Reads of the year: 2024

Alistair Mackay
Evenings & Weekends by Oisín McKenna

I’m a big fan of Sally Rooney, and this novel in a similar vein scratches the same itch, but makes things queer, poly and East London cool. Told over the course of a weekend in London, during a heatwave, we follow the lives of Ed and Maggie, about to have a baby and leave the city; her best friend Phil, who’s finding non-monogamy with Keith tricky; and Phil’s mom, full of yearning and sadness after having received bad news. I loved the tension between what the characters think and how they express themselves, and the tragic misunderstanding that comes from that. I also loved the unexpected flashes of recognition, and the way that, the more time I spent with the characters, the more I rooted for them, even those I’d found unsympathetic to start with. It's a sexy book; a beautiful snapshot of what it feels like to be alive.

Andrew Brown
Show Me the Place by Hedley Twidle

I devoured this quirky collection of essays with childlike happiness. Essayists frighten me — because they're invariably cleverer than I am, and because they're happy to flaunt it! I've read essays where only the first and last sentences have made sense (with a dictionary close at hand). These stories are different: accessible, funny and deeply human. Twidle attacks the same theme from bizarre, unconnected angles: his (and our) search for an alternative way to be. Can we escape the mundane and adopt a new “place” for ourselves? Self-deprecating but searingly insightful, ultimately Twidle laughs darkly at himself more than at the odd, ungrounded characters that populate his journeys. A light yet profound read. 

Anna Stroud
Once Removed by David Mann

Published in March 2024, Mann’s debut collection of short fiction is nothing short of excellent. It unfolds like a play, taking the reader into the South African art world, where Mann makes a living as an editor and arts writer. With vivid scenes and sharp reflections, each of the 13 tales reveals a different side of the local art scene: the crumbling museums, ageing legends, art collectives that don’t go anywhere, the mercurial nature of funders. Elegant, poignant and wry, it's become a permanent fixture on my bedside table next to Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs and The Book of Delights by Ross Gay.

Bron Sibree
Juice by Tim Winton

A hefty 500-plus-page new novel, which sears in your consciousness with frightening power. There’s a fearsome beauty to this 11th novel by the novelist dubbed “Australia’s living legend” by The New York Times. It's the tale of a horrific future; a forewarning of the bleak realities of a heating planet, told by an unnamed narrator driving across a blighted, ash-covered landscape at night with a nameless, wordless child, seeking shelter from scalding heat and civil disintegration. In a Scheherazade-like quest, the narrator unspools his life story to a menacing, armed stranger in exchange for their lives. In this brave, heartfelt novel, “juice” doesn't merely refer to fuel, but to the question whether we have the physical and moral courage to confront the cause or effects of a rapidly heating planet. If we don’t, who will?

CA Davids  
Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

What a rare year 2024 was for me as a reader with local and international titles that kept me glued to the page, reading at times with a sense of urgency, and at others for the companionship and joy of a writer’s imagination.  This book, one of my favourites, introduces Jay, a once-edgy artist who's fallen out of the frame of his own life. Now a delivery driver during a pandemic, he finds himself back with Alice, a former best friend he once loved whose betrayals mount, and in an art world that's remained alluring, dangerous (often deadly) and caustic. Kunzru casts a sharp eye on the 1990s British art scene, and constructs a beautifully written story that never flinches from big ideas.         

Claire Keeton
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

The prose flows like mercury and cuts like shards of glass, reflecting the obsessions of society in the 21st century, in a story about a rogue America secret agent infiltrating a militant eco-commune in rural France. Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, the story shifts between the finely-wrought characters of the Le Moulin, shot through with pathos and humour, to the existential musings of Bruno, a mentor to the commune. The ruthless Sadie finds herself drawn to his emails, while forging relationships with activists she's waiting to betray. It’s a glittering masterpiece with universal themes. Closer to home, I loved Leo by Deon Meyer.       
                               
David Mann 
Show Me the Place by Hedley Twidle

Twidle’s new book of essays was such a joy to read. His writing is funny, engaging, exquisitely written and reminds you of the real necessity of being actively and curiously in conversation with the world around you. The essay about tracking down Cecil John Rhodes’ missing nose is of the best things I’ve read this year.

