I missed it last year, but I’m back with my end of year reading wrap up. I read just over 90 books this year, but only about 11 or 12 books that actually came out in 2024. I’ll hit some of the highlights before touching on my favorite recent releases. 

Best recommendation from an 11 year old

The Outsiders – S.E. Hinton

Somehow this book passed me by in my youth, probably too busy reading the Hardy Boys, but my 11 yr old read it for school and was blown away. He told me I had to read it and since this was the first book recommendation he’d ever given me, I couldn’t say no. He wasn’t wrong. Beautiful writing and so specific it’s universal. Unsurprisingly it’s stayed resonant for kids, but it’s not YA in the modern sense. An adult can take just as much away as a kid.

Best book to laugh and learn from

Fuzz – Mary Roach

Roach is one of my favorite science writers and comes to her subjects with just the right mix of respect, cynicism and humor. Wherever she goes, I’m happy to follow.

Best Forgotten Spy Classic

The Ashes of Loda – Andrew Garve

Set in 60’s Moscow, this book follows a journalist who ends up chasing the wrong story. He ends up on the run in the USSR and is a bit of a Cold War Rogue Male. The author had been a foreign correspondent in Moscow himself and the details ring true.

Long awaited followup that didn’t disappoint

Red Side Story – Jasper Fforde

Fforde is one of the wackiest authors currently working and he’s left us on the hook with a 10 plus year long cliffhanger following Shades of Grey. I reread Shades before starting this one and it’s a world that was fun to get back into. Spoons, maneating plants, hierarchical color based societies all are in the mix and while it shouldn’t work, Fforde finds a way with each book he writes.

Twisty mystery

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton

This is one you’re better going into cold. Sufficient to say that it’s a cracking twist on your manor house mystery with plenty of surprises and manages to hold together even when its premise should have it flying off the rails.

Amazing writing

• Tabula Rasa – John McPhee
• Looking for a Ship – John McPhee

I’m late to the writing of John McPhee but Tabula Rasa had me pick up Looking for a Ship and neither disappointed me. There’s no crazy hooks here. Just interesting real world stories told well. He’s on my “to read” list in 2025. 

Best Binges

• Dear Committee Members – Julie Schumacher
• The Shakespeare Requirement – Julie Schumacher
• The English Experience – Julie Schumacher

• Madame Maigret’s Own Case – Georges Simenon
• Maigret and the Man on the Bench – Georges Simenon

• The Stone Roses – Sarah Gainham
• The Tiger, Life – Sarah Gainham
• Time Right Deadly – Sarah Gainham
• Appointment in Vienna – Sarah Gainham
• The Cold Dark Night – Sarah Gainham
• The Silent Hostage – Sarah Gainham

I read multiple books by a few author’s and the highlights were Julie Schumacher and Sarah Gainham. Schumacher’s books were a delight and spoke to the higher ed administrative experience with both truth and humor. Epistorary books aren’t easy to pull off but Dear Committee Members has to rank up with the best, and the next two books in the trilogy continue to highlight the absurdities of modern academic life.

I’d somehow managed to miss the Maigret detective novels until recently. I’m very much going to make up for lost time now. The books drop you back in Paris and I’ve enjoyed their pace and Maigret slowly circling the culprit. Plus they are pretty short and there is nothing better than reading an entire novel in an afternoon.

I’ve already talked folks ears off on Sarah Gainham here, here and here, so I’ll be short. She’s an unjustly forgotten spy writer and her sadly out of print novel The Tiger, Life, is her masterwork that transcends the espionage genre and a window into a slice of history that’s been lost. 

Best plays I read

• Beginning
• Middle
• Market Boy
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold Play – David Eldridge

I had the chance to interview David Eldridge following the release of his latest adaptation – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. In doing so I was able to go back and read some of his earlier work. They all had great writing with characters that you could tell any actor would chop their right arm off to play. The highlight was Beginning. A great two hander from start to finish.

Best “dropped in the middle of the series”

The Black Bird by Tim Weaver

I’d picked this up in Heathrow airport a couple of years ago on my way back to the states and it finally ended up at the top of the pile. It’s part of a series and there’s something fun about popping into a long running series in the middle. The character has some baggage and if the author is good, they find a way to make the novel welcoming to a new reader. That happened here, as well as just being a compelling mystery. It had a bit of a misstep right at the end, but it wasn’t enough to completely put me off.

Best Bio

Pulling the rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox

Picked a signed copy up cheap a couple of weeks ago and quite enjoyed it. Cox has no fucks left to give and is happy to tell it like he sees it. May not be what you want if you’re Steven Segal or Jonny Depp, but as a reader, it’s catnip. The fact you can hear his voice throughout? Hats off to his ghostwriter, whoever they may be. They did a bang up job.

Best reads that came out this year

• Karla’s Choice by Nick Harkaway
• The Registry of Forgotten Objects by Miles Harvey

For a le Carre fan such as myself, I have a whole podcast about the guy’s work, I viewed Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice with both excitement and trepidation. To everyone’s relief, Harkaway’s novel successfully managed to create a new work that fits neatly into the world his father created. If you enjoy the Smiley novels, I’d bet you’ll enjoy this one.

Harvey turns in his first collection of short stories and it’s a wonderful book that hits the sweet spot for my interests. I love both short stories and history but more than that, it speaks to the idea of remembering our past along with the objects that can keep those memories alive. One of my passions (manias?) is collecting signed novels. There’s something about knowing that the author of the book also held it in their hands, even briefly, that gives the book even greater meaning to me. However, many of these books are obscure and I might be one of the last people to still be thinking about them. Will their importance be gone once I am? In thinking about the meaning we imbue in objects, these stories struck a nerve.

Notable other Spy novels

• A French Country Murder by Peter Steiner
• Half World by  Scott O’Conner
• 1989 by Val McDermid
• Absolute Friends by John le Carre

I did read a few other spy novels this year. Steiner’s was a bit like a slightly punchier Charles McCarry novel. Not sure I quite believed how our hero got out of his jam, but overall, still quite enjoyable.

O’Conner takes us back to the CIA’s flirtation with LSD and the effect that research has on a family man tasked with documenting the work. No surprise that these sins of the father end up leaving their scars on his children, but it’s handled delicately and you’ll be hoping these damaged souls can find a way to heal.

McDermid is a legend and her return to the world of her newspaper reporter protagonist is welcome. I think this book is stronger than 1979, and I’m ready for her to leap towards the new millennium in the next one.

I spoke with Shane Whaley of the Spybrary podcast on Absolute Friends and you can hear our conversation here. Long story short, although I think it’s a flawed book, there’s a lot to recommend, especially the middle where we get some classic cold war spying.

That’s it for 2024. Wishing everyone good reading in 2025!