The Best Reads of 2024

Our staff reveal the books that enthralled them this year:

Helen Garner - The Season

Jack (Glebe): Here it is again, that passionate, searching eye, fastened on the need to write “about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns a man and I die.” Is there anything more thrilling than reading Helen Garner on everyday things such as haircuts, the Melbourne skyline, ageing, AFL tactics, friendship and half-time oranges? A book for all seasons – not just the footy one!

Sunil (Events co-ordinator): I can’t catch buses, let alone a ball, but I love the brutish ballet of Australian rules. Helen Garner’s lovely observation of her grandson’s footy season eloquently evokes that poetry and enchantment. As always, Garner is a central character in the game, revealing her own hopes and regrets, passions and doubts. A lovely, lyrical introduction to the sport, especially if you don’t follow sport at all.

Love, Death and Other Scenes - Nova Weetman

Deanne (Schools): This is a raw and beautifully honest memoir detailing the love built between Nova Weetman and her life partner, playwright Aidan Fennesy. It begins following Fennesy’s illness and death as Weetman grapples with living after the loss of her partner and father of her children, reflecting upon their life together. I sat and read this in a 24-hour period, not wanting to leave the warm and life-affirming space Weetman has created for her readers in this book.

Rachel (Children’s books, Glebe): I carried this book around for weeks after I read it as I was not ready to let Nova and her beautiful story go. A heartbreaking yet uplifting book about grief and learning to live and love after loss.

TIFFANY (BLACKHEATH)

In Caledonian Road (Faber & Faber), Andrew O’Hagan has skilfully crafted an excoriating look at class, entitlement, power, inequality and what it means to be British in the 21st century. Audacious in its scope, he effortlessly weaves and draws together all of the (mainly flawed) characters and their storylines in a way that leaves you unable to put it down.

ANDREW (GLEBE)

Sequel? What sequel? I know many (most?) readers have come to Long Island (Picador) as the follow-up to Colm Toíbín’s most popular, movie-adapted, novel, Brooklyn. Well, yes, sure it is a continuation in the life of its heroine Eilis, but to me it stands fearlessly on its own two feet. A sad, quietly tragic, at times richly comic, small rural town tour-de-force; a staring down of the possibilities and restrictions of a middle-aged life. And the runners up? I couldn’t choose between Andrew O’Hagan’s delectable Caledonian Road, Hisham Matar’s intensely moving My Friends, or Alan Hollinghurst’s effortlessly seductive Our Evenings

CLARE (GLEBE)

The Echoes (Vintage) is a novel about loss, love, and the stories that are left behind. After Max dies, his partner Hannah is left grieving while Max watches on as a reluctant ghost. The story jumps back and forth from Hannah’s childhood in rural Australia, to her new life in London. Evie Wyld’s writing prowess shines through in this novel, and I guarantee you won’t be able to stop until you’ve gotten the last piece of the puzzle and seen the whole picture in all its glory.

BRONWYN (BLACKHEATH)

Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies (Vintage) is an introspective, dark story where unease and disquiet shadow you at every turn. Set in the Hague International Criminal Court, our protagonist works as a translator for people on trial for war crimes. The act of translating their testimony creates a disturbing, ambiguous intimacy between them which leaves her questioning the nature of evil, who gets to judge and who gets judged. I was enthralled from beginning to end.

JODY (BLACKHEATH)

Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient, Warlight) returns to poetry and to the very beginnings of his career in A Year of Last Things (Cape Poetry). It’s lyrical, fragmentary and filled with humanity and mesmerising musings on how we all end up navigating the past. A collection to drop into whenever the outside world seems to be overwhelming, Ondaatje pulls your attention towards the tiny intricacies in life that matter the most.

KOKO (Dulwich Hill)

Sally Rooney’s work doesn’t require any promotion, but Intermezzo (Faber) certainly warrants it. This novel marks a significant step forward for Rooney, but is still filled with her ability to uncover the human condition. A profound character study of brothers Ivan and Peter, Intermezzo explores grief, guilt, love and perhaps most importantly, self-acceptance.

