I read 287 books this year, the ninth highest of the twenty-one years that I have been keeping count, and 70,000 pages, which is thirteenth highest of the twenty-one. My reading pace has accelerated in the last few years, though this year it was braked a bit by being the Hugo administrator. (Not as much as in 2017 or 2019, though; I guess I’m getting used to it.)
121 (42%) of those books were by non-male writers, which is the third highest number and second highest percentage (only just – 42.16% this year, 42.17% last year, 41.89% in 2021).
30 (10%) were by non-white writers, which is the fifth highest of the twenty-one years in both cases.
Science fiction and fantasy
89 (31%) of these books were science fiction or fantasy, not counting Doctor Who books which I tally separately. This is the lowest number since 2019 (the last time that I was Hugo administrator) and the lowest percentage since 2017 (the first time that I was Hugo administrator).
Top SF book of the year:
My favourite sf novel in general this year was The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty, a Hugo finalist about a pirate queen in a fantasy medieval Indian Ocean. I always say that the Indian Ocean is a corridor, not a barrier. (Not reviewed; get it here.)
Welcome rereads:
My absolute favourite Terry Pratchett novel is Small Gods which combines his typically well-aimed shafts of wit and satire with an actual growth narrative for the two main characters. (Review; get it here.)
Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest retains the passion of its attack on colonial wars of conquest, and seemed a particularly timely reread. (Review; get it here.)
Honorable mentions:
I had not previously read Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower, which is actually set in 2024 and 2025, also has a dire political situation with an extreme right-wing candidate getting elected president of the USA, but ends with a glimmer of hope. (Review; get it here.)
Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh, is a great thoughtful anti-fascist novel, which won the Hugo to much acclaim. (Not reviewed; get it here.)
Among the other award finalists, I particularly liked Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer, a full-spirited critique of libertarianism. (Not reviewed; get it here.)
The one you haven’t heard of:
Lost Objects, by Marian Womack, a collection of short stories many of which examine human reactions to environmental catastrophe. She has another collection coming out soon. (Review; get it here.)
The one to avoid:
What Might Have Been: The Story of a Social War, by Ernest Bramah. Conservative wet dream written in 1907, about the overthrow of Socialism in England in 1918. (Review; get it here)
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Non-fiction
I read 86 (30%) non-fiction books, the same number as last year, equal third highest number and fourth highest percentage of the years I have recorded. As I go through the backlog of books acquired in previous years, it’s often the non-fiction that has sifted to the bottom of the pile; also I’m tallying the Black Archives and other Whovian lore here.
Top non-fiction book of the year:
The best non-fiction book I read this year was A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, by Samuel Hynes, which looks in impressive and fascinating detail at the impact of the conflict on all branches of the arts in Britain, and vice versa. (Review; get it here.)
Welcome rereads:
Hiroshima, by John Hersey, the searing account of the consequences of the first atomic bombing of a civilian population. (Review; get it here)
1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman: Perhaps not strictly non-fiction, but presented as a hilarious reading. (Review; get it here)
Honorable mentions:
I’m being a bit self-indulgent with three honorable mentions in this category, but I read a lot of good non-fiction this year.
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently, by Steve Silberman, a really good compilation of what is known about autism and how and when we knew it. (Review; get it here)
Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life, by Samantha Ellis, which Bronte experts regard with some suspicion; I found it really charming. (Review; get it here)
Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution 1910-1922, by Ronan Fanning, which examines the process of Irish independence from the Westminster policy point of view. (Review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of:
I got a lot out of the post-colonial critiques of science fiction and fantasy from the collection Ex Marginalia: Essays from the Edges of Speculative Fiction, edited by Chinelo Onwualu. Nigeria is especially well covered, but the scope is global. (Review; get it here.)
The one to avoid:
Ten Years to Save the West, by Liz Truss. This is a not very good book written by a person who was completely unsuited to the job which she had so ruthlessly pursued. (Review; get it here.)
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Doctor Who
Only 34 (12%) Doctor Who fiction books this year, which is a little below the average; but 65 (23%) Doctor Who books of all kinds, which is almost bang on the average, tenth out of 21 in both counts.
Top Doctor Who book of the year:
Simon Guerrier’s masterful biography, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television, tells us about the life of one of the original show-running team in 1963, who wrote several of the best-remembered stories but died at only 51. (Review; get it here.)
Top Black Archive of the year:
It’s difficult to choose here, and I’ll give shout-outs also to Lewis Baston on The Sun Makers, Ian Z. Potter on The Myth Makers, Simon Guerrier on The Edge of Destruction and Philip Purser-Hallard on Midnight. In the end I vote for Dale Smith’s analysis of the flawed classic Talons of Weng Chiang, which confronts the problematic racism of the story head-on. (Review; get it here.)
Top novelisation of the year:
Doctor Who: Rogue, by Kate Herron and Briony Redman (the original TV writers), gives lots of new context to the TV story, which I already liked a lot anyway. Probably the best Fifteenth Doctor book of any kind so far. (Review; get it here.)
Top other novel of the year:
Warmonger, by Terrance Dicks – I had read this before, but failed to blog it. A really interesting reimagining of the Fifth Doctor / Peri relationship, drawing perhaps on Terrance Dicks’ own experience with the military. (Review; get it here.)
Top short fiction of the year:
In a very attractive set of six novellas published last year by Puffin, the outstanding contribution is The Angel of Redemption, by Nikita Gill – told from the point of view of a Weeping Angel, in verse. (Review; get it here.)
Best Doctor Who comic of the year:
I’ve had a good run of mostly Eleventh Doctor comics, and especially liked the most recently read, When Worlds Collide, by Tony Lee et al, which has an Ancient Britain story and then a doppelganger theme park thread. (Review; get it here.)
The ones you haven’t heard of:
Two lovely volumes reminiscing about the Blackpool exhibition – I read the first last year, but I think I should treat them as a pair. (Reviews here and here; get them for free here and here.)
What to avoid:
I won’t single out any particular Doctor Who book that I read this year as being worse than the others; there were a few disappointments, but nothing as bad as in the other sections of this post.
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Comics
36 comics and picture books is the third highest of my annual tallies, though 13% is only the sixth highest percentage. (I’m counting in Ara Güler’s Istanbul, which is pretty visual.)
Top comic of the year:
Shubeik Lubeik, published as Your Wish is My Command in the UK, by Deena Mohamed; an alternative contemporary Egypt, where wishes are natural resources to be exploited. On the Hugo ballot; didn’t win. (Not reviewed; get it here.)
Welcome reread:
L’Affaire Tournesol / The Calculus Affair, by Hergé; one of the great Tintin albums, with action in Switzerland and the Balkans and also the first appearance of the annoying Séraphin Lampion / Jolyon Wagg. (Review; get it here in English and here in French.)
Honorable mentions:
Barnstormers: A Ballad of Love and Murder, by Tula Lotay and Scott Snyder, about two crazy kids flying across America in 1923 (review; get it here)
Monica, by Daniel Clowes, a much more serious tale of lost parents and shattered identity (review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of:
Return to Kosovo / Retour au Kosovo, by Gani Jakupi with great art by Jorge González, an even-handed exploration of a traumatised society. The English version is very difficult to get hold of, but the French original was published by mainstream firm Dupuis. (Review; get it here in French.)
The one to avoid:
Bea Wolf, by Zach Weinersmith and Boulet, a pointless tale of little girls and boys re-enacting Beowulf. Also an unsuccessful Hugo finalist. (Not reviewed; get it here.)
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Non-genre
I had the sense during the year that I was reading more non-genre fiction than usual, but in fact the total number at 35 is spot on the median, and the percentage at 12% is a little lower.
Top non-genre fiction of the year:
The Cazalet Saga – see below.
Honorable mention:
Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang, short, grim, gruesome, funny and vicious about the reception and appropriation of Chinese culture in the US. (Review; get it here.)
Welcome re-read:
Tristram Shandy, by Laurence Sterne; It’s rambling, self-indulgent, full of references to things I know nothing about; and at the same time I love it. (Review; get it here.)
The one to avoid:
The worst book of any kind that I read all year was Pook at College, by Peter Pook, a dull, sexist tale of the only male student at a teacher training college. No link for buying this, but here’s my review.
The one you haven’t heard of:
Creed Country, by Jenny Overton. Two teenagers do local history research in a corner of south-eastern England in the late 1960s. Their friendship, and their relationship with the past of their neighbourhood, are both beautifully drawn. (Review; get it here.)
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Plays and poetry
I read a total of eight of these, which is more than usual.
Top poetry or play of the year:
The best poetry I read all year was Emily Wilson’s thought-provoking translation of The Odyssey, by Homer, bringing a new and broader perspective to an exceptionally well-known work. (Review; get it here.)
Honorable mention:
The Cure at Troy, a verse playscript by Seamus Heaney, about engaging with and overcoming conflict and the past. (Review; get it here.)
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Top book of 2024
My top book of the year is actually five books, of which I read two in 2023 and three this year: the Cazalet Saga, by Elizabeth Jane Howard, a gripping tale of an extended English family in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, as the previous certainty of inherited wealth slips away in the tide of social and political change: superb stuff and strongly recommended.
The Light Years (review; get it here)
Marking Time (review; get it here)
Confusion (review; get it here)
Casting Off (review; get it here)
All Change (review; get it here)
Previous Books of the Year:
2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest (review; get it here)
2004: (reread) The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here)
2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto (review; get it here)
2006: Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea (review; get it here)
2007: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel (review; get it here)
2008: (reread) The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray (review; get it here)
2009: (had seen it on stage previously) Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (review; get it here)
– Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004) (review; get it here)
2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al. (review of vol I; get it here)
2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!) (review; get it here)
2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë (review; get it here)
2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf (review; get it here)
2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (review; get it here)
2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel (review; get it here).
– Best book I actually blogged about in 2015: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here)
2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot (review; get it here)
2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light (review; get it here)
2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling (review; get it here)
2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (review; get it here)
2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull (review; get it here)
2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins (review; get it here)
2022: The Sun is Open, by Gail McConnell (review; get it here)
2023: Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (review; get it here)