2024, A Year lived with Books
I have seen it all this year. The good, the bad, the ugly and the soul-destroying, hauntingly, titillatingly fabulous. It’s been a good reading year for me.
For the first time in a zillenia I have smashed my Goodreads reading challenge and then some. I feel inordinately proud of this entirely arbitrary achievement for two reasons.
1.) I committed to re-prioritising my ‘open’ time this year to focus less on social media, scrolling and tv and more on reading and it reveals that overall I balanced my time better.
2.) It reflects a redistribution of my identity currency to favour the activities that embody what I have always loved about me. A year and a half into motherhood and I can feel my sparkle a little and I truly believe that reading has helped that along. I think it could be anything for any new parent, whatever the thing that hobby that feels like it’s just for you go after that.
Commiting to rekindling my love of reading was some work and required some focus and sacrifice to make it happen. The year I was a pregnagranate and then subsequently a newborn zomble, I read very little. All my brains was goo as I formed a mini brain inside me and the last thing I felt like doing was reading. ESPECIALLY as a new mom when all I wanted to do was numb out to internet videos of momfluencers with aesthetically-better-than me lives. It T O O K a minute to escape that cave of dopamine spiked wonders.
My total books for the year. 42.
Eh? How in the heck did I do that? Your guess is as good as mine. I will tell you one thing that worked for me and you’re not gonna like it no siree bob. I stopped watching television during the weekdays. Now obviously there were many weeks that was not the case. Certainly in the earlier months of transitioning to mama-self I relied on tv as a form of entertainment that required nothing of me except to sit quietly and be told stories by someone else and not my brain or be in high alert newborn mode. Which was perfect. Slowly though I realised something’s gotta give if I want to get all these goddamn books in.
Nedworks presents
The Top Ten Reads of 2024*
*She shan’t be to blame if you don’t like the books she recommends. Please forward all complaints to her manager sir Gandalf the Grey (King of Us all long may he reign) Mullen.
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
5/5
I very nearly chose this book during my month for family book club. It was down to this and the next book on my list so I am happy to report either choice would have been excellent. I picked The Light Pirate up initially because of the beautiful colour of and title. I judge books by their cover, sue me. Be honest with me, can’t you feel the wind whipping your breath from your body when you look at this book?
The Light Pirate takes dystopian fiction and turns it on it’s head in a way that reveals how tales of great loss and devastation can evolve into something different but good. It is a story of survival and compassion. In a world wrecked by environmental damage, humanity lives on at the edge of civilisation powerless in the face of an earth reclaiming itself. Filled with both grit and grief, this book centers strong female characters who embody hope and resilience even as the apocalypse stares them down.
I would be surprised if it wasn’t adapted into a film or tv series. Feel free to give this a skip if you have had your fill of devastating environmental stories.
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
5/5
This book was my choice for book club and I think for the most part the other readers in the club enjoyed it. I don’t remember how I happened upon it but it was another case of me being hooked by the cover. Also I read a lot of books with female protagonists this year so this story set in a matrifocal society-one where women are the focus of daily life-was exactly the kind of story I was craving.
The Island of Sea Women tells the true history of the island of Jeju in South Korea through a fictionalized relationship between two young women, Mi-Ja and Young-Sook, whose lives were bound in friendship since childhood. The women are part of an ancient economy of deep sea diving undertaken by the women, known as haenyeo, on the island over centuries. The story follows their lives through the Japanese colonisation in the 30s/40s, World War II, and the Korean war through to today. It was not what I had expected and I think there is some extreme violence within the story that could be tough for some people to read. I found it to be devastating and beautiful. Lisa See is an incredibly thorough and devoted researcher. It is clear she worked as tirelessly as possibly to honour the story of this unique place.
If you are interested in learning more about the haenyeo divers there is a documentary on Apple TV+ called The Last of the Sea Women.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
4/5
‘Not the dame but the other Maggie Smith’, is how this author often refers to herself online. Oh how I love this writer and her command of words so much. She is an accomplished poet and this is her personal memoir detailing her life through divorce. I had been waiting to read this quite some time as I anticipated, correctly so, that it would break me open and pull out some tragically delicate thoughts and emotions. Obviously I had to wait till I was out of the postpartum period because the tears would never have stopped.
Smith details her life as she moves out of partnership to her husband through a lyrical series of vignettes. She cross examines the fundamentals of marriage, the role she played in both the deconstruction of all she has known and the investigation into who she can be for herself going forward. It may not be for everyone, her writing style is peppered with quotes, questions to the reader and has almost a theatrical dramatisation at times. There is an ethereal quality to her intonance in writing that feels raw and real.
