Books of the Year 2024

My target for the year was to read 30 books, but alas that has not happened. Here's the list of books for this year:

1. "Ariadne", by Jennifer Saint
2. "Promise of Blood", by Brian McClellan
3. "Smart Leadership", by Jo Owen
4. "Why Should Anyone be Led by You?", by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
5. "Atalanta", by Jennifer Saint
6. "Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life", by Arnold Schwarzenegger
7. "Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes", by Rob Wilkins
8. "Sharpe's Command", by Bernard Cornwell
9. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", by Ian Fleming *
10. "Making It So", by Sir Patrick Stewart
11. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
12. "Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk", by Wizards of the Coast
13. "Empire", by Conn Iggulden
14. "A Thousand Splendid Suns", by Khaled Hosseini
15. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
16. "Surrounded by Idiots", by Thomas Erikson
17. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over the Moon", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
18. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", by John Le Carré
19. "Firefly: Coup de Grace", by Una McCormack
20. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", by J.K. Rowling *
21. "The Prisoner of Heaven", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
22. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", by J.K. Rowling *

Annoyingly there is, once again, my records got messed up during the year - I recorded "Promise of Blood" twice, and failed to record "Sharpe's Command" and "Phandelver and Below". Those problems have, at least, been corrected.

That gives a total of 22 books. This includes two rereads (Harry Potter), and six books for Funsize/Surprise! The only RPG book this year was "Phandelver and Below", which is a disappointing one to end on.

This year's best book was "A Thousand Splendid Suns", but I'm really not sure I recommend it - I found it almost unreadable at times. I'm not going to list a worst book, as none of them seemed particularly bad.

Unfortunately, despite my best intentions I have ended the year with shelves every bit as full of unread books as I began, with some coming to their third year unread. It is very much my intention to start clearing that backlog in the near future.