Diane Awerbuck
Love Stories for Ghosts by Alex Latimer

“The Collection” is a perfect short story: after his death, a man gathers every eyelash, skin cell and tooth he's ever lost. “Extinction” is the old age of coelacanth lady Margorie Courtenay Latimer (no relation, but people keep asking) intersecting with the death of the writer’s mother. “The Smell” follows a bad man reincarnated as a terrible stink — a miasma — which falls hopelessly in love with a woman. His attempts to woo her are hilarious and poignant, Latimer’s speciality combination. His kind vision, giraffe-tongue reach and clear-eyed poetry transform loss and longing into detailed ecosystems and entire cosmologies of love: ridiculous, romantic, divine. Guy Neveling’s photographs add another layer of meaning, intensely specific but also archetypal. It's earned its place on the Book Lounge Book of the Year list.

Haidar Eid
The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein.

It details how Israel has turned Palestine into the perfect “laboratory” for its military-technology complex, involving surveillance, home demolitions, incarceration and brutality, and hi-tech tools. The weapons manufactured by the “Start-up Nation” are marketed as “battle-tested” because they've been used in besieged Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Loewenstein, whom I met in Gaza after the 2009 massacre, argues convincingly that the occupation of Palestine, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza, has provided Israel with a testing ground for developing its weapons and surveillance technology before exporting them to the world, including European countries and Middle Eastern despotic regimes. He argues that Israel has become a main player in Europe’s efforts “to both militarise its borders and deter new arrivals” (in other words, migrants). One important section of the book focuses on the role played by the cyber-arms firm responsible for creating the Pegasus spyware used by government intelligence agencies worldwide to infiltrate private mobile phones. Loewenstein makes it clear that, without US financial support for its weapons industry, Israel wouldn't have been able to commit the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as the crimes of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. This book is a must-read in a time of genocide.

Hamilton Wende
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

A profound meditation on identity, art, creativity, memory, and the human spirit under oppression. Sonia is a Palestinian actor who returns to her homeland from London. From the moment she arrives, she's confronted by the realities of her identity as a Palestinian under Israeli rule. She's strip-searched at the airport on arrival. But the book isn't merely an angry denunciation of Israeli persecution. Sonia and her family and friends are determined to live their lives as normally as they can — which means staging a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. The resulting mix of history, literature and human connection is both moving and fascinating. Ghosts — of family, of homes from which people were evicted, of fading memories, and of the land itself — swirl through the narrative, as does the revisited, reimagined meaning and relevance of Shakespeare in our times.

Hedley Twidle
Land | Lines by Shari Daya

I resolved to read more poetry this year and was immediately rewarded by this debut collection, from local independent publisher Karavan Press. Daya is a cultural geographer who refracts her home city of Cape Town (and various elsewheres) via intricate and beautifully worked “maps of memory”. It's a politically astute but warm, often celebratory set of writings at the intersection of private, public and natural history. The poems take us from trainlines to swimming dams, from aeroplane toilets to deserts, from parenting to roadblocks to prayer rooms. Daya writes with lyrical precision and a synaesthesia-like blurring of the senses. The opening poem, “The Fireflies”, invites us to step “into a choir of lights, a festival, a night bazaar”: Each rising flight’s a note as clean, indeed,/as flame, heard in the retinas, the same/sound sung by the stars, embroidered on the plush/hem of the forest.

Ivan Vladislavić
Show Me the Place by Hedley Twidle

In this witty collection of essays, Twidle takes up the form’s invitation to speculate, follow a thought where it leads, and ask unexpected questions. The focus on dysfunctional utopias — or functional dystopias — is apt for our times. We're living in the ruins of one failed experiment or another. Twidle refuses easy pessimism, preferring what he calls “risky optimism”, which he finds in unlikely places. Clear-eyed as these essays are, they're not disenchanted: they arise from a wholehearted, often delighted engagement with our imperfect world. In “A line of light”, his moving essay on the loss of his mother, he asks what can be made of small tragedies. Are there things better left unwritten, or is it always a case of finding the right words? Happily, he's chosen to write.

