ma1co1m's Favourite Reads of 2024Like this list

15 items

• Fire Weather

  a True Story From a Hotter World

  Vaillant, John

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  Unfortunately, the most terrifying book I read this year.

• Something Is Killing the Children. 8

  Tynion, James, IV

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  Once again, my favourite ongoing comic series of the year. Will the (currently in development) Netflix adaptation be half as good as the comics?

• Listen

  on Music, Sound and Us

  Faber, Michel, 1960-

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  Why do we listen to music? Michel Faber has some theories.

• Alpine Panorama

  a View to a Climb

  Buchanan, Andy

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  As a retirement project, Buchanan undertook summiting all 133(!) peaks visible across the Canterbury plains from Sugarloaf. Certainly a step up from spending a little more time in the garden.

• Masters of the Nefarious

  Mollusk Rampage

  La Police, Pierre, 1959-

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  Is it a series of one page gags (à la G Larson et al) or a bonkers action adventure tale? Take your pick. Works equally brilliantly either way.

• Where I End

  White, Sophie (Writer on food)

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  Every night the bed thing moves.

• Revolution in the Head

  the Beatles' Records and the Sixties

  MacDonald, Ian, 1948-

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  The music nerd that I am, since lockdown-times I have been doing some big listen-through's of a few artists with huge discographies (Neil Young, The Melvins, Boris, The Fall, Keiji Haino... so far). This year's Beatles project was accompanied at all…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• PTSD Radio. Vol. 1

  Nakayama, Masaaki

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  Definitely ranks as one of the weirder manga I've ever read. Aspects of Nakayama san's life start bleeding into the stories and (apparently) macabre aspects of the stories began leaking into his own life. To the point where he gave up manga in order…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

  Horvath, Patrick (Filmmaker)

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  I saw someone calling this Richard Scarry meets Dexter. That nails it so well I don't think I need add anything further.

• A Quiet Place

  Matsumoto, Seichō, 1909-1992

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  One of the big names of Japanese crime fiction. It's unfortunate we only have one of his books in the collection. A slightly subdued start, but a fantastic back half.

• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

  Chambers, Becky

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  If you have a boxset of Firefly DVDs somewhere in your home, well, do I have a book for you...

• Neu Klang

  the Definitive History of Krautrock

  Dallach, Christoph, 1964-

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  Did I need to read yet another history of krautrock? Of course I did!

• Blood on the Tracks. Volume 17

  Oshimi, Shūzō

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  Shūzō san's Blood On The Tracks concluded this year with vol.17. It's possibly one of the best manga series I've read...

• Happiness. 1

  Oshimi, Shūzō

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  ... so I'm now going back and exploring his pre-BotT books.

• Box 88

  Cumming, Charles, 1971-

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  The first book in the Box 88 series. Charles Cumming is at the top of the field of spy fiction writers.