Books of 2024

At the start of the year Rachel and I decided to make this a year of more reading, less scrolling.

The end result was we ploughed through a wide range of books in-between life, probably stayed in more, definitely watched fewer TV series, but hopefully scrolled social media less.

I managed to get through 75 books. 

I do tend to binge authors once I discover them, and this was a year I really sought out the ever blooming Australian crime genre. I rinsed Patricia Wolf, Sarah Bailey and Chris Hammer and eagerly look forward to the next instalment.   

I do feel slightly bereft having binged Sarah Bailey and her creation Detective Gemma Woodstock all year, but to say it’s been a complicated rollercoaster is a vast understatement. Her last and final Book in this series, Body of Lies, is where it all comes together, a proper shocker of a story with shifting loyalties and a dark dark plot.

All of them have been so well written, it’s character driven crime fiction at its absolute best and also plugs into Australia’s shifting culture really effectively.

It's true of all three that they have all got better and better. I'm now looking forward to more from Wendy James and Candice Fox from this genre. 

The other fictional rabbit hole I loved going down was Mick Herron's Slow Horses series, which I obviously started because of the TV series starring Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb.

The fiction author I probably enjoyed discovering more than any other was Tim Winton. Part of me is scratching my head wondering what took me so long. He's from Perth, he writes about toxic masculinity and the environment and has a firm pulse on social trends.  I genuinely think if I had discovered him in the 1990s I might have moved back to Perth and would have understood why I was told "Perth needs people like you" in a way no-one in London every did in the 1990s. His writing is so vivid, so full of love, but tinged with a doleful fate. His sprawling Cloudstreet was even set in the same part of the city I lived in. I've got a lot of catching up to do, but as I told my literary buddy James Armstrong, Shepherd's Hut is probably my favourite of the ones I read this year, which takes nothing away from his most recent post-apocalyptic epic, Juice.

A few other fictional highlights included David Nicholls gorgeous You Are Here, Joseph Knox's edgy thriller Imposter Syndrome, and everything by Elizabeth Day, Lucy Clarke and Jordan Harper. 

The non-fiction genre I was really captivated by was the WTF shockers written by journalists who try and explain how the world really works. The stories of Global Witness and writers who poke the beasts in big banks and powerful oligarchs were not only written with the same pace and edge as the best novelists, but exuded raw bravery too. Big shouts especially to Marianna Spring, Jen McAdam, Dan McCrum, Duncan Mavin, Tracy Hall and Tom Burgis.

I tried to read a wider range of political books this year than my usual diet of centrist dads who just reinforce my world view.  Anthony Broxton, Rafael Behr, Andy Burnham, Rory Stewart and James O'Brien did that very well. I would probably have dismissed Grace Blakeley a couple of years ago as being too left wing for me, but I enjoyed her treatise on Vulture Capitalism. Same with Naomi Klein's Doppleganger. Former Tory MP Graham Brady's book was very readable, but if anything I was even less sympathetic to him than I was before.

We met a few authors at various events, which we always enjoy, and I interviewed a few too - Brian Groom, Sacha Lord and my mate Pete McKenzie Hodge who's remarkable tale of survival I read an early draft.

And yet, as I look back at this summary I've not mentioned two absolute stand out epic books of this year, Orbital by Samantha Harvey and Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll. So different, obviously, but both took my totally by surprise.

I cried at two books - Helen Garner's remarkable true story This House of Grief, and Cheryl Strayed's Wild.

Thanks to everyone who recommended something this year. 

