My Best Books of 2024 - Part 1

Last year I finished 128 non-fiction books. Listening to books (most of these were via audio) is both my main form of relaxation and my main form of learning. I take notes on every book.

This year 11 of those 128 books stood out for me as my Best of the Year.

These books expanded my mind and helped me see the world from a new angle. They often challenged my preconceived notions, or connected stories and information that had seemed separate. Some were areas of long fascination and others exposed me to a new field of knowledge, like finding a secret door to a room you never suspected was there. All left me considering what I had learned for weeks and months afterwards.

This is part 1 of a 2-part post. Books are not in any order.

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The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman

Water is more fascinating than you may realise. It’s something we don’t think about, until suddenly it becomes the most important thing in the world when there’s too much or not enough of it. Water is immutable – we have the same amount now that we always had - and cannot be created or destroyed. But our relationship with water – much like our relationship with fire, and for similar reasons – is changing dramatically, as we have pushed urban civilisation into previously low carrying-capacity regions, and as a hotter world leads to more dramatic storms and longer droughts. This great book explores what water is and what it means to us.

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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

Last year one of my Best of the Year books was Fire Weather: The True Story From a Hotter World by John Vaillant, which I’m reminded of as we see the scenes of devastation in LA. This year, however, I spent more time learning about Water.

Over the past year I did a deep dive, randomly, into water policy in the American West, with this book a standout. As the blurb says, “the story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water.” It is a story of hubris and corruption, naivety and short-sightedness, ambition and greed. It reveals how LA stole the water from every river within 400 kms and how Phoenix grew out of the desert into America’s 5th biggest city.

It's a riveting tale. Of a country, a landscape, and an ecological debt coming due, and what this could mean for the future.

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From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want by Rob Hopkins

Rob Hopkins is founder of the Transition Town Movement, and this book is about his evolution as a changemaker, and his experiences inspiring communities to create change together.

It is a call for more stories of what the future can look like if we make the transition to a more sustainable and just world. We are beset by stories of what it could look like if we get it wrong, but very few that sketch out the future we want.

An inspiring and uplifting book, which is hopeful about our capacity to work together to create a better future.

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Bury The Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild

The first and perhaps still most successful human rights campaign in history. At the start of 18th Century, it's thought up to 70% of everyone on earth lived in some sort of bondage, as slaves, serfs, indentured servants and debtors. Almost no one questioned this. Those that began to question the practice were seen as cranks and subversives. But within fifty years of the launch of the first serious campaign to free the slaves they had won.

It took a literal lifetime commitment from key organisers, who pioneering many of the activist tactics still used today, including newsletters, petitions and boycotts.

A genuinely uplifting book that shows the power of small committed groups to change the world in large, profound ways.

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Levels of Life by Julian Barnes

I started this thinking it was another novel by one of my favourite authors, but it turned out to be the memoir of the death of his wife. It rocked me. Devastating, transformative and lyrical. So beautifully written and so sad that at times it’s hard to breathe; you ache from the loss but also celebrate the art, marvelling at the capacity to describe the indescribable.

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Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger, Ryan Mac

I loved Twitter for the longest time. I joined in 2008 and through thousands upon thousands of posts built up a 5-figure following, as well as meeting amazing allies and friends through the platform. This book is a history of Twitter, focused around Musk’s acquisition and what came after. It’s filled with amazing stories that give insight into the richest person on the planet and new political king-maker. It doesn’t inspire confidence but is wildly entertaining.

See part 2 of my Best Books of 2024, along with my Best of the Rest, here.