Books Wot I Read in 2024

Welcome to the annual “books wot I read” post, where I look at the year in review and talk about some of my reading material. I’m not too heartbroken that this year’s list is significantly shorter than in previous years. I finished a master’s degree in library science; I published an academic paper and have more in the pipeline; I got full-time work as a librarian; and I started a master of arts degree in Egyptology. It’s a miracle I read anything at all! And even with all that going on, I found time to plough through some fairly epic books like Dune and heavy non-fiction like Wowsers and From the Gracchi to Nero.

So all in all I’m going to chalk it up as a good year (in spite of the chaos going on in the rest of the world). Let’s hope 2025 is even better.

• Jewels of Aptor by Samuel R. Delaney

• This is Not the End of the Book by Jean-Claude Carriere and Umberto Eco

• High Spirits by Joan Sims

• The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch

  My pandemic-era project to read all the Virgin Doctor Who novels continues. This year I’ve finally hit the 50th one and I’m nearing the end of the New Adventures range. If I can knock out the remaining eleven then I’ll finally be finished. After that I’m planning to do the Benny novels, then the Missing Adventures, because I am a glutton for punishment.

• 

  Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell

  I really thought there was nothing new to write about Tiny Tim after Harry Stein’s landmark 1976 biography of the famously eccentric singer and ukulele-player. Sure, there were the man’s declining years, but Stein wrote his biography at a time when events were still unfolding and he could interview people in the midst of it all. Surely the trail has gone cold now so long after Tiny Tim’s death.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. Martell’s biography is every bit as vital and insightful as Stein’s. For a start I hadn’t realised that Tiny Tim was an ardent diarist, and Martell’s access to those diaries means he has a window into Tiny Tim’s life and mental state that has not previously been opened. He’s also conducted interviews with so many of the people who worked with Tiny Tim, particularly towards the end of his life, and synthesised all this into a masterful biography. It’s sad sometimes that poor biographies can be written about fascinating people, but that isn’t the case here. Tiny Tim lived an astonishing life, and both the biographies about him have been equal to the task of documenting and understanding a truly strange, self-destructive, and out-of-place human being. We would probably have disliked each other if we’d ever met, but I never stop being inspired by Tiny Tim. My admiration for him is boundless.

• Lobster by Guillaume Lecasble

  A lobster in a tank in a restaurant on board the Titanic falls in love with the human woman who ate his father. This was a truly wild ride.

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

  This was a stark and very important book about how mobile phones are destroying children’s mental health. They’re probably not all that great for adults either. Haidt is an author I’ve long admired, particularly for his other book about trends in development and mental health, The Coddling of the American Mind.

• Shakedown by Terrance Dicks

• Wowsers by Keith Dunstan

• Dune by Frank Herbert

  I went to a friend and said, “Hey, it’s the year 10,000 and everyone is Catholic. What book am I?” He got it in one.

  Dune is a classic by any measure, but I found this one ultimately underwhelming. It’s very of its time, and I don’t think it has much of an impact for the modern reader. Still, it wasn’t bad, just so-so in my opinion.

• Vworp! Vworp! #6

• From the Gracchi to Nero by H. H. Scullard

  It was suddenly brought to my attention that I’m a cis white male and therefore I had to rush out and read about the Roman empire instantly.

• All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way by Fred Trump

• Just War by Lance Parkin

• 

  I Want That Twink Obliterated! edited by Trip Galey, Robert Berg, and C. L. McCartney

  This anthology of queer pulp fiction slays so hard, it’s a complete triumph and delight. I won’t call out any particulars, but I’ve had mixed feelings about various trans, autistic, etc. anthologies which have endeavoured to do something really positive but have ultimately failed when it came to quality. I got the impression they just accepted everything that was submitted to them because they wanted to support all voices. That’s a noble goal, but it means the result can be very dodgy. By contrast I Want That Twink Obliterated! solicited submissions from professional writers and maintained its high standards when it came to open submissions. The result is so good. These stories bring a level of camp to historically very straight and po-faced genres such as fantasy, science fiction, and crime fiction, and it’s a gleeful delight to see those genres turned on their head. The authors and editors clearly have a great love of their source material, which means they have a ball playing with familiar tropes. That joy is transmitted to the reader in every story.

• 3 Dimensional Losers by Cory McAbee

• Warchild by Andrew Cartmel

• The Art of Invader Zim by Chris McDonnell

• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

• SLEEPY by Kate Orman

• Death and Diplomacy by Dave Stone

• Happy Endings by Paul Cornell