I: ABC Top 5 2024: Lauren, Bob and Else

We are back with our 5(ish) favorite reads (and games) of 2024!

We try very hard to keep it to five, but it’s simply not always possible. So, per staff member there may be more or less than five titles, but there can also be an A and a B list, memorable reads or just plain marvelous books.

We’re presenting our lists in bite-size chunks to make them more digestible, as there are more than 150 titles for you to sink your teeth into.
We hope to inspire you to try some of them in the new year.

Happy reading (and playing)!

Lauren

I am honestly having a hard time remembering what I read this year—all the more reason to make a fancy online To Be Read and To Read list in 2025!

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
By far the best book I read this year. The idea of “God” as a bad time manager is intriguing. “I mean he’s always late, and cannot prioritise.”

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Another recommendation from ABC’s Lynn that was a standout.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Always love a novel with a strong, creative, smart and trailblazing woman main character like Garmus’ Elizabeth Zott. Especially when it’s entertaining and well-written.

Flavour by Sabrina Ghayour
Picked up this cookbook at ABC for a friend. It looked so inviting that I got one for myself, too. (Is there any other way to shop for books?) I’m enjoying Ghayour’s Middle Eastern recipes immensely—proof that less is more in the kitchen.

What I’m looking forward to reading in 2025:

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Because.

 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Comes highly recommended by ABC and Dutchnews book reviewer Molly Quell. That’s good enough for me.

Merch:
Have I plugged ABC’s pens yet this year? They’re the BEST, BEST, BEST!!!

And my whole family is enjoying the mini-ABC Booklover totes. Minis are apparently very in with the young crowd (read: my daughters). And when filled with a book or two…— The. Perfect. Gift.

Bob

Honorable mentions:

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth by Robert Foster
The Atlas of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad

Else

I went a little overboard with writing this, but I had a lot of fun. This is a bit more than 5 books, but I’d rather have too many books than too little.

I’ve read quite a few books this year, up to now (my count is at 57 at the time of writing, so at the time of reading it’ll probably be more than that.) So picking my favourites is quite difficult, although I did manage to pick a top 5. And then I added some honorable mentions, and there are some books that I am just dying to read and I want other people to read as well. So maybe I actually didn’t really pick 5, but picked some more. But please forgive me, I am just passionate about books.

Here is my top 5 of the year thus far:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
I read this book back in January and I still think about it a lot. This filled me with anxiety and adrenaline while reading it, and when a book can evoke that amount of emotion, I’d say it is a good book.
The book is speculative fiction set in Ireland addressing what it would be like if a far right political party got into power and put out an emergency ordinance giving them complete power. We follow a single family living through this situation, slowly dissolving into a crisis.
Haunting and oh so realistic, it was definitely my first five star read of the year.

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
I first heard about this book through the longlist of the Women’s Prize for fiction, which is always a great prize to keep your eye on for good new reads.
This book is about the Sri Lankan civil war, which I knew embarrassingly little about before this book (my knowledge was mostly based on some other Sri Lankan literature I’ve read). The book follows Sashi, a young woman living through a decade of civil war. While she is pursuing a career as a doctor, she has to witness what the war is doing to her brothers.
This book is beautiful, sad and harrowing. It broke my heart in a million different ways, and I might have cried a couple of times.

Perfect 5 star read, in my opinion.

Translation State by Ann Leckie
After absolutely devouring the Imperial Radch trilogy (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy) last year, and tearing through Provenance, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the mass market version of Translation State. (It had to match with all of the other Ann Leckie books I have, of course)
This is a stand alone novel within the world of the Imperial Radch, best read after having read the other novels, for the world building, but also perfectly good to read on its own. The book delves deeper into the Presger and my beloved Presger Translators. The Presger are an alien spieces very very alien to us humans, and humans only know what the Presger want through the Translators.
It is a fun, fast-paced space opera, in which you start to love all the main characters in their own ways while also exploring gender, and what it is to be human. This book made me feel all the feelings and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.

Humble Pi: A Comedy of Math Errors by Matt Parker
If you’ve ever been in the mathematical YouTube space, you have probably heard of Stand-up Maths, a channel dedicated to making mathematics fun and accessible to all. The Youtube channel is run by this guy called Matt Parker who wrote this book (and two more!). This book talks about all the ways maths have gone wrong within the real world and their real world consequences. But it doesn’t make you do all of the maths yourself, luckily. You just have to read about other people making silly mistakes.
This book is comedically written, and highlights the importance of maths in the modern world. It also made me want to learn the programming language SQL, because it called me out for using Excel as a database. (Excel is not a database program!)

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
I have to blame my colleague Matty for this one, she has been raving about this book for months and it really made me want to read it. And I have to admit… WOW, just WOW. I don’t want to spoil too much about this book, because you just have to read it to experience it in my opinion. It is bleak, mind-boggling and you just want to finish it in a single day. It makes you question yourself, what is going on and how humans are able to treat each other in horrible ways. Do not read this if you want some light, fun reading, but please do read it, because it is sooo good.

Some honorable mentions:

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Look, I love everything Ann Leckie writes, also this experimental fantasy novel, mostly told in the second person (and I’ve been loving the second person narrative lately). I don’t want to give away plot details, so I’ll just say this is another one of those ‘Just trust me, bro’ moments.

Playground by Richard Powers
I also love everything I’ve read of Richard Powers (The Overstory and Bewilderment are some highlights of the last couple of years). So when I found out he was writing a new book, I put it on my ‘to be read’ pile immediately. Where The Overstory made me fall in love with trees all over again, Playground made me fall in love with the ocean all over again. Oceans are pretty dope.

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith combined with The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
Octopuses are great. These two books explore the intelligence of octopuses both in different ways. Other Minds is a non-fiction book exploring what intelligence is and how octopuses developed intelligence in a completely different way than us humans did, and how it differs (and is similar) to our own intelligence.
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler takes this idea and makes it into a cool Science Fiction story about first contact with other intelligent life, but on our own backyard. I think these two books go very well together. I have even been told that The Mountain in the Sea might be inspired by Other Minds.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Very good Science Fiction series, I’ve already blabbed on for ages so I won’t bore you with more chatter about books, but very good, yes.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Original, amazing fantasy. Again featuring some second person narration, and emulates the oral storytelling tradition. Amazing cover too!

Books that are on the top of my TBR at the time of writing:

Artifact Space by Miles Cameron
Someone said amazing cover and (military) Space Opera and I was in. I read some pretty cool reviews about this book too, so I really want to read it!

The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie
I started on the first book, The Blade Itself, and I am absolutely loving it. I don’t know why it took me this long to start reading Joe Abercrombie, but better late than never.
I plan on making my way through his entire bibliography, hopefully quite quickly because there are so many books I want to read!

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
I already have an honorable mention by this author above, but it turns out he wrote a Science Fiction book before writing a masterpiece fantasy book. Everything I read about this book just makes me want to read it and I will probably love it!

The Will of the Many by James Islington
When a customer with the same book taste as you tells you that something was the best book she read in the last 10 years, you know a book is going to skyrocket to the top of your to be read pile.
Although the top of my to be read pile is quite full…