2024 Reads
Notes, recommendations and ranking of the books I read in 2024
Decent year for book’ing— I read one more than I did in ‘23 but ten less than I did in ‘22. Although, five of the books from this year are over seven-hundred pages, and only three of them are under 150. The list pretty much follows the trend that I enjoy longer books much more than shorter ones, which probably has to do with the amount of time spent with them as much as a selection bias.
The most glaring revelation here is that books released post-2000 are all at the bottom of my list, and mid-20th century stuff is all rated the highest. I guess I don’t have a very high estimation of contemporary lit.
Recommendations
Fiction
Looking for a romp with literary value? A road-trip novel with larger-than-life characters, adventure, and sex appeal? Try Tom Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.
Looking for a delicate and moving story with some high-precision prose? Check out Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day.
Want a quickie? An incredible story with a critical lesson? Toni Morrison’s Sula is the book for you.
Non-Fiction
Perhaps the book I recommended most this year is Maria Popovich’s Figuring. Mentioned here.
Another great piece of lyrical insight is For The Time Being by Annie Dillard. Story about love and archaeology and more sand facts that you could ever have asked for.
Stats
Most read writer: Tie between Ishiguro, Morrison, Faulkner, Woolf, and Robbins
Most read decade: the 2000’s (5)
21st Century (42%)
20th Century (48%)
19th Century (10%)
Male writers (67%)
The List
33. Kitchen Confidential— Anthony Bourdain, 2000
I swear I’m not trying to troll here. This book was recommended to me so many times that I eventually caved, and was sorely disappointed. It doesn’t help that autobiographies and the culinary arts are two of my least favorite things, but from people’s words I expected a much more hardcore story about greatness. Bourdain seemed to be trying so hard to act like he wasn’t impressed with himself, and I don’t think prose is something he cares about. Wasn’t the worst experience, though. I learned a couple things about knives.
32. Klara and the Sun— Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021
I picked this one up because I heard it had become a staple for people riding the tube in London. It was eminently readable, which I’m saying as a bad thing. Ishiguro (who appears much, much higher on this list) comes up with a lot of rules for this sci-fi world which he can’t abide by. There is something to be said for capturing the child-like mindset, but this child happens to be a robot, which kinda usurps that whole mission. I would highly recommend this book for robots and no one else. Is it an allegory for adoption? I don’t think so, and if it is, it is a failure.
31. Days of Abandonment— Elena Ferrante, 2002
My first and only Ferrante read, and I do get the hype— she is cool and fun and has a great understanding of narrative. There’s just nothing about this book which will stick with me. That being said, the sequence with the locks is a standout and I definitely learned a trick or two along the way (just nothing I hadn’t previously learned from other writers).
30. The Art of Cruelty— Maggie Nelson, 2011
Argonauts is one of my favorite pieces of non-fiction, but this critical look into the grotesque in the arts (mainly performance art) just fell short of informative. I don’t get her thesis, and having experienced close to zero of the art pieces she references, I don’t think the book was for me. I am pretty severely anti-violence in the arts (and life), and I thought I would read this book and find out where that sensitivity comes from. She never answered my question, and instead seemed to just doll out a litany of galleries she’s been to. Nelson admits to being drawn to the violent in a similar way that a lot of us are. I think this book will speak better to that lot than it did to me.
As a side-note, plenty of critics have pointed out that Nelson is laying out a new paradigm for art criticism. This is something I think needs to happen to escape the post-modern haze and the post-post-modern mediocrity. So if she is taking that very difficult first step, I applaud her and hope the discourse continues.
29. By Night In Chile— Roberto Bolaño, 2000
Bolaño has become famous for giving boners to literary MFA students across the country. He’s certainly a crisp and engaging writer, and this is perhaps one of his minor works. It’s a simple story about an aging priest reflecting on the new generation who has left him behind. There are a lot of great vignettes in this book, but the overall project falls short of what it aims to be— that is, a sort of Notes From The Underground for 1970s Chile. Susan Sontag calls it a modern classic, so there’s a solid chance I missed the point on this one. C’est la vie.
28. Wild Ducks Flying Backwards— Tom Robbins, 2005
A collection of shorts, essays, and cultural critique from one of my favorite modernish voices. Tom Robbins wrote two of my top-ten favorite books, but this one works best if you’ve already bitten off a significant portion of his bibliography.
