By: William Watson
I decided it was time to put my phone down and start reading more. I mean…symbolically since I read mostly on the Kindle app on my phone, but still the effort and goal was there. I read a lot more this year than in past years, but I am still fighting the A.D.D. rush you get from scrolling Facebook. Which is a fine product produced by a fine company staffed with fine people.
Also, Ryan and I work there…
But when I wasn’t marveling at the connections from Facebook, the amazing images of Instagram, or the augmented world of Quest or Ray Ban Metas (see parental warnings for appropriate age usage!), I was reading new books. Well…they are new to me anyway. This is the only of my annual lists that isn’t restricted to content that was released this year. There are too many books published to get them all when they come out. These are instead the best books I read in 2024, but only one of them (#2 on my list) was released this year.
Time to jump right into the list!
Top Ten
10. Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton
What it is about: “On a fairly routine scouting mission, [settlement colony clone worker] Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, surprisingly helped back by native life, Mickey7’s fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and if caught, they will likely be thrown into the recycler for protein.” (FICTION)
Why I liked It: It wasn’t overly heady sci-fi, but it was a fun story with good world building. The idea of clones and shared memories is a concept I enjoy exploring. Like if you are a clone, is the memory you have been passed really yours? Or if you pass the memories you have to a clone after you die, do you really live on? What makes you “you”? This book has a clever exploration of those themes and had some really cool world building. I can’t wait to see what Parasite director Bong Joon-ho does with the film adaptation later this year.
9. Pines by Blake Crouch
What it is about: “Wayward Pines, Idaho, is quintessential small-town America–or so it seems. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in the hospital, Ethan comes to with no ID and no cell phone. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but sometimes feels…off. As days pass, Ethan’s investigation into his colleagues’ disappearance turns up more questions than answers.” (FICTION)
Why I liked It: After watching Blake Crouch showroom a near perfect adaptation of one of my favorite books, Dark Matter, I decided to give his earlier work a try. This is a fun page turner where you don’t know if it is a real world mystery, a horror novel, or a science fiction tale gone wild. I will definitely complete the other two parts of the series, which should be easy because all of the books are about 300 pages.
8. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
What it is about: “From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a thrilling story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court-martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: I really loved Grann’s book, The Lost City of Z, and I also got to hear him speak at my son’s Boston University commencement in May. So it was a good time to read his latest book about a shipwreck and what desperation does to humanity. The book could be dry at first, as the book collects a lot of the narrative for diaries and ship logs, but once the action gets going, Grann whips up a great story.
7. Freezing Order : A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath by Bill Browder
What it is about: “Following his explosive New York Times bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: While not as good as the first book on the subject, Red Notice, it is still very important and timely. This covers more about Browder’s life after the passage of the Magnitsky Act and famous Browder comes across a little smugger than activist Browder. But the efforts by Russia to pay him back shows how dangerous Putin is to cross.
6. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre
What it is about: “Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world. But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: I love the nonfiction spy books of Ben Macintyre and this is one of his better offerings (the best is The Spy and the Traitor). Like his best works, this reads more like a novel than a history in telling the story of the most damaging spy in the history of Western Civilization. Browder generally focuses on British intelligence, so Americans might not be as familiar with Philby, but his name is as synonymous with “traitor: in the UK as is Benedict Arnold is in the U.S. In addition to this book, I also read (and recommend) two other Macintyre books this year: Prisoners of the Castle and Rogue Heroes.
5. Caesar’s Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Power and Greed of Wall Street by Max Frumes and Sunjeet Indap
What it is about: “It was the most brutal corporate restructuring in Wall Street history. The 2015 bankruptcy brawl for the storied casino giant, Caesars Entertainment, pitted brilliant and ruthless private equity legends against the world’s most relentless hedge fund wizards.
In the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Big Short comes the riveting, multi-dimensional poker game between private equity firms and distressed debt hedge funds that played out from the Vegas Strip to Manhattan boardrooms to Chicago courthouses and even, for a moment, the halls of the United States Congress.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: I love business books that read like narrative stories. This book about rival groups of investors fighting to maximize their returns in one of the ugliest and most interesting bankruptcies in history. This one is a little heady on corporate finance, so being a lawyer with an MBA helped. At least I finally used my MBA for something…
4. The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
What it is about: “America’s First Families are unknowable in many ways. No one has insight into their true character like the people who serve their meals and make their beds every day. Full of stories and details by turns dramatic, humorous, and heartwarming, The Residence reveals daily life in the White House as it is really lived through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers, and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: It is really cool seeing the First Family through the eyes of the people who cook their food, clean their sheets, and tend to the grounds. Though most of the staff tend to be liberal, their love of the First Families went well beyond politics, where the staff found themselves rooting for the incumbent because they had become so attached. This covers the families from JFK to Obama, but I will give a small spoiler: Every president and first lady is playing for second favorite behind Poppy Bush and Barbara. They were the most beloved First Family ever and some of the stories of their kindness makes me proud they were Houstonians!
3. The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
What it is about: “Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he’s on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian – leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies. Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.
Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it. Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he’s about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.” (FICTION)
Why I liked It: I read three books in this trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and The Last Arguments of Kings) but only wanted to include it as one entry. If I had included it separately, it would have occupied three spaces on the list because I loved this world. It has a lot of humor, combat, and political intrigue. Not as deep or dense as Game of Thrones, but maybe the Diet Coke version. It is just a fun and easy read with the characters engaging in disparate battles across their continent, only to wind up in a party on a central mission that plays out over the trilogy. This is like a fun, familiar Dungeon’s and Dragons campaign.
2. Cue the Sun by Emily Nussbaum
What it is about: “Who invented reality TV, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre, and why can’t we look away from it? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary,” Emily Nussbaum unearths the surprising origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who created it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue The Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake.” (NON-FICTION)
Why I liked It: I really read this book on a flyer, expecting a catty history dishing dirt starting with Survivor and going to the era of Real Housewives. It had all of that, but so much more. This was a smart book about the full evolution of a shady genre. It helps when a Pulitzer Prize winner takes you on the journey that started back in the days of radio, through early TV game shows, Candid Camera, PBS’s American Family in the seventies, The Real World, and through today. This book covered everything in a smart and insightful manner. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book!
NUMBER ONE!
1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
What it is about: “Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.
Or does he?” (FICTION)
Why I liked It: Weir’s The Martian is one of my very favorite books of all time, but I just got around to reading this because I thought it was his second book that I skipped because it got weak reviews (Artemis). But I finally gave it a shot on audio book and I might like it more than The Martian. It is hard to tell why I like this without giving away spoilers so I would recommend going in blind if you like smart space travel and science fiction. I also think the audio book is the way to go because the performances were absolutely brilliant. Cannot wait to see the movie starring Ryan Gosling.
Well, that’s the top ten. Looking forward to reading more in the new year.