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
5/5
The Outrun was adapted into a film starring Saoirse Ronan which I watched and can gladly say was a beautiful and honourable adaptation. I cried pretty much throughout the whole film. Before you commit to reading there is sexual violence, addiction, severe mental illness and childhood trauma in this memoir. It’s a lot, oh but it is also so exacting to life and being.
I chose this book for personal reasons and one of those is that Liptrot lives on the remote Scottish Isle of Papay. The strongest aspect of this book by far is the absolute devotion to the land, culture and indigenous creatures who call these ancient, hardy lands home. This memoir details Liptrot’s battle with alcoholism and mental unwellness in her family. More than that though, it focuses on the call to place and to responding within ourselves in pursuit of bigness, belonging. The inescapable quality of being somewhere that enlarges your living, that allows you to breathe and while it is not easy it is uniquely yours. This is a story of environmentalism, self-discovery, monasticism and beauty.
My Friends by Hisham Matar
5/5
Let me share a funny story about this book. I was on Maui and out at a local coffee shop in Makawao with my baby back when she could still be confined to a stroller for extended periods of time (oh bliss a child that isn’t ‘busy’). I was reading this book when a tourist family interrupted me to ask about it. Turns out the author is a close friend of theirs and they didn’t know he had this book recently published. They were excited to hear that I was profoundly moved by his writing and delighted to be reading it. It was such a ‘meet-cute’ moment and will forever cement this reading as a memorable one in my mind
On reading My Friends I was hooked from the beginning. It tells the story of a young Libyan man, Khaled, who grows up in Benghazi. One night he hears a short story on the radio which leads him down a path of emigration to the U.K.
His entire sense of self, and life, is rewritten against the stark contrast of a vastly different world to the one he has known. Khaled finds himself entangled within revolutionary movements and protests against the Qaddafi regime that break him both physically and psychologically. Inevitably befriending Hosam Zowa, the writer of the infamous short story that catalysed his life, Khaled is deeply introspective and considered in his storytelling. Their friendship spans decades and brings into being the dimensions of belonging, sense of home and place, exile and family. As a story the characters felt alive to me. I knew so little of the history of Libya and the politics of the Arab Spring so that was fascinating. The story was also a beautiful treatise on being with others.
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri
4/5
This book, which was published in 2012, has been on my To Be Read shelf for a few years and I never really knew why I didn’t get around to reading it until now. I found that this year, more than others, I read a lot more books from authors from diverse backgrounds, genders and ethnicities. I have a book of the month subscription of sorts that I receive and they tend to heavily lean on a wider representation of voices than what we in Ireland in the 90’s/00’s traditionally grew up on. You know, books by mostly old English white men. Not to knock their great writing, obviously they made good shit, but sure there is also equally as great writing globally that deserves to be tangled with. I digress.
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is a tragic and gripping story that honestly made me weep. I will warn you going into it, there are hefty topics dealt with in this seemingly magical story of sisterhood and imagination. It is after all telling the story of young Iranian women in the 1980’s so I am sure you can guess as to the general nature of the more traumatic events of the book. The manner in which women are regarded, treated and used by men and government is monstrous. Sadly this reality is pervasive still.
Grappling with the loss of her twin sister and mother to America whilst remaining in the suppressive Iranian Islamic regime, Saba Hafezi dreams of the life of a free woman she aches for in the West. Through fantasy and storytelling she lives a double life, one as herself growing up with a fixed destiny and the other as her twin sister free to pursue education and work and enlightenment. She is bound by blood and Sea to her sister and that bond breathes into her life even as hers becomes smaller in the world she is in.
A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
5/5
Fantasy lovers flock to me. This author’s work is just the chef’s kiss of fantasy writing. I was so delighted to see she had released this prequel to the Priory and I gobbled goobled it up dying to be taken back. This is a book you should only read if you have read The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. I suppose you could read it first and then Priory but it’s easier to work your way backwards to get a sense of the world first and then the complex history.
This was the longest book I read this year, 868 pages which is hefty to say the least. A good fantasy I find tends to fill out and spread out. World-building of this degree warrants the extra weight and I am so glad it was as immersive and rich in detail and culture as Priory was.
This is a standalone prequel set five centuries before Priory. Which is wonderful because it gives so much context for the world that exists in the now in Priory and I love seeing all the little connections and ties between the two books. The foreshadowing, the Easter eggs, the characters who are historical figures in Priory ahhhh it made me so happy.