27. The Waves— Virginia Woolf, 1931
Woolf is responsible for two perfect books, Lighthouse and Orlando. Unfortunately, this year I read two of her more oblique and incomplete works. Waves is undeniably brilliant and touching, but it’s hard to say that she stuck the landing. It chronicles a group of friends from childhood to death, and is written entirely in quotation marks, but for seven inter-spliced sections describing a sun passing over an ocean (because of time, get it?). Woolf’s voice is obviously among the greatest of all time, but it’s so hard for me to ignore the tradition this book started of a really really really shitty and annoying avant-garde theater. It also, however, inspired the modern masterpiece Ducks, Newburyport, and for that it gets immense credit.
Obviously the prose is perfect. And obviously it’s one of the important books of high modernism and 20th century literature. I’m grading her on a special curve, which expects her work to be really good.
26. Homesick For Another World— Ottessa Moshfegh, 2017
My top-read writer of last year, Moshfegh is one of the best young voices we have. This collection of short stories followed her debut novel, Eileen, and is the perfect showcase of her voice. It also is a strong indicator of where her career may lead, since there is a range in theme and setting in these stories which hasn’t been scratched by her novel output yet. Unfortunately, I’m rating this book against Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior, the holy grail for this genre of short collections, and it is difficult to look really good in that context.
25. Madame Bovary— Gustave Flaubert, 1857
A fine read, technically brilliant. Solid story too, except for two really annoying and poignant missteps (1. where the fuck is her husband the entire time? And why was the first thirty pages of the book exclusively about him if Flaubert was planning on erasing him halfway through? and 2. towards the end she passes the convent she grows up in and sees her first extra-marital lover drive by. Then nothing happens. This level of coincidence then dropping the ball just flummoxes me, I must say). I think a lot is lost in translation, since Flaubert is regarded as one of the most musical writers and I just did not get that from my edition.
24. Pretentiousness: Why It Matters— Dan Fox, 2016
Reviewed, sorta, here.
23. Lullaby— Chuck Palahniuk, 2002
Oh boy oh boy this one gave me the heebie jeebies. Really good, and really memorable, but if you’ve never Palahniuk’d the guy is demented and that just doesn’t do it for me. But still, this is a perfect three-act structure, characters are well developed and interesting and the ending is a total mindfuck. It also straddles the reality/mystical line in a way that’s almost exactly my taste— though maybe just a hair too much towards the mystical.
22. Mrs. Dalloway— Virginia Woolf, 1925
A fine book. I unfortunately read it just after Ulysses, and it just felt like a huge step down. But once again, Woolf is a genius and I’m grading her on a curve to her disadvantage.
21. Beloved— Toni Morrison, 1987
Morrison is a legend, and appears again much higher1 on the countdown. And while this book is considered her masterpiece, I had a really hard time understanding it’s rhythm and voice. Once I finally did, the reading experience improved, but it never leapt off the page as a work of pure genius. It was just a beautiful and brilliant and hard to swallow story with a great ending. Maybe this should be rated higher
20. As I Lay Dying— William Faulkner, 1930
Another book which takes a minute to catch up to, but which really blossoms once you do. Ironically, I found this one eminently readable. Maybe because the head-hopping employed here has become nigh ubiquitous, but it’s a straight-forward story— (mama requests to be buried in Jefferson county)— and it’s telling reads like an adventure story. Added points since Faulkner supposedly wrote it in one, three-week stint. Why isn’t this higher up? Probably because Absalom is one of my favorite all-time books, and this one isn’t Absalom.
19. The Beautiful and Damned— F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1922
I can’t remember why, but in February I went to the Fitzgerald section of my library to re-acquaint myself with an old favorite. As much as I’ve read his four (finished) novels, I mix up the title endlessly. So I thought I was gonna read Tender Is The Night (or This Side of Paradise… I’m not 100% sure) and accidentally read this one, which I didn’t like the first time around and didn’t love this time. But still, it’s Fitzgerald. The guy can spin a fucking sentence. Also I was taking like three baths a day at the time, and so was the protagonist of the book so.
18. The Candy House— Jennifer Egan, 2022
Such a fantastic follow-up to her 2011 Visit From The Goon Squad. I think I even liked the sequel more than the Pulitzer-prize winning original. It’s just a tender, tender book, and I think perhaps the best possible future for the novel. By that I mean a book which is seven hundred pages with all the interweaving work, the necessary chaff of dense literature, removed. While the original is lauded for playing with form, Egan does it to much less effect in this one. But still, tender as fuck. It’s very rare for a book to make me cry, and I can’t remember if this one did but it was definitely close. Also read in my bath era. Books = better in bathtubs?
17. Letters to Emma Bowlcut— Bill Callahan, 2010
Bill Callahan has been amongst my top played artists for the last few years. He was the man behind Smog (and the legendary record Knock, Knock), but his best work began when he started releasing under his own name in the mid-2000s. It’s clear from his music that he’s a significant writer, and this book is the proof. Formatted as a series of letters written to a married woman, it is a power-house of imagery and metaphor. Coming in under 130 pages, this is a top recommendation of the year and could probably replace Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet in the historical canon.
