The Novel Reading Round Up 2024

The 19 novels I read, bullet thoughts [apologies up front for length, though]

Last year, I set myself the NY Resolution to read 12 novels in the year - and I smashed that with joy. Here is a shelf of 17 of the novels I read in 2024 - two others were borrowed books, and there are actually 3 other audiobooks.

Here are some rapid fire thoughts - if you’ve read any of these, I’d love to know what you thought, and if you are thinking of reading any of these I hope my thoughts assist you in any directions :]

DEVOTION by Hannah Kent

I really enjoyed the prose of Kent’s Burial Rites and found much the same in this novel, though it does still run second to her debut. The characters grab and there’s a good plot swerve halfway through I did not see coming and the second half is all the better for it. Overall, an interesting experience of queer sexuality in the early Australian colonisation time.

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’d never read this classic and wanted to rectify that. Usually that goes two ways - I either don’t see what all the fuss is about, or I nod my head and enjoy the ride as the world opens up to me just that little bit more. Strangely this book sat just left of the latter - I can see why this is such a beloved classic. It’s so beautifully written, and the language and style and meaning all shine through. It’s a novel that feels consciously made, which is a delight, and yet…in the end it just didn’t feel like it was completely for me. I can see how I could easily teach it, and probably even grow to love it, but it didn’t land with that impact books like this sometimes seem to. Though I do feel it would be a text better still studied while read as then the time could be taken to explore aspects of it in greater detail.

EXPIRATION DATE by Duane Swierczynski

A fun ol’ crime book about travelling through time to solve a murder in the family past and also reconnect with family. Swierczynski will always be a favourite of mine, and he rarely misses. This was a grand old time, and it makes me wish I could get my hands on his latest novel California Bear in Australia in any easy/not $50 capacity.

BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy

Another book that came with a lot of weight of expectation, and completely lived up to all of it. A decimating study on the “Cowboys and Indians” mythos America loves so much and that McCarthy presents in all its horrible and nigh unfathomable toxicity. I love the way he opens every chapter with a precis so you know just how many terrible and violent moments are coming, and probably even how many pages away each will be - it’s both a content warning but also a signpost to let us know that the ghastly stuff we came for is definitely always coming up soon because that what we signed up for because that’s what we love, isn’t it, sickos that we are? It’s a big mirror into the face of American exceptionalism and instead highlights the long-held lust for violence and destruction and oppressions, and it’s sadly not going anywhere.

MAPS & LEGENDS by Michael Chabon

This has some good essays in it. I find Chabon’s authorial voice pleasant and engaging. Some of it is more insight into him and what he selects to focus on, more than insight into the things he focuses on, but it’s a nice read that leaves some breadcrumbs to other concepts well.

A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN by George Saunders

I’ve long been looking for a copy of Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo [and fret not, I found it recently and am currently halfway through it and absolutely loving it], so when I heard about this book from mate/writer Jack Heath’s newsletter I knew I had to pick it up. Basically, Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, and he focuses on Russian Literature. So in this book, which seems conceived as a release valve to Covid lockdowns, Saunders takes 7 Russian short stories he likes to teach, from 4 Russian masters, and he presents the stories entirely [as they are now public domain] and then follows each up with why he loves them and how he teaches them.

This book makes me excited to read, write, and teach - all in one. It’s a staggeringly sharp book, that reads really clearly and personally, and yet contains some wild depths to it. Honestly, an absolute must read for the writer’s curriculum canon. I can see me rereading this in the near future [and I could only ever hope Saunders ever does something like this again, though I fear he would never get the time/opportunity to do so again]. This is easily in my Top Ten Non-Fic books of all time.

It definitely made me want to read more Russian Lit [and you’ll see one appear below] and to also teach creative writing with even more vigour and passion. I did try to consider what my focus would be if I taught some prestigious Lit course. You can go to Saunders for Russian Lit, and I’m sure others focus on Woolf and Hemingway and others, so what would my focus be? The shortlist for consideration would be either the short stories of Philip K. Dick, or the works of Michael Ondaatje, or maybe something to do with comics, though I couldn’t lock down what or whom.

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson

I’ve long loved The Lottery as both a short story to return to rereading and to also teach. I’ve been hoping to read The Haunting of Hill House for as long as it’s been since I first saw it quoted in Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, and yet I’d heard barely anything about WHALITC.

Which probably made the reading experience even better because I went in cold and absolutely fell in love. This tale of small town isolation and fear and witchcraft and family is a staggering work that genuinely took me back. The control and flow with which Jackson writes is both engaging and exceptionally thoughtful. I was glued to the book for a handful of days, and at the end I knew it was not only one of the best things I’d ever read, but it was one of my absolute favourites. What a delight for something no one had told me to go and seek out before [and how had no one? Insanity!].

I love teaching the opening page and how Jackson sets up Merrikat as this isolated and dark figure. I also love seeing it land with every class as they realise just how precisely Jackson has controlled everything on that page. I have a paper I want to write about her use of polysyndeton in the book, and I hope 2025 gives me time to properly write it and shop it around.

If I can give but one single recommendation from this list, it’s that you seek out this book and enjoy your time with it.

HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad

A short part of the canon I felt compelled to try mostly on the back of it inspiring Apocalypse Now. I’ll be honest, this one didn’t grab me. Thankfully it’s short enough that I didn’t feel like I wasted more than a few days of my life delving in and not really digging it.

REVIVAL by Stephen King

I try to always hit one King each year, though he continues to write them quicker than I can read them. However, this one came with a decent ‘dark horse’ wrap, and then completely did not live up to it. Which was a shame, because it didn’t just disappoint, it actively seemed like it came together poorly. Even for King readers, I would not recommend.

