blog
Notable Books I've Read in 2024
Reading time: 5m
I’ve read 13 books this year, and I’ve decided to make a list of a few (6) of the most notable ones. I wanted to make this list not only to recommend books to anyone who may be interested, but in a few cases to complain about books that I did not enjoy (and maybe recommend them too). I’ve read a pretty even amount of fiction vs. nonfiction books, but this list consists mostly of nonfiction.
Palestine: A Socialist Introduction by Sumaya Awad, Brian Bean (4.5/5)
Comprehensive, socialist look on Palestine, relating the occupation to a global scale and creating a flow throughout the book that incites motivation for change. Some chapters I think are important:
1 Roots of the Nakba: Zionist Settler Colonialism - good introduction with nuanced discussions about how Zionism relies on antisemitism as a way to victimize themselves, while the ideology not only perpetuates antisemitism but is built upon it amongst other things.
7 What Palestinians Ask of Us: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement - an interview with Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS movement.
9 Cops Here, Bombs There: Black-Palestinian Solidarity - analysis on the correlation between the injustice black people in the US and Palestinians in Palestine face
One thing to note is that the “introduction” in the title may be misleading, since I would categorise the difficulty of this book as higher than accessible. Since it's a collection of essays, you could read one or a few selected chapters from this book and still gain knowledge about certain issues.
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen (3/5)
This was one of the most disappointing reads of the year. Being immersed in the online asexual community, I’ve heard of this book since three or four years ago when it was first published. Being asexual myself and seeing that the author is also Chinese, I expected the book to give me revelation, if not just the comfort of reading about like minded people.
This book uses a mixture of essay, memoir, and interview style to introduce the idea of asexuality. The author connects the asexual experience with race, gender, other queer identities (especially aromanticism) to create an intersectional narrative. She also introduces basic progressive ideas such as heteronormativity/allonormativity, “gold star gay”, race theories, feminist theories and more.
First of all, I'm not fond of the writing style. The author takes quite a bit of time talking about her own experiences, then dive into ideas, then would describe the experiences of other people. It was incohesive. Second, and more personally, the book simply did not present any new ideas to me. If I were to read this book three years ago when things like AVEN, allonormativity, or intersectional queerness were all relatively new to me, I might’ve enjoyed it more.
All that is to say, I really do appreciate how comprehensive this book is to introducing people to asexuality. She presented information in a way that's easily understandable, and I can imagine how it could be accessible to people new to asexuality/queer studies, younger people, ESL people, etc. I finally read this book after years of it being on my to-read list because I saw that the bookstore had it, and I've witnessed other people buying this book too. I can imagine how this book can act as people's introduction to asexuality, eventually opening up deeper discussions. If you or anyone you know has newly discovered their identity as asexual/queer, or if you simply have no knowledge in asexual/queer identities, this might be the book.
The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish (1.75/5)
Unfortunately another book that I did not enjoy, but it was so outrageous that I just had to talk about it. I am a devoted Sherlock Holmes fan. I’ve watched the Guy Ritchie movies, House, the 80s Soviet Union adaptation, the animated series by Hayao Miyazaki where they’re all dogs, the animated movie where they’re rats trying to save the rat queen, I could literally watch or read or listen to anything remotely Sherlock Holmes related. This book is unfortunately no exception.
The main character of this book is Arthur Conan Doyle himself, except he is an eight-year-old Victorian child with an exceptional brain, who happens to be living in extreme poverty with his family. In a turn of events, he was invited to go to the prestigious boarding school Baskerville Hall, where he made friends with “Jimmy” (James) and Irene and had Dr. Watson as his teacher.
I understand that this book is literally written for a younger audience, but it doesn’t mean it has to be bad. The characters are underdeveloped, and the world (a.k.a. the school) is unbuilt. The Sherlock Holmes inspired elements seem to be there only to act as a name, where the characters don’t possess the essence they do in the canon, nor do the world and plot elements. The plot is not too engaging, but the mystery elements are okay and there was one thing that actually surprised me by the end. If an eight-year-old actually genuinely enjoyed this, then I’m sorry. Either way I will probably read the second book which just came out a few months ago.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (4.75/5)
One of the best books I’ve read this year. Fanon utilises knowledge as a psychiatrist and Marxist ideas to describe the role of violence in both colonisation and revolution, the struggles between classes during a liberation, and uses real-world examples with psychiatric patients during the Algerian revolution. Throughout the book, Fanon presents tangible ideas that take from real-world revolutions, specifically with a focus on Algeria. I can clearly see his ideas being utilised right now, in the struggle for liberation throughout the world. He describes violence as a tool, and the importance of the proletarian class to become unified in the struggle. His stories about real-life psychiatric patients details not only the colonised, but also the mentality of the colonisers. This is possibly the most *useful* book I’ve read this year.
Notes from the Gallows by Julius Fučik (4.75/5)
This book is written by Fučik on cigarette papers, while he was being imprisoned by the Nazis. Two guards would give him cigarette papers to write on and smuggle them out of prison. The book describes his experience being caught, getting taken in, all the way until the moment right before he was called to be executed. I read this right after The Wretched of the Earth, and these two books really hammer in the ways in which communists fight in the real world, especially in times of heightened tension. Fučik signs this book off with, “Mankind, be vigilant, we loved you.”
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (4/5)
I’ve never been interested in alternative history but this book was an enjoyable experience. This book works off of the premise that the Black Death plague has killed ninety-nine percent of Europe’s population. It covers the history from then, all the way to the present world. We see the lives of slaves, revolutionaries, great scientists and philosophers all making history. The structures and themes of the book reflect the Chinese-dominant state of this alternative world, with stories sectioned into “books” and the idea of characters reincarnating over and over again to meet with the same groups of people in their past lives. And although we read about intellectuals questioning and deciphering their reality, whether or not Buddhism and reincarnations are real, it all goes back to love and connection. Maybe that is what history, and by proximity, existence, is about.
layout made by itinerae.
