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Im happy that "China Mountain Zhang" made your top 5 of the 2024 list!! I purchased "The Samurai" as an influence on a future writing project I want to pursue.

Lol, I didn't hate House of Flame and Shadow but I also completely forgot that I had even read it this year... feels like a lifetime ago hahah. And gosh I am still so glad I dropped out of Empire of the Wolf after book 1 and saved myself the disappointment. Also was really bracing myself for Nevernight to be on here 🤣

Really loved the quotes you shared, it's so interesting to hear what lines hit you specifically on such a soul-deep level. The Spear Cuts Through Water was high on my list for last year but I just kept procrastinating... time to rectify that soon! And absolutely can't say enough good things about Hobb's writing. Glad you had so many outstanding faves, hope that positive vibe continues on into 2025!

A lot of these i haven't read and really want to. My favourites would be: A Brightness Long Ago / Guy Gavriel Kay Tawny Man 1: Fool's Errand Wars of Light & Shadow 3: Warhost of Vastmark Earthsea 4: Tehanu The Merchant & The Alchemist's Gate / Ted Chiang Mystic River / Dennis Lehane Lonesome Dove / Larry McMurtry The Disaster Artist / Greg Sestero Memory Sorrow & Thorn 3: Green Angel Tower Hobb would dominate this if I didn't limit this to 1 per author 😅 Like she'd have 6 books at least 2024 was easily my best reading year in a very long time, but also, the best year for me irl in a very long time. I'm amazed I read as much as I did, considering I put more time and effort into weight loss than reading.

Navola. It reminded me of the world building of Gay Gavriel Kay and the brutality and humour of Joe Abercrombie. A sublime coming of age tale with both empathy and savagery. I had to pause on many occasions to digest what had occurred in the narrative. The evocative and vibrant prose is outstanding. Has to be in my top ten fantasy books that I have read.

Hello, great list. These are my 10: Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel The Force by Don Winslow The Silmarillion Wellness by Nathan Hill A Much Younger Man by Dianne Highbridge The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones Thieves of State by Sarah Chayes Erasing History by Jason Stanley

Last year I had a great experience listening to the audiobooks of "The War Eternal" series by Rob J. Hayes. Only listened to the first four in 2024 though lol I just finished book five in 2025 lol Anyway, the series was amazing. I don't think any individual book was the greatest ever or even the series, but it was just such a fun ride for anyone wanting action packed fantasy with a lot of magic and a weird and wonderful grimdark world to explore. One thing I love about the worldbuilding here in particular where the various deities that the main character encounters throughout her journey. They are some of the most arrogant and most petty bastards I've ever come across and I love it lol. They remind me of how awful the gods in Greek mythology are to humans sometimes. Anyway, to anyone who choses to give this series a shot, I highly recommend the audiobooks specifically because the narrator Moira Quirk does a phenomenal job here across the five books :)

Ah some Hirayasumi love ! Such a fantastic little series. That Emma M Lion series seems like something Id really like so I will definitely look them out. I know Im gonna love The Reformatory when I get to it, just waiting for it to come up on my bookclubs pick. Spear Cuts Through Water was a magical and twisted experience, that I immediately now wanna read it again, maybe even make it a yearly read. So excited to get to Crime & Punishment and The Samurai, both are books Ive had on my TBR for ages but this year Im prioritising stuff Ive been meaning to read.

I love that you shared quotes from each book. Aggressive approval and vigorous additions to my tbr.

Man w;hat a list!! I've placed Out(love that cover btw) and The Reformatory on my Amazon List to purchase one of these day. Awesome video Zara.

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My top five of 2024: 1. Declare - Tim Powers 2. Tender - Sofia Samatar 3. Grace of Kings - Ken Liu 4. Power and the Glory - Graham Greene 5. Romeo and Juliet/The Winter’s Tale - William Shakespeare

A few of my favorite reads of 2024 would be: The Pursuit of William Abbey - Claire North The Winter Road - Adrian Selby The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood The entire Bloodsword Trilogy - John Gwynne Son of The Black Sword - Larry Corriea The Palace of Illusions - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead - K. J. Parker Silence - Shusaku Endo One Dark Window - Rachel Gillig

Since you liked Piranesi, I'd recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. They're nothing like each other really, but it was just amazing, my favourite book of 2024. I found the prose just stunning and the story very gripping. A masterpiece.

Hey everyone. Just noticed the image for Crime and Punishment didn’t come through. Sorry about that. Funny thing is I had to reedit this video like 5 times and I still managed to miss something 🤦🏽‍♀️ regardless, hope you enjoy the video.

