From the cream of the crop to the dogshit. My best and worst books of 2024.
As I mentioned in my other summary, I read too many books AGAIN. People tell me that there’s no such thing but there is. We should not read like madmen but carefully, selectively, but deeply. Maybe I should listen to my own advice, because I read batshit crazy like my life depended on it. But you know what? I had a bloody good year overall, so why am I bitching?
Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter how many books you read just as long as the rest of your life is alright. I reckon 2024 was a bit of al
Enough rant. Here are the best, the worst, the biggest, the smallest and the most difficult.
The Cream: Native Son
No other book hit me as hard in 2024 the way Bigger Thomas invades the crevices of your comfort zone and make you tingly with disgust at humanity. When we think of Bigger’s crime, we need to ask who’s to blame? Is it Bigger Thomas for committing such despicable actions to a family who was willing to give him a chance out of his situation? Is it the oppressive white society which never gave the black man a chance?
We can contemplate this on and on, but deep down we know who really is guilty and it really is the usual suspect. That’s right readers, your hands aren’t very clean either.
No, I don’t think everybody would love this book. Some of Wright’s compatriots such as James Baldwin disliked it. But like any book, let yourself be the judge.
Read my review of Native Son here.
Honourable mentions: The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel (The other 5 stars of the year), Yes Please by Amy Poehler, The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Dogshit: The Tattooist of Auschwitz
When Morris was commissioned to write the incredible story of Lale Solokov, she had no idea how cheezy the end product will turn out to be. It’s like giving the script of Pulp Fiction to Michael Bay. Actually this example doesn’t even do it justice, Michael Bay might have made something out of it which might be shit, but the explosions might make the story more palatable.
There is a heart-wrenching and amazing story beneath all this, we all know it. But the language does not do it justice. This should be THE holocaust novel, but the author’s pen cheapened such a masterpiece of human experience to a clichéd Auschwitz soap drama.
Read my review of The Tattooist of Auschwitz here.
Dishonourable mentions: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares, The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
The Behemoth: 1Q84
Yeah, this book is pretty massive, but it is highly readable and it is a book which would finish before you know it. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I’m not sure, but I shit sure think that this is Murakami’s best work. The two main story threads, if you have enough patience, will intertwine to its rewarding ends, but in between the book is chockful of imaginative twangs that are simply Murakami signatures: paper moons, little people crawling out of carcasses, sexual perversions. And much, much more.
Read my review of 1Q84 here.
Honourable mentions: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (962 pages), Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (888 pages), Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (864 pages),
The Teeniest: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (52 pages)
Yeah sure, this book is fucking tiny that you might not even call it a book. A pamphlet maybe. It is a transcription of a TED Talk eloquently given by Adichie. But the fact that it’s short doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. I think what Adichie stated will be relevant for a long time, sadly enough. In a world where women can enjoy equal rights without the fear of reprobation, such books are not needed. But since this is not the case, this book has a significant voice.
Read my review of We Should All Be Feminists here.
Honourable mentions: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (72 pages), Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl (96 pages), Strictly Bipolar by Darian Leader (112 pages)
The Make You Go Bald When It’s Done: Inferno by Dante Alighieri
I am daunted to take on the other two books in the Divine Comedy because the first was exhausting. I tried different ways of reading it, and I would want to read the Italian as well as the English which begs the question of how to best alternate. I don’t think reading page by page is great, but I don’t think stanza by stanza is also helpful. I still need to find the right balance. But the bilingual reading is the least of my troubles.
As readers of the Italian bard, we must also have awareness of the context and history of Italy’s Renaissance, where Dante plays favourites and scapegoats to his acquaintances. This is just one of those books that might need as much reading as the actual text itself, depending on how far you go in the rabbithole.
Read my review of Inferno here.
Honourable mentions: Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
