AFN #143: End of Year Reading Roundup + Gift Guide

Yes I know it's not the *actual* end of the year, shhhhh, say nothing

This is going to be a long one, folks, so if you’re reading on email be prepared to click over to Substack when it cuts you off so you can see the whole thing. (If you want to.)

2024 was a good year in reading, all things considered. As of the time of writing (December 20, 2024) I have read 73 books (better than 2023’s 62.) This number is inclusive of books I put down after getting halfway through, though I don’t list those here. You will notice, however, that there is a fair bit of rereading on this list, which I still count, with some caveats (below the list.) This number will probably go up, since the LDLA offices are closed between Christmas and New Year and I have a date with my TBR pile and my parents’ couch.

False Value
The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries (x2)
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (x2)
Thus Was Adonis Murdered
Divine Rivals
Trust
The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why It Matters
The Three Body Problem
The Dark Forest
The Tainted Cup
Equal Rites
Tomorrow, Perhaps the Future: Writers, Outsiders, and the Spanish Civil War
The Goblin Emperor (RR, x2)
The Undertaking of Hart & Mercy
Y/N
A Taste of Gold & Iron (RR, x2)
Throne of Jade (Temeraire #2)
The Familiar
Wyrd Sisters
Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Productivity Without Burnout
Gorgeous Lies
Deceived by the Gargoyle
Hoarded by the Dragon
Five Broken Blades
The Hurricane Wars
The Crescent Moon Tearoom
The Takedown
Hannah Tate, Beyond Repair
A Fate Inked in Blood
At First Spite
Serpent & the Wings of Night
Long Live Evil
Witches Abroad
A Gentleman in Moscow (RR)
Strong Poison (RR)
Have His Carcase (RR)
Gaudy Night (RR)
Busman’s Honeymoon (RR)
To Say Nothing of the Dog (RR)
The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo
Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder
Lords & Ladies
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension
Crazy Stupid Bromance
Game Changer
Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales
Heated Rivalry
The Perilous Gard
Family Meal
A Memory Called Empire (RR)
Doomsday Book (RR)
Inspector Imanishi Investigates
Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Birth of Modern Europe
The White Album (RR)
Praise
Give Me More
Highest Bidder
The Fortunate Fall
The Home Wrecker
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Long
Aunt Dimity’s Death
Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed

RR means it’s a reread; x# is the number of times I reread that book this year. In two cases, the multiple rereads were simply due to “I am in line waiting for something and I know this book is here on my phone and that I liked it;” in the case of the Emily Wilde books it’s because I wanted to reread the first two before I read the final instalment. I think it’s pretty indicative of my overall anxiety levels that there is so much rereading on this list.

There were some real standout reads this year, however:

Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki was such a pleasurable read. It doubles as both the story of a reporter’s relationship with an accused murderer and a documentation of the reporter’s changing relationship with food and her own body —inextricable from a larger portrait of Japanese society and women’s attempts to navigate it. It’s also delicious—some of the best food writing in fiction since (ahem) A Certain Hunger.

image copyright: vera drmanovski

When I picked up the first Emily Wilde book, I didn’t think I’d enjoy it, but my sister (who has great taste) assured me I would. “Twee Victoriana isn’t my thing,” I said, like a fool. And then I absolutely tore through it and the sequel before realizing I’d played myself, since the third isn’t out until next year. (Luckily this coincided with my return to the world of professional publishing, so I was soon able to cadge an ARC from the series’ editor and read the fabulous concluding volume.) Emily Wilde is a professor of dryadology at Oxford in an England where faeries and all manner of Fae exist. Deeply intelligent and logical, she’s not great with people, unlike her colleague Wendell Bambleby, who she is pretty sure is a Fae prince dabbling as an academic. Emily’s voice is a joy—her quiet exasperation with Bambleby’s charm and ease with people as he inserts himself into her research soon gives way to affection and appreciation. The world building is considered, layered, and compelling, and—just do yourself a favor and read the first two before the third comes out in February.