An interesting and varied list! I haven't read China Mountain Zhang yet and your description of it makes me want to go and pick it up. Thanks again.

I went to download AstraBlast but turns out my phone is too old for it 💀 This is a really great list, some favorites and just incredible books all around. I really need to read Olondria and Navola. Have you read Winged Histories as well? Looks like the image for Crime and Punishment didn't load.

I liked Station Eleven a lot, but it's very much a book that in retrospect has fallen off for me, I kinda went from loving it to not getting why, and unfortunately I think it's the best of her works by a lot - The others are also well written, she's a good writer, but the core of it is somehow missing for me. Definitely interested if you do try another, but, as a warning... that may have been the best chance you had edit - also similar feelings about The Goblin Emperor - I enjoyed it at the time, but again looking back I wonder if it wouldn't mostly piss me off on a re-read, it's nowhere near as smart as I want a political fantasy to be. Check out The Councillor by E J Beaton if you want something just much much much better in that vein.

So happy the time for Dandelion Dynasty has finally come! And oooh that one obscure indie series with the pretty covers you mentioned sounds really good, very eager to hear your thoughts. Also really hope Liveship Traders lives up to the hype for you! And I have been toying with the idea of starting Malazn for a while now, but I can't seem to just bite the bullet. Hope you enjoy when you get to it. Happy reading 🥰

Starship Troopers - Might be skewed as I liked the movie which was much different but it just wasn't that interesting. Armor by Steakley was much better for the genre. Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe - read like a fantasy knock off of New Sun. Similar style but again, was just not engaged for a lot of it.

Station Eleven is definitely not the typical post-apocalyptic story, not nearly as grim as many I’ve read. It took me a while to figure out the different time lines, how they mesh. Like you, it took me a while to get used to the writing, but in the end I enjoyed it. My biggest disappointment was ‘Empire of Silence’, didn’t even come close to living up to the hype. It was fine for a debut novel, but the main character just felt shallow, the plotting too convenient, overall it just didn’t work for me at all.

Nevernight was so bad it couldn't even make this list?! 😂

The Dead Zone was published in 1979, so one of his earliest novels (first novel Carrie was 1974 for reference)

oh man, The Dead Zone is my all time favorite King book! but yes, your experience is common, people love the first half and don't love the directions it goes in, but i loved it!

I've never read Murakami, but I've always heard Norwegian Wood wasn't a pleasant read, especially from female readers. Though I've heard that about a lot of Murakami's works in general. Never say never but as of right now, I'm not that interested in reading him. I have Klara and the Sun but still haven't read a word of any Ishiguro. I'm still open to restarting Empire of the Wolf someday but there are plenty of other series I'm more excited to try and revisit. I was pretty lucky when it came to books this year. At worst, I was underwhelmed. Those books were: Robert McCammon's Boy's Life and Michael Crichton's Grave Descend. Grave Descend was fairly forgettable, and Boy's Life was still pretty good, just overhyped, and the murder mystery (which had a great set-up) lost steam for me after a while. When it was being a coming of age, slice of life story with some bits of magical realism thrown in, it was very good. Obviously, this a me thing, but I'd much rather McCammon had either done one or the other, not both or had the mystery feature a little more promeniently. I'm open to reading more McCammon again, but I'm not in a hurry. I did DNF Ryan Cahill's Of Darkness & Light. Now that I've had nearly a full year since then, I think I went into the series with the wrong expectations and might try the series again if I'm looking for a palette cleanser.

I read the first two of Swann's trilogy and never got around to read The Trials Of Empire, after watching this video maybe it's for the best, can't say I was massively invested in the series anyway. As for Ishiguro I'm also not a huge Klara And The Sun fan, maybe give An Artist Of The Floating world a go, for me it's his most interesting work.

I have for the last years been very blessed with almost only competent, interesting or great reads, but if I had to pick 3 for 2024: «Idoru» by William Gibson («The Bridge Trilogy» #2, Cyberpunk): While very forward-minded, being from the 90s with an Japanese AI Idol as a central character, being away from San Francisco Golden Gate Favela of Book 1 and 3, lose a lot of the Atmosphere and while competent, the main POVs are not as interesting as in Book 1 and some work better in Book 3 together with the returning Book 1 POVs. «The Buried Giant» by Kazuo Ishigaro (Fantasy inspired by Arthurian Legend): More a «oh so close to be really, really great, if it only had had a tighter story», then bad (the main characters broke my heart though, in a positive way!) «The Eternal Champion» by Michael Moorcock (Epic Fantasy/S&S): The Origin of Moorcock’s Multiverse, to me fell flat. The big twist is telegraphed with the subtlety of an Elephant stampede and the ending just totally reads as «Proto-Angry Young Man Grimdark» with hardly any moral difference between the main character and the antagonists…I also read his «Warlord of the Air» this year and it was much more deftly written with many similar themes. Cheers Zara!

