Images taken from unsplash.com.

Introduction

As 2024 wraps up and I do my best to recover from whatever cold/mild flu is trying to keep me from New Year’s celebrations, I thought it might be a good moment to write up my highlights in things I read this year, across novels, non-fiction, and blogs. I was fortunate enough to hit my Goodreads challenge of 15 books, with a bonus one snuck in as my immune system confined me to the indoors, with a good spread across fiction and non-fiction!

Fantasy and sci-fi

Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman
Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman
A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon

I started off this year reading the novella’s based in Philip Pullman’s world of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust, Once Upon a Time in the North and Lyra’s Oxford. I’ve always loved this world but never got round to reading these short books, which served as a nice holdover over until the third and final book in the trilogy gets released, which I think we can be pretty confident of having a release date next year! Lyra’s Oxford depicts her life in Oxford after the events of The Amber Spyglass in a short story that has some links into The Secret Commonwealth. It expands on the Oxford that exists in the world of His Dark Materials, along with some maps and other documents that flesh out the world a bit more. Once Upon a Time in the North is a short story describing the first meeting of Iorek and Lee Scoresby, two fan favourite characters from His Dark Materials. I liked both of these novellas, but wouldn’t consider either of them mandatory reading for the series as a whole, although Lyra’s Oxford does give a nice introduction to some characters we encounter again in The Secret Commonwealth, and returning to Philip Pullman’s world is always a treat.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon is a prequel to 2019’s The Priory of the Orange Tree, which introduced her fantasy world of diverse cultures in a “feminist retelling of Saint George and the Dragon”. While I’m probably not the exact target audience for these books, like the previous title, A Day of Fallen Night was a great read. Some of the issues in pacing and characterisation have definitely improved since the last book, and I think this will only get better as Shannon re-visits the rich fantasy world of Roots of Chaos that she’s created.

Horror

Pet Sematary, Stephen King

In terms of horror books, I had a fairly limited year, but Pet Sematary was a real stand out among all the books I read. This was a fantastic read and I can see why it’s always highlighted as one of King’s best, so I would definitely recommend to any horror fans or anyone who has enjoyed his other works. This book is definitely up there with some of King’s most distributing, and he recently said himself “This is awful. This is really f—ing terrible.”. While I think The Shining is still his scariest book, this definitely stands out as his most horrifying.

Crime and espionage

Thirteen, Steve Cavanagh
Absolute Friends, John le Carre
Strip Jack, Ian Rankin

Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh came with the recommendation of Chris Dillon, and it did not disappoint. A really great thriller and I want to make sure I try more of Cavanagh’s stuff in 2025.

Absolute Friends by John le Carre was a kind lend from Thomas Lee, who is responsible for introducing me to the works of le Carre. This is definitely one of le Carre’s lesser known novels, covering a friendship across many decades of the 20th century across divided Europe, and feels like one of le Carre’s works that might have a hint of self-insertion in it. While the ending is a little bit out of left field, I would recommend this as one for fans of slow burn espionage to pick up.

I finished up Strip Jack recently, and it’s a great entry to the Rebus series, with a tight and focussed story. As one of the earlier Rebus novels, characters like Siobhan and Cafferty are present, but I found I didn’t miss them that much. Would recommend to any Rebus or Scottish crime fans.

Other fiction

Watership Down, Richard Adams
Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee
Close to Home, Michael Magee
Foster, Claire Keegan

With only vague memories of watching the TV show as a child, I found Watership Down a really enjoyable book, that lived up to its reputation of being filled with adventure, great characters, and conflict you wouldn’t expect in a book about rabbits. I was amazed at the depth of the rabbit lore and how well the story stands up, but I’m not sure who I would recommend this to - a bit too horrifying for young children, but maybe not what a lot of adults are looking for, but doesn’t really fit into young adult fiction? Anyway, it doesn’t matter - a great book that remains rightfully considered as a classic.

Overall, I think I enjoyed Go Set a Watchman a lot more than the near-universal negative response it got when it was published. It’s definitely a strange book, especially given how established and influential its predecessor is. For me, it seemed to meander quite a bit, then jump to it’s conclusion all of a sudden. It nearly felt like there was another act, or another entire novel, that could have been there to describe how Scout arrived at the final state of her relationship with father. It really does feel like a shame that this is what we got from the Lee estate, but does not diminish any significance of the first book.

Close to Home by Michael Magee was a standout novel of the year for me. This semi-autobiographical work based in modern Belfast tackles dealing with the past, finding personal identity, and the working class in Belfast.

Foster by Claire Keegan was a wonderfully written novella, depicting life in rural Ireland, and I definitely want to read more of her works in 2025.

Non-fiction

Monsters, Claire Dederer
You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here, Benji Waterhouse
Not the End of the World, Hannah Ritchie
GCHQ, Richard J. Aldrich
The Future of Geography, Tim Marshall

You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here by Dr. Benji Waterhouse was an enlightening and funny dive into the world of psychiatry, as well as Benji’s personal life. This book had a fantastic opening dedication and I’d hugely recommend.

Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie was another great non-fiction reads of this year, with an optimistic outlook on what we can do to make our planet sustainable. Would give this a wholehearted recommendation for anyone. We were also lucky enough to see Hannah Ritchie present this book at the wonderful Topping Books in Edinburgh, where she was able to answer any and all questions about her research on the spot! She also has a great substack, Sustainability by Numbers, where she continues to share about the climate and data.

Monsters by Claire Dederer was a good read that starts off trying to answer the question “how can we enjoy great art made by terrible people?”, a question that has only become more pertinent as the number of artists found guilty of various crimes rises. This book diverted into a more autobiographical work as it went along, and while I’m not sure if it fully answered the question it set out to answer, I enjoyed the analysis of the history of people who have created notable works. The history of the UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency is covered in GCHQ by Richard J. Aldrich. I learnt a lot about the organisation and its role in the Cold War, with the final 100 pages being the most interesting as GCHQ finds its place in the modern age, but some of the sections were quite dense and weighed down by the amount of information in them.

The Future of Geography by Tim Marshall was another great work by the author of Prisoners of Geography. The history of the space race during the Cold War and the competition for space in the 21st century will change our world were great reads and I would recommend this to any geography, politics, or space nerd.

Substacks/blogs

This year I got a bit more into Substack, which has become a pleasant spot on the internet for people to write about their niche interests, with authors having control over what content is paid for and readers not being swamped by adverts.

The Silver Bulletin, by Nate Silver
- This blog covers analysis on elections, media, and sports and was a great resource for interpreting data during the 2024 US election.
Very Normal by Christian Pascual
- This substack focuses on an approachable manner to teaching concepts statistics, and Christian also has a great YouTube channel.
Sustainability by Numbers, by Hannah Ritchie
- I’ve mentioned this above, but this substack focuses on applying data to understand the challenges facing our climate, from the author of Not the End of the World.
The Edinburgh Minute, by Michael MacLeod
- This doesn’t quite fit among the other substacks, but for local news in Edinburgh, this daily newsletter can’t be beaten. Highlight recommend.

Some wonderful bookshops

I also wanted to highlight some of the great bookshops I’ve been to in Edinburgh, Belfast, and Nashville this year, which have fuelled my reading.

Here’s to another great year of reading in 2025!