2024 Reading List

“There are always those who fail to earn their place in a story.”

—Mick Herron, The Secret Hours

January

1. Act of Treason, Vince Flynn

2. Going Infinite, Michael Lewis

3. The Survivor, Kyle Mills

4. Majority, Torth Book One, Abby Goldsmith

5. By It’s Cover, Donna Leon

6. Protect and Defend, Vince Flynn

7. Give Unto Others, Donna Leon

February

8. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

9. Death at La Fenice, Donna Leon

10. Colossus Rising, Abby Goldsmith

11. Uniform Justice, Donna Leon

12. The Women, Kristin Hannah

13. Transient Desires, Donna Leon

14. Absolution, Alice McDermott

15. A Book of Noises, Notes on the Auraculous, Caspar Henderson

16. Owning Up, George Pelecanos

17. Spy vs. Spy Omnibus, Antonio Prohias

March

18. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

19. Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange

20. The Hunter, Tana French 

21. Three-Inch Teeth, C.J. Box

22. Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo

23. Headshot, Rita Bullwinkel

24. The Weather in Berlin, Ward Just

25. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 6, 1957-1958, Milton Caniff

26. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

April

27. James, Percival Everett

28. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 7, 1959-1960, Milton Caniff

29. The Rejection Collection, Cartoons You Never Saw, and 

        Never Will See, in The New Yorker. Ed. Matthew Diffee

30. The General in His Labyrinth, Gabriel García Márquez

31. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 8, 1961-1962, Milton Caniff

32. Table for Two, Amor Towles

33. One of Ours, Willa Cather

34. City In Ruins, Don Winslow

35. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 9, 1963-1964, Milton Caniff

36. After You’d Gone, Maggie O’Farrell

37. The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam

38. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

39. The Lede, Dispatches From A Life in the Press, Calvin Trillin

May

40. Chasing Bright Medusas, A Life of Willa Cather, Benjamin Taylor

41. This Must Be The Place, Maggie O’Farrell

42. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 10, 1965-1966, Milton Caniff

43. Sharpe’s Command, Bernard Cornwell

44. The Blues Brothers, An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the 

        Making of an American Film Classic, Daniel De Visé

45. The Distance Between Us, Maggie O’Farrell

46. An Unfinished Love Story, A Personal History of the 1960s, 

        Doris Kearns Goodwin

47. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 11, 1967-1968, Milton Caniff

48. World of Wreckage, Abby Goldsmith

June

49. You Like It Darker, Stephen King

50. Trace Elements, Donna Leon

51. Enemy of the State, Kyle Mills

52. The Complete Steve Canyon, Vol. 12, 1969-1970, Milton Caniff

53. One Perfect Couple, Ruth Ware

54. 3 Shades of Blue, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the 

        Lost Empire of Cool, James Kaplan

55. Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips

56. Red War, Kyle Mills

57. Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares 

        About Words, Anne Curzan

58. The Temptation of Forgiveness, Donna Leon

July

59. First Frost, Craig Johnson

60. Fire Exit, Morgan Talty

61. Don’t Let The Devil Ride, Ace Atkins

62. Willie, Waylon, and the Boys, Brian Fairbanks
63. Broiler, Eli Cranor

64. Farewell, Amethystine, Walter Mosley

65. A Refiner’s Fire, Donna Leon

66. The Third Option, Vince Flynn

August

67. Difficult Loves, Italo Calvino

68. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, Peter S. Beagle

69. Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, 

        and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimerer

70. Warlock, Jim Harrison

71. There Was Nothing You Could Do, Bruce Springteen’s “Born In The U.S.A.” 

        and the End of the Heartland, Steven Hyden

72. Worst Case Scenario, T.J. Newman

73. Blind to Midnight, Reed Farrel Coleman

74. Keeper, Greg Rucka

75. The Bookshop, A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss

76. Widows, Ed McBain

77. Hush Money, Robert B. Parker

September

78. The Shining, Stephen King

79. The Times, How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, 

        and the Transformation of Journalism. Adam Nagourney

80. Dressed for Death, Donna Leon

81. The Secret Hours, Mick Herron

82. Death at the Sign of the Rook, Kate Atkinson

83. Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout

84. Capture or Kill, Vince Flynn

85. Death and Judgment, Donna Leon

October

86. Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner

87. The Black Loch, Peter May

88. The Mythmakers, The Remarkable Fellowship of 

        C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien, John Hendrix

89. The Siege, Ben Macintyre

90. The Stand, Stephen King

91. The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich

November

92. The Waiting, Michael Connelly

93. In Too Deep, Lee Child & Andrew Child

94. Midnight and Blue, Ian Rankin

95. Perchance to Dream, Charles Beaumont

96. Playground, Richard Powers

97. Where They Last Saw Her, Marcie R. Rendon

98. The Lazarus Man, Richard Price

99. The Best of Richard Matheson, Richard Matheson

December

100. The Blue Hour, Paula Hawkins

101. Paper of Wreckage, An Oral History of the New York Post, 1976-2024, 

        Susan Mulcahy & Frank DiGiacomo

102. Safe Enough, Lee Child

103. In A Lonely Place, Dorothy B. Hughes

104. The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro

105. The Rest is Memory, Lily Tuck

106. Tooth and Claw, Craig Johnson

107. Hippie Inc., Michael Klassen

108. Alter Ego, Alex Segura

109. The Trial, Franz Kafka

Thoughts on 2023

Best Books —

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

Chenneville by Paulette Jiles

The Wager by David Grann

Ann Patchett is an incredible writer, and owns a bookstore. What more do you need to know? This is her best book in years.  

Lehane is the author of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. In Small Mercies he gives us a strong female protagonist. When the movie is made, someone is going to win an Oscar. 

You may have never heard of Paulette Jiles. She lives in Texas, writes about Texas and writes about Texas just after the Civil War.  In other words, Paulette writes westerns, which means the East Coast literary snobs regard her as a regional writer, not really worthy of your attention. Fortunately, Paulette chooses to ignore this. Her last three books, Map of the World, Simon the Fiddler and Chenneville are well worth your time.

The Wager is the outlier on this list. It’s non-fiction that reads like a novel. The sub-title says it all, “A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder”. Grann is also the author of Killers of the Flower Moon.

Lots of mysteries, thrillers and science fiction on this list — old and new.

In the mystery-thriller genre the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron is terrific. It is also a fine series on Apple TV starring Gary Oldman.  It’s John LeCarre with a sense of humor.

I also recommend Michael Connelly, Don Winslow, S.A. Cosby and Ruth Ware. Among classics, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca exceeded expectations. And don’t sleep on Ross Macdonald and Raymond Chandler.

As for sci-fi, the sentient spiders in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time are incredibly creepy. Children of Time is the first in a trilogy. Another sci-fi trilogy worthy of attention is Hugh Howey’s Silo series. Yes, this is also a series on Apple TV.  The first book is Wool.

Also recommended:

Historical fiction — Bernard Cornwell is simply the best. I absolutely love his Sharpe series as well as his Saxon series.

Classics — My Antonia by Willa Cather is a book I read annually. Anything by Dickens. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

Non-Fiction — MCU, The Reign of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards.  The Rediscovery of America, Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk. Larry McMurtry, A Life by Tracy Daugherty.

Stories — Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty.

Finale — 108 books in 2023.  

           3,742 since I started this list in 1996.