A Year in Books - 2024

Notes on my favourite books of the year (and a few books I want to read in 2025)

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Every year I look forward to writing this retrospective. I can trace 2024 and my moods and obsessions based on the books I read: between January and May, I was completely immersed in theodicy questions and poetic mechanisms thanks to Leaves of Grass and Paradise Lost; in June and July I was very into nature writing; in November I discovered a new favourite author, Anais Nin, and in December I was in the disappointing company of Dickens again.

For the first time in years, Victorian literature didn't dominate my reading list, and I began to appreciate modernist literature more, especially poetry, which was surprising. I didn’t read as much as I wanted (when is it ever enough) but I had wonderful reading experiences and found new favourite books that transformed me and my tastes, such as Four Quartets. Even though I didn’t meet all my reading goals (like reading more philosophy and 10 Shakespeare plays) I’m proud of myself for keeping the habit in such an agitated and chaotic year.

In 2025 I have set ambitious reading goals again because I won’t give up without trying — in my mind there is literally nothing I can’t do, it only requires discipline, which says a lot about my arrogance. Well, I expect a busy academic year and a few changes on the horizon.

Thank you for reading with me in 2024. Here are the best books of the 46 I read last year:

SLOW DAYS FAST COMPANY - EVE BABITZ

— Most Fun Book of the Year —

I'm very superstitious, and I think that the first book (and film) of the year should be very well chosen so as not to give off negative energy. That's why I decided that Slow Days, Fast Company would be the first book of 2024: fabulous friendships, interesting romances, soirées, travelling, adventures that are equally comic and elegant - this is the content of Eve Babitz's reflective anecdotes, which recount some memories of her life in LA in the 1970s, and what I wanted to attract to the new year. In part, it worked: 2024 was one of the best and most eventful years of my life with lots of new friendships (and one romance), whether that's the fault of this book we'll never know for sure, but being prepared can't hurt.

EAST OF EDEN - JOHN STEINBECK

— Most Thought-Provoking and Emotional Book of the Year —

If you like family sagas that deal with cyclical fates akin to curses, you'll like this book. I'd dare say it's like My Brilliant Friend for middle-aged American men. East of Eden is based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel and tells the story of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, farmers in the dry Salinas Valley, California, at the beginning of the 20th century. The fates of these families intersect across generations and the whole story unfolds over 600 slow but rewarding pages. Despite the work's highly allegorical content, I don't think Steinbeck tries to impose a Christian morality on the reader. In fact, this reading experience made me reflect on my relationship with religion in a new way. It’s a deeply emotional work — although sometimes excessively melodramatic and fanciful — with convincing characters who are beautifully constructed. One of my new favourite characters is the sage-like Samuel Hamilton, this novel deserves to be read just for him.

This was the book that taught me the most this year because it made me think and rethink about destiny, freedom, morality, spirituality, love and the lack of it. I wrote an essay considering all of this, especially these questions: how much freedom to make choices do we really have? And what makes those choices considered good or bad — is our character defined by our choices, or are our choices made from character? If you want to read it:

LEAVES OF GRASS - WALT WHITMAN

— Most Beautiful Book of the Year —

Months after reading Leaves of Grass I still find myself mystified, and no definition is broad enough to contain all the expansion of Whitman’s poetry. I love when poets incorporate nature to express states of being — it’s overdone, but few know how to do it exceptionally, and Whitman is one of the best. This book made me cry more than once just out of beauty, because the way Whitman sculpts his life-affirming philosophy filled me with a joy I haven’t felt in a long time. The cherry on top was the weekend I spent in the countryside, at my grandparents’s house, reading about lilacs blooming and grass that is “the beautiful uncut hair of graves” while surrounded by the loveliest field, a lake, under fir trees. It was so immersive and I’ll never forget how moved I felt. Everyone should read at least Song of Myself, I mean it.

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA - MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

— Most Unique Book of the Year —

This book is like a wonderful fever dream or a drunk tale nobody believes. Double narratives are usually a hit or miss for me, but Bulgakov’s masterpiece was a great hit. The first narrative is an absurdly amusing tale about a gang of magical beings led by none other than the Devil. They arrive in Moscow in the 1930s to disrupt the social order seemingly out of pure evil — the people who denounced them to the authorities ended up in mental institutions, which made me think about the question of truth and how subjective it can be. The second narrative is much more serious and sombre, recounting the last days of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Pontius Pilate, describing the deep mental agony of the prosecutor of Rome when dealing with the condemnation of Jesus.