How to describe Y/N? It’s a novel about K-Pop. It’s about identity. It’s about translation. It’s about assimilation and relationships and the blurry, messy interplay between celebrities—particularly idols— and their fans. It has one of the weirdest, most unlikable protagonists I’ve ever encountered, and by the end of the book I would die for her.

This and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us were such joys to read through, though Hanif Abdurraqib’s deft inclusion of all the cultural and political contexts surrounding his two subjects (basketball and music) means wrangling with tough questions by necessity. But his lyrical writing is able to wrestle with these questions in clear ways: what does it mean to be in community? What does it mean to love something—a city, a musical artist, a sport? There’s Always This Year made a million end of year best-of lists (and was longlisted for the National Book Award, rightly so.)

This was just fucking fun. It’s basically a Sherlock Holmes pastiche set in a fantasy Thailand, with lots of yummy political intrigue and also giant kaiju-like creatures which threaten the land. This is a satisfying standalone, but I just learned that Robert Jackson Bennett intends for this to be the first of a long-running, Miss Marple-style series of novels, each with their own mystery. What luck!

Honorable Mentions:

Tomorrow, Perhaps the Future was an informative, moving portrait of several artists who were inspired to travel to Spain and join the rebellion in the Spanish Civil War. It also deftly laid out the sources of the conflict and the various cultural forces working against the artist/rebels as they tried to make their case for a Spain free of Franco. I loved At First Spite, which is a sadder romance than I normally go for. The protagonist, Athena Graydon, has stagnated in her life, and when her engagement ends, she ends up in a spiraling depression that was so well written it made me cry. The romance between Athena and her neighbor/enemy Matthew was raw and tender and lovely. I was also delighted to have a late-in-the-year discovery of Sara Cate, whose steamy romances I am devouring at the rate of one a day.

PRESENTING THE FIRST (AND LIKELY LAST) AFN GIFT GUIDE

I find the poliferation of gift guides to be a bit perplexing, and yet I consume them with delight. I can’t afford to buy every item on Amy Sedaris’ gift guide—but boy howdy, do I want to! I thought it might be funny to present to you an Extremely Specific Gift Guide for the Reader or Publishing Professional In Your Life.

A Hulken bag
Last week, as I made countless trips to the post office to drop off books to ship, this bag was an absolute godsend. It’s just reinforced canvas with plastic coated straps, an elevated granny cart, if you will, albeit one that inexplicably has a partnership with the New York City Ballet. There’s something so pleasing about it, though—it rolls smoothly over cracked NYC pavrmeent, and the handles are at the right dragging height. Ten out of ten.

A Scotch 2” Packing Tape Dispenser
Nothing says romance like the ability to apply packing tape quickly and accurately without accidentally cutting yourself in the process. A true book connoisseur’s gift.

A Platinum Preppy fountain pen
What better gift to give than a cheap writing utensil that can spark an expensive hobby? One minute your giftee will be appreciating the smooth ink flow of this deceptively inexpensive pen. Six months later you will find that their home has been colonized by ink samples, hoarded packages of Tomoegawa Tomoe River Paper, and more pens than fingers on their hand. You’re welcome.

A subscription to the London Review of Books
You know they can quote the iconic Patricia Lockwood Miette tweets, so why not get them access to more of her writing? Whether it’s meeting the pope or reckoning with the work of David Foster Wallace, or Joan Didion, Lockwood is always erudite and funny, and I just know in my heart of heart that the free tote bag they’ll inevitably receive as part of the subscription will be street-cred-cool.

Membership in the Rancho Gordo Bean Club
Despite what the incoming administration promised, prices aren’t going down at the grocery store, so give them something they’ll need and really be able to use—beans! No, seriously—the Bean Club means four shipments of beans a year, of varieties you’ve never even heard of.

PSA: AFN WILL BE MOVING PLATFORMS

I should have done this a while back, but I’ll be moving newsletter platforms early in the new year. You won’t need to do anything on your end—I’ll be able to export the list and your AFN experience should continue as before. If you only get AFN through the Substack app, you may need to re-subscribe via email, but you’ll have plenty of heads up before the change happens.

HOUSEKEEPING

This is the final AFN for 2024. The newsletter will return the first week in January! Happy holidays to you and our loved ones.

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