulence of multiple continents, from County Cork to rural Massachusetts, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, embedded with the East Indian Army in Sri Lanka, sunning himself alongside the Romantic poets in Pisa. He travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, even a father.
Buy it HERE from Amazon.
Books by People I’ve Met:
Saving the Queen by William F. Buckley
Read this book if you like Cold War spy stories and revel in an author with an impressive vocabulary.
I met the brilliant William F. Buckley on a speaking tour he did during my senior year of high school during the 1992-93 school year. In addition to getting his autograph, I spoke to him briefly about fighting the good fight in my high school Government class. It was quite a thrill for a political junkie back.
This spy thriller is the first of Buckley’s Blackford Oakes series. Sort of an American James Bond, Oakes spends this novel training to become a spy and deploying to Great Britain to counter a threat against the Queen. A writing polymath, Buckley demonstrates he can tackle fiction in this rip-roaring Cold War adventure.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Marco Polo Didn’t Go There by Rolf Potts
Read this book if you want to live vicariously through another person’s experiences across the world.
Potts, a Wichitan by birth, and friend of mine, is best known for Vagabonding, a hugely influential book in the world of travel writing. Marco Polo Didn’t Go There is a series of stories compiled from various magazine articles. It details the sublime and the ridiculous from his life as a “slow traveler.” An evangelist of the idea of traveling for long periods of time on any budget, Potts writes wittily about his adventures around the globe.
The book contains many great stories, but I am particularly fond of “Something Approaching Enlightenment,” which was originally published in a Lonely Planet humor anthology. The door…the “exotic” film. Just read it and you’ll have a laugh as well.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Novels Set Prior to the Invention of Television
Chenneville by Paulette Jiles
Read this novel if you liked her previous bestseller, News of the World, or are fascinated by the post-Civil War era.
This novel, named after the main character, portrays a man physically broken by war and emotionally broken by the murder of his sister, who sets out on a path of vengeance against the man who killed her.
Jiles understands the human condition better than just about any writer out there. The characterization is sublime. I highly recommend taking the time to read this after you finish News of the World.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux
Read this novel if you want to learn more about the realities of British colonialism in southeast Asia.
This historical novel explores the early life of Eric Blair, the man who would eventually go by the pen name of George Orwell. Before he became a monumental literary figure, he was a policeman in colonial Burma. That experience, fictionalized in this novel, turned him against the British colonial project.
Theroux, probably the most famous living travel writer, paints a vivid picture of a reasonable man put in an unreasonable position.
Order it online HERE or pick it up on the shelf at Watermark Books.
Non-Fiction, Not Yawn Fiction:
The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk
Read this book if you are tired of the controversies of identity politics.
In this non-fiction treatise, Mounk, a writer for The Atlantic, makes a strong case against a singular focus on identity as a way to understand the world. Mounk argues that a healthy recognition of the legitimate travails of minority groups has morphed into “counterproductive obsession with group identity.” From Amazon:
It stifles discourse, vilifies mutual influence as cultural appropriation, denies that members of different groups can truly understand one another, and insists that the way governments treat their citizens should depend on the color of their skin.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
3 Shades of Blue by James Kaplan
Read this book if you love jazz.
This non-fiction book focuses on three great jazz musicians who came together to record a historic album. Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane are portrayed honestly as musical savants, heroin addicts, and the kind of men who lived beyond the normal bounds of society.
Davis, the most difficult of the three, kicked his heroin habit with the help of cocaine. Pretty hardcore. Both Evans and Coltrane died young because of their smack habits. But before that happened, they made some of the greatest music of the 20th century.
Buy it HERE from Amazon.
End Times by Peter Turchin
Read this book if you are ok with not feeling good about the near-term future.
Turchin practices cliodynamics [which I assure you has nothing to do with Miss Cleo or fortune-telling], a social science discipline that attempts to predict future trends using complex data analysis. Amazon explains it better than I do:
When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; it’s a world of the damned and the saved. And since the number of such positions remains relatively fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. Turchin’s models show that when this state has been reached, societies become locked in a death spiral it's very hard to exit.
If you are thinking that this sounds a lot like what’s happening right now, you would be correct. Read this book to decide if you think Turchin is on track or has gone off the rails.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Contemporary Fiction by Male Authors:
You Are Here by David Nicholls
Read this novel if you enjoy likable protagonists that are a little down on their luck. Also read this novel if you are empathetic and enjoy a little light-hearted humor.
The funniest book on this list, You Are Here chronicles two people that have been unlucky in love that meet on a walking trip in the Lake District in England. Nicholls excels at raising and dashing our hopes throughout this memorable novel. But don’t worry, it doesn’t have a dreary ending.
Readers who flee from chick lit should read this book. It provides some of those same feelings in more of a literary package.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Playground by Richard Powers
Read this novel if you like profound and complex fiction that bends the mind.
Those familiar with Powers work know that he tells BIG stories. They are “big” in the scope of the ideas contained within. Powers tends to be philosophical in his approach and Playground is no outlier in that respect.
This novel follows two brilliant young men through high school and then beyond. Their paths diverge and then eventually come back together. Google the ending afterwards to see what you missed.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Books NOT About Dolphins
On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
Read this book if you like a good, morally complex love story.
Faulks presents us with Mary Van der Linden, the wife of a boozy English diplomat and mother of two children who meets political reporter Frank Renzo at a party. They soon fall madly for each other. With a backdrop of the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon presidential race, this novel paints a picture of the Mad Men era that reminds why we like to read about the past but also makes us realize human emotions haven’t changed.
Buy it HERE from Watermark Books.
Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy
Read these books if you love a great fantasy story.
Starting with Assassin’s Apprentice, this fantasy trilogy follows the bastard son of a prince named Fitz as he navigates his way through the complex politics of a medieval kingdom.
This series does not fall into the trap of derivative plots and plot devices that befall many other fantasy series (I’m looking at you, Terry Brooks).
Buy the first book in the trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice) HERE from Watermark Books.
Enjoy one or more of these books and Wichita Story Magazine guarantees you Eternal (or Temporary) Enlightenment!
I've long wondered if giving the Blackford Oakes novels a shot would be fun. Are you going to read any more of them?