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Books I read in 2024

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Books I read in 2024. Tries to avoid spoiling as much as possible and therefore does not contain a very deep analysis or review of most books.

Table of content

Summary

Non-fiction:

Fiction:

Wuthering Heights

Fiction (gothic). 1847. Emily Brontë.

This book is very dark and quite depressing. All the characters are terribly unlikable. I found the book quite difficult to read (though it is very good) for these reasons: it is quite morally exhausting. Apparently some people see a tragic romantic love story in this book but there is not such a thing really. It is a story of abusive and broken relationships and broken people.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Fiction (Southern gothic?). 1960. Harper Lee.

Set in the 1930s in the Deep South of the USA as seen by a 6-8 year old girl. Certainly based on the author's life. It gives a very vivid description of that society and its racial segregation and injustice. Must read.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

Non fiction (anthropology, archeology). 2021. David Graeber and David Wengrow.

A very interesting and very ambitious book of anthropology and archeology by David Graeber (anthropologist, known for Bullshit Jobs: A Theory) and David Wengrow (archeologist). The book proposes an alternative narrative about the evolution of human civilizations. It describes the great variety of way different groups of people lived through the ages and throughout the world and the way they organized their society: what was the role of agriculture, freedom, inequalities, cities, the state, etc. The authors argue that the (mostly prehistoric) civilizations described in the book made deliberate choices regarding their political organization and that the diversity of political organization was a lot more greater than what the layperson would expect.

Note that the authors are left anarchists which certainly colors their interpretation of facts and their narratives.

See A Flawed History of Humanity, for a rebuttal of one of the claims of the book.

Poppy War trilogy

Fiction (Wuxia-ish fantasy). Rebecca F. Kuang.

A trilogy of fantasy books set in a kingdom largely based on China. The books cover topics such as wartime attrocities and is strongly based on the relations of China and Japan (the sino-japanese wars). It alludes as well to western imperalism in Asia, European racism, opium trade and the opium wars. The political commentary of the book was very interesting.

I you like this book, you might as well like:

Leave the World Behind

Fiction. 2020. Rumaan Alam.

A modern apocalyptic story about people faced with the dawn of civilization caused by some war. The book is very bleak but quite subtle in the way things are evocated.

I you like this book, you might possibly as well like (in very different styles):

Detective novels by Keigo Higashino

Fiction (detective). Keigo Higashino (東野圭吾).

Some detective novel by Keigo Higashino (who wrote a lot more). I found Newcomer and The Home Where I Once Died especially original, both in a different way.

Parallel world love story (パラレルワールド・ラブストーリー)

Fiction. 1995. Keigo Higashino (東野圭吾).

Another book by Keigo Higashino. This one is not really a crime fiction book but has more sci-fi-ish elements. I found the detection novels of the sama author much better than this one.

The Ministry for the Future

Fiction (science-fiction, climate fiction). 2020. Kim Stanley Robinson.

I knew Kim Stanley Robinson for its famous Mars trilogy[1], a series of hard sci-fi about the colonization and terraformation of Mars, I read in the 1990s. This new book is about humanity facing the big challenges we are about to face on this planet (climate change)[2]. As much as a I liked the mars books when I read it 20+ years ago, I did not really enjoy this one so much.

Gilded Needles

Fiction. 1980. Michael McDowell.

Set in and around New-Yok City in Gilded Age, with some fantasy elements. Historical depiction of the period with some social commentary.

The Promised Neverland (約束のネバーランド)

Fiction (manga). 2016–2020. Kaiu Shirai (白井カイウ) and Posuka Demizu (出水ぽすか).

A very good manga series. The story is very nice. I really did not know what it was about at all before reading it and I would suggest you do the same.

Posuka Demizu's art is really great.

Marcel Pagnol's Souvenirs d'enfance

Non fiction (autobiography). Marcel Pagnol.

A classic of French literature that I never read before. These are the first two books of a series of four autobiographic books Souvenirs d'enfance (Childhood memories), and are followed by Le Temps des secrets and Le Temps des amours (which I did not read yet). They depict the life in Provence in the 1960s. I was pleasantly surprised by these books in this regard. I had a hard time appreciating the author's unextinguishable love for killing (hunting) birds, and the long descriptions thereof, though.

You might like as well:

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

Fiction (alternate history, fantasy). 2022. Rebecca F. Kuang.

Another book by Rebecca F. Kuang. Set in an alternate reality fantasy Oxford in the 1830s with some magic. The tone and themes are somewhat similar to the ones of the Poppy War trilogy. There some interesting commentary about european (and especially British) colonialism and racism.

The Priory of the Orange Tree

Fiction (fantasy). 2016. Samantha Shannon.

An medieval fantasy story, with a world map, dragons, and all. I enjoyed reading this book but it has arguably some weak points.

You might like as well:

Serious Cryptography: A Practical Introduction to Modern Encryption

Non fiction (cryptography). Second edition (2024). Jean-Philippe Aumasson.

A great introduction on cryptography covering a wide range of topic.

I actually read La Cryptographie déchiffrée: Une introduction pratique au chiffrement moderne, the french translation by the author.

Tip: cryptopals

If you want to practice some basic cryptography (and if you know of you to write programs), you might want to check the cryptopals crypto challenges.

The King and the Lyric (?) (国王与抒情诗)

Fiction (science fiction, cyberpunk?). 2017. Li Hongwei (李宏伟).

This book does not seem to be available in English. I read the French translation (title: Pékin 2050).

Extremely weird book. A cyber-punkish crime story with some Philip K. Dick vibe. Set in a dystopian society with some sort of omni-present social network. The book is worth reading if you are not afraid of very weird books.

You might like as well:

MONSTER

Fiction (manga, detective manga). 1994–2001. Naoki Urasawa (浦沢直樹).

A classic manga that I managed to never read before. It is a crime story set in Germany in the 1980s about a surgeon trying to track a serial killer.

  1. Red Mars, 1992. Green Mars, 1993. Blue Mars, 1996. ↩︎

  2. We might wonder how we could possibly be able to manage the terraformation of Mars when we can't handle the terraformation of Earth… ↩︎