SCOTT V (GLEBE)

I have to give notable mentions to two older books: Apeirogon by Colum McCann, set in the West Bank and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, set in the meatpacking district of Chicago in the early 1900s. My favourite this year, however, is My Friends (Viking), written by the Libyan/English author Hisham Matar. It charts the friendship of three young men, bonded by their experiences at a rally in London at the Libyan embassy, where two of them are wounded and a policeman is shot dead. It maps the beauty of family and good books and expat life amongst the backdrop of London streets. A truly wonderful read.

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise - Olivia Laing

James (Glebe): One of the most exemplary writers of nonfiction working today, Olivia Laing’s latest book is a startlingly beautiful paean to the sheer variety of human transformations of the ground beneath our feet. Ranging from Laing’s own reclamation of a walled garden, to green patches struck up in the shadow of nuclear power stations and fields dreamt up in literature, this is recommended for lovers of gardens, community of purpose and fine prose everywhere.

Clare (Glebe): I have devoured everything written by Olivia Laing, so it is no surprise that I loved The Garden Against Time. Through the restoration of an overgrown garden in Suffolk, Laing explores the very concept of gardening and its connection to history, subjugation, and freedom. Much like their other works, Olivia Laing takes you on a journey that you’ll wish never ends.

TATJANA (GLEBE)

Journalist Anne Applebaum suspects something new is happening in the world of oppression. In Autocracy.Inc (AllenLane) she takes a thorough look at modern authoritarian states and how they work together to repress their people, steal the country’s wealth to enrich themselves and push back “against all forms of transparency or accountability”. Meanwhile, the West appears to be paralysed as they lament the role they may have played in helping these regimes consolidate their power because of their own misjudgement and greed over the decades. This book is short, the outrage lasts longer.

JANE (GLEBE)

If you find the current ideological dumpster fire in the US confusing, then you’ll want to read George Monbiot’s The Invisible Doctrine (Penguin). A fascinating profile of neoliberalism in all its questionable finery. Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life (Random House) is so well-written and lyrical, that I forgot it was a science book – I never thought I would be this interested in fungi! His sense of awe is infectious, and I found so much new knowledge here. The illustrated version is inspirational.

NIC (GLEANER)

In his incredibly original debut novel, Scott Alexander Howard uses the well-worn science fiction pilot device of time travel to write a very grounded story about growing up in a world where the line between fate and choice has become too blurred to see. Following 16-year-old Odelle as she deals with the daily ordeal that is high school, a chance encounter with some visitors from the future will change her life. Despite the high concept, The Other Valley (Atlantic) is not a science fiction story. It is quite a simple story of love, and the daily struggle of life.

ISABEL (GLEBE)

Caoilinn Hughes has done it yet again with The Alternatives (OneWorld). Her knack for writing grizzly, overly cheerful,

exhausted, successful – and, therefore, wholly relatable – female characters is, for me, her chief virtue (for want of a better word). Philosophical and satirical, this spiky Irish novel about four grown-up(?) sisters will make you feel more intelligent from page one. Be sure to keep an eye out for the dead cat on the road. It’s a nerve-racking but also pleasingly astonishing interaction, much like every other incident in this gift of a book I like to imagine is dedicated to all those who persevere.

STEPHEN (BLACKHEATH SECONDHAND)

In December 1988, the body of 27-year-old American student Scott Johnson was found at the base of North Head, Manly and officially ruled a suicide. This is an account of a three-decade investigation into Scott’s death by his brother Steve. Finally in 2020, the arrest – and confession – of a perpetrator. A Thousand Miles from Care (HarperCollins) is a memorial and a tribute. They thought Steve Johnson would forget about his brother. He never did.

SCOTT D (GLEBE)

My pick for the new release of 2024 is undoubtedly Colm Toibin’s Long Island but my discovery of the year is the work of South African novelist Damon Galgut. Best known for his Booker Prize winner The Promise, Galgut first hit his stride with In a Strange Room – an exquisitely frustrating and darkly comic account of one young man’s efforts to overcome his personal inhibitions in the search for love. I have just started Arctic Summer (Atlantic), another tale of unspoken emotions and repressed desire in the form of a fictionalised biography of author E.M. Forster. Terrific so far!

IMOGEN (GLEBE)

It has been a long wait for those lovers of This Is Happiness, but I am very glad to report that the sequel is very much worth it. Time of the Child (Bloomsbury) follows on from the original, but those who are new to Niall Williams’ work needn’t worry –his prose is just as gorgeous and approachable. I advise you to savour every sentence – I did! Georgia Blain’s

posthumous collection of short stories was the first that I read of hers, but it will not be the last. Every page of We All Lived in Bondi Then (Bloomsbury) was sparkling with wit, laughter and a tinge of melancholy that stayed with me well after I had finished reading. A short story is such a difficult thing to do well, but Blain made it look effortless.

There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak

Victoria (Blackheath): This is an epic story spanning centuries, starting with a drop of rain in Mesopotamia which travels through the forgotten poem of Gilgamesh, three main characters and two rivers. Arthur in 1840 by the river Thames, Narin in 2014 by the river Tigris and Zaleekhah in 2018 by the river Thames. A beautiful story.

Anna (Glebe): After the first book I read by Elif Shafak I am always looking out for her next work. And as before, she does not disappoint. This was a joy to read and expanded my horizons. Three stories, two rivers, and the importance of water – and much more.

ANGE (GLEBE)

It has been 50 years since Ursula Le Guin shared with us The Dispossessed (Hachette), her anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian vision of utopia. Fierce, moving, and lyrical, she challenges the acceptance of our imperialist status quo, and offers an alternative way of being: a world without ego where sharing is central. Julia Armfield’s debut novel Our Wives Under the Sea (Pan Macmillan)

is exquisitely eerie, dreamy and sapphic. A haunting romantic tragedy that considers both what is unknown about the deep sea and what is unknowable about those we love.

TILDA (GLEBE)

Azako Yuzuki’s Butter (HarperCollins) is a gripping meditation on the power of food and its links to femininity, sexuality and control. It’s a book that sinks its claws in and refuses to let go, revelling in the internalised contradictions of its characters, and in the rich taste of butter and blood. By contrast, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital (Random House) is a breathtaking, heady experience. Falling around the world, it watches 16 sunrises and sunsets over the course of a day on the ISS. Both will live in my head for a long time to come.

LETITIA (BLACKHEATH)

You know that feeling when you begin a book and it’s as though it was written just for you? For me, that book was Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & Practice (Text). There are so many ideas and references in this novel that I had to grab a pencil and scribble in the margins. University life in the 1980s, affairs of the young heart, art, writing, philosophy. It’s a novel with passion and heat – and the protagonist is a hungry, brilliant scrappy young woman that I loved to bits.

ELISSA

Usually I like to choose an adult book for the Gleaner book of the year but this year I cannot go past Shinsuke Yoshitake’s I Wonder Where I Am (Thames & Hudson). All of his books are fabulous so if you’re looking for a quirky, informative, funny book look no further!

AMELIA (GLEBE)

Having been the type of child whose favourite thing to do at the beach was to explore the tiny magic worlds of rock pools, this debut poetry collection by Ashley Haywood appealed to me greatly. Falling into the sub-genre of ecopoetry, Polyp (Vagabond) links art and science through beautiful imagery while also considering the threats climate change presents to marine ecosystems. Incredibly moving and rich.

MORGAN (GLEBE)

I can’t go past Michelle de Kretser’s improbably named, beautiful novel Theory & Practice (see my interview on p3) – it’s Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip on intellectual steroids. Equal first is David Marr’s Killing for Country – released last year, this heartbreaking but brilliant story revealing a shameful slice of both his family and this country’s history has stayed with me.