2024 Reading List
At the beginning of the year I put together a couple of lists of books that I wanted to read over the next 12 months - one list of novels (and a couple of non-fiction books that seemed interesting) and one list was novellas and shorter works. My house is filled with books - I own about 9,000 physical books at last count - and my Kindle is also brimming with ebooks. The result is that I often find myself struck with option paralysis when it comes time to pick my next read, and I've learned that having a more curated list of things to choose from often helps.
I haven't been very good at actually sticking to these lists so far this year. And that's fine, because they're there to serve a specific purpose when I can't pick something to read, and the fact I haven't dipped into them much means that I haven't struggled to pick things to read. I'm happy with that, though I want to make more of an effort to get through the books I picked in January as we move into the second half of the year.
To that end, I thought I'd post my lists here.
Novels To Be Read
The bulk of this list is the Booker Prize Longlist from 2023, plus a selection of books that were due to be released in 2024. I doubt I'll get through the Longlist from last year, since I'm going to attempt to read 2024's Longlist once it's announced in July, but we'll see what happens.
I kept this list to 40 books, and set myself a goal of reading at least 30 works over the course of the year. At the time of writing this I've read 50 books this year, but have barely made a dent in this list.
Books that I've read/attempted are italicised.
- Tade Thompson - Far From The Light of Heaven
- Tan Twan Eng - The House of Doors (DNF)
- Paul Murray - The Bee Sting
- Chetna Maroo - Western Lane
- Paul Lynch - Prophet Song
- Viktoria Lloyd Barlow - All The Little Bird-Hearts (DNF)
- Sian Hughes - Pearl
- Paul Harding - This Other Eden
- Elaine Feeney - How To Build A Boat
- Jonathan Escoffery - If I Survive You
- Sarah Bernstein - Study For Obedience
- Sebastian Barry - Old God's Time
- Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ - A Spell OF Good Things
- Polly Hall - Myrrh
- Ronald Malfi - Small Town Horror
- Clay McLeod Chapman - What Kind of Mother
- Elizabeth Gonzalez James - The Bullet Swallower
- Avery Cunningham - The Mayor of Maxwell Street
- Tommy Orange - Wandering Stars
- Cristina Henriquez - The Great Divide
- Alex Michaelides - The Fury
- Stacy Wilkingham - Only If You're Lucky
- Janice Hallett - The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels
- Simone St James - Murder Road
- Stuart Turton - The Last Murder At The End of The World
- Lucy Foley - The Midnight Feast
- Robert Jackson Bennett - The Tainted Cup
- Gareth Brown - The Book of Doors
- Katherine Arden - The Warm Hands of Ghosts
- Tlotio Tsamaase - Womb City
- Martin Macinnes - In Ascension
- Christopher Golden - The House of Last Resort
- Amanda Jayatissa - Island Witch
- S.A. Barnes - Ghost Station
- Nick Medina - Indian Burial Ground
- Johanna van Veen - My Darling Dreadful Thing
- Stephen King - You Like It Darker
- Cal Newport - Slow Productivity
- Salman Rushdie - Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder
Novellas
At the end of 2023 I found myself enjoying reading novellas over novels. After reading a few novellas in a row that I really enjoyed I crowd-sourced a list of recommended SFF and horror novellas. The trend of my preferring shorter works hasn't really continued into this year, so I haven't opened any of these at all yet, but I do still intend to get to as many of them as possible.
- Naseem Jamnia - The Bruising of Qilwa
- Naomi Salman - Nothing But The Rain
- Moses Ose Utomi - The Lies of The Ajungo
- Aliette de Bodard - Fireheart Tiger
- John Chu - If You Find Yourself Speaking To God, Address God With The Formal You
- T Kingfisher - The Hollow Places
- Tiffany Morris - Green Fuse Burning
- Sam Richard - Sabbath Of The Fox Devils
- E. G. Condé - Sordidez
- Rebecca Campbell - Arboreality
- Victor LaValle - The Ballad of Black Tom
- Premee Mohammed - These Lifeless Things
- Premee Mohammed - What Can We Offer You Tonight
- Premee Mohammed - The Annual Migration of Clouds
- Fonda Lee - Untethered Sky
- Saad Z Hossain - The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
- Nino Cipri - Finna
- P. Djeli Clark - The Black God's Drums
- P. Djeli Clark - Ring Shout
- Sarah Galley - Upright Women Wanted
- Kate Elliott - The Keeper's Six
- Arkady Martine - Rose/House
- Sarena Ulibarri - Another Life
- L.D. Lewis - A Ruin of Shadows
- Bendi Barrett - Empire of The Feast
- Henry Hoke - Open Throat
- Lee Mandelo - Feed Them Silence
- Brent Lambert - A Necessry Chaos
- Ari Silver - Pluralities
- Cynthia Zhang - After The Dragon
- Rios de la Luz - Itzá
- Michael Tichy - Behind Every Tree, Beneath Every Rock
- Chris Kelso - Voidheads
- Jo Quenell - The Mud Ballad
I've continued to add books to my TBR over the past six months - isn't that always the way with a TBR list? You can never get through all of the books you could possibly want to get through - but my goal for the rest of the year is to try and refocus on this list I compiled at the outset of 2024. In typing this out now I find that I still want to read all of these titles, so I'm going to make an effort to do just that.