Top 6 Reads of 2024... So Far

My favorite books from the first half of 2024

Jul 14, 2024

Since it is officially halfway through 2024, it seems like a good time to reflect on some of my favorite books that I have read so far this year. These are the best books that I have read from January 1 through June 30, organized by the authors’ last names.

I’d love to hear about your favorite reads of the year so far. Feel free to let me know by commenting below.

The End of Days - Jenny Erpenbeck

Fiction, 238 pages

Born in East Germany, Jenny Erpenbeck draws upon the influence of the country’s tumultuous 20th century in her writing. The End of Days tracks this history in five parts, following the same protagonist and the different paths her life could have taken in each. In the first section, which takes place in the Hapsburg Empire in the early twentieth-century, the daughter of a Jewish mother and gentile father with an ancestry marred by pogroms dies as a baby. In the next chapter, this same girl survives and moves with her family to Vienna where they suffer through World War I until her life ends in her late-teens. In the third chapter, she lives through the war and moves to Russia as a dedicated communist with her husband just in time for Stalin’s first purge. In the fourth, she waits out the Second World War in Russia while the rest of the members of her family are murdered by Nazis. And in the last, most moving chapter, her son looks for a present to bring his mother from Vienna and brushes unknowingly against family heirlooms looted by Nazis and now left to the anonymous ether.

Not only is The End of Days a structurally ingenious way to view the 20th century in Germany, but it is also an incredibly moving story of the impermanence and unpredictability of life itself. So much of life is left to chance; deftly illustrated in a fascinating scene in Chapter 3 in which the arbitrary shuffling of the protagonist’s file from the desk of one Soviet official to another results in a death sentence in one version of her life and an illustrious career in the other. When I finished the final pages of this book I had to immediately re-read and then re-read aloud in order to savor how absolutely beautiful and profound they were.

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs - Kerry Howley

Non-Fiction/National Security, 227 pages

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs is a fascinating look at the ever growing American national security apparatus in the post-9/11 era, the burgeoning surveillance state, and the disaffected insiders who leaked information and paid the price. The book is a piece of narrative non-fiction, and yet it reads like no non-fiction that I’ve ever read before. Howley’s writing defies traditional composition. She doesn’t shy away from the passive voice, she uses abstract metaphors, and subtly inserts her own opinions. Despite this, everything about this book works. I was engrossed from page one and am still pondering the central quandary: in our technological age we exist as data about data, ever accessible by the powers that be. Without context, however, and the fuller picture that comes from assessing someone as an individual, the government is prone to make fatal mistakes. But how can these mistakes be rectified, if no one is allowed to know about them?

Goodbye, Vitamin - Rachel Khong

Fiction, 194

Goodbye, Vitamin takes place over the course of one year as Ruth, a college-dropout turned sonograph technician who has recently broken up with her fiancé, returns home to the Los Angeles area to help her mother care for her father who has Alzheimers. While her father is still in the early stages of his decline, his memory and cognitive ability has lapsed enough for the university chair of his department to tell him he is not allowed to keep teaching, leaving him largely rudderless and at home. Ruth is greeted by a different version of her father each day, which prompts her to reflect on his parenting, his misdeeds, and the fabric of her family.

As a child, her father kept a journal filled with little entries about Ruth’s day, such as questions she asked or things that she did, and pages of this journal begin appearing around the house. The structure of the book is similar to this journal. Instead of chapters, the book is divided by near-daily entries where Ruth describes her days, her healing, and her mourning. Just as Ruth’s father once recorded Ruth’s childlike discovery of the world, Ruth performs a similar function for her dad as his self-sufficiency declines.

And yet, despite the tragedy, this book is beautiful. It is funny. It is kind. It is nuanced. It is creative. It is innovative in form and structure. It’s a book that moved me and that I knew, as soon as I finished, would stay with me for a long time.

