My Favourite Things of 2024: Books

Throughout 2024, if I wasn't drawing, chances are you would find me on the couch tucked under a book. This winter has found me with a diminished, but for the rest of the year I couldn't get enough. While Vancouver has a number of great bookshops, stores in London tend to curate their displays and stock to the tastes of whoever is doing the ordering. I found a few shops who seemed to forefront the type of book I was looking for and it became far too easy to leave with a book whenever I happened to pass by.

Below is an incomplete picture of my year in reading:

Going for meandering walks has always been part of my creative process. Better writers have written about this but there's an undeniable relationship between the act of wandering and creation. Reading broadly and often felt similar to long and aimless walks. I wasn't searching for anything in particular from these books, or expecting any creative spark, but on the path I'd inevitably find things that surprised some sort of inspiration.

This year, all of my projects were seedlings. During these walks, I've been encountering the perimeters of the stories I want to tell. I'd find myself falling in and out of these potential stories. Instead of digging deep into comics, I find it inspiring to look elsewhere. I am frankly embarrassed by how few comics I read. "Don't shit where you eat", I suppose. My writing process requires a lot of time; I'll discover an idea that excites me and then leave it until it nags at me again. Reading is a great way to kill the meanwhile.

I hesitate to use the metaphor of "filling up the tank" when describing why I spent so much time reading this year, but I do think being deeply curious is a great way to remain inspired. Books are not fuel and creativity is not a reliable engine. I fear repeating myself in my work and remaining curious has helped me find new roads forward into the topics, themes, and ideas that I am preoccupied with in my own work.

Anyways, though I didn't read a ton of comics this year, I've left most of them out this post. I'm hoping to do another post on comics I enjoyed specifically instead of cramming everything into this post.

 Of the forty-something books I read this year, the above books are the ones that have stuck with me the most. If I had more time, I'd love to write about each of them but I'll be giving a brief overview of a few stand-outs below. I have no qualms over not finishing a book if I am not enjoying it, so the first photo is already a semi-curated stack - they're all books I enjoyed enough to spend the time finishing. These books crossed a second hurdle; they were enjoyed enough that I moved back to Canada with them too! There are undoubtedly a few books left out of my mind and back in London.

This year was mainly dominated by non-fiction. However, there were a few stand out books of fiction I read this year:

• The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
  A harrowing but gentle story about time and our relationship to nature. The finale of this book has lodged itself into my brain. Truly haunting stuff!

• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
  There's an obvious kinship between I Who Have Never Known Men and The Wall. Though coincidental, reading them back to back connected them. IWHNKM is equally haunting but much more dour. It's a story shrouded entirely in mystery and one should not go in hoping for answers. This books resistance to answers is in itself a thematic tool and, though a relentless read without the ecological eye of The Wall, it has much to say about our state of existence and our longing for answers. A fantastic and intentionally frustrating read. Just stellar!

• A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
  Luminous! Delightful! I'd never read any Russian short stories prior to this and it's lead to me seeking out collections of the authors found within. Of course this is partly an incredible book about writing, but the stories in this collection are, on there own, enough to be make this list! It should be obvious that these dudes could right but...boy howdy!

• Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
  Not pictured above as I read it on my kindle. A slow but haunting little book. After finishing it, I felt myself slightly dissatisfied but I have found my thoughts returning to it often. A curio!

A few notes on some of the non-fiction books I loved this year:

• Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram
  The most recent addition to this pile. An incredibly moving and somewhat spiritual exercise in reframing our perception and understanding the systems of meaning that underlay how we engage through our own senses with the world. Brilliant. Wide-ranging - from philosophy, sociology, science, history, religion, and memoir; just the exact kind of meandering but deeply engaging book I am after. A book I will broadly recommend and return to.

• The Uses of Disorder by Richard Sennett
  I picked this up on a complete whim and its managed to fundamentally influence how I look at a city. A sort of wide-ranging anarchist manifesto regarding city-planning and community building.

• Abolish the Family by Sophie K. Rosa
  With a title like that how could one not be provoked? Abolish the family - Isn't family good? A powerful little book on reframing relationships, both blood and chosen, in a more equitable way. I felt it to be incredibly worthwhile to challenge the basic assumptions I hold and this was a great doorway into family abolition as an idea. Though I do think Family Abolition is an (intentionally) provocative title that will put a lot of people off, it is essentially a wholesome, progressive, open-ended, and radical manifesto on extending love to those outside of our blood relations, and advocates for mutuality and care within all relationships. It's a manifesto about queering all relationships; whether romantic, platonic, or blood.

• Everyday Utopia by Kristen Ghodsee
  A wide ranging and inspiring overview about the pursuit of "utopia". A sort of "hub" book that will inspire the pursuit of many other books cited within this.

Alright, that's all for now! I could go on endlessly. Again, I only wrote about what I feel like I had something to say about but all of these books were extremely valuable to me!

Anyways - I hope to be back before the end of the year with two more posts: One on some of my favourite comics as well as one on my future projects...

All the best,

Adam