It is more political than Priory but still as full of adventures and wild dragons and creatures, beautiful friendships, brutal deaths and of course most important of all badass fucking warrior women. What more could you ask for?
Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame
by Olivia Ford
3.5/5
Was this a 5 star read? No, but I am including it as one of my top reads of the year because it was very enjoyable and I read a lot of heavy stuff this year and this was exactly the warm fuzzy goodness I needed to balance that. This is essentially the Great British Bake-Off (Baking Show) in book form. So of course utterly scrumptious, delightful, and hopeful in every way one could want in this day and age.
Jenny is getting on in her years and after a lifetime of marital bliss and with no children to tend to, she decides to go after something just for her. She applies to be a contestant on Britain Bakes. As she secretly works her way through each week, her fame star rises like a good loaf of bread perfectly proved. Suddenly long buried stories begin to come to the surface and Jenny must contend with doors she had shut that had never been opened for her doting husband or for healing.
As I said, it’s a lovely story with enough drama to stop it from becoming too sickly sweet. Jenny is very likeable and I love the context of the Bake-Off TV show as a backdrop for her life. That show brings me a lot of peace in difficult times so to did this book give me a nice world to be in after a lot of heavy reads.
Absolution by Alice McDermott
4/5
A work of historical fiction, Absolution was a shorter read for me but every bit of it was weighted with intensity and brevity. I also received this work as a monthly subscription option and I am glad I did as I am not sure I would have picked it up otherwise. Stories that center around the American military presence during various wars internationally are not my natural ‘go to.’
The story takes place in Saigon before war broke out in 1963. It is centered around two wives of military personnel who are stationed there-Tricia and Charlene. As Tricia is brought under Charlene’s wing through her various efforts to ‘do good’ in the country, the women seek to redeem and justify the American presence in a country torn asunder by their very presence. It brings to question the ethics of ‘helping’ and mission work while also confronting the lived reality of the lives of generations of women who were trained in the ways of being wives waging their own private war against their disempowerment. We see their lives unfold over a generation who have to reckon with the reality behind a complex historical event that ripples through their lives.
I’ll tell ya McDermott is a fantastic story teller. Vietnam was brought to life around me and as the short but sweet interlude in the lives of these two women is woven around the reader you begin to fall for them as people. I read a different book also last year about the American women who were over during the Vietnam war. That book was an international bestseller and if I had to choose I would choose this as the one to read over that every time.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
5/5
I have only read one Stephen King novel in my life. That is The Shining which is an enjoyable read I took on whilst being courted by my husband because I wanted to impress him with my bravery to read scary things. HA. I don’t tend to be drawn to King’s work mostly because I am not a fan of horror (although I have made exceptions cough cough Nosferatu). I know he is an exceptionally gifted, hardworking writer with a lot of wisdom to share about the craft of writing.
Salem’s Lot is King’s second book published in 1974 which shocked me to find out. This story is classic old school horror and I love it. It has that creeping and crawling, things that go bump in the night kinda energy. A true heebie jeebies tale. Set in the sleepy, small town of Jerusalem’s Lot in New England during a summer no more notable than the next, a stranger comes who stirs up trouble and swiftly brings evil to people’s doors. Ben Mears is a writer returning to a childhood home hoping to reconcile with the darkness in his own past, yet here in Salem’s Lot darkness finds him. MUAHAHAHAHA.
Craft this book is, an absolute celebration of the craft of King. I read this with my family book club and while I was nervous going in I came out one of its biggest fans. Clearly King adores writing people and places. The whole town of Salem’s Lot is a character in and of itself, so much life written into it. For me it felt like the character of Ben Mears was a caricature of King himself which was a cute little nod. Ole King had a twisted Lovecraftian style in his writing and the suspense when it ramps up is suffocating and unrelenting. I am not sure what his writing is like nowadays but this is a long book that takes it’s time with its scenes and I find you do not often get that in books anymore so I appreciate that aspect. Don’t be daunted by the 700 plus page count, it’s worth every minute to be sucked on oh eh I mean in.
And there ya have it folks. Took me a minute to get this done because I truly wanted to suggest books I think would enrich your lives in different ways.
““Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.””
I’ll be leaving you now because I have a cuppa tea cooling quietly on the counter awaiting to be drunk, a pile of books with curled pages and bent spines beckoning for a submerging and a clock on the wall with a hand speedily spinning waiting to prod me a reminder that I have all the time and none of the time to read them all. Best get to it.