2024 Best and Worst Books
Don't just watch television and stream music. Read a good book and learn.
For 2024, I finished thirty-one books totaling 11,175 pages. Going back to middle school, I’ve now read 754 books covering 281,111 pages. As usual, I have ten good books recommendations this year along with five “don’t read’ books. Here are the lists:
Five Worst Books
In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face-to-Face With the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger
The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscript That Illuminated the Renaissance by Ross King (this is the first book by King I’ve not recommended)
The Tower of Fools by Andrej Sapkowski (author of The Witcher series, which I loved)
The Ascent by Stefan Herman’s
Love Life: How the Raise Your Standards, Find Your Person, and Live Happily (No Matter What) by Matthew Hussey
Ten Best Books (with Amazon links)
#10 - #7: Rather Be the Devil, In a House of Lies, A Song for the Dark Times, and A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin — these four books are the last four in the twenty-five volume series by Ian Rankin focused on the life and work of Edinburgh detective John Rebus. I love the whole series so recommend it to anyone who likes detective mystery books. Book #26 is due soon.
#6: In Trump Time: A Journal of America’s Plague Year by Peter Navarro — Navarro wrote this book based on his personal journal kept during Donald Trump’s first term. I found the book very revealing about the inner-workings of the Trump Administration, including why it failed so often. Most interesting to me were the parts in which Navarro detailed the actions taken by a guy that worked for me at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Marc Short, to undermine Trump. As you may recall, Short is the guy who ended up as Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff that convinced Pence to not take action during the electoral count on January 6.
#5: The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economy Boom and a Roaring 20202s by Mark Mills — I find most of Mills’ work fairly informative and this book didn’t disappoint. He dives into detail on the ins and outs of how new technologies will impact us and the energy requirements to power those technologies. Every time you hear about a new data center, what you don’t hear about are the enormous energy and water demands needed to feed that data center, which usually comes with few new long-term jobs. If you want to understand where the future is headed, this book is a must read.
#4: When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives by Heather MacDonald — I’ve long followed MacDonald’s career over the years. This book lays out a strong case for merit and how the push for equity (versus equality) is hurting America. MacDonald covers several industries to show how adherence to equity over merit puts lives at risk and ultimately does a disservice to everyone involved.
#3: The Big Guy: How a President and His Son Sold Out America by Miranda Devine — As a follow-up to Devine’s incredible Laptop from Hell, The Big Guy covers what we’ve learned since 2021 about the Biden Family corruption. It runs deeper than even I knew and contains lots of new information about exactly how the Bidens ran their multi-million dollar scheme to fleece companies wanting access to Joe. From dozens of LLCs created solely to launder money to off-the-books meeting Joe had with Hunter’s clients (the recently released pictures show these meeting), the Bidens created a well-oiled machine to enrich themselves without ever having to do anything real in return. I highly recommend reading both of Devine’s Pulitzer-worthy books.
#2: The Oceans and the Stars: The Seven Battles and Mutiny of Athena, Patrol Coastal Ship 15 by Mark Helprin — ever since my old boss, DHS Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, gave me Helprin’s book, The Pacific and Other Stories, back in 2005 I’ve been a big fan of his fiction. That book contains the best post-9/11 short story I’ve yet to read (it made me cry). I’ve previously included Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War in my annual top books lists and consider it one of the best fiction books I've read (just behind Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables). This story revolves around a Navy captain, a doomed boat, and a last chance at true love. As always, Helprin weaves a captivating tale bursting with courage, danger, and honor. I highly recommend this book.
#1: Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction by Fergus Bordewich — Most of us have learned about the Civil War and the Jim Crow/Civil Rights Era, but too often our high school and college courses skipped over the Reconstruction Era. That omission does an enormous disservice to General and President Ulysses Grant (who has risen into my top ten among presidents). Most Americans don’t realize that Grant didn’t just win the Civil War, but also aggressively fought the South as President to ensure newly freed slaves could exercise their full constitutional rights. During Grant’s presidency, the South saw the election of black politicians in the U.S. Senate, the U.S House, and governor’s offices. Unfortunately, once Grant left the White House, all the amazing and hard-fought victories Grant secured in the South evaporated due to fatigue in the North on continuing the fight so Grant’s successes were replaced by Jim Crow laws and massive levels of discrimination that would rule the South until the late 1960s. If you want to truly understand America’s history when it comes to slavery and freedom, please read this book.
For lists from past years, see the links below:
I hope you have a great books 2025!