My Year In Books (2024 Edition)

I love books. Around 1999, when I started commuting, I expanded my definition of books to include audiobooks. I listened to most of the books I discuss below. Mostly while doing chores. I do a lot of chores. Alright, let's get bookish.

I read a lot of Stephen King in 2024. I found a podcast I enjoy, Just King Things, where the hosts read Stephen King in publication order. I began with Carrie over the holidays of 2023, and in 2024, I read 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Long Walk, The Dead Zone, Roadwork, Firestarter, and Danse Macabre. I'd only read 'Salem's Lot before. It remains one of my favorite Stephen King novels. The first time I read it in college, I stayed up till 2 a.m. to finish it. The scene where 14-year old Mark Petrie confronts his former friend–now a vampire–floating outside his bedroom window is still one of the most haunting things I've ever read.

Another literary podcast inspired me to read Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series. It includes The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch, and The Urth of the New Sun. I'd read the first one long ago, and I stopped there. The narrator says he'll understand if you stop reading at the end, so maybe I just took his advice? It's a fascinating series. The books are presented as translations, so the translator–not the author–has chosen the words used to describe things. The author doesn't explain anything he assumes the reader already knows about the world. This leads to moments like when the narrator describes his "dog," which is a loyal pet, but does not resemble any dog in our world. I enjoyed my time with the books. Wolfe frequently drops–as asides–ideas so compelling that they leave you wanting to read a novel about just that idea. These books require some time and attention to enjoy--not a beach read.

Some other fictional favorites from the past year include Hell Bent, Sourdough, Chain Gang All Stars, and Gilead. Hell Bent is the sequel to Ninth House, both by Leigh Bardugo. They're both urban fantasies that I enjoyed. They're akin to Harry Dresden, but at Yale instead of Chicago. Sourdough by Robin Sloan feels like it was written just for me. It's a story about Silicon Valley and a sourdough starter. It sits in a weird intersection between the Lovecraftian Mythos and a Neal Stephenson technothriller. Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a literary version of Running Man or maybe Hunger Games. It feels way too close to something that could happen. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is a story about the history of a small Midwestern family. It's a story about religion that made me think about religion as a practice rather than a philosophy.

I'll wrap up with some books I read on artificial intelligence. If you want to understand the context of the emerging world of AI, there's no better book than The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian. He covers the emergence of the modern era of AI, which began when a computer could successfully tell whether a photo was of a cat or a dog. If you want to understand what the world of AI is like–right now–I recommend Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick. The world of AI moves fast, but I think what he has to say is good for understanding what the next year will be like. If you want to understand where we're headed–whether we like it or not–I recommend reading Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. He's done some profound thinking about where we as a species have come from and why that leads to where we're going to be in the not-so-distant future.

That's not everything I read last year, but it's the highlights. If you've got recommendations, please let me know. I love a heartfelt recommendation. I like talking about books. Some of my favorite books that I've read this year weren't ones I would have picked on my own. If anyone is interested in founding a video-conferenced book club with me, let me know. Reading is a form of magic that works in our universe. Unleash the magic!