Jarred Thompson
Once Removed by David Mann

Exploring what art means through a variety of characters both involved in and peripheral to the art world, Mann’s short story collection probes the value and suffusion of art in our everyday lives. Mann’s stories look at art’s social, political and aesthetic vagaries while considering how our relation to artists and their artworks confronts us with fantasies about the self, the other, and art’s limitations in a world rampant with consumerism and commodification.

Jonny Steinberg
The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll

This extraordinary feat of nonfiction takes us into the mind of Saddam Hussein in the years before the US invaded his country. Believing the mighty CIA was all-knowing, he assumed US president George Bush understood that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was bluffing. The price he paid for overestimating US intelligence was his country and, ultimately, his life. What an inventive premise this would have made for a thriller. That it's a plausible, authoritative account of a real-world drama is remarkable.

Justin Fox
The Wager by David Grann 

A thrilling sea yarn about shipwreck, mutiny and murder. The story of the wreck of the Wager and its aftermath features astonishing narrative twists and almost unimaginable human misery. Grann extracts maximum drama from the events and sketches nuanced portraits of main characters on the doomed ship. It's a tour de force of maritime nonfiction.

Kate Rogan
James by Percival Everett

One of the first things I read this year, it got under my skin and is still with me — a sure sign of a great read. It’s a fresh, funny, clever retelling of the Mark Twain classicThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. James is the emboldened voice of Jim who, in Everett’s hands, is given agency and narrative power. Huck’s there too, though slightly more aware than his 19th-century counterpart. While the novel’s themes — racism, slavery and identity — are serious, Everett’s edge-of-your-seat plotting and ability to make you laugh when matters are heavy will have you engrossed! Like its inspiration Huckleberry Finn, it's destined to be a classic.

Kevin Ritchie
Hoe ek dit onthou by Francois van Coke with Annie Klopper

An unputdownable memoir. From predikant’s problem child to punk rocker and ultimately respected elder of the South African music scene, if there was ever a South African musician who should have joined the “27 Club”, it was Van Coke (born Badenhorst). Side-splittingly funny in places, achingly sad in others, the book is an excoriatingly honest revisiting of decisions bad and good. It's also a cautionary tale for those who made it to middle age and an aspirational handbook for teenage rebels. There’s good reason Van Coke has been so successful with Fokofpolisiekar, his eponymous Kartel, Vriende and Die Gevaar: he’s clever, talented and hardworking, picking himself up after every scrape to emerge stronger and wiser. His legions of fans are richer for it.

Lauren McDiarmid
Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Once I started, I couldn’t put it down! Perfect that I started it on a long plane journey ... to Australia, where the story is set. That’s where the coincidence ended, thank goodness. It explores fate, free will and the fragility of life through a grippingly imaginative narrative revolving around a domestic flight where passengers learn their exact time of death from an enigmatic woman dubbed “The Death Lady”. What begins as a bizarre anecdote escalates into chilling reality when her predictions start to come true. This revelation forces the characters to ponder profound questions about how knowledge of mortality shapes our decisions and priorities. Her signature blend of wit and emotional resonance shines as she adroitly balances humour with the tension of impending doom. The novel tells the interconnected stories of six passengers, examining how they confront their foretold fates while navigating love, grief and self-discovery, along with the story of “The Death Lady”, revealing what led her to that fateful day. With its captivating premise and relatable human struggles, it cements Moriarty’s place as a master storyteller in contemporary fiction.

Lesedi Molefi
The Creation of Half-Broken People by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

True to 2024’s theme of wide-eyed discovery, this fiction work locked me in. Beautifully paced, well-researched and imagined, it travels poetically to places and moments in history, sending  vivid images of the political, cultural, spiritual and emotional experiences of the “half-broken” women and men who chose complex rebellion against forces of empire. It’s been a generous, hypnotic introduction to African Gothic novels travelling miles through the last century and inches across my bookshelf to become my favourite read.

Megan Ross
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda

Remembering old sensations, slipping into other realms and recalling things I hadn't thought about in years has been at the heart of reading and rereading this slim volume of short stories — reading because I’ve been a longtime fan of Aguda’s and I loved the short story “Breast Milk”. A book that deals with wonder and wickedness in equal measure, Ghostroots is incantatory in its exquisiteness. Sentences are bare, clean, sharp as a blade - the writing cuts to the quick. Ultimately, the blood flows, and human feeling bubbles up between each word - a warming bliss. In equal parts light and dense, I did not so much enjoy this book as inhaled it.

