I am generally awful at remembering books outside of a general impression - terrible at the details. I also am terrible at recording when I read certain books. I’d like to change that. So here are all the books I read in 2024.
Going forward, I’d like to write my thoughts on a book shortly after finishing it. Here, I’m going to have to back track, so I’ll be keeping it very short for most, especially those that I read earlier on in the year.
Throughout the year
Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time series
(and Brandon Sanderson there at the end a bit)
This took the majority of 2024 for me. I started book 1 back in February or March of 2023, and it took a while for me to get sucked in - I didn’t finish it until about January 2024. I then proceeded to vacuum up the rest of the series into mostly short term memory in less time than it took me to absorb the first book - which is one of the shorter ones in the series, no less.
Basically it was high time that I found a high fantasy series to get me back into reading. I had started to read Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive (got about a book and a quarter into it), but I stubbornly refuse to continue until more books come out. When I get the hankering for another high fantasy series, I’ll probably pick that one up. I just feel like I’m going to be in my 50s before all the books come out, and I’m not keen on that kind of wait.
While I was a bit disappointed at some of the unavoidable writing style clash in the final three books due to Sanderson taking the reins, he was still competent enough. (I started the first book that Sanderson wrote, and the prologue was absolutely awful, but it leveled out after that.) I’m also not sure how you end a series like this. I’m torn about all the loose ends and the way it ended, but I think I’d rather it have ended like that instead of taking another entire book to wrap everything up properly. It seemed appropriate.
This one’s still sinking in. Also, I’m being deliberately vague here to avoid spoilers. It’s worth the multiple thousands of pages, highly recommend. Will be coming back for a re-read.
Earlier in the year
This is where things start getting especially hazy, at least in terms of coherent or specific thoughts to put together. I made myself consume other content alonside TWoT - I try to keep a non-fic going at all times.
Joel Salatin - Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
An enlightening look into the sheer bureacracy behind America’s food empire. I had no idea how many honestly petty rules and regulations went into seemingly simple things, and how absolutely nightmarish it could be to be a local farmer nowadays. (And this was written in 2007!)
Made me question my day-to-day decisions regarding food and where it comes from - which I think is safe to say was the author’s intention (or at least one of them).
James Clear - Atomic Habits
Full of very practical advice - of utmost importance to me when it comes to any self-help book - and a novel way (at least to me) of framing how I think about improvement. Reading this made me realize I have to trick my brain, and find new ways to trick myself when I catch onto it.
I plan to re-read this year, I’ve come a long way since I read it the first time. I only tried some of the advice, and plan to implement more, but I need a refresher. Ties into what I’ve been working on with Todoist and task management.
Lochlainn Seabrook - Abraham Lincoln: The Southern View
Scathing, relentless, exceedingly annotated deep dive into Southern Dixie before during and after the Civil War - or what he calls, I think rightfully, Lincoln’s War. Seabrook can be very personal and vindictive at times - because he is after all a Southerner, and has familial ties to folks who served in the war - but a surprising amount of this stuff comes from Lincoln’s own mouth. Interesting to get an idea of the political climate at the time and how Lincoln’s policies, and the effects of the war, persist even today.
October and onwards
After I finally had nothing left to devour of TWoT series, I (finally) began to pick up some other fiction. I thought I would be bereft of good content, but oh how mistaken I was.
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
Stupendously badass. Stephenson has a fast-paced way of writing that absolutely sucks me in, but it’s not one of those where the fast-paced nature is the only thing keeping me invested, and taking a step back to look at the writing results in disappointment. On the contrary. I’ll find myself reading and re-reading a section, pausing to look up words or research locations, pissing myself laughing, or all of the above.
What impresses me most about this book is it’s a book involving UNIX hacking where the writer actually kinda knows what the fuck he’s talking about. It’s simultaneously set in 1940s WWII and present-day (or close enough to present-day, being the turn of the century), and he melds the two in such a way that lends itself to, on the surface, good pacing, but as you progress in the book, they start to intersect in cool ways. I never knew where the book was going, and usually to me that’s a sign of the J.J. Abrams mystery box style of writing, but I was hooked with this one.
