The 10 Best Books that I read in 2024

by Catalina Bonati

This is a list of great books that I read this year. As you may note, none of them were actually published in 2024. Oops.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (2018)

This is the story of a Chicago art director named Yale spanning from his years at university to many decades later. In the 80s during the AIDS epidemic Yale’s friends slowly become afflicted, which are moving and intense scenes. Fiona, the sister of one of Yale’s deceased friends, becomes closer to Yale’s remaining group of friends and soon they are the only ones left. Their jobs and the arts are important aspects of survival to them. Yale is focused on obtaining a collection of previously unpublished artworks by variety of artists from the muse herself, and Fiona is navigating the disaster of the AIDS epidemic by being everyone’s rock. Fiona eventually starts a family and becomes estranged from her daughter, leading her into Paris and back into the arms her friend Yale. Together they stand solidly guarding the memories of their ravaged generation.

This book is heartbreaking and tender and really delves into the gritty circumstances of the AIDS epidemic within the gay community in America. From social prejudice even within the medical community, family estrangement, and lack of funding for scientific research, the main characters are young and are learning along the way about how to deal with this national health crisis. As a reader, the story is distressing yet nuanced and well told. It might have been my favorite novel to read in 2024.

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance (1950)

This is a short collection of science fantasy short stories that are all set in the world of Ascolais, a future Earth in which the sun is dying and so are its civilizations. Magic and wizardry are abundant in this world and although the sun is tired and dying, colors are strange and abundant. Since the sun sun is weak the sky is vermillion, plants have become strange shades, and animals have become fierce monsters. Wizards are abundantly using spells to better their daily lives, which are usually complex and can lead into other worlds or even create other human beings. The sci fi and fantasy are very well integrated, as spells can dabble in genetics and cloning, and are apparently based on physics and math. Wizards are often competing for the most powerful spells and go on quests for the ultimate forbidden knowledge.

This collection is a unique take on dystopian and apocalyptic worlds and the fantasy elements of spells and quests does not get repetitive and regularly expand the Ascolais world. This book is unlike any other fantasy book I’ve read, and it’s the first book in the Dying Earth trilogy.

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini (2017)

This is a period piece about the imagined childhood of mathematician Ada Lovelace in the early 1800s England. With a strict mother who forbids any mention of her poet father Lord Byron, Ada is raised in an environment which prohibits any imaginative games and instead focuses on study. Ada is attracted to math and amateur inventions, and upon her introduction to society she encounters the intellectual circles of inventors, engineers, and mathematicians which allow her own analytical mind to thrive. Through an introduction to Charles Babbage, Ada comes to work on the computer prototypes: the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine.

Based on Ada Lovelace’s true life and written as if a memoir, this book truly brings to life the essence of Georgian England and reads almost as if written in the actual Regency. Chiaverini also brings to life Mary Somerville, another woman mathematician who was a friend and mentor to Ada Lovelace. Ada’s relationship to her parents and her upbringing are unusual and interesting, and this book was an overall fascinating read.

Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes (1930)

This book is a modern classic which I only just picked up this year. This is the story of a poor family in 1930s Kansas. Sandy Rogers is a boy who attends school and helps deliver the laundry that his grandmother washes for rich white families. His Aunt Harriet is a young girl who is looking to start her own life who runs off to join the carnival. His father is often lazy and travels the country looking for work, and his mother is a housekeeper who later decides to leave her job to travel alongside her husband. Sandy is often left to his own devices by his family members is looked after mainly by his grandmother and later on by his Aunt Tempy, who dislikes him. Sandy struggles against poverty and is often looking for love despite the many hardships that life throws at him. Partly semi-autobiographical, Langston Hughes bases this book on his own experience of Blackness in 1930s Kansas. A leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes’ prose is heartwarming that despite the often bleak content of the book, is never without warmth and depth. This book is a short read that is hard to put down.    

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (1977)

This novel does not vary from Philip K. Dick’s general operating themes of mind-altering drugs and intensely paranoid characters that run from government surveillance. However, the plot of this novel is much tighter than other Philip K. Dick novels (in my opinion) and brings all together into a brilliant and slightly schizophrenic story. In this novel, Bob Arctor is an undercover narcotics agent who must use the lethal Substance D, or Substance Death. In this future, undercover agents are so involved in their work that not even their bosses know who they are, and Bob Arctor finds himself under suspicion of sourcing Substance D himself. Arctor is trapped in a loop in which he cannot reveal his identity while being told to investigate himself, all under the brain-rotting and hallucinogenic effects of the substance. Trippy yet focused, this story paces rapidly through an assortment of ridiculous situations that the main character finds himself in. Dick also adds a variety of interesting new cybertech.

A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown (2006)

This is a memoir written by the recovering addict and now attorney Cupcake Brown. A victim of the state foster system, Brown tells us of her years being addicted to crack cocaine and the habits that she acquired to maintain her addiction, such as prostitution, or what she calls “turning tricks”, selling rented furniture, selling weed, and becoming a gang member. She deludes herself that her addiction is under control because she is able to hold down a job—admittedly this does not last long. She is finally able to take a good look at herself on an occasion in which she is wakes up behind a dumpster and must head into work. She finds help in her work colleagues and starts attending AA meetings, which eventually lead her to a more stable state of mind and is able to find a job and attend university.