Michele Magwood
The Creation of Half-Broken People by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

Ndlovu is shaping up to become an outstanding writers on the continent. In her fourth novel, she extends the history of her City of Kings trilogy, a guarded reference to her hometown of Bulawayo. With an acute, delicate eye, she revisits classic stories of madness and female rebellion, of misremembered and misbegotten women, while dismantling the gung-ho tales of colonial masters. She looks askance at donors and do-gooders and examines the dashed ambitions of some colonisers, the psychological effect of ignominy resulting from what was supposed to be a glorious project. At the centre is Ndlovu's humanity.

Niq Mhlongo
Love Mary Kill by Zukiswa Wanner

This well-crafted story deals with societal tapestry, including gender norms, love triangles and the choices we make in life. Through her brilliant characterisation of Akani and Owami, she explores societal pressures and stereotypes in black communities. For example, men are socialised to believe they're bosses in their marriages and can cheat on their wives with impunity. They're also not supposed to cry or do “women’s work” like cooking and cleaning. Women are expected to keep quiet or feel guilty, as if they invited abuse upon themselves. The book delves into topical issues like gender-based violence, the grooming and abuse of young girls, and sexual assaults on children. These themes are weighty but the quality of Wanner’s writing makes the heart race.

Sewela Langeni
The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell

This book came out right on time during an election year, giving us a glimpse of what we suspect is happening behind the scenes in the lives of most politicians. Borrowing ideas from news headlines, the book takes us into the life of Anita, who falls in love with a slick politician called Neill. After painting a picture of Anita’s woman-centred life before Neill, Boswell presents us with a love relationship characterised by luxury, spontaneity and lavish gifts. Through it all, you can't help wondering whether it's real. Boswell does a great job of presenting Anita as intelligent and beautiful, and the novel explores a myriad issues women can relate to, like hitting the glass ceiling, maintaining agency in a relationship, juggling judgment from family about personal choices, and more. It's a perfect holiday read. The ending will leave the reader shocked and wanting more.

Qarnita Loxton
The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell

Boswell weaves love, passion, politics and the life of a woman academic into a clever and layered social commentary. I read this book in one sitting and found it both insightful and entertaining.

Shubnum Khan
God’s Pocket by Sven Axelrad

My favourite local read of the year - it’s funny, witty with the elements needed for a good read: intrigue, suspense, magic, and a little darkness. I didn’t know I liked self-aware novels until I read this one. It makes you look back at the experiences that moulded you into an adult (everyone has sneaked into a closed swimming pool with friends) with wistfulness. I’m beginning to think all good books should be about friendships. It was an unexpected, delightful treat in a rough year.

Siphiwo Mahala
The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil by Shubnum Khan 

A gripping, multifaceted novel weaving together elements of romance, horror and intrigue and brimming with a rich tapestry of themes: identity, migrancy, the concept of home, and rejection. The story unfolds in Akbar Manzil, a haunted Durban mansion and meanders through different epochs, from the early 20th century to the present, yet the plot remains cohesive. Akbar Ali Khan, a wealthy, daring adventurer, embarks on a journey from India with his wife, settling in Natal. But he falls in love when he encounters Meena, a younger woman from a modest background. The narrative navigates the complexities of identity amid the intersections of culture and experience, highlighting the dynamic processes of assimilation and acquiring a hybrid identity. Deep secrets unravel, transporting readers into a new world. It's a refreshing, unforgettable read written in lyrical prose. This compelling page-turner is garnering a global reputation as one of the most remarkable titles of 2024.

Shaun de Waal
The Near North by Ivan Vladislavić

It's about Johannesburg, about moving from one part of the city to another, and walking around that new “near north”, revealing how we orientate ourselves, define our spaces within a city, observe its minutiae, and find routes through it — as well as through our own mental baggage. The Near North modulates into a meditation on loss and grief,  reconstruction and regrowth, in prose of calm beauty.

