The Best Books I Read in 2024
Wednesday is about books, and writing, and reading. Here’s a wrap of the four and five star reads I managed last year.
I did not read a whole lot of brand new 2024 releases. But I did read quite a few books. I’d like to read more of what’s brand new, but I’ve got a big list of what I never quite made it to — and so every year there is that tension. Anyway, since I wrapped film and music I should so something similar with books, even if I periodically drop a list of what I’ve recently read and loved a few times throughout the year. At any rate, here’s what I feel made the list as a classic, or at least very good.
High Times, Hard Times by Anita O’Day — On my list since forever. I think I bought this book in about 2007. Had started it a few times, and then put it aside. Finally got through it all (no reflection on the book, more my reading habits). I’m a huge Anita O’Day fan, I sometimes think she’s my favourite jazz singer. She had a hard, wild life, and gave it all she can and then more. And most of that is here in this book.
Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America by Abraham Riesman — Much better than the WWE-sanctioned doco series on Netflix, this biography does not shy away from how much of a toxic prick Vince is, and what a strange, cruel but towering empire he has created amid scandal after scandal. Hideous stuff, but very well written and explored.
Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia — No one does humour, politics, and poetry as one quite like Tusiata. National treasure, amazing wit, craftsperson, and natural talent. Some of her very best work sits here.
Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne — Not the usual celeb memoir. Not at all. Tight, dark, beautifully written and controlled, this is as haunting as its title could hope.
A Peculiar People: Poems by Steven Willis — I had the honour of introducing, and reading alongside Steven Willis early in 2024. Straight home to read this book after. Not at all disappointed, far from it. He occupies the middle ground between Gil Scott-Heron and Kendrick Lamar, via Langston Hughes. I absolutely love this book.
The White Girl by Tony Birch — My first time reading Tony Birch. And I’ll be back. Amazing, pared back fiction that felt like non-fiction. The fiction of lived experience and historical significance. Beautiful storytelling lives here.
The Animals In That Country by Laura Jean McKay — I would say brilliant and baffling in equal measures, bonkers but extraordinarily so. Great use of language, and great comment on language. One of the more inventive novels I’ve read in quite a while.
Open Throat by Henry Hoke — A gay mountain lion living in the Hollywood hills is our narrator for this poetic novella/novel. What’s not to love? Not much, turns out. Loved this book! Inventive, clever, funny, sad, beautiful.
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King — I re-read a couple of King novels last year (for the podcast we started) and I read a couple of old novels for the first time. But I wanted to jump ahead, and read something neither brand new nor particularly old, something we would not be podcasting anytime soon. I chose this novella collection, and loved it! Some of his very best work, four dark, funny, cruel stories, all very well handled. Three of them are movies already, and the fourth might only make a short-film I guess, but I’d sure like that to happen.
Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon by Joel Selvin — One of my favourite music bios of the year, and in quite some time. Wrote a bit about it already here:
TAUHOU by Kotuki Titihuia Nuttall — I loved this book of short chapters which all felt like standalone stories but were built into the theme and mood of this as a novel. Just recently I shared a ‘close reading’ of one of the chapters, so I’ll add that again here below:
Audition by Pip Adam — Bonkers, but brilliant. I loved this wild ride of a novel. Love everything Pip does, her books are always unique, challenging, unhinged, but also meticulously crafted. This reading was part of research for a longer essay I did about Pip’s work:
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy — I am glad I finally got to this, a couple of years after most people. Goodreads told me this was the most shelved book of any I read in 2024 — meaning the most popular, basically. Anyway, a really terrific, unsettling child-star memoir. Added timing, I had watched the Nickelodeon documentary and though McCurdy didn’t really take part in that she was referenced.
You Are Beautiful And You Are Alone by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike — This was a smart piece of writing, it even had me newly enthused about the subject. Nico has been paraded around as a tragic fallen star, drug victim, and not very nice, also a token musician. This book aims to address all of that, and in various ways. And does an amazing job.
All Tomorrow’s Parties: The Velvet Underground Story by Korean Shadmi — I’m constantly blown away by the graphic memoir form (and graphic novels in general). This is one of the best ever pieces of writing I’ve read about a band I feel I know close to inside out. I was reminded of things, I read a few brand new stories, I revisited the music as a result. And I was blown away by the way the storytelling was shaped by the design and illustration work. Amazing.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King — My first time ever reading this! King’s second book. Was so cool to get through it, to podcast about it, and revisit the films (not great), but the best thing was that the book absolutely was worth all of the fuss, and feels like one of King’s slightly underrated masterpieces. I know there’s a lot of love for this book, but it doesn’t get the noise of the truly big ones in his vast canon. Anyway, was cool to finally get up to speed with it and feel the hype was real. Justified.
Ash by Louise Wallace — Ash absolutely blew me away. One of the very best books of the year. An amazing short, sharp, powerful, poetic novel.
