2024 Book List

A list of books I read in 2024. Summaries are from Goodreads.

1. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Summary: Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”

Rating: 6.5/10

Impressions: 

This book seems to jump between genres a bit, but doesn’t quite bring them all together into one succinct narrative. It felt like this story should have been approached in a totally different way. As it stands, some things that seemed to be important and like they should have been accentuated, were instead diminished in favour of other parts. So much that it doesn’t even feel like an anti-war book in the end. After finishing it I’m pretty surprised that this novel gets so much acclaim and that it is Vonnegut’s best-known book. Personally I think his non-fiction work is stronger.

2. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Summary: Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

This is very close to the movie version, and the writing is visual enough that it is equally engaging. Since the movie is so well-known it’s interesting to pay attention to the differences between it and the book. The book handled some things better in my opinion, but the movie then also improved on some things, like the narrator meeting Tyler for the first time. Reading this demonstrated that the movie adaptation was very well done in terms of staying close to the original material, and it’s interesting to read this just to compare the two. For added irony, read this on commutes to work. 

3. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

Summary: In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires. Together with two thousand other refugees, they embark on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, to Chile: “the long petal of sea and wine and snow.” As unlikely partners, they embrace exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war. Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning, and over the course of their lives, they will face trial after trial. But they will also find joy as they patiently await the day when they will be exiles no more. Through it all, their hope of returning to Spain keeps them going. Destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world, Roser and Victor will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.

Rating: 7.5/10

Impressions: This book didn’t have the same ease and magnetism as Allende’s other books. The narrative felt more dry and mechanical somehow and the characters and events felt like they were spread too thin. The historical aspects were very interesting and educating, but the characters and plot fell flat for some reason. I didn’t feel any attachment to them, unlike in Allende’s other books, and there generally was no spark. Allende’s other books have much more magical realism, which was missing here, and which Allende tends to handle brilliantly. So maybe this is why it didn’t quite come together and wasn’t like Allende’s other works.

4. 1984 by George Orwell

Summary: A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching Thought Police Big Brother Orwellian These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell s classic dystopian novel 1984 The story of one man s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality With a foreword by Thomas Pynchon 

Rating: 9.5/10

Impressions: 

This was a re-read after reading it for the first time 10 or 15 years ago. So many details emerged this time around that re-reading was absolutely worth it. It really deserves its place as the ultimate dystopian/totalitarian novel. Re-reading this in the beginning of 2024 was very gloomy, some things actually resonated with our current political moment. Not much can be added to what has already been said on this, but it was really good to re-read this. 

5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Summary: Who are you?

What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

This was an intriguing book that really picked up its pace about a third of the way through. There are some choices that didn’t make sense to me but it was evident that they were made intentionally, because everything in the book seemed very thought-out, so the choices felt justified. I don’t usually gravitate toward books like this, but it was a good easy read that was intriguing enough to get through quickly and get back into reading after a slump. Nothing exceptional, but a good book for this type of genre.

6. Atonement by Ian McEwan

Summary: On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.

Rating: 7.5/10

Impressions:

A really fantastic depiction of guilt and how it transforms with time. Subtle and heartbreaking at the same time. Some parts were much more engaging than others, but overall this was a beautifully-crafted story. 

7. The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Summary: It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town an aging Classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would astonish even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing private history is, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, "magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history of modern America."

Rating: 9/10

Impressions: Gritty, unpredictable, and penetrating. A life story of one man that’s depicted in a way that makes you simultaneously reflect on the American social landscape and on the individuality of every human experience. The story focuses on Coleman Silks but also jumps to other characters as he encounters them, making the narrative incredibly full and personal and sort of filling out the various parts of American life. Lots of dark humour, unexpected twists, and beautifully-crafted sentences make for an incredible writing style and a generally really compelling story.

8. Shadows in Paradise by Erich Maria Remarque

Summary: After years of hiding and surviving near-death in a concentration camp, Ross is finally safe. Now living in New York City among old friends, far from Europe's chilling atrocities, Ross soon meets Natasha, a beautiful model and fellow migre, a warm heart to help him forget his cold memories. Yet even as the war draws to its violent close, Ross cannot find peace. Demons still pursue him. Whether they are ghosts from the past or the guilt of surviving, he does not know. For he is only beginning to understand that freedom is far from easy--and that paradise, however perfect, has a price.

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

A really moving and impactful portrayal of the life of an immigrant who left his country because of the country’s actions, and hates it, but misses it at the same time. The main character can’t find a place for himself anywhere and the past haunts him as he tries to keep living in limbo. These emotions are captured perfectly. The relationship at the center of the story felt overly romantic, but this seemed intentional, as the woman, Natasha, calls the main character out on it herself a few times. Generally, some things were overly romantic and too “perfect”, but it worked with the tone of the story. There is not much plot other than the main character’s ventures with selling art, but excellent explorations of different characters who ended up in the United States for different reasons during WWII.

9. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Summary: Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.

Rating: 8.5/10

Impressions: 

This book feels incredibly full - it spans many places and years of a boy’s life, and has rich details. The writing is hypnotic, just like in The Secret History, it pulls you in. It is quite heavy, there are a lot of dark things that happen, but they are balanced out by light things. Incredibly, the dark things are very explicit and the light things are very implicit and not heavy-handed, which makes it feel very true to life and realistic. Generally, there are lots of really specific details that make everything feel very realistic, it’s as though the narrative breathes and lives on its own, and is very true to life. It’s a really beautiful and entrancing novel.

10. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Summary: "As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker."

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered... if indeed there were crimes. The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings. Then everything changes... and nothing changes. A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

A really beautiful book that seems to elude categorization. It has a melancholic and nostalgic tone while being like science fiction in plot. While you’re reading it you’re simultaneously reminded of other works, but this one still somehow feels like a standalone achievement. A really quaint exploration of humanity, friendship, and womanhood. I wished it was longer and had more plot and exploration of the world, but its minimalism also felt very fitting.

11. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Summary: This sophisticated and entertaining first novel presents the story of a young woman whose life is on the brink of transformation. On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

The writing in this novel feels incredibly bright and lively. The atmosphere of New York is captured very well and there is something very Fitzgerald-y about the whole story. The plot feels a little contained, like the story was not developed to its full potential. It would have been interesting to see the story splinter off into other directions. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to read, had very compelling characters, and a great balance of social commentary and close explorations of internal worlds.

12. Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque

Summary: It is 1939. Despite a law banning him from performing surgery, Ravic – a German doctor and refugee living in Paris – has been treating some of the city’s most elite citizens for two years on the behalf of two less-than-skillful French physicians. Forbidden to return to his own country, and dodging the everyday dangers of jail and deportation, Ravic manages to hang on – all the while searching for the Nazi who tortured him back in Germany. And though he’s given up on the possibility of love, life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times…

Rating: 7.5/10

Impressions:

The layers of the story worked well together and gave each other depth. There was a good balance of the theme of love, revenge, looming war, and placelessness. At the same time, the story felt somehow paralyzed - parts of it got repetitive and predictable. Each theme could have been explored more through additional plot points to find more depth.

13. If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

Summary: Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

Rating: 7.5/10

Impressions:

A great read for around Halloween, it’s spooky and dark. At first, each character (theater student) speaks in a very over-the-top theatrical way, almost entirely in quotations from Shakespearean plays, which was way too much and super worrying that it would last for the entire book. But this was significantly reduced pretty quickly. The atmosphere of the book was really well done and is almost comparable to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, but overall the book lacked in many aspects. The characters felt quite one-dimensional and the whole plot felt somehow paralyzed and repetitive, which, combined, felt very unrealistic. At the same time, the book felt honest about what it tried to do and achieved a compelling atmosphere. The difference between it and The Secret History is that The Secret History had atmosphere and tremendous substance in characters and plot, while this one felt kind of shallow.

14. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Summary: This unusual fictional memoir - in good part autobiographical - narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-outs of two great cities. The Parisian episode is fascinating for its expose of the kitchens of posh French restaurants, where the narrator works at the bottom of the culinary echelon as dishwasher, or plongeur. In London, while waiting for a job, he experiences the world of tramps, street people, and free lodging houses. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and of society.

Rating: 6/10

Impressions:

A gritty and darkly funny depiction of the life of a man in poverty. Well-written, but felt very repetitive and like it had almost nothing new to say after the first 20 pages. The strongest parts were the man’s encounters with various secondary characters, there the author would make mini-portraits of these characters and the story would briefly go into new directions.

