Jennifer Morag Henderson

Here are some of the interesting books I read in 2024:

I don’t always keep a note of the books I read, but sometimes I do. I’ve blogged about favourite books in other years (here and here), and I’ve noticed that it’s always a popular post.

I amn’t sharing any numbers (perhaps you’ve noticed that when people share the numbers of books they read in a year on social media, it can attract some very agitated comments!), and the image doesn’t show all the books I’ve read, just ones that stood out for one reason or another, and ones that I’m happy to talk about.

A particular highlight this year was “Sand Castle” by Janet Beith: I picked up this novel in a second-hand bookshop, originally because I liked the cover, then I read a couple of pages and was hooked. I don’t often read things that genuinely remind me of Josephine Tey (subject of my first biography), but this had early Gordon Daviot vibes (her first pseudonym). Set in Manchester at the beginning of the 20th century, it follows the life of two Highland boys. It was really, really good – and all the more poignant because it talks about war and its aftermath, and changes in society, but was published in 1936, so can’t be read now without the knowledge of what happened next. Janet Beith was the niece of Ian Hay, a popular author who Josephine Tey and her father Colin were big fans of. As far as I can find out, Janet Beith published three novels, the first of which, “No Second Spring”, won a major award. She seems to have been universally well reviewed at the time of publication, but almost forgotten now. Well worth searching out.

I re-read a lot, and you might spot a couple of children’s books in the picture above. E. Nesbit is wonderful, but do her books work for children nowadays, or are the worlds they depict just too foreign for modern readers? The language is very different from what is ‘normal’ in children’s literature these days too – changing styles interest me.

Some books I like to buy as soon as they come out (anything by Taras Grescoe), but I really like a paperback format: I waited until Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad was in softback so it would match my copy of her translation of The Odyssey. I’ll never be convinced that sulky Achilles is a better hero than that ‘complicated man’ Odysseus, but Emily Wilson makes a very good case in her introduction for why The Iliad is her favourite of the two, and that, along with the new translation, enhanced my re-read here. I also appreciate good book design, and her publisher Norton have done a great job, with a chunky, nicely-sized book that lies flat when it’s opened, with cut paper edges, and a clear layout for the notes.

Biography and memoir are always a favourite genre for me, and there were some good new music autobiographies published, including “Rebel Girl” by Kathleen Hanna. There’s a podcast called Song Exploder which looks at the stories behind the songs, and I would recommend the episode on Kathleen Hanna’s band Le Tigre and their song ‘Deceptacon’: https://songexploder.net/le-tigre Song Exploder was briefly on Netflix as well, and from the TV version the Nine Inch Nails episode is a standout.

“My Salinger Year” is another memoir, telling the story of Joanna Rakoff’s time working for the New York literary agency that represented J.D. Salinger (and Judy Blume), and her job dealing with Salinger’s fan mail, as well as navigating her own early-twenties life. It’s all set at a very particular moment in the 1990s (when an office could still reasonably refuse to have computers). “My Salinger Year” was released in a new special edition from Slightly Foxed in 2024 (not the copy I have, which is pictured here), and it’s also been made into a film (which I haven’t seen.) It’s perhaps kind of a niche book, but one that has actually ended up being really popular through word of mouth and is now reaching a much bigger audience. It’s a great book for people who like books and writing. I worked in publishing – sadly in Edinburgh, rather than New York – and there’s a lot in the book that I responded to.

As well as reading I was very busy writing last year, and some of these things are going to be published in 2025. I’ve already shared the news about the paperback publication of my historical biography “Daughters of the North: Jean Gordon and Mary, Queen of Scots” (coming in April 2025), and there will be more publication news to come soon!