2024 was another lite reading year for me. The fact that it was an election year probably didn’t help, and one of my resolutions for 2025 is to spend a heck of a lot less time keeping up with the dreary treadmill of the 24-hour news cycle. Even videogames proved to be a better use of my time, and I wouldn’t mind plugging another 100 hours into Slay the Spire next year. But without further ado, on with the books!
Quick links
Nonfiction
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
I spent a lot of time this year competing in Super Smash Bros – going to locals, practicing my moves, and eventually competing at Seattle’s biggest-ever Smash tournament. I got 385th place out of 888 entrants, which is not too shabby given the world-class caliber of talent on display. It’s a strange use of my time if you consider videogame tournaments to be dumb, but I had a lot of fun, met some great folks, and learned a lot about competition and the esports scene.
At one of my locals, I was introduced to The Inner Game of Tennis, a sort of self-help book for tennis pros written in the 70’s. At first glance it doesn’t have much to do with videogames, but as it turns out it’s one of the best books you can read to get better at anything – sports, music, public speaking, you name it. It’s a short but dense book – there’s so much wisdom packed into so many brief, pithy sentences that you’ll probably have to re-read several paragraphs before it sinks in.
If you’re familiar with mindfulness or meditation then much of it may feel like old hat, but I still found it helpful for the immediate applications to one’s backswing (or ledgedash, in my case). It’s a good pairing with Thinking, Fast and Slow for the concept of two modes of thinking – in this case, how to quiet your conscious mind so that the wisdom of your unconscious can shine through.
Plagues Upon the Earth and The Fate Of Rome by Kyle Harper
The covid years got me interested in humanity’s experience with disease throughout history. These two books both pack a wallop, showing how disease and (maybe to a lesser extent) climate change ravaged the Roman Empire.
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, And The Path Of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin
Turchin’s model of how elites become complacent about “immiseration” of the poorer classes, leading to opportunistic “counter-elites” leveraging popular outrage to pursue their own power, sounds pretty familiar.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
I always need a reminder that real work happens when you give yourself space and time for creativity. A good pairing with John Cleese’s classic talk.
Fiction
World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler
My favorite fictional book I read this year. Paints a very compelling vision of a deindustrial future, but without a lot of the pessimism or nihilism that you might expect from the genre. In the end, it’s actually a very hopeful and uplifting book, and the characters are vivid and multi-textured. Strongly recommended if you like post-apocalyptic fiction or cli-fi.
The Death of Attila and The Firedrake by Cecilia Holland
Cecilia Holland is one of those authors whose work is bafflingly unknown. Many of her books are out-of-print, and if it hadn’t been for the recommendation of my mother, I’d have never heard of her.
If you like historical fiction, though, and if you appreciate intense attention to historical details, then her books are a great read. I love little touches like the Huns speaking Hunnish (although nobody knows what it sounded like!) or one of William the Conquerer’s knights speaking Burgundian but not (Norman) French. These are the details that a lesser author would gloss over.
I’d recommend starting with The Firedrake since it’s a bit shorter and faster-paced. I’m looking forward to devouring all of her books, regardless of which time period they’re set in.
The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
A supremely silly book, and occasionally a bit too cliché and on-the-nose with its metaphors, but still a fun read. If you like Douglas Adams or Kurt Vonnegut then you’ll probably find a lot to enjoy in its dry humor.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
I’m always a bit disappointed when speculative fiction assumes the same customs and culture of our time but transplants them onto a whiz-bang sci-fi future – just a change of scenery. But some of the time travel and metaphysical bits in this book are pretty neat. It’s a bit like a compressed Cloud Atlas in how it’s structured.
Read the Tea Leaves 