This memoir is clear in the consequences of each event, something which can only come with hindsight. Cupcake does not view herself as a victim but as a survivor, and with each harrowing occurrence her will to survive becomes stronger. This memoir is not only about addiction, but about the failings of the California state to take care of children in foster care and views with compassion the ordeals of children who grow up into drugs, alcohol, and prostitution in order to deal with the lack of emotional and financial support in their lives.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (1991)

Jung Chang tells the history of herself, her mother, and her grandmother living in Mao’s China. In the late 1800s-early 1900s, Chang’s grandmother Yu-Fang was raised with bound feet and was married off as a concubine to a war general. She lived in a gilded cage in which she was not allowed to leave her mansion and was watched closely at all times by the general’s servants. Chang’s mother, Bao, was born during this time, which led them to live within the general’s main house with his wife. Bao is taken away from Yu-Fang and given to the first wife. Yu-Fang and Bao must eventually make an escape and falsely inform the general’s family that Bao had passed away. As a teenager, Bao begins to work in Mao’s Red Army and for the Chinese Communist Party. She marries an officer in the Red Army and as a low-ranking member she must make a long and arduous trek into a village where she must work to prove her membership. Eventually Bao moves in with her husband and has several children, yet as Mao grew in popularity the family is investigated and eventually imprisoned throughout the years for mild criticisms of the government. Jung Chang becomes part of the Red Guards and actively participates in the vandalization and persecution of culture throughout the Cultural Revolution. Chang eventually enters university and gains a scholarship to study in the UK.

This book is lengthy and unlike any other in the depth of the family’s involvement in the Communist party and the recollection of its turmoil throughout the near 100 years that is spanned in Chang’s autobiography. The deep dive into the cult of Mao and the absolute destruction of history and culture throughout the revolution is truly lived and understood by Chang and communicated clearly to the reader. This autobiographical novel is recommended to those who wish to immersively understand the Communist legacy of China.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil (2018)

Clemantine Wamariya narrates her childhood with her parents and siblings in Kigali in the small years before the Rwandan Genocide. She and her sister Claire are sent away from their home in the city to her extended family home in the countryside which was a refuge for young female family members fleeing the violence in the cities. Upon being raided, Claire and Clemantine flee the home and walk for weeks among other fleeing Rwandans, eventually ending up in a refugee camp in Burundi. Due to violence and unstable living conditions, they flee from camp to camp in then Zaire, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and South Africa. Claire meets her husband in Tanzania and soon they have children. They live with the husband’s family in Zaire and must then flee this country as well as it descends into conflict. In South Africa, Clemantine attends school and takes care of the children while Claire must find creative ways to make ends meet. They apply for asylum in the United States, which is granted after some time and then resettle in Chicago. Wamariya relates her problems in assimilating to American society after seven years of living and escaping war zones, not knowing if her family was still alive. She attends Yale University and eventually is reunited with her family.

Wamariya’s story is unique in its storytelling: she remembers war through the eyes of a child, yet with the problem-solving mentality of an adult. She has similar culture shock and assimilation problems once she reaches the US that can be read in other memoirs and novels, yet her recollection of her trauma is so poignant that is seems as if war has followed her and has only taken a new shape. Her story is told in an interesting way; fragmented and blurred, just like the memory of a child.     

The Song of Kiều: A New Lament by Nguyễn Du (1820)

Based on the 17th century Chinese novel Jīn Yún Qiào by Xu Wei, The Song of Kiều: A New Lament is a Vietnamese poetic retelling through the sociopolitical lens of 18th century Vietnam. Written in traditional Vietnamese verse, Du’s version tells the story of Kiều, who in exchange for her family’s wellbeing must make a profitable marriage to someone who she thinks is a rich man but turns out to be a pimp. After living in a brothel Kiều attempts to make an escape into the arms of a new lover, who then turns out to be an actor hired to belittle and humiliate Kiều. Kiều later falls in love with a new man and they marry without Kiều knowing of the man’s wife. She lives as a concubine without her knowledge, yet the wife knows of her and kidnaps Kiều and brings her the main house as a slave. After this Kiều must runs away and must contrive to survive yet she is betrayed and is forced once more into prostitution. She meets a new man who is a powerful leader and soon she takes revenge unto those who did her harm, though after this once again she falls into tragedy.

This story does not have a single dull moment, and is filled with nature-inspired metaphors, ghosts, and laments. The verse is beautiful and uplifting and completely romantic. Its historical context is also quite intriguing to those who are not familiar.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

This book is so unique in its plot and particularly in its use of language. Alex is a young thug with his own gang of villains who rape, rob, kill, and humiliate at will. After being caught by police, Alex is sent to jail where he must undergo a life-altering therapy which makes him physically adverse to violence. After he is set free, he has trouble finding his new place in life and must confront old acquaintances who vigorously wish him harm.

This book uses Russian-inspired slang not only in dialogue but within the narrative itself. It’s sometimes difficult to read fluently and every character has their own reaction to Alex’s idiolect. Alex encounters other gangs who also have their own slang which sometimes Alex doesn’t understand, and within the book characters rarely come across clearly to each other. The marvelous use of language as a theme and as a major storytelling device is genius and the plot of the book is clear and moves along at a fluid pace. Definitely the most unique book that I read in 2024.