16. For The Time Being— Annie Dillard, 1999
I’ve gotten some nasty shite this year for praising Annie Dillard, but she is, in my opinion, the prototypical living Writer. By that I mean she is one of the best writers on writing: she dishes out non-fiction, fiction and essays like no one else, and she is married to a Thoreau scholar, placing her in a lineage back to the Concord transcendentalists of the 1830s. This book has more information on sand than you’d ever expect to want, and a surprisingly juicy love story between a French archaeologist/priest and his best friend. Another quick and easy read, which will make you feel more connected to ancient people than a fifth re-reading of Gilgamesh.
15. Chronicle of a Death Foretold— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1981
I haven’t much to say about this book but that it’s a ripping good yarn. Marquez is, of course, the master of temporal weaving, and here he employs that skill to great effect. There is also a mystery in it, quite beneath the surface, which is never resolved in the end. This has led to a ton of great conversations reminiscent of the days when we all watched the same prestige television shows and discussed them on Fridays.
14. Autumn of the Patriarch— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1968
A modernist doozy, one of those books where you have to read a chapter (40 pages) each sitting or else start over from the beginning the next time you pick it up. Notable for ending on a thirty page sentence. Really good, if a little character-deaf. Also significant for tossing the narratal lens into multiple, maybe hundreds, of perspectives. I have never seen that attempted anywhere else, and he pulls it off perfectly.
13. Mason & Dixon— Thomas Pynchon, 1997
The hardest book, bar-none, I have ever read. Took me and my book-club partner a full year to read this, including a very necessary four-month break in the middle. The TLDR is that Pynchon wrote a proper 18th century novel over the course of fifteen years. It is about an old yarn-spinner, Rev. Wicks Cherrycoke, trying to tell as long a story as possible so he can continue to live at his cousin’s house for free. The tale he tells is about the famed cartographer/astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, but is really about the foundation on which America was built.
This book is misunderstood as postmodern and misunderstood as a buddy-cop comedy, though it is a comedy, I think. It would be extremely rare for me to understand more than three sentences in a row before having to go back a page and try again. So many sequences from this book appear to me like dreams, and I can never place which book that insane idea came from until I remember— oh, obviously. Mason & Dixon. Even the ampersand in the title is a part of the symbolism of this book, which symbolizes… I have no idea. I just simply don’t get it. And narratively, I don’t think it sticks the landing. If that was Pynchon nodding to the era, that’s fine, but it doesn’t do it for me. This book is America and has been suggested as the Great American Novel we’ve all been looking for, which it might be if it was at all readable. But it’s not. What it is is one of the greatest literary trips you’ll ever take. Here’s a quote— written, I remind you, in 1997
Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.
Thus goes the entire book. Read it, just so you can say for the rest of your life that you have read Mason & Dixon. To the thirty people that will mean anything to, it will mean a lot.
11. Anna Karenina— Leopold Tolstoi, 1878
This one isn’t as good as I remember, which isn’t to say it’s at all bad. It isn’t bad, it’s incredible. First and foremost I want to say that Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are very annoying as translators. I don’t speak Russian, but I’m just so certain that the Tolstoi I know and love did not write like this. And yet, it’s readable, and it welcomes a lot of people into the world of Leo.
The tired refrain here is that this book is not really about Anna, it’s about Levin. Anna is kinda incorrigible. Obviously there was a lot on her shoulders, but she’s a tricky gal to stand behind. Meanwhile Levin, the oaf, is one of literature’s great mensches. I greedily ate up his thirty-page soliloquies about land management, and swooned for him and Kitty’s relationship like a good love story oughta make one swoon. There is more lessons about decent living in the Levin sections than I’ve gotten from any other book or any other person, I think.
10. Sula— Toni Morrison, 1973
Just an impeccable story. It gets extra points for being so quick, but the final conversation between Sula and Nel is one of my favorite passages from literature. It’s hard to say much without just extolling the plot, but the opening section and the framing by years really clicked for me as well. Highly recommend.
9. My Name Is Asher Lev— Chaim Potok, 1972
The ultimate book for artists from working class backgrounds, who are terrified of offending their parents but equally terrified of not living their artistic truth. And while the first 100 pages could be ripped out with very little lost, this book has some timeless artistic wisdom and a gut-wrenching ending. All this is done with zero violence or romance, which ain’t so easy.