15. Perilous Kinship by Zafer Senocak

Summary: Zafer Senocak has been called the Woody Allen of German novelists. In Perilous Kinship, German and Turkish and Jewish memories of genocide and mutual suspicions are comically fused in a single lackadaisical character. 'Gefhrliche Verwandtschaft' has also been translated into French, Spanish and Turkish. This English translation is by Tom Cheesman.

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

An incredible balance and connection between the personal and the global. There is not succinct linear story, but the amalgamation of various stories and thoughts comes together very cohesively. There are very personal and subjective moments from the main character, but they never feel too far out of reach. The personal stories are superimposed on broader observations of connections between Jews, Turkey, and Germany, and everything comes together very well. Really easy to read and presents very interesting insights on senses of home and belonging in light of complex and dark history.

16. Abigail by Magda Szabo

Summary: Abigail, the story of a headstrong teenager growing up during World War II, is the most beloved of Magda Szabó’s books in her native Hungary. Gina is the only child of a general, a widower who has long been happy to spoil his bright and willful daughter. Gina is devastated when the general tells her that he must go away on a mission and that he will be sending her to boarding school in the country. She is even more aghast at the grim religious institution to which she soon finds herself consigned. She fights with her fellow students, she rebels against her teachers, finds herself completely ostracized, and runs away. Caught and brought back, there is nothing for Gina to do except entrust her fate to the legendary Abigail, as the classical statue of a woman with an urn that stands on the school’s grounds has come to be called. If you’re in trouble, it’s said, leave a message with Abigail and help will be on the way. And for Gina, who is in much deeper trouble than she could possibly suspect, a life-changing adventure is only beginning.

Rating: 6/10

Impressions:

Endearing and meticulous, but underwhelming. This feels more suited for children rather than for adults. Though the stakes at the heart of the story are objectively very high, somehow it never feels like they really are, so there is no tension to the story. Without it, everything falls kind of flat and the story is left to grasp at similarly underwhelming characters and the somewhat unenticing mystery of Abigail’s identity.

17. Immortality by Milan Kundera

Summary: This breathtaking, reverberating survey of human nature finds Kundera still attempting to work out the meaning of life, without losing his acute sense of humour. It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so. 'It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover. Not many novels can do that.' Nicholas Lezard, GQ

Rating: 8/10

Impressions:

This book is full of humour, philosophy, and subjectivity. A versatile discussion of preservation and legacy. The discussion feels clever, self-reflective, and simultaneously profound. 

18. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Summary: Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'. In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors. The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions. Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.

Rating: 7.5/10

Impressions: This book felt very meticulous, intentional, and reserved. Each word felt like it was chosen with great care and the writing was minimalist, demonstrating respect for the reader. It didn’t hit any beats more than once and cut off before some of the biggest plot points in the story, allowing the reader to keep up with the story and leaving things when just enough was said. This worked very well in some parts, but overall made the story feel somewhat cold and impersonal. It was difficult to develop true attachments to the characters, as they felt underexplored. It seemed as though the reader was just being told about things that happened, as opposed to being allowed a more visceral insight into them, which might have suited this kind of story better. 

19. Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman

Summary: Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.

Rating: 9/10

Impressions:

This book feels as though the author had himself gone through an experience of a first love like Elio’s and had the foresight to take detailed notes every step of the way. He manages to convey feelings of deep subjectivity and make them relevant and universal. The book is real, hypnotizing, and devastating. It felt impossible to put down and absolutely blissful to experience. 

20. Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Summary: One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape? Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

Rating: 5/10

Impressions: 

Reading this during December of 2024 felt very timely. Unfortunately, the book didn’t seem very compelling and didn’t convey much emotion. The parts about the women talking were the least interesting, with other, unrelated parts of the story delivering much more depth, which kept making it feel like the story was trying to be about something, anything else, other than its main topic. The stakes didn’t seem high, and the impact of what happened to the women was not communicated at all. As well, the choice to use a male protagonist to tell this story, while it might  have been a sort of commentary on the womens’ ascribed place in this society, took a lot away from the story itself and made it feel even more shallow. 

21. Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi

Summary: The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth. In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit.

Rating: 9/10

Impressions:

This book feels impossible to review. It’s devastating, horrifying, and deeply profound. An essential record of the Nazi’s machinery of death, told in an impeccably clear and diligent voice. It captures the human experience in inhumane conditions.