2024 Books - Year in (mini-)review

At the start of 2024, I set out to read twelve books over twelve months. I figured this was a reasonable amount. I failed reasonably spectacularly (four out of twelves books read). Ninety percent of this was due to the birth of my second child in February, so I’m not going to be too harsh on myself, but I have reflected on that other 10%.

As a teenager and young adult, I was a ferocious reader, reading a book every week or two. I would read things I loved, things that were popular and things that emulated what I wanted to write (or not write). Reading was an enabler of my own writing, and I certainly reaped the value in reading as much as possible. However, once I finished university and moved into full-time work, my energy to read started to wane, as well as compete with other hobbies, socialising and most heinously, the rise of nomophobia.

I might be using nomophobia a bit too generously there, but I have noticed the impact phone culture has had on my attention, my ability to focus on one thing at once and how my eyes scan for and desire a screen. While I was better than most, the rise of social media in my 20s still caught me in its grasp. If I had a 10-minute gap, I would doom-scroll rather than turn the page. Instead of reading before bed and going to sleep, I would blast the blue light into my eyes.

My first child was born just as Covid kicked-off at the global level. At this point, I was fighting a stream of bad habits and being a new parent put a halt to my reading (and writing) for at least two years. An airport fiction here, a graphic novel there, but nothing substantial.

I set the goal of twelve books over twelve months to help reset my reading habits. It’s unachievable unless I do make the effort to read. While I did not achieve my goal this year, I’m hopeful that next year I will get closer to it.

Homeric Hymns (700 BCE – 500 CE)

Homer(?) – translated by Jules Cashford in 2003

Recommendation: I recommend this if you are fan of Greek mythology, but suspect the poetry holds up better in Ancient Greek.

Once you have read a few hymns, you start to pick up the mannerisms and understand the interpretation of different phrases, like how rarely other gods are referred to by their names, but rather as the child of another god.

The detailed notes at the back do a decent job at providing context, including mythological, cultural and geographical, although I could have done with a map.

I preferred the longer hymns which were more likely composed by Homer. They told deeper stories and gave more explanation to the motivations of the gods and humans. The latter hymns are a bit more focused on descriptors of the gods, or how they came into being, which is possibly due to them not written by Homer.

Xenocide (1991)

Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Saga #3

Recommendation: If you read and enjoyed Speaker for the Dead, you will enjoy this book, but this book is going more into the hard, abstract sci-fi than space-opera.

While xenocide is the framing for this story, it would be more apt to call it "Discussions". Most of the book is speculative, theoretical, and philosophical discussions by the people of two planets trying to prevent the destruction of one of those planets and prevent a subsequent multiple xenocide.

Despite the lack of action, it's still a compelling read. There's a wide ensemble of characters and while they come off a bit same/same personality-wise, their roles and motivation are very clear and so there is an excellent consistency of actions, responses and consequences throughout the book that lead to a satisfying, although maybe somewhat contrived and "fake science" solutions to the problems. Most of the dialogue is pointed and contribute to the preventing the destruction of the planet, or character development.

A major downside is that solutions and theories behind it are a bit gobbledygook, and while it's not hard to suspend disbelief, it means things resolve themselves because they just do via the science version of deus ex machina. Another issue has carried over from the preceding book is that you don't get a great sense of a sci-fi universe as there are very few descriptors, but I also understand why there isn’t a huge level of detail on this as it’s not the focus of the story.

Overall, I'd recommend if you're after a not-so-light read and are more interested in a "solve the problem" kind of story than an action sci-fi.

My Grammar And I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?) Old-School Ways to Sharpen your English (2008)

Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines

Recommendation: I would not recommend if you’re into your grammar and already have a good understanding, but might be a good entry way into better writing.

Overall, I am disappointed in this Sunday Times Bestseller. It reads more as a stream of consciousness and lacks a cohesive structure which is ironic for a book on grammar (although once you understand English enough, less ironic).

You could not use this book as a grammatical reference book, or even as a loose guide while you write. I felt the writers were spending too much effort trying to be humorous or clever, rather than being informative or insightful. That could be more of a personal preference, but I did come away feeling like the book had wasted my time.

On the plus side, the content is accurate from my baseline understand and there were a few grammatical points that were explained better than other similar books (there were also some points that were not explained as well).

Revenger (2016)

Alastair Reynolds – Revenger #1

Recommendation: A fantastically unique and interesting space opera worth reading if you don’t mind young-adult fiction.

Revenger is at its core a pirate exploration story set in a very, very distant future of our solar system full of thousands of inhabited orbiting objects. Revenger sets up a good, engaging story and characters set in a unique universe I'm keen to read more of.

However, despite the size of the world (or solar system to be more accurate), the world still felt small - likely due to being a bit lighter on the exploration than I would like. We never got a real feel of how the world operates or if it operates at all. I do find this is a consistent issue with young adult novels which lack a bit of depth or detail beyond the main story. On the plus side,

While I enjoyed the start, the middle felt a bit ambling and a waste of time, it’s been a while since I've read a young adult novel. And while I was satisfied with the heading, the whole thing had felt like it was an origin or prequel story to another story that didn't exist yet, stopping me from rating it higher.

I'm keen to read the next book in the series and hoping to get more of the world.