  

Books of 2024

1. Hope and Glory - Anthony Broxton
2. Silver - Chris Hammer
3. Trust - Chris Hammer
4. Dead Man’s Creek - Chris Hammer
5. White Riot - Joe Thomas
6. Delirium Diaries - Pete McKenzie Hodge
7. Outback - Patricia Wolf
8. Paradise - Patricia Wolf
9. Castaways - Lucy Clarke
10. How to Fail - Elizabeth Day
11. A fortnight in June - Scott Fraser
12. Last Seen - Lucy Clarke
13. Politics and how to survive it - Rafael Behr
14. The Party - Elizabeth Day
15. Money Men - Dan McCrum
16. Too big to jail - Chris Blackhurst
17. Scrublands - Chris Hammer
18. Cover the Bones - Chris Hammer
19. This is Memorial Device - David Keenan
20. Everybody knows - Jordan Harper
21. A Lesson in Violence - Jordan Harper
22. Miss Marple collection - Val McDermid etc
23. Heat 2 - Meg Gardiner and Michael Mann
24. Last king of California - Jordan Harper
25. Head North - Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram
26. Among the Trolls - Marianna Spring
27. Harry’s Kebab House - DJ Dribbler
28. Clash of the Clans - Nicola Tallant
29. Tales from the Dancefloor - Sacha Lord
30. The Business - Dick Hobbs
31. Kleptopia - Tom Burgis
32. No One Saw A Thing - Andrea Mara
33. Cuckoo land - Tom Burgis
34. You are Here - David Nicholls
35. Friendaholic - Elizabeth Day
36. The Housemate - Sarah Bailey
37. The Dark Lake - Sarah Bailey
38. Into the Night - Sarah Bailey
39. Where the Dead Go - Sarah Bailey
40. Vulture Capitalism - Grace Blakeley
41. The Turning - Tim Winton
42. The Shepherd’s Hut - Tim Winton
43. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
44. Imposter Syndrome - Joseph Knox
45. How They Broke Britain - James O’Brien
46. Made in Manchester - Brian Groom
47. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
48. The Trading Game - Gary Stevenson
49. Doppelganger - Naomi Klein
50. If I never met you - Mhairi McFarlane
51. Wild - Cheryl Strayed
52. Brave - Rose McGowan
53. Good Material - Dolly Alderton
54. An Accusation - Wendy James
55. The Fraud - Zadie Smith
56. Taxtopia - The Rebel Accountant
57. Terrible Humans - Patrick Alley
58. Devil’s Coin - Jennifer McAdam
59. Spook Street - Mick Herron
60. London Rules - Mick Herron
61. Killing Thatcher - Rory Carroll
62. The Last Victim - Tracy Hall
63. Opal - Patricia Wolf
64. The Valley - Chris Hammer
65. Gone by Midnight - Candice Fox
66. Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart
67. This House of Grief - Helen Garner
68. Body of Lies - Sarah Bailey
69. Orbital - Samantha Harvey
70. Joe Country - Mick Herron
71. Slough House - Mick Herron
72. Bad Actors - Mick Herron
73. Kingmaker - Graham Brady
74. Led By Donkeys
75. Juice - Tim Winton

  

Working in journalism in Perth

As I splashed through the rain last night, bouncing between the Greater Manchester Mayor's Media Party and the KPMG Christmas do, I tried not to think too much about where I was this time last month.

As it happens OTD I had a really fascinating chat to a top bloke called Charles Kobelke, the CEO from Business News, a first rate regional media business in Perth, Western Australia.

More broadly, I was very impressed with the generosity of people in Perth to meet and share ideas with an outsider like me, albeit one who has lived there before and has a tremendous affection for the place.

I was very sorry I couldn't make diaries work to meet with Paula Rogers from the Committee for Perth who had also responded enthusiastically to the idea of meeting up while I was there.

But Charles really gave me lots of food for thought on how I apply myself and work to expand TheBusinessDesk.com where I can.

Journalism takes a real beasting these days, and I feel enormously privileged to be working in the thick of it again. There is still so much to do, to play our part in debates, to push and cajole, and police the boundaries of a community. It was good of Andy Burnham to acknowledge the importance of a challenging media over drinks and pizzas last night.

As an industry, we're up against so many challenges of our own, not helped by publishers who have made so many appalling strategic missteps and wrecked their businesses as a result - while I also saw plenty of that in Australia - I was also pleased to connect again with the newspaper where I started my career, X-Press Magazine is online only now, but seems to be thriving too.

But in meeting Charles it was just good to hear an optimistic view of the future from a fellow media professional, and one who also backs the values of truth, accuracy and community and never stops innovating.