Shaun Lunga
Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi

A whirlwind 36-hour journey through a messy break-up, chaotic party and tangled web of sex, lies and corruption. The pacing is relentless, every moment brimming with tension. The writing keeps you on the edge of your seat. Emezi masterfully creates a world that feels expansive but is immediate, exploring themes like hypocrisy, toxic masculinity and sexual cruelty. The novel’s raw honesty shines through with queer characters, trans representations and depictions of sex workers. Emezi’s sharp writing pulls you in, and while the ending doesn’t tie everything up neatly, the novel challenges you to think about the characters’ journeys. It's bold, unsettling and thought-provoking, daring readers to question societal norms and confront uncomfortable truths.

Sue Nyathi
James by Percival Everett

My best read for 2024 is undoubtedly I must confess, this is the first Everett book I have read, and I was amazed to discover he has a long backlist of 35 novels! This Booker-shortlisted title reimagines Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by centring the enslaved Jim. He narrates and is the main protagonist in this gruelling tale of his escape from slavery. In reworking the original novel in this way, Everett gives James a voice — and a loud and funny one at that. He and Huck navigate the unpredictable Mississippi river, and the adventure unfolds in this journey of self-discovery, self-realisation and self-preservation. The novel — fast-paced, action-packed and punctuated throughout with humour — reads like a movie. Brace yourself for the climactic and unexpected ending. And, no, you don’t need to have slogged through the Mark Twain classic to enjoy this novel, though having read it would provide you with extra insight into the contemporary reworking. This is a must-read.

Sven Axelrad
 Love Stories for Ghosts by Alex Latimer

This collection has stayed with me, lingering in a mezzanine space above my subconscious. It haunts me (politely) in liminal moments: making coffee, swimming or lingering in my car after I’ve arrived somewhere. It's a collection of stories about death, or love after death, but instead of being dark it's surprisingly gentle, full of hope and kindness. “I don’t know where you go after you die,” Latimer tells us, “but I do know what you have to do before you can go there: you have to collect yourself.”

Thango Ntwasa
Herc by Phoenicia Rogerson

In the world of trendy reads showcased on BookTok, Greek myths have found new fans in both young and old readers keen on revisiting the adventures of gods and royals alike. I lapped up many of these books this year, but none could hold a candle to this one. Viewing the mythological hero as a gym bro let loose on the world, Rogerson’s Hercules is a sexually fluid psychological mess. Her account of his exploits keeps readers turning the pages in awe of what it meant to love a demigod.

TJ Strydom
The Fund by Rob Copeland 

Going unauthorised is hard, especially when your topic is someone with an aura of almost magical success. It’s even harder when he's billionaire Ray Dalio, revered as a thought leader and a man who's written his own best-seller, Principles. That's why this book by a New York Times journalist was a thrilling read. It goes behind the scenes to describe the financial sector’s obsession with Bridgewater Capital — the hedge fund of hedge funds, and the so-called big winner when everyone else loses. This is an image cultivated by Dalio over years and cemented in 2008, when he got the credit for “predicting” the global financial crisis. But Copeland digs deep, interviews those involved, and writes an excellent account of what Bridgewater is, pointing out the fund’s flaws and describing the bizarre culture that coalesced around Dalio. This book is a brilliant unauthorised take on a financial institution.

Wamuwi Mbao
Show Me the Place by Hedley Twidle

Twidle is one of our most astute essayists, and his collection Show Me the Place is some of the best non-fiction writing available anywhere. It shows off Twidle’s exceptional close observations of life in a series of essays that rummage thoughtfully through the experiences and ideas that make up our world. In tones at once deeply introspective and outward-gazing, Twidle’s essays unpick what lies behind our very human desire for an alternative to the unsatisfying present we find ourselves in. This is a must-read.

Zibu Sithole
Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow by Damilare Kuku

Hilarious. I tasted foods I haven't eaten, walked down streets I haven't visited, and felt so many fresh and unexpected emotions by perusing the pages of this book. I gobbled the novel down in a matter of days, but the characters and their experiences will stay with me for years. Life can be so serious - I loved how Kuku injected humour into heavy topics and provided insight into womanhood around the world without subjecting the reader to a lecture. I also loved getting in on scandalous family gossip dating back decades. Every word  is delicious.