Books I read this year: 2024 edition

My Personal Literary Canon

My personal literary canon is the collection of great books I adore which blow me away, that I return to often. Over time I’ll fill this page with thoughts on each. East of Eden - John Steinbeck The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas A Month in the Country - JL Carr Any Human Heart - William Boyd Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernières And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles

Books I read this year: 2023 edition

Another year, another reasonable reading hall. A year reading is a year well spent. I completed 41 books this year and abandoned 5. That’s a completed book every 8.9 days. 6 of these books were physical, the rest were Kindle or other digital formats. I’m happy with the time I invested into reading this year, but I tended to focus more on quantity than quality. Next year I’ve set out a clearer path focused on books that I judge to be larger but more valuable time investments, favouring slower, deeper readings.

Utopia for Realists, by Rutger Bregman

Less utopian, more evidence-based-and-undeniable, the world outlined by Bregman has a change in political mindset as much as a change in policy. It feels both within grasp and, in light of the political realities, highly unlikely. What’s a “Realist”? As well as the policy changes for which Bregman advocates, the meta-argument he makes throughout the book is that policy decisions today are made on the basis of assumption (or prejudice) and ideology.

Book: Politics on the Edge

Rory Stewart, today of podcasting pseudo-fame, was previously best known for walking across Afghanistan & pretending to take selfies in a London park. An MP from 2010 to 2019, on the surface he sounds like the kind of Tory destined for power: Eton & Oxford educated, officer in the armed forces, well read. Yet this book highlights exactly why Stewart did not find the heights of success in conventional British politics, and perhaps why we wish he had.