Life’s Too Short: A Memoir by Darius Rucker — I really enjoyed this. And not that I need to point this out, but I was never a fan of the music. That’s what compelled me to read this. Everyone’s got a story, and I didn’t know Darius’ at all. He’s been through some shit. And had some success. And is still looking for some happiness in spite of it all.
The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes — Absolutely adored this volume of poetry by Langston Hughes, and though I’d read a couple from it, and was aware of its overall significance, this was my first time reading it in full. This, along with some stories, inspired a couple of pieces of writing from me last year:
Earth to Moon: A Memoir by Moon Unit Zappa — Another of the very best memoirs I’ve read in some time. I really loved this book. And it kinda made me hate Frank Zappa a whole lot. What a terrible parent and largely terrible human being — all this talk of his artistry and his humanity and his political smarts and so on, dude was tragic, and flawed, and here’s the proof. But it’s more than a beat up on her parents (if Frank was bad, Gail was arguably worse), this is a story of recovering yourself, of doing the work and finding yourself. But I said loads of that and much more when I wrote about it last year:
This is The F#&%ING News: My Story by Paddy Gower — Paddy Gower’s story, his last 15 years in particular, is exciting, traumatic, troubling, and ultimately redemptive. Paddy goes from being the Class Clown of Journalism to one of the leading lights, all without barely changing. His relatability remains his chief strength. I say all of this as a friend of his and a fan of his work, and I wrote more about both of those things here:
Never: The Autobiography by Rick Astley — I really enjoyed this book. I kinda thought it would be fun, at the least, but it was just hard not to like Astley, not to be moved by parts of his journey, and not to be impressed by how well he has owned his ‘hit’ and worked with it, and allowed it to work for him, but also shrugging at being defined by it. So be it. It bought him a house, gave him a life, he knows the real story, and tells most of it here.
Stories I Might Regret Telling You: A Memoir by Martha Wainwright — I love that Martha Wainright doesn’t want to come out on top in every story here. She is more focused on telling you who she is, and how she does life. She doesn’t mind if she doesn’t always sound like the hero in her own story. She knows that’s not real.
Why Sinead O’Connor Matters by Allyson McCabe — Big fan of this series, generally. And big fan of Sinead O’Connor, of course. But I really felt this book was incredible — so well argued, passionate and precise.
Pink Floyd in Comics by Nicolas Finet — Went on a huge Pink Floyd kick in 2024, and it’s still going, so I guess that’s the crucial context for why I read this book and for how much I loved it too — the timing. But, as with the Velvet Underground graphic, this did a better and more thorough job of telling the Floyd story than any other book I’ve read about the band.
The Bigamist: The True Story of a Husband’s Ultimate Betrayal by Mary Turner Thomson — Jon Ronson introduced Mary Turner Thomson to us via Skype as part of his live show. Her story was incredible, and she told it so well, so calmly. That’s because she’s lived it and told it several times, including here in this book — which I had to read after hearing the highlights. Though to call them highlights misleads entirely. This harrowing tale of a psychopath’s deception is must-read, page-turner stuff. Fascinating and horrible all at once.
Rock n Roll Comics: The Pink Floyd Experience by Jay Sanford — I know, what’s better than one really good Pink Floyd graphic memoir? Two! Two really good Pink Floyd graphic memoirs (cue laughter from The Count of Sesame Street). Seriously though, this book was probably better, and certainly more in depth than the earlier Pink Floyd graphic. And I didn’t read a heap of graphic novels or graphic memoirs in 2024, so I’m glad that the ones I did really counted.
There’s one more book I have to recommend from my reading in 2024, and I’m not at all ashamed to do so:
The Richard Poems by Simon Sweetman — Yes! I’m really going to mention my own book. Why not? Not the first time I’ve mentioned it after all. I wrote The Richard Poems across 2024, and therefore read it a bunch of times, including cover to cover the day I got my first copy of it, a couple of days ahead of launching it and reading from it in public. I’m still feeling my way through the poems to read live, but on paper I read most of these poems many times, and I’m really proud of the result too — my second book of poems, and third book in total.
So that’s the best of what I read in 2024, not many titles released in 2024, but a few. A range of memoir, poetry, other non fiction, and some novels. No short story collections. Well, one collection of novellas — but I think my focus in 2025 is going to be more around short fiction, short prose, and novels. Be interesting to see how that plays out.
I read a lot in 2024, but it was largely unfocused. I’ll be working to focus my reading a lot more this year. I read some great books — as I’ve shown here, and I read a few really bad books. But also, a lot of just ‘okay’ books. They’re always the worst to wade through…
Anyway, how did you get on reading wise in 2024? See anything here you like? See anything hear you also read and loved? Or hated? Or meant to read, but didn’t?
Prolific and challenging range here Simon. Thanks. Definitely looking forward to reading some of these!