9. Ghostly Father, I Confess— Mary McCarthy, 1942
A novella (actually part 6 of a longer novel) that I am including because it’s that good. Halfway through this story I started believing I might be a woman, because of how intensely I identified with the female narrator. Just an impeccable story about Catholic dysfunction, all told in the framework of a one-hour therapy session. I look forward to reading the full work next year.
8. Remains of the Day— Kazuro Ishiguro, 1989
What a great, subtle and elegant book. Once again, whatever I happen to read in the first week of January ends up in my top ten, but there’s no other place for it. Ishiguro weaves one of the realest love stories I’ve ever encountered. It would probably be higher2 if I never read Klara and the Sun and got such a low estimation of the guy, but anyways. Check it out.
7. Figuring— Maria Popovich, 2020
Described perfectly by my friend as “nurturing,” this is one of those books that you buy a few copies of and hand to your loved ones. It is as intellectually stimulating as anything I’ve read, and yet somehow also emotionally comforting. That seems to be the elusive combination that so few artists can hit, and Figuring is the crown jewel of the archetype. Relating the work and romance of fifteen or so scientists from the 16th century to the 1950s, this debut from the Bulgarian writer has somehow made me feel welcomed amongst greats. Deeply researched and passionately written, this is going to be my top non-fiction recommendation for a long time.
6. The Idiot— Fyodor Dostoyevski, 1868
Everything in life is in this book. That hyper-specific experience you had a few years ago and thought nothing about? That’s somehow in here. It is a story about the viciousness of community, and one about the necessity of community. Poor Myshkin is harangued by this terrible crowd, and I found myself shouting at him to go back to Switzerland, give your money away, be happy and kind… until I remembered that wherever you go, people will be there. And the journey of life is not avoiding them, but engaging with them. Helping them and allowing them to help you. Notable for its tremendous descriptions of seizures and modernist play with time, this is one of those books that will live another 150 years without losing any applicability. Every section of it is memorable and brilliant and exciting.
5. Absalom, Absalom! — William Faulkner, 1936
My 2022 pick for #1. If you want to know my thoughts about this book, call me.
4. Lord Jim— Joseph Conrad, 1900
My 2023 #1 pick. See above.
I was investigating on this re-read what I love so much about LJ. I think, and this is going to be one of those unforgivably sentimental and nerdy things you’ll have to forgive me for, it is its structure. If you’ve read the book, find my fan theory in the footnotes3.
3. Even Cowgirls Get The Blues— Tom Robbins, 1976
A great book. It is reminiscent of the sort of fun you’re not supposed to have these days, and has been a huge influence on the second book I’ve been working on. A good start if you’ve never read Robbins before.
2. Infinite Jest— David Foster Wallace, 1996
Writing a positive review for this book is one of the nightmares that dudes have when they start a Substack. And so but if I’m being honest, this is a book I’m hesitant to admit I’ve read at all. Not for its content— it’s a beautiful, potentially genius piece of literature. But the culture around it has tore its reputation to shreds, and the main reason for that is because of the hoards of annoying lit-bros (i.e., me) calling it beautiful and potentially genius.
The amount of research, the finesse of touch, the intricacy and mold-bending this book accomplishes is enough to warrant it that spot at the helm of “Great Modern Literature,” and once it gets up there it inevitably becomes a target. It places itself at the end of the lineage from Hamlet through Ulysses, and yeah, I know. I can hear myself. What I will say is that nearly all of the whingeing about this book sucking comes from people who haven’t read it. What I will also say is that there are thousands of young writers across this country trying really hard in every line they write to not sound like Jest. We are an overlooked and underserved community and we demand, if it would be alright with you, representation. The only solace, and the only thing that keeps me from hating Wallace for that, is that Wallace himself suffered from the same struggle. More than anyone else, I’d imagine. This book weighs heavy on anyone who has read it, and will hopefully survive the first half of this century to eventually take its spot amongst the all-time greats.
1. Ulysses— James Joyce, 1922
You hear that? That’s the sound of any credit I earned for not putting Infinite Jest first on my list going down the drain. But what can you do? Read Ulysses and not say, at the bare minimum, that it’s the finest book you’ve read that year? Will this book ever not be the greatest book? I hope so. It is an annoying and unforgiving Best Book Ever. It demands re-reads upon re-reads, demands guides and footnotes and dictionaries which are wide enough to include Irish slang and ecclesiastical etymologies. I can’t blurb this book any more than history has. I don’t recommend it, or recommend anything. Literature is pretty much a waste of energy since this book. Hang it up. Happy 2024 everyone. The world deserves a swift end.
