In 2024, I read 66 books. This includes fiction and nonfiction in both print and audio form. For several years, I’ve run down my favorite fiction and nonfiction books read each year. You can see my past book run-downs below.
2023 fiction 2023 nonfiction 2022 fiction 2022 nonfiction
Here is my list of top 2024 nonfiction reads in no particular order:
Paradise Rot – Jenny Hval
Jo is a student abroad who ends up in a large, open-plan apartment with a peculiar roommate. The space is ripe with mold and rot. The walls are thin, and Jo can hear and feel everything all the time, and all of this becomes visceral and sexual in a way that’s horrific and all-consuming. The book is about bodies, sex, and displacement both in the physical world and in a social context. The online reviews focus on the amount of urine in the book, and I guess there is a lot, but if urine can appear frequently in a book and still feel plot-relevant, this is it.
Hval fronts a Norweigan metal band. From what I’ve read about her, she appears to be a talented, multifaceted artist capable of working in a number of mediums. Maybe this is why this book feels so outside of what I’m used to reading.
The Last House on Needless Street – Catriona Ward
Dee suspects her neighbor is the person who abducted her sister years ago. The neighbor is a recluse, odd, and ill-equipped socially, but the police looked into him and found no evidence of his involvement. Nevertheless, Dee charges forward with her own investigation.
The book unfolds with narration from Dee, the neighbor, the neighbor’s “daughter” Lauren, and even the neighbor’s cat. There’s a twist at the end that brings everything together. What I liked about this book is that the author set a lot of traps for herself, and if not executed well, the book could have felt ham-fisted. However, she earned my trust with each sentence and pulled off a satisfying ending.
Death Valley – Melissa Broder
The main character checks into a middle-of-nowhere desert motel to escape the pressures of her ailing father and husband. A wilderness hike puts her in contact with a magical cactus that helps her transcend space and time. She gains a greater understanding of her loved ones and herself. I enjoyed Broder’s Milk Fed too, but this book goes past quirky and into the magical.
I read this shortly after reading Miranda July’s All Fours which is also about midlife contemplation in an out of the way motel. Nonetheless, distinctly different and equally great.
Bluebeard – Kurt Vonnegut
This was a reread for me, but I was writing about books featuring tortured artists, and this is a good one. Bluebeard is the story of Rabo Karabekian (who first appeared in Breakfast of Champions), a war veteran and failed illustrator who accidentally found success as a contemporary of Rothko and Pollock. At the end of his life, he’s ready to unveil one final secret locked away in a damp potato barn.
Like much of Vonnegut’s work, this book is a heart-breaking combination of humor and sadness. Also, I enjoyed how Vonnegut skewers abstract expressionism, an art movement artificially propped up by the CIA.
All Fours – Miranda July
All of July’s work I’ve encountered, including All Fours, occupies a space in between quirk and surrealism, an uncanny realm leaving you to wonder just how far outside of straight realism we should assume we are. All Fours tells the story of a middle-aged woman who sets out on a work trip, but stops at a hotel just outside of her city where she continues to stay and exist in hiatus of her familial and work obligations.
Like Hval, writing is a secondary art form for Miranda July who is primarily known as a filmmaker. She’s a visual artist too. I’m continually fascinated by whatever she’s doing. Her book The First Bad Man was also fantastic.