most disliked for me this year is probably Rise of the ranger, haunting adeline, atlas six, under the oak tree, the book of azrael and kingdom of the wicked. I read the familiar too, and the justice of kings (whole trilogy) and they were meh - but not as bad as those listed above XD.

Jude the Obscure was my most hated. 😂 i can usually hate characters and still appreciate the book but not this time. 😅 I was disappointed with Oliver Twist but i think it was my mood. I just was tired of him escaping the bad guys only to get caught again. He needed good things to happen sooner. There might be more but that's off the top of my head.

There were some others that were more just disappointing, but these veered into dislike too. 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami Trials of Empire - Richard Swan Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison Library at Mount Char - Scott Hawkins

I've been waiting three years to tell you that your wrong about a book. So here it goes. Klara and the Sun......"your wrong". lol. You did say it was mid though. I can live with that. Honestly, I do think your knowledge of the subject hinders your experience a little bit. I'm glad you touched on that and I'm happy to hear you will read some of Ishiguro's other works. Excellent video!!

"Klara and the Sun." Is on my reading list partly because I want to see the movie starring Jenna Ortega. Hopefully, I can find it a little enjoyable. Happy New Year!!

Wholeheartedly agree that books can help us explore realities, points of views, and ideas that we may not be close to, may be very different to our reality, or highly speculative--and to me, this is especially true in speculative fiction (like, that's the whole point of the genre, isn't it?) I love how you put it--human experience informs what we write, and that's our inherent bias, right? We are political beings by nature because we live in societies, organised and ruled through political power (although at this level of abstraction is has nothing to do with ideology). I think that a lot of the angst about politics in books is when the ideology of the reader clashes with the * perceived * ideology of the writer (e.g., LeGuin's The Dispossessed is a thorough analysis of an anarchy, but that doesn't mean LeGuin herself was an anarchist). However, I also think it's a matter of presentation, some authors can be quite "in your face" when presenting specific elements of their worldbuilding that lean towards ideology... and that always rattles readers. That said, I also think that politics are inherent to worldbuilding, which is a fundamental part of scifi/fantasy... otherwise, the worldbuilding isn't believable and ends up lacking depth. Likewise, as you said, specific subgenres are about the human experience (e.g., dystopias, military fantasy) and so should have, by definition, political connotations. I'm so sorry for the essay-like comment. I do have a question though: can I do a follow up video on this on my post? I'll tag you of course, but you really gave me a lot of ideas I want to dive deep into!

I love this book and I think it’s had way more influence on culture than people realize. The 4 musketeer group could be the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. Milady De Winter is basically Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones. The Cardinal’s cunning way of acting nice when he’s angry made him feel like a character from The Godfather. What a brilliant book! I’m gonna have to read Dumas’s other books now

no storm light archive?

Oooh I was very curious about Navola and you just bumped it up the TBR!! And I personally wasn't as impacted by Small Things Like These, but I am still eager to read more by her because her storytelling is so powerful. Happy reading and safe travels 🥰

Only series I'm willing to commit to are finish Dandelion Dynasty (1 book left), Earthsea (2 books left) and continue Wheel of Time and Wars of Light & Shadow (currently reading Book 4 out of the 11). As for (at least) starting series: Daniel Abraham's Dagger & Coin and Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard I'm also currently re-reading ASOIAF, Dresden Files and Second Apocalypse. I'm sorely tempted to throw in re-reads of Locke Lamore and Farseer 😅 But I'm crap at sticking to plans, even vague outlines of ones.

UA-cam ate my comment. I need to try Claire Keegan and Brothers Karamazov! In December I finished Realm of the Elderlings and read comics. Now I'm re-reading ASOIAF to see if RotE has usurped it as my overall favourite Fantasy series and Fugitive Prince, the 4th book in Janny Wurts' Wars of Light & Shadow series.

Happy New Year Zara. I have a couple of Kurt Vonnegut books coming up in the 100 Book Challenge I'm doing on my channel so glad to hear that you enjoyed his work. I haven't read anything by him yet. Cheers!