Notable Short Stories:
Ghostly Father, I Confess— Mary McCarthy, 1942
Fast Lanes— Jayne Anne Philips, 1984
Patriotism— Yukio Mishima, 1961
New York Girl— John Updike, 1996
The Swimmer— John Cheever, 1964
Non-Fiction:
Pretentiousness: Why It Matters— Dan Fox, 2016
Figuring— Maria Popovich, 2020
The Art of Cruelty— Maggie Nelson, 2011
Wild Ducks Flying Backwards— Tom Robbins, 2005
For The Time Being— Annie Dillard, 1999
Kitchen Confidential— Anthony Bourdain, 2000
This is a good place to admit that I don’t know if “lower” or “higher” on the countdown means “better rated." I think I’ve been switching back and forth throughout this piece. Just use context clues, I’m sorry.
lower?
Theory: the man Marlow writes the final letter to might be Jim's father. This first occurred to me when the "old man" receives the packet from Marlow and has an emotional moment, walking to the window and digesting the implications of what might be enclosed. Why would this be so meaningful to him if it's only a story he heard once in a bar a couple years ago? There seems to be an emotional connection with Jim's saga. The letter brings back "a multitude of fading faces," before he "sighs and sits down to read." Unless he knew Jim, what faces would this bring back?
It describes Jim's letter as "a handwriting he had never seen before," which would make sense as Jim wrote his final note in the throes of impending death, so it would be scribbled and unfamiliar. Marlow even says, 'do you notice the commonplace hand?' as a way to justify its unfamiliarity. Before reading, the old man "checks himself," another moment of overwhelming emotion which would only make sense if Jim's story was especially personal to him.
This theory answers the question of why Marlow would spend hours telling this story to strangers. I don't think the two of them would acknowledge that Jim's father was indeed Jim's father, but it was mentioned that Marlow was 'lightly familiar' with the man, and would have noticed him at the bar and feel responsible to start telling this long justification of Jim's actions. It also justifies the melodramatic romanticization of Jim, because he knows that Jim's father is disappointed in his son, and this is Marlow's chance to reverse that. It's his last attempt to redeem Jim to the one person that it actually matters to. It also makes the refrain "one of us" more meaningful, since Jim is literally 'one of theirs.' The added layer would be that Marlowe is unsure if Jim is more 'his father’s' or 'Marlowe’s,' as in, who was the better father?
Marlow tells the old man that "you would not admit he had mastered his fate," meaning Marlow was unsuccessful on that first night. Now is his last chance. This is especially true if Jim's father is racist and ashamed that Jim devoted his life to the Patusan people instead of returning to his family. When Jim yells, 'Tell them... no, nothing," Marlow knows what he means. He wants Marlow to tell his father that he ended up restoring his honor. 'Them' is his own family, and especially his father. Why would Marlow send his father's letter to a stranger? If he wasn't going to keep it for himself, the only person he would send it to would be the man himself, especially as a way to remind Jim's father of his love for his son, and the prejudice which makes it hard to forgive Jim abandoning them.
Without admitting that he knows Jim's father is Jim's father, he says "the old parson fancied (past tense) his sailor son." This is his attempt to restore that fancy. Marlow throws the father's words back in his face, reminding him what he himself said: "do not judge men harshly... trust providence and the order of the universe, but stay alive to its dangers and mercies." He describes the old man's study, which looks a lot like the one the "old man" is currently in. He reminds Jim's father that he told his son to "resolve fixedly to never do anything which you believe to be wrong." This, Marlow suggests, can explain the entirety of Jim's actions which have seemed unexplainable to the disappointed father. Marlow also wants the old man to know that Jim kept the letter, and in doing so thought constantly of and loved his father. Why would this be significant to anyone besides the father himself? "You have never had to grapple with fate," Marlow says; aka, Who are you to judge? He ends his preamble with a loving description of Jim's "tan-and-pink face and youthful eyes." It's a little gay, unless you realize that he's beseeching the boy's father to recall Jim lovingly as he reads about his death.
The last act of the story reads as a way to justify Jim's death to the man most affected by it. Any embellishment in the story is to serve the end of redeeming Jim to this man. This becomes a story about convincing an old man to forgive his son, and assuring him that his son died with the love of a woman and the protection of a father figure. He ends the book by telling the old man where Jim's wife currently is, and that the guy currently looking out for her is almost dead. This is him suggesting that the old man needs to go to her, accept her as a daughter-in-law, and raise her well as a way to honor Jim's promise to never leave her.
Anyways, maybe Conrad considered this or maybe he didn't. I know he wrote this book in a frenzy, so maybe it was in the back of his head but he never fully committed? Or, if it never even occurred to him, I think it should have, and reads better this way.