The Master and Margarita is unlike anything I’ve read before: it’s so funny yet so philosophical. The craziness of the narrative testifies to the incredible creative power of its author, and it’s a shame he suffered so much censorship during the Stalinist regime. I wrote an essay about it in Portuguese, in which I explored a major theme in the novel, namely, how truth is actually relative:

SELECTED POETRY - SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

— Most Surprising Book of the Year —

I read more poetry in 2024 than in my entire life. Until a few years ago I didn't like poetry. Today I realise it was an ignorance and a resistance to a certain emotional rawness in poetry. I thought it was corny and intentionally incomprehensible, but I was actually reading it wrong (because there is such a thing). After reconciling with it, English Romanticism was one of the first movements that attracted me, but until then I had never stopped to read a substantial volume by an author.

I found a Penguin edition of Coleridge's poems and decided to read it at the beginning of the year. From January to May I read and studied his poetry (my edition is wonderful and contains notes and context for all the poems) and I became deeply interested in the author. Coleridge had an equally fascinating life and body of work, yet usually, only his early works are celebrated. For some reason, I was more attracted to the late poems which, according to a Professor I spoke to, are often ignored by Academics and readers. I started researching (which I haven't finished) about the concept of ‘Hope’ in Coleridge's late poems, based on my favourite poem of his: ‘Work Without Hope’. Regarding writing techniques, I think Keats is the best Romantic. Still, there's something indescribably attractive about Coleridge's poetry that you can only understand by reading, depending on the reader's temperament. I didn't expect to connect so much with his work, but now he's definitely my favourite Romantic.

ÁGUA VIVA - CLARICE LISPECTOR

— Most Hermetic Book of the Year —

It's complicated to talk about this book because so much of it is still a mystery to me. I feel like I understood what Clarice meant and what she was talking about, but I wouldn't be able to explain it. At least not now. It requires some re-reading, which I intend to do one day. Through beautiful sentences, the narrator (a painter) is kind of writing a letter expressing all of her thoughts and feelings on many different subjects and it’s all very hazy and whimsical. It seems to me that Clarice is desperately trying to capture the present instantaneously through the text. But it's impossible since all writing is done in the past. This curious exercise in time, language and art is greatly interesting to me, which I would like to investigate further in an academic setting.

INFINITE JEST - DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

— Most Ambitious Book of the Year —

Although I haven't finished it yet, this book will probably become one of my favourites. Everyone knows that it's incredibly long: nine hundred pages of narrative plus almost two hundred pages of endnotes. During the second half of the year, I started and stopped reading it several times, but every time I came back to it I was amused, interested, curious, moved. So it's not the book's fault.

Infinite Jest is a huge commitment and I had a hard time sticking to it exclusively because of my other books (I’m always reading more than one book at a time). I know I will finish it soon so I'm not putting pressure on myself. In any case, Wallace's writing and narrative construction are exceptional: the novel’s complexity is precisely what makes it interesting, because the reader has to be more active than usual. It's difficult to give a synopsis since there are dozens of interconnected little stories, but I'll try to explain. We could say the main character is Hal Incandenza, a teenager studying at the Enfield Tennis Academy founded by his late father, Dr James Orin Incandenza, an experimental filmmaker who made the film ‘Infinite Jest’ which is said to be so entertaining that viewers literally die because they can't stop watching it. Simultaneously, we follow Don Gately, a former alcoholic and addict who is now a residential staffer at Ennet House for recovering addicts. While all this unfolds with some mundanity, a bizarre group of wheelchair-bound Canadian terrorists are planning an attack on the United States.

I've never read anything like Infinite Jest, and I genuinely find it hard not to like it if you have enough patience to read it.

HENRY & JUNE - ANAIS NIN

— Most Romantic Book of the Year —

It's very exciting to discover a new favourite author, and I'm glad I discovered Anais Nin at the end of 2024, it came at just the right time. Henry & June is the first volume in the series ‘The Unexpurgated Diaries of Anais Nin’, an uncensored version (i.e. exposing all sexual accounts) of the author's diaries that were published posthumously, apparently to spare those involved. In this book, Nin recounts her romance with Henry Miller (among other men) and her platonic passion for his wife June while married to banker Hugo Parker Guiler.