-Slaughterhouse 5: same lol I loved it too lmao but I really do need to reread at some point because I remember my feelings towards the book but not the actual content of the book itself because its been soooo long lmao - btw I also recommend "The Sirens of Titan" and "Mother Night" buy Kurt Vonnegut as well, both fantastic and on the flip side I absolutely DO NOT recommend "Breakfast of Champions" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" by the same author lol those two where pretty bad IMO -Navola sounds interesting omg I need to check that out -Reminding me that I NEED more Dostoevsky in my life lmao (and Russian literature in general). I definitely want to do a reread of Brothers Karamazov now as it is in the same boat as Slaughterhouse 5 where its been well over a decade since I've read and I mostly remember my feeling towards it more so than the actually content. Ton of other Russian lit in need to get to as well. -As I am typing this, I noticed that someone has already commented on this video that they hate Master and Margarita and dnf it lmfao it was so funny to me because let me quote the exact comment "Plot was weird, non-sensical and dumb" - this is exact reason why I love M&M so much, because I saw the book as the author's commentary on Soviet society at the time he was writing: "life in USSR is weird, non-sensical and dumb" 😂😂 -ZARA HOW TF HAVE YOU NOT READ 1984?!?!?!? LMAO XD I just found this part of your video funny because I know several people who NEVER read books, maybe life one book every decade, and even they have read 1984 lmao XD for someone as prolific a reader as you there is no excuse :P My big read during December was "Wind and Truth" by good old Brando Sando - I gotta say, of the 5 Stormlight books so far, this one had the worst journey but best destination. Like compared to the other books in same series, the first 90% was surprising a massive dip in quality, yet the last 10% was an absolute banger. Really feel conflicted on this one because I just wasn't as well balanced in terms of how satisfying it was to read throughout compared to other Stormlight books, which is a real shame :( Oh I'm not too upset though. Sanderson is human so he is allowed to have a weak book every now and again. I am actually more disappointed in the discourse around this novel than the novel itself. People have elevated Sanderson up to such a high degree that when a book of his falters, they are either in complete denial about his flaws or they feel betrayed when reminded of the fact that he is a mere mortal like the rest of us. As a result have found the discourse around this book to be really toxic overall coming from both the people who love it and those who hate it. Wind and Truth, more than any other Sanderson novel, I have found to be both overrated by those that loved it and over-hated by those that were disappointed by it and that is again a real shame in my opinion :( Anyway, apologies for the sudden Brando Sando rant on a book series you aren't even planning on reading lmao XD But seriously, Zara, thank you for another wonderful video <3 Hope you have a safe and fun trip here in the good old U.S. of A. 😊😊

Ohh, Beyond Redemption! I've been eyeing it for a while, tbh, but don't think I'm nowhere near tackling it. Dune! I also have it in my TBR for this year! The Left Hand of Darkness I'll need to re-read it; I don't think I was in the mood for an audiobook when I read it for the first time, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt; however, I read The Dispossessed and while the ideas were good the prose was not for me... will see, though. A Tales of Two Cities! I haven't re-read it in ages and can barely recall it D: That should be the sign that I'm needing a reread, though. Happy reading Zara, can't wait to hear your thoughts on all of them, but especially Malazan!

❤ Keegan's Foster hit me even harder, although it's a much simpler and shorter story. I'm excited to read more Jo Walton and some Ada Palmer. I know they have a collaboration coming out too. I like Navola even more as time goes by.

I hated Master and Margarita and dnf it! Plot was weird, non-sensical and dumb!

And now I'm obligated to read Navola. Have a good trip!

I think you'll like Foster by Keegan. I didn't care for her other stories as much. I loved Small Things Like These, but didn't like the movie as much. I felt that Bill should've been played as a more "normal" bloke, which I thought would make his struggle and sacrifice more dramatic. Just my opinion, still a good movie.

❤🎉🎉 My favs from December were The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Mary Yonge (Victorian classic), Master and Man, and What Men Live By by Tolstoy.

In December I read: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri Tooth and Claw by Craig Johnson Lazarus Man by Richard Price Ensayos Bonsai by Fabián Casas I already started The Iliad and it's easy to read, it has A BUNCH of names jumping in and out so I'm reading a "chapter" a day since they're around 20 to 30 pages long. Meanwhile I'm reading Thr Best American Noir of the Century edited by James Ellroy, and at the end of the month I could squeeze in The Prince and Carmilla or some other short book.

WHY is the question and you’ve asked it😂👌🏻. I genuinely don’t get it. I know we all have different tastes but….😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️