I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko

Non-Fiction, Russian Politics/Journalism, 350 pages

Elena Kostyuchenko was a journalist for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta until it was shut down in 2022 following Kostyuchenko’s reporting in Ukraine. Despite current events and her book’s focus on Russia’s descent into fascism, the title of her new book, I Love Russia, isn’t meant to be ironic. Instead, Kostyuchenko’s patriotism is rooted in the ordinary, forgotten people of the country who center her writing. Each chapter begins with a personal anecdote from the author’s life and then is followed by a piece of reporting outside of Moscow. In one chapter, Kostyuchenko writes about environmental degradation from the mining industry in the northernmost city of Norilsk. In another, Kostyuchenko follows local girls recruited as prostitutes. An early chapter is dedicated to the inhabitants of the obscure villages that dot the railroad tracks from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Later on, Kostyuchenko writes about two weeks that she spent living in an internat, a state-run facility for people with mental or physical impairments, and the decrepitude and exploitation exhibited towards wards of the state.

While each of the reporting snippets are distinct - the book could be viewed as a compilation of long-form magazine articles - placed together, they create a comprehensive portrait of the people that the Russian government either wishes to ignore or actively suppresses, but who populate the country nonetheless. In telling the story of the country through the individual, Kostyuchenko deftly exposes the Kremlin’s corruption and cruelty. For her work, her bravery, and her beautiful writing, Kostyuchenko has been poisoned by the state and now lives in exile, forced to leave her country and family behind.

The Bee Sting - Paul Murray

Fiction, 656 pages

No reader could feel jealous of the Barneses, a family of four falling into disrepair collectively and individually. The family-run auto shop and car dealership led by Dickie suffered in the post-2008 recession and never quite recovered. Dickie’s own personal mismanagement and repressed secrets certainly don’t help matters. To Imelda, Dickie’s wife, his behavior is nothing short of infuriating. Imelda, who grew up in poverty as the daughter of a low-level gangster, desperately craves stability but is quietly reckoning with her own tragedy from early in life. While their children might not be aware of the depth of Dickie and Imelda’s issues, they certainly notice that something is wrong. Cass, formerly a star student, falls headlong into an all-encompassing, binge-drinking filled friendship with a fellow-classmate as exit certification exams approach. Her younger brother PJ, a sweet twelve-year-old in love with science and random facts about the world, is afraid to tell his parents that his bloody feet have outgrown his shoes and instead finds solace in a friend he meets online who tries to convince PJ to run away. As the story moves between characters and jumps from past to present, a fuller picture emerges of the Barneses in all their tragic ingloriousness.

Coming in at a whopping 656 pages, The Bee Sting requires an investment of one’s time. But it worth the investment. This book garnered a lot of hype when it was released, was long-listed for the Booker prize, and earned its spot on The New York Times Top 10 Books of the Year in 2023. Murray’s writing is acerbic, witty, and nothing short of masterful. While it’s not always clear where Murray is going - indeed, at about the halfway point I started to wonder if the book was long just to be long - somehow, he’s able to tie it all back together, linking references he made in the first pages to jaw-dropping, heart-pounding revelations at the end. By the final fifty pages I couldn’t and wouldn’t put the book down, having fully given myself over to the expert craftsmanship that is Murray’s writing, structure, and pacing.

Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido

Fiction, 256 pages

Brother of the More Famous Jack traveled from aunt to aunt, across the Atlantic Ocean from England to the U.S., and then to my mom before it made its way into my hands. Originally published in 1982, the book centers around Katherine, who is an impressionable eighteen year old from the suburbs of London when she meets the eccentric Professor Jacob Goldman and his large, rambunctious family. Katherine arrives at the family’s home as the date of a much older friend of the family and leaves besotted with the much more age appropriate eldest son. She is a guest in their home many more times, becoming an adopted daughter until her heart is broken and she leaves to strike out on her own in Rome. Ten years later, she returns to England having experienced unspeakable tragedy and the obvious maturity that comes with age. Falling back in with the Goldmans, her life expands like it couldn’t before in this wonderful, brash novel of found family.

I fear no description that I write accurately describes the uniqueness and freshness of Trapido’s writing. I laughed out loud at times and ached at others. This book was published over forty years ago and yet Trapido’s descriptions of adolescence, doubt, and discovery couldn’t feel more modern.

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Want to see my favorite books of years past? Check out the links below.