It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!
What’s the best book you read in January 2024 and why did you love it?
It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.
Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.
And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our 5-Star SFF page.
One commenter with a U.S. mailing address will choose one of these prizes:
- a FanLit T-shirt (we have sizes M, L, XL)
- a book from our stacks.
- a $5 Amazon gift card (this is the only option for non-USA addresses).
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The best I read in January 2024 was A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar. Not only best of the month, one of the very best I have ever read.
http://templetongate.net/olondria.htm
“Iron Hearted Violet” by Kelly Barnhill. I thought it was well-written, but mostly I discovered the book and listened to the audiobook because I enjoy the work of the voice actor Simon Vance.
No outstanding fiction reads for me in January, but out of several good reads, My Brother’s Keeper by Tim Powers was probably the best. This is one of his supernatural historicals featuring famous literary figures, like his previous The Stress of Her Regard (Byron, Keats, and the Shelleys) and Hide Me Among the Graves (Polidori, Trelawney, and the Rossettis). Here he involves the Brontë family with werewolves and an unholy cult trying to revive lycanthropic gods. Evil doesn’t triumph in Powers novels, but the real life history of the Brontës forewarns us that there will be no happy endings for the family. Two books that got edged out: Salt on the Midnight Fire by Liz Williams, the final book in her Fallows Sisters series, an old school urban fantasy that, unlike the previous volumes, is pretty much all magical doings all the time, rather than having occasional real world grounding; also Labyrinth’s Heart by M. A. Carrick, final installment in the Rook & Rose series, which eventually pays off nicely, but feels a bit padded and slow moving until the long-awaited Stadnem Anduske rebellion kicks off over halfway through. Next up for me will be Orbital (Samantha Harvey).
Not entering.
Well, a few of my favorite books included Cait Nary’s Lucky Bounce, Amy Aislin’s Game On, and Ripley Hayes’s Interwoven. The first 2 are MM hockey-related and the third is a cop/mystery story set in Wales. A decent amount of the latter story is about the main characters’ relationship and a health issue.
In SF/F, there’s a new Penric and Desdemona by Bujold, Demon Daughter which I thought was fine, but not one of the strongest entries in the series. I also read several fantasy books by Amy Rae Durreson. Reawakening and Resistance are books 1&2 of a series about prehistory dragons who fought against a big bad and ended up sleeping for a thousand years or so. Big bad is stirring again so they begin waking and trying to gather their hoards again. In an different twist, the hoards are humans and the good regards and allegiance of humans give the dragons strength. I stalled halfway through the 3rd book as everything was about to go to **** and I wasn’t in the mood. Several of her other stories are fantasy or sf. In Heaven or Earth is sf. The Dark of the Sun, The Lodestar of Ys, The Court of Lightning, and the Clockwork Nightingale’s Song are fantasy.
Guided by the Wind by Leona Bentley is a…weird west, post-apocalyptic novel. The apocalypse appears god-driven or magical rather than atomic. There are areas with weird creatures that are dangerous to cross. The main characters–a father and son–agree to take a small group across one of these areas to reach one member’s sister who’s fighting off a landbaron. There’s a lot of past events driving the plot that are only slowly revealed.
One Corpse Too Many (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #2) by Ellis Peters.
The Other Woman (Gabriel Allon, #18) by Daniel Silva.
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward – I had heard great things. It did not disappoint.
They Lurk by Ronald Malfi – Malfi is one of my top five horror authors. I have read most of his books and have not disliked a single one.
I’m still not getting emails about giveaways despite still being subscribed on Substack.
Part Two of Avatar: The Last Airbender “The Rift” has a contentious meeting between Toph Beifong and her father Lao, and Aang summoning Avatar Yangchen to learn more about the attacking spirit General Old Iron.
My favorite was the next Professor Odd novella, The Monster’s Daughter, about the dark past of Professor Odd herself and a force that could destroy the Oddity.
“Identical”, Scott Turow’s next Kindle County legal thriller after “Innocent”. This time, he draws inspiration from the Greek myths around the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and I appreciate mythological references when it’s done well. Using the names Paul, Cass and Aphrodite is a bit on the nose, but this is a dramatic story between the two brothers, one running for mayor and the other just released from prison. Was he guilty of murder? Read and find out.
Since we’re missing a “best of the year” article again this year, I will put a brief run-down here. For fiction read in 2023, The Wall by Marlen Haushofer was my favorite book overall, and the one I tended to think about long afterwards. In it, a middle-aged woman and the animals she acquires try to survive the death of most other living creatures, for a while. In the “quiet apocalypse” subgenre, like George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides. Several books could have been runner-up, but I will go with Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate. A literary apocalypse tale, it has some of the faults of other works in that subgenre, but I liked it better than, say, Marcel Theroux’s Far North, which in turn I liked better than Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven.
For nonfiction read in 2023, Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal was a definitive take on the Democratic party’s rightward swing toward Wall Street and Silicon Valley and away from the working class. And Chris van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People was an impressive indictment of the food industry and chemically reformulated “food-like substances” that it pushes on consumers everywhere, so that it’s difficult to avoid them, but dangerous to one’s health not to.
In terms of totals, I read 91 fiction books in 2023 (a big drop-off from the previous two years) with 2 DNFs among them. Reading more nonfiction (28 books) may have been one challenge, but old age was probably a bigger factor. The stamina and ability to concentrate are not what they used to be.
The Distinguished Professor,if you live in the USA, you win a Fan Lit T-shirt (please specify 1st and 2nd preferred sizes) OR a book of your choice from our stacks, OR a $5 Amazon gift card. If your address is outside of the USA, you will get a $5 Amazon gift card.