THE MEMORY POLICE by Yoko Ogawa

My kid clued me into this being an upcoming film adaptation from Charlie Kaufman and Lily Gladstone, and then the cover completely caught my eye, and then the blurb sounded wild. So I read it and I loved it. This was one I got lost in the world of, and found the ending lingered with me for some time. A really engaging read that definitely swept me up in the central premise of the story, which is that on this island things become forgotten and people collectively no longer know about these things or how to use them. Genuinely, pretty brilliant.

TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin

This absolutely pops. I found myself very much sunk right into the characters and their interactions and world. A love story that’s actually about friendship and support is a really interesting way to play this that sets it apart from any other rom-com formula. There’s a whole mess of heart in these pages, and the exploration that video games are just another medium in meaningful literature was really refreshing to see.

NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro

This book about clones raised to be harvested for their organs is a great display of how to do genre and yet only focus on the characters. For such a wild concept, it never feels like the sci fi it truly is, which is an interesting eye on this kind of story. Everything revolves around relationships, and the allegory gets to play itself out behind that. I know this book is top tier for some, and it sits just below that for me, but it was still a great entry into Ishiguro, so I look forward to sampling some more.

THE BLOODY CHAMBER, AND OTHER STORIES by Angela Carter

This is a damn fine collection of short stories where Carter takes known fairy tales and such and uses a feminist lens to rewrite them. I’ve taught The Werewolf many times over and it always pops, but here I also dug the Bluebeard one and The Company of Wolves.

FIRST LOVE by Ivan Turgenev

Me diving into some Russian Lit solo via this $1 slimline purchase. I thought it was pretty bloody good. It’s low key, and context of the time helps a lot to recognise that a story of someone having an extra-marital affair is very shocking to them all [should still be shocking now, but somehow feels less scandalous in my mind], but it was the ending that completely wrapped me up. I followed along with the young boy and his love of the neighbour, but then in the final sections there are just hints everywhere at the truth of what plays out, a game of clue for you to unpack why Turgenev focuses on these things and what they might imply, and I found that incredibly intriguing. I eventually have my theory on this one, and I know it’s not accepted canon, but it was fun to build it.

RUNNING IN THE FAMILY by Michael Ondaatje

This collection of discovered recollections about Ondaatje’s family is pretty raw, and really insightful, and absolutely beautifully written. You can see the writer he’ll continue to be here as he works through internal and familial trauma to try and discover some kind of truth or salve.

FIESTA, or The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Someone who loved the Russian masters, and mentions Turgenev in this book, and it shows in that way he controls the reader’s focus on the page. This poignant tale of two lovers who can never quite be lovers is really well laid out, and also a brilliant insight into post-WWI Europe. I enjoyed the book, but have even more enjoyed sitting with a personal theory that Lady Brett is pregnant at the end and then just exploring whether the text can support this. I’m probably wrong, but it’s fun to play with a text and look back through it and see if there’s more there - it’s just another way to sit with a story and engage with it and get to appreciate parts of it yet again.

THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead

This is a brutal dive into the true story of young African-American boys casually beaten and murdered in institutions that should be aimed at rehabilitating them. And yet somehow it never feels lascivious about such things and instead brings forward character, and has a final reel plot swerve that genuinely levels this already great book into something fairly special in a way that ensures it’ll stick with you longer than you’d think. Also: great prose, especially in the character descriptions.

OLD SCHOOL by Tobias Wollf

I borrowed this off a good friend as it was short and they were interested in my thoughts. It’s about schoolboys vying for the company of Ernest Hemingway and it’s simply delightful to read, I think especially if you dig literature or creative writing. Bonus: my kid picked it up as I was reading it and also read it, so every few days we’d have a debrief chat about it [I’d love 2025 to bring me more of that sweet action].

EDENGLASSIE by Melissa Lucashenko

A dual narrative between Brisbane now and also ~170 years ago. The older story captured me more, in both character and historical facts, and I found myself blasting through this as a cruisy Xmas final book of the year.

AUDIOBOOKS

SPUTNIK, GOODBYE by Haruki Murakami

Seemed like a good place to start with Murakami. This is a weird tale, and I mean that with some reverence. There are a lot of good moments, and this held up as an audiobook I found I could concentrate on and follow along with it, huzzah.

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray

I read this because a student was doing a paper on it, and I’m really glad I did. Not only is the book genuinely fantastic and engaging, but also the student’s take on it was very well put together and a joy to take in. I ended up feeling really invested in these characters, and I’ve been sitting on the ending ever since and turning it over in my head a lot [though I know I need to now hold the book and explore certain points to then draw back to the ending page, and this cannot be done in audio form - lame].

THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT by Wilson Sloan

This was a staggeringly good read in the way it unpacks the mindset of post-WWII men. I constantly kept thinking about American Psycho throughout as it’s this exploration of murder and capitalism and what it means to be a modern man in the modernity of your specific context. Lowkey harrowing, surprisingly engaging for all of the suburban and workplace drama folded into it, and ultimately somewhat sad to see how war brings regular people fairly low in so many ways.

*******

And with that the year’s reading of novels was done. Some Top 10 all timers, some definite recommends and gifts, and a resolution ticked off. Time to do it again for 2025, 12 novels is the goal yet again, and I just finished George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo and it’s setting the bar really bloody high. I’ll also hopefully better track my comic reading on the shelf below.

I genuinely hope your year has been filled with some favourite pages, and that 2025 only delivers more. If you want to track your reading as I have below, I recommend StoryGraph [as it is not Amazon owned, so Goodreads can go screw].

My 2024 at a glance:

My 2024 in covers: