I like to set myself a goal for the number of books I will read in a given year. In previous years this was fifty books, but I found that this constrained my choices as I often passed over big doorstopper volumes because they take too long to read which could imperil my chance of reaching my target. In 2023 I dropped my goal to forty books and barely hit that target, and 2024 proved to be an exact repeat – sliding in to the finish in the last weeks of December. For 2025 I may drop down to thirty-five to allow even more room for the kind of dense books I enjoy. However, I am also hoping to read more fiction, which generally goes much faster than the kinds of history I usually read. I’ve recently been getting more review copies of academic books which has been great (academic books are expensive!) but it also means I’m reading more dense history books and I need to put some more lighter fair in there as well.
On the whole, I wouldn’t classify 2024 as a particularly great year in terms of what I read. I read some excellent books, eight* of which I’ve chosen to highlight below, but I also read a lot of books that were just fine. I don’t think I read anything that I absolutely hated, though, so that’s a win.
Non-Fiction
I read a real mix of books in 2024. I continue to dabble in American Civil War history for the We Intend to Move on Your Works project, but fewer than in previous years. If any theme was dominant this year it was the range of new books on the history and culture of tabletop games, particularly historical wargames and roleplaying games, that I read last year. I also read quite a few books on the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses as I wrapped up my own book on the Battle of Castillon.
Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath
Probably my single favorite book I read this year, and almost certainly my favorite review I wrote, this is a fascinating trip through the history of tabletop RPGs delivered by a passionate author. I could heap more praise on it, but please just read the review because I’d just be repeating myself in a worse format. I also have to give honorable mentions to the second edition of Playing at the World and the edited volume Fifty Years of D&D, both of which I adored but of the books on tabletop games I read this year it was Monsters that I enjoyed the most.
Chancellorsville by Stephen Sears
As a central Virginia of a Union-sympathetic persuasion I have a long and complex relationship with the Battle of Chancellorsville. For years I maintained an obstinate ignorance of it in rejection of the often-masturbatory glee that Neo-Confederates dump on “Lee’s greatest victory”. However, when visiting my parents over the summer I decided to grab my dad’s copy of Stephen Sears’ book down from the shelf (having previously enjoyed his book on Gettysburg) and I’m so glad I did, it gave me a newfound respect for the history of the battle and did much to complicate its status as an example of Lee’s genius overshadowing an incompetent Hooker.
A Short History of the Wars of the Roses by David Grummitt
I’m on the record as not being the biggest fan of the Wars of the Roses. A large part of this has been that histories written by posh English historians of years past assume a baseline familiarity with the personalities and details of the conflict and as a result the narratives are hard to follow and tedious to read. I previously enjoyed David Grummitt’s biography of Henry VI and so I decided to try his history of the Wars of the Roses and was delighted to find an approachable and engaging history that assumes no previous knowledge of who Earl such and such or Duke so and so was – just a delight to read.
The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge by Joe Starita
This is a book that was recommended to me many times on a subject I know nothing about and this year I finally got around to reading it. A history of the Lakota people from the mid-19th century through the 1980s told through one single family across three generations, this shows the complexities of American expansion westward and the challenges of being a native under an American imperialist state in an intimate and utterly engaging way. Highly recommended.
Fiction
I didn’t read as much fiction as I would have liked (which is becoming something of a theme, sadly). This year I revisited some favorite authors and took advantage of a trip back to Charlottesville to browse its excellent secondhand bookshops and pick up some classic paperbacks. As a fan of classic sci fi and fantasy, secondhand bookshops are treasure troves of books to tempt me.
Neutron Star by Larry Niven
The first of my classic paperback haul, I’d never read any Niven before and I was delighted with the experience. Set in his Known Universe, the stories were that flavor of hard sci fi that I find engaging without being tedious. While his protagonists tend to be stiff and largely indistinguishable from each other (a common problem for authors of the era) the setting and plots were enjoyable and different from what I’ve read before. I don’t know how much deeper into Niven’s canon I will go, but I expect to pick up at least one more in the future.
The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Not a lot to say here – I’m a huge fan of Raymond Chandler and I’m slowly reading through his catalogue, taking my time because I know there won’t be any new ones. This year I actually read quite a few modern hardboiled detective stories and while I enjoyed most of them none were as good as Chandler.
A Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality by John le Carre
I like le Carre, but I have also found his books to be so bleak that I struggle to read them – too much of a downer for me. I decided to try and tackle the Smiley series, hoping that since Smiley continues to live throughout that they can at least only be so depressing. The first two are honestly more like detective fiction than the later espionage novels that le Carre became famous for. A Call for the Dead is probably the better mystery (and has elements of espionage in it) but I adored how much A Murder of Quality is a hate letter to Eton and posh English boarding schools – you love to see it.
The Face of Chaos ed. Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey
This is an odd one, because at times I didn’t really enjoy this book and I’m not sure I would recommend it but I also cannot stop thinking about it. This is the fifth volume in the Thieves World series, a collective fantasy universe that multiple authors contributed to the development of which I learned about from Stu Horvath’s Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground. I snagged a few of these in a secondhand shop, but sadly this was the earliest volume I could find. Jumping in mid-series wasn’t the best experience, and some of the stories are a bit gross in a way that fantasy of this era was, but I remain fascinated by this idea of a shared world that multiple authors helped to advance the shared narrative of. I will absolutely return to Thieves World and I can’t help but wonder what a modern take on this style of publication would look like.
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