Best of 2024 and Quitting Meta

2025 has gotten off to quite a start. After a beautifully quiet festive period, I had a business trip to Barcelona, which gave me a merciful reprieve from the icy temperatures of the northwest UK.

This is to explain why I was a little late in compiling my best books of 2024. I read 107 books last year, and 28,377 pages. My most read author of the year was Danielle Steel (of course!) and I read a nice mix of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

As with last year, I’m going to list my top ten in no particular order. You can see my Spotify Wrapped for 2024, as I know lots of you like checking out my music.

1. A Heart that Works by Rob Delaney

2. Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

3. The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams

4. Bellies by Nicola Dinan

5. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

6. Down the Drain by Julia Fox

7. Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key

8. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

9. Women by Chloe Caldwell

10. What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci

On an unrelated note, I’ve decided to quit all of the Meta profiles that I can (Instagram, Facebook and Oculus. Sadly, WhatsApp is necessary for any kind of modern communication) due to eternal loser Mark’s Zuckerberg’s move away from DEI, and toward some unknown definition of masculinity that seems wrapped up in insecurity and making the lives of others worse. I don’t want any part of it! I’ve migrated to Bluesky, so feel free to follow me there.

I've set the same reading goal for this year, that I did for last, but I’m hoping to read some of the bigger tomes on my unread shelves, so I may not hit it. Let’s see. For now, I’m mainly focused on kicking the January blues.