My year in review via the books, from worst to first as always.

13. Ministry for the Future (2020) - Kim Stanley Robinson

After a million people die in a heat wave in India the world comes together and gets serious about climate change. Some fun ideas that you can find parallels of in the real world like assassinating CEOs (shoutout Luigi) but I did find the narrative quite lacking. I think that's a common complaint I have of Kim Stanley Robinson novels. I don't really care about the characters.

12. Play Poker, Quit Work, and Sleep Till Noon! (1977) - John Fox

I found this recommended on discord in a discussion about books on poker tells. It's not great for learning poker but I enjoyed the intermittent stories about playing $20 limit 5-card draw in California in the 70s.

I myself had another losing year in poker but did make some money venturing into the mixed games (all the poker games besides Texas Hold em). No 5-card draw but I have played a lot of Dramaha now which is close.

11. Something in the Water (2024) - Jonathan Kennedy

This is a collection of essays by my old roommate Jonathan, the centerpiece of which is an essay about the Minneapolis music scene. Jonathan spent his 20s in Minneapolis playing in every band and ingesting every drug. Now he's dried out in Montana writing books.

I spent my 20s playing in a couple bands and drinking all the beers. Now I'm dried out in Minneapolis writing this blog. No beer since May!

10. The White Tiger (2008) - Aravind Adiga

In this novel a poor Indian man leaves his village to work in New Delhi before murdering his employee to steal some money.

I was reading this on a plane and it became a conversation starter with a woman in my row. She was from Ghana but now living in some Twin Cities suburb. She offered to cook me Ghanian food and I got her number but never called her. That about sums of my romantic life in 2024.

9. Red Rising (2014) - Pierce Brown

This was a mildly entertaining sci-fi adventure novel with a premise that at 40 I believe is now too silly for me. A laborer from the underclass gets recruited by revolutionaries to participate in an upper class wargame. I won't be reading any more of these.

8. The Blue Flower (1995) - Penelope Fitzgerald

A historical fiction novel about the imagined life of a German philosopher in the 18th century. I think I found this one from reading Louise Aldrich's The Sentence, much of which takes place in a bookstore. She recommends many books in that one.

7. Shift (2013) - Hugh Howey

6. Wool (2011) - Hugh Howey

These are the first 2 books in Hugh Howey's Silo series. Another silly premise but I plowed through these ones pretty quickly. There is a Netflix series of this now but I haven't watched it. I really ought to cancel my Netflix.

5. Live After Life (2013) - Kate Atkinson

In this novel the main character dies many times, and we get too see many possible lives she may have led during the first half of the 20th century. I didn't think the plot device added anything to the story but much of the prose is quite good. Most of it takes place during World War II in London.

4. The Sentence (2021) - Louise Erdrich

A woman dies and haunts the bookstore that Erdrich owns in Minneapolis. This takes place during the Black Lives Matter era of Minneapolis following George Floyd's murder by police. A great read especially if you're from Minneapolis.

3. Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) - George Saunders

Saunders usually writes short stories but I guess he thought this story had too much meat on it so he made it into a novel. The pages are pretty sparse so it feels more like a novella. A creative premise in which all the main characters are ghosts who have not moved on to the afterlife. When Abraham Lincoln's son dies and joins them they make it their goal to convince him to leave.

2. Train Dreams (2011) - Denis Johnson

This one's a novella about an American railroad laborer around the turn of the 20th century. He leads a hard life. I really didn't expect this to be my #2 book of the year when I read it early in 2024 but I guess I read a bunch of mediocre books last year.

1. A Visit From The Goon Squad (2010) - Jennifer Egan

This was a solid read. It's really more of a collection of short stories than a novel. Each chapter is from a different perspective but all the characters have some relation to a music producer and his kleptomaniac assistant. I imagine Jennifer Egan went to her share of house parties in her 20s and is now a 40-year-old with a recently rescued dog who has given up beer for fruit smoothies.