Conditional Zen

    What was Liam Reading in 2024?

    What is Liam reading in 2024?

    This is a list of books I have finished this calendar year. I share them here to encourage others to read them as well.

    It is time. The calendar year of 2024 is over, and among the other far more notable events in my life, I also managed to finish 109 books this year. I am gonna do my best to pick out some favorites from below.

    Top 3 all around for this year:

    1. Perdido Street Station – China Mieville
      • Very few authors can weave the bizarre, fantastic, and terrifying in such a way as Mieville. His works are the perfect mixture of unrecognizable worlds and human emotion.
    2. A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers
      • I read many books this year that seemed to have much to say about the human condition. The book that threw my empathy into overdrive revolves around a semi-human clone and a spaceship’s AI. All of Becky Chambers’s work this year was good, but this book had me in tears at not just one point but several. It is heart-wrenching, beautiful, and so human that you forget that it takes place on a distant moon in the far future with a mostly nonhuman cast of characters.
    3. The Parable of The Sower – Octavia Butler
      • This was my first foray into her work, and aside from her natural talent with words and engaging narrative, The Parable of the Sower is one of the few dystopian sci-fi novels that looks like it can take place only a few years from now. I took this book out of my sci-fi section and put it into the literary section because it feels all too plausible today and any day when we let our guard down.

    Best Non-Fiction:

    1. Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy – David Chalmers
    2. Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization – Kenneth W. Harl
    3. 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene

    Best Literary Fiction

    1. The Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
    2. The Paper Menagerie – Ken Liu
    3. The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel

    Best Horror:

    1. Misery – Stephen King
    2. Pet Sematary – Stephen King
    3. Fantastic Land – Mike Bockoven

    Best Fantasy

    1. Perdido Street Station: Bas-lag I – China Mieville
    2. Mistborn: The Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson
    3. Wind and Truth – Brandon Sanderson

    Best Sci-fi

    1. A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers
    2. Blindsight – Peter Watts
    3. Wool: Silo series book 1 – Hugh Howey

    Writers who stood apart

    1. Brandon Sanderson
    2. China Mieville
    3. Octavia Butler
    4. Emily St John Mandel
    5. Becky Chambers

    Some other good ones from this year:

    A capital S indicates the book is part of a series and not the first book; therefore, another reader’s appreciation of it will probably depend on reading the previous works.

    • Nonfiction:
      • Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy – David Chalmers
      • The Conscious Universe – Dean Radin
      • 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
      • Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization – Kenneth W. Harl
      • The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints – Emily Graham
      • The Courage To Be Disliked – Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
      • The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages – Frederick Bodmer
      • Linguistics for Dummies – Burton, Dechaine, Bateson
      • Revenge of The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
    • Literary Fiction/Not too Distant Sci-fi:
      • The Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
      • Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
      • The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Station 11 – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
      • Ulysses – James Joyce
      • The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
      • The Paper Menagerie – Ken Liu
      • Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
      • Sag Harbor – Colson Whitehead
      • S: Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
    • Horror/Thriller:
      • Pet Sematary – Stephen King
      • Subterranean – James Rollins
      • Fantastic Land – Mike Bockoven
      • Misery – Stephen King
      • Interview With a Vampire – Anne Rice
      • Summer of Night – Dan Simmons
    • Fantasy:
      • Mistborn: The Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson
      • The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
      • S: Oathbringer – Brandon Sanderson
      • S: Rhythm of War – Brandon Sanderson
      • Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree
      • S: Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower VI – Stephen King
      • S: The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower VII – Stephen King
      • City of Saints and Madmen – Jeff Vandermeer
      • Perdido Street Station: Bas-lag I – China Mieville
      • S: The Scar: Bas-lag II – China Mieville
      • S: Wind and Truth – Brandon Sanderson
    • Sci-fi:
      • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K. Dick
      • S: The Dark Forest – Liu Cixin
      • Wool: Silo series book 1 – Hugh Howey
      • S: Dust: Silo series book 3 – Hugh Howey
      • S: Foundation & Empire – Issac Asimov
      • S: Foundation and Earth – Issac Asimov
      • The Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet – Becky Chambers
      • S: A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers
      • Story of your life and others – Ted Chiang
      • Blindsight – Peter Watts
      • S: Echopraxia – Peter Watts
      • Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson

    All books finished this year:

    • Nonfiction:
      • Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy – David Chalmers
      • The Wisdom of No Escape – Pema Chödrön
      • Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters – Brian Klaas
      • How to Know a Person – David Brooks
      • The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints – Emily Graham
      • The Loom of Language: An Approach to the Mastery of Many Languages – Frederick Bodmer
      • 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
      • The Conscious Universe – Dean Radin
      • Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization – Kenneth W. Harl
      • The Courage To Be Disliked – Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
      • The Hidden Reality – Brian Greene
      • Linguistics for Dummies – Burton, Dechaine, Bateson
      • Revenge of The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
      • Short Stories in Turkish – Olly Richards
    • Literary Fiction/Not too Distant Sci-fi:
      • Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
      • Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
      • Earth Abides – Geroge R. Stewart
      • Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold -Stephen Fry
      • The Parable of the Sower – Octavia Butler
      • The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
      • Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Station 11 – Emily St. John Mandel
      • Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
      • Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
      • Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
      • Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
      • Way of the Peaceful Warrior – Dan Millman
      • How High We Go in The Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu
      • The Aleph and Other Stories – Jorge Luis Borges
      • Ulysses – James Joyce
      • The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
      • The City and the City – China Mieville
      • Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
      • The Paper Menagerie – Ken Liu
      • Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
      • Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
      • Sag Harbor – Colson Whitehead
    • Horror/Thriller:
      • The Mist – Stephen King
      • Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury
      • Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology – Edited by Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
      • Holly – Stephen King
      • Pet Sematary – Stephen King
      • Subterranean – James Rollins
      • Fantastic Land – Mike Bockoven
      • Misery – Stephen King
      • Interview With a Vampire – Anne Rice
      • Summer of Night – Dan Simmons
    • Fantasy:
      • No Gods, No Monsters – Cadwell Turnbull
      • Wild Seed – Octavia Butler
      • The Poppy War – R.F. Kuang
      • The Waste Lands: The Dark Tower III – Stephen King
      • Wizard and Glass: The Dark Tower IV – Stephen King
      • Wolves of The Calla: The Dark Tower V – Stephen King
      • Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower VI – Stephen King
      • The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower VII – Stephen King
      • Odd Thomas – Dean Koontz
      • Forever Odd: Odd Thomas no. 2 – Dean Koontz
      • Ordinary Monsters – J.M. Miro
      • Hidden Things – Doyce Testerman
      • City of Saints and Madmen – Jeff Vandermeer
      • The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
      • Mistborn: The Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson
      • The Well of Ascension – Brandon Sanderson
      • The Hero of Ages – Brandon Sanderson
      • The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
      • Words of Radiance – Brandon Sanderson
      • Oathbringer – Brandon Sanderson
      • Rhythm of War – Brandon Sanderson
      • Wind and Truth – Brandon Sanderson
      • Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree
      • Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree
      • Eye of the World: Wheel of Time I – Robert Jordan
      • The Great Hunt: Wheel of Time II – Robert Jordan
      • The Dragon Reborn: Wheel of Time III – Robert Jordan
      • A Court of Thorns & Roses – Sarah J. Maas
      • Perdido Street Station: Bas-lag I – China Mieville
      • The Scar: Bas-lag II – China Mieville
      • The Iron Council: Bas-lag III – China Mieville
      • The Passage – Justin Cronin
      • Shriek: An Afterword – Jeff Vandermeer
    • Sci-fi
      • Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K. Dick
      • The Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet – Becky Chambers
      • A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers
      • Record of a Spaceborn Few – Becky Chambers
      • The Three-Body Problem – Liu Cixin
      • The Dark Forest – Liu Cixin
      • Death’s End – Liu Cixin
      • Wool: Silo series book 1 – Hugh Howey
      • Shift: Silo series book 2 – Hugh Howey
      • Dust: Silo series book 3 – Hugh Howey
      • Hyperion – Dan Simmons
      • Foundation – Issac Asimov
      • Foundation & Empire – Issac Asimov
      • Second Foundation – Issac Asimov
      • Foundation’s Edge – Issac Asimov
      • Foundation and Earth – Issac Asimov
      • Lagoon – Nnedi Okorafor
      • Sand– Hugh Howey
      • Across the Sand – Hugh Howey
      • Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World – Haruki Murakami
      • VALIS – Philip K. Dick
      • The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K Le Guin
      • Story of your life and others – Ted Chiang
      • Blindsight – Peter Watts
      • Exhalation – Ted Chiang
      • Zone One – Colson Whitehead
      • Echopraxia – Peter Watts
      • Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
    To See Last Year’s Favorites Click Here