I don’t read from the best seller lists so some of these books are several years old now. But this is not a best new releases of 2024 list, it’s my personal list of books I read this year that I would recommend to others.
A Man Called Øve – Fredrick Beckman
Although I knew from the beginning how this story would go, it still caught me by the throat on the journey. The backstory that made Øve the dour man he is clutches at your heart and stomach; the way that life conspires against him to drag him back into caring and being involved will make you laugh and cry and wish for your own Øve in your neighbourhood. Not recommended to read on your commute unless you have a packet of tissues with you to catch your tears.
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The story of Ifemelu, a girl growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, and Obinze, her boyfriend, from their teenage love, to their university years, to their separate journeys of immigration from their homeland to the US (Ifemelu) and the UK (Obinze) and their return to Nigeria. But has Nigeria changed or is it their experience that changed them? And can their love persist? I’m coming to this novel 10 years after everyone else, but it’s still a great read. Alongside the main stories there are also some lessons in race snuck in. Recommended reading if you haven’t read it already.
Fleishmann is in trouble – Taffy Brodesser-Akner
A curious book because I was some way into what I thought was a standard third-person narration novel before a sneaky “I” appeared. Until that point, I thought this was a disembodied narration of Fleishman’s life, but it’s actually narrated by his close friend, who makes some small appearances in the book in her own plot line, not just overlapping with the Fleishmans. She is the only one who can see inside both Fleishman’s and his wife’s head. A clever way of showing how two people see the same situation very differently; even two people in the same marriage. Toby and Rachel Fleishman both get to put their sides forward through Toby’s friend Libby, the narrator. And while you might start off on Team Toby, you might find yourself switching to Team Rachel by the end.
According to her – Maciej Hen
Mariamne is a woman who guesses she must be nearly 100 years old now. She greets the Greek visitor who wants to ask about her son, who died some years ago. Mariamne’s son Jeshua is known to the world through the name Jesus, but she calls him Yoshi. How did Mariamne feel about her son? What was her side of the story? An interesting re-telling of a familiar tale in a different voice, a voice that’s familiar for anyone who ever asked their nanna about their life. You may get the nuggets of the story you want but it’s wrapped up in a rambling tale that covers so much more.
Before the coffee gets cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
If you could travel back in time, have one conversation over again, see someone you love one more time, but on the condition you must leave before the coffee gets cold… a beautiful story of love and regret and time travel and atonement and Japanese cafe food set in a basement cafe in Japan. Wonderfully written with that poetic prose style you get in Japanese novels.
One Ukrainian Summer – Viv Groskop
English exchange student crash lands in newly post-Soviet Russia to learn Russian and falls madly in love with a man in a band and the man’s name translates literally as “God’s gift”. Viv’s memoir of her year spent in Russia captures the craziness of the post-Soviet existence and the intensity of the kind of infatuation you can only experience in your early 20s.
Time Shelter – Georgi Gospodinov
We all romanticise the past, those “good old days” we would love to go back to. Funny but dark, this book tells the story of an experiment that goes out of control. An experiment set up to work with people suffering Alzheimer’s, to put them back in the familiar settings of the past, the 1950s, the 1960s, away from the confusion and disappointment of the present. But what if instead of the past being captured in one building, for one specific circumstance, this way of living expanded to whole towns, whole countries? And not just to the elderly and confused but to the young and middle-aged as well? This book taps into a feeling that has been exploited by populist politicians, that we should go back to earlier, simpler times. But what does that really mean?
The Great Railway Bazaar – Paul Theroux
Written in the 1970s, this non-fiction covers Theroux’s trip to Japan and back again by train. It captures the whole horror of train travel – which is mostly other people. From bribing guards to get a carriage to yourself to travelling on a bulletproof train in the middle of a war zone, the book takes you as much on a journey through Theroux’s own mind as through so many countries, as he scribbles down the stories of his travelling companions in derision or disgust.
“Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night’s sleep, and strangers’ monologues framed like Russian short stories.”
“You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time. Travel is not merely the business of being bone-idle, but also an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy – being actively offensive as fugitive freeloaders. The traveller is the greediest kind of romantic voyeur, and in some well-hidden part of the traveller’s personality is an unpickable knot of vanity, presumption and mythomania bordering on the pathological. This is why a traveller’s worst nightmare is not the secret police or the witch doctors or malaria, but rather the prospect of meeting another traveller.”
“But: all journeys were return journeys. The farther one traveled, the nakeder one got, until, towards the end, ceasing to be animated by any scene, one was most oneself, a man in a bed surrounded by empty bottles.”
The sugar sugar award (an award I just made up this year while writing this post) goes to Taylor Jenkins Reid for Malibu Rising and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I read both these books this year and enjoyed them despite myself. The plot, in summary, is: beautiful people have incredible sex and make poor life choices in a glamorous setting. Perfect for escapist holiday reading.
What were your favourite books of 2024?
Tales from Tobhamhor 