It only feels like yesterday that I was trying to pick my top reads of 2023 and now — whoosh — it’s time to do it all again.
Choosing just a handful of favourites is challenging. I don’t read anything like the quantity that some other bloggers mention but even so, weighing up the merits of one book versus another is tough going.
Do I choose The Haven based on the quality of the prose? Or maybe The Factory or Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, both of which were quirky but still very readable? or do I play it safe and opt for a book like Tom Lake that didn’t have any great literary flourishes but was simply a good yarn?
I could lose valuable sleep wrestling with this conundrum. It would be much easier to pick favourites if I read from just one (two at most) genres. Then I’d be comparing like with like. But I’m all over the genre map, switching regularly between lit fiction, crime, historical fiction and classics.
Having chased this question around for days, I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way to identify my favourites is to ask just one question
Which books did I read in 2024 that have the greatest staying power?
By “staying power” I mean, the way the book lingered in my memory long after I got to the final page. I’ll have likely forgotten the details of the plot or the names of the characters but I’ll remember the atmosphere of the location or how the book made me feel Or months will pass and I’ll still be thinking about some of the questions or issues raised by the book. These are also the books that I’m most likely to talk about with friends and to recommend to other readers.
So based on all those factors, here are the five that rose to the top of my list this year.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
For the first time in many years, the judges of the Booker Prize actually selected a book that was innovative, elegant AND readable. The narrative follows six astronauts during one day in their mission. In the course of twenty four hours they will circle Earth sixteen times, looping continents and zipping through seasons, conducting scientific experiments and sending observations of weather systems back to base.
This is a really slim book but Harvey packs so much into her prose that it took me a while to read because I kept pausing to let the ideas incubate. Ideas about the fragility of life; the future of our planet; and the ties that connect us to each other. Simply wonderful book.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
What a delight it was to discover Elizabeth Strout this year (yes I know I’m behind the curve but so what). Her titular character Olive Kitteridge is a magnificent creation. She’s obnoxious — rude to neighbours and acquaintances and completely unaware of the hurt she causes her family with her dismissive comments. And yet beneath the brittle exterior she’s a sensitive creature who has to learn what is really important in life. See my review here
The Colony by Audrey Magee
I enjoyed Magee’s debut novel — The Undertaking — but The Colony is even better. The story concerns two men who travel to a small island off the west coast of Ireland one summer. One is an English painter, the other a Frenchman who is conducting a study about the Irish language. Both men maintain they value the purity of life on the island and want to preserve its integrity but their stance takes little notice of what the islanders themselves feel about their language and way of life.
The novel explores the issue of colonisation, one tangent of which concerns the preservation of the Gaelic language. This struck a particular chord for me — I live in a country where there’s been a debate lasting decades about how to halt the decline of the Welsh language.
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
For years I went under the mistaken impression that Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles were frothy family sagas. Reading The Light Years (the first book) completely changed my perspective. Yes this is a story of a family with all its domestic dramas, testing relationships and incidents but Howard gives us a wonderful insight into life in Britain on the cusp of World War 2. See my review here
As the possibility of war looms, the Cazalet family members respond in different ways — some believe it’s inevitable, others that it will never happen because the country’s Prime Minister will prevail and win the assurances for peace he desires from Hitler. As an insight into a piece of history told through the eyes of ordinary (though wealthy) people this was fascinating.
Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flynn
The only non fiction book to make it onto my list was an unexpected delight. Cal Flyn looks at places around the world which have been abandoned for a variety of reasons — including war; disaster; population decline and economic recession. Her research took her from the disaster zone of Chernobyl to an abandoned botanic garden in Africa and to industrial and residential wastelands in the USA. As a journalist Flynn knows how to tell a story in a really engaging way. By the end of the book you’re left wondering whether she’s right and allowing nature to reclaim these abandoned spaces is a model for our future. See my review here
These were my stand out books from 2024. I’m curious whether they made it onto your list of favourites from 2024