Equally as impressive, but admittedly less in my wheelhouse (and thus I can provide only a layman’s perspective) are the many examples of where I thought “just how much research did you have to do to write this?” Scuba diving, the inner workings of German U-boats, WWII history melded with completely fictional people and places (to the point where I was looking up Qwghlm thinking it was somehow a real place), the cryptanalysis scene as it stood in the 40s vs today, striking descriptions of locales from the Filipino jungle to modern-day Tokyo to the streets of London or Brisbane to the coast of Sweden, dynamite-blasting out multiple tons of rock, sections of mind-numbing pure mathematics and number theory. I learned a lot while reading this book, and it got me digging in various other places.
And Stephenson’s not afraid to go off on random tangents. He’ll spend multiple pages describing one esoteric experience one of our characters had in the past, and just as you begin to think what the hell is the point of this, he’ll tie it back in to the present. Gut-splittingly. Treads dangerously close to “lol so random” territory, the humor of my teenage self, but he does it in a way that makes me think maybe I was on to something when I was a teen.
I read Snow Crash last year and don’t know why it took me so long to pick up another one of his books. (Nevermind, I remembered I was reading The Wheel of TIme at the expense of all other things worthwhile in life.) Stephenson is one of those writers that inspires me to write like no other, but then when I try I feel so woefully inadequate.
Neal Stephenson - In the Beginning…Was the Command Line
Not much to say on this one - I came across it in a used bookstore right after finishing Cryptonomicon, and had to pick it up. It was a really quick read, took me an afternoon. You kinda get a behind the scenes look at Stephenson’s UNIX experience with this read, as well as an interesting breakdown of the Mac vs Windows vs Linux debate, but as it existed right before the turn of the century. It’s interesting what has changed… and what hasn’t.
Thomas Limoncelli - Time Management for System Administrators
Right up my alley - very similar to Atomic Habits in terms of its practical advice. Changed my entire workflow - see In search of the ideal task management solution - part I and In search of the ideal task management solution - part II for a more in depth look at how I implemented what Tom calls “The Cycle”, as well as sort of a preliminary review and thoughts.
Another one I plan to revisit.
Robert Jordan - New Spring
You thought I was done with TWoT didn’t you? Well you were wrong…
This one was good, but it left me wanting. Definitely felt like a prequel, and about half the length of the other novels in the series. Almost felt like fanfiction, but not in a terrible way.
Cool to get somewhat of an origin story for Lan and Moiraine - that was really what I wanted out of the book, but only the last quarter or so actually had them interacting. I wanted more time with them. Also not getting to see Siuan raised to Amyrlin - but I’m asking for fanfiction at this point.
Boris and Arkady Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic
I can’t speak on the time period or political climate - the foreword by Ursula LeGuin and afterword by Boris Strugatsky do a far better job at that than I could - but I found this short novel very enjoyable. While referred to as sci-fi, and released in the early 70s so it doesn’t really coincide with William Gibson et. al in the early 80s, it feels a lot like cyberpunk. Dealing with life’s harsh realities, the underbelly of society, a focus on the dirty, gruff side instead of the buffed and polished Star Trek view of futuristic humanity - which don’t get me wrong, I value Star Trek, and I really appreciate the optimism and idealism that it brings to the table, but I’ve also grown very cynical as I’ve gotten older, especially of technology related to human nature. Cyberpunk really scratches an itch for me nowadays.
I’ve never been huge on “first contact” stories, but the conversation that Valentine and Noonan share really captured me. Maybe the reason that we haven’t observed life other than ourselves is perhaps that life is completely outside our comprehension…
Currently reading
Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut
Collection of short stories - which I didn’t know going into it. I still have a lot of Vonnegut to read (only read Slaughterhouse V and Breakfast of Champions thus far) but there was one short story early on, Harrison Bergeron, where I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be satire or satirizing satire. So utterly over the top that I’m left scratching my head, probably not unlike a chimpanzee.
Hackers - Steven Levy
Levy has this way of taking what probably amounts to mostly just interviews with the persons involved and spinning them into this extensive narrative that takes into account concurrent events, other related persons, locations or hubs of activity, and creating sort of a retrospective. I started this one way back in 2020 and dropped it (for no particular reason, just stopped reading almost entirely), finally picked it back up.
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
A quote from me earlier in this post:
Quote
“…but I stubbornly refuse to continue until more books come out. When I get the hankering for another high fantasy series, I’ll probably pick that one up. I just feel like I’m going to be in my 50s before all the books come out…”
I started writing this way back in November, and turns out the hankering came back very quickly. I’ve heard book 5 (which just came out) is supposed to be sort of a stopping point in the series…so maybe I can get over it.
The only other thing I have to say is “oops.”
EOF