I have nothing in common with Nin in reality, nor do I intend to live a life like hers, but I can relate to many of the ideas, desires and ways of thinking described in her diary. She has an immense will to live, an incredible sensitivity, and an admirable intensity with which she treats love and writing. She is someone I consider to have known how to live well. I feel like I've been partially psychologically treated by reading this book — I'm usually against reading as a form of self-identification because the fun is in discovering new perspectives, but what got me here was precisely how much I felt understood by reading it, like never before.

PARADISE LOST - JOHN MILTON

— Hardest Book of the Year —

I don’t think I’ll ever get over this reading experience. Paradise Lost is incredible on its own, but reading it slowly over twelve weeks with an equally marvellous class and teacher was one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had. I learnt so so much from reading Milton. In a way, this book taught me how to read again – perhaps for being the hardest I’ve ever read, and so different from anything else I’ve faced before. Milton is such a genius that I find it hard to accept he was a real person.

The experience of breaking apart every verse and considering the choice of every word, given the astonishing intentionality of the text, made the way that I read much more deliberate and attentive. That is to say, I’m a MUCH better reader now because of Paradise Lost, and this is one of the best things a book can do for you.

Milton put the question of theodicy (the problem of the existence of evil and its relationship to the goodness of an omniscient and omnipotent God) into my head and I became truly obsessed with it. I've fallen victim to the arguments of Milton's Satan as if I were inside the poem. Milton’s God says that his creatures (humans and angels, fallen or not) are ‘authors to themselves in all’, meaning that he created them ‘free and free they must remain’ (III.122-125). This reminded me of Hegel saying Shakespeare’s characters are ‘free artists of themselves’ – they are more than ‘types’ due to their deep and complex personalities, which allows them to transcend their plays; not being ‘doomed by the narrative’ they are freer than archetypes common to previous dramatic traditions.

Supposing our lives are a kind of narrative (destiny?) with God behind it, we could argue that although God created us, we are both the ‘characters' and ‘authors of ourselves' and are thus free to transcend the plot of life. This is the free will question and why God doesn't interfere directly in the Fall. I've thought about this over and over again and I'm still not sure if this is what Milton meant, but I guess that's the interesting part.

The beginning of the poem (which I’ve memorised after reading it so many times) gives the ending its reflective quality. The last four lines of the poem form a melancholy and quiet ending. At first, I was a bit underwhelmed: I expected a sublime grand finale, in the style of the poem’s grand opening lines. Then I reread and changed my mind. Milton drops us off in a secular place: We are not in a divine environment anymore, and maybe the language is more ‘simple’ as a reflection of the realised fall. Well, all I know is Milton doesn’t do anything by chance and I love him for it.

Everyone should read this book once in their life, especially with a friend to discuss it with. It was the most rewarding book I've ever read and I'll always remember it.

FOUR QUARTETS - T.S. ELIOT

— Absolute Favourite Book of the Year —

I know I’m a hyperbolic person, but I’m being completely honest when I tell you this book – this absolute masterpiece – is one of the most beautiful, profound, transformative, emotional things I’ve ever read. I don’t remember the last time I had such a visceral reaction to literature: once I finished Burnt Norton (the first Quartet) I started crying, and couldn’t stop for some time.

That doesn't happen very often. I have a personal category of books that have emotionally affected me so much that reading them is like having a great epiphany or a great reunion with something I didn't realise I was missing. Hamlet and The Goldfinch, for example, are part of this list that now includes Four Quartets. This little book is very philosophical, yet it can’t be reduced to its philosophy of Time, Love and Spirituality – it’s above all great poetry, and the beauty and purity of its language is something I’ve never seen before, and such qualities are certainly the reason for my emotional attachment to it. I felt that Eliot encompassed everything here — every emotion, every doubt, every fear and joy. I think about it constantly and associate it with everything I read.

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A FEW BOOKS FOR 2025*

*Not sure if I’ll actually read all of them because of time and/or mood, it’s just my wishful thinking.

• The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

• The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - William Blake

• Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

• The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig

• Lyrical Ballads - William Wordsworth & Samuel T. Coleridge

• All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

• Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad

• The Tennant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

• Uma aprendizagem ou o livro dos prazeres (An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures) - Clarice Lispector

• The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen

• The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

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READING & WRITING GOALS

*No pressure to accomplish them, I just like having a few ideas ready

• Read 10 Shakespeare plays (it was a goal for 2024, let’s try again)

• Read at least 3 philosophy books

• Write an essay on philosophy

• Write an essay on poetry/a poet

• Reread Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen

• Read more non-fiction

• Read more German and Russian literature

• Write an essay using psychoanalysis

• Read one short story per month