2024 was a year of heavy themes and strange worlds: war, injustice, absurd bureaucracy, hell, alien physics, and how to stay sane through it all.
“The Pianist“, a quiet, devastating memoir that set the tone for a lot of what followed: questions of survival, dignity, and what remains of a person when everything else is stripped away. From there, “The Trial”, “A Short Stay in Hell“, and “The Gods Themselves” pushed in different directions but circled similar territory of systems we don’t control, rules we don’t understand, and universes that don’t particularly care whether we “get it” or not.
Threaded through all of this was a Stoic undercurrent: “Letters from a Stoic“, “Meditations“, “Stoicism and the Art of Happiness” offered tools, context, and historical colour for thinking about resilience, virtue, and how to live well in a world that often doesn’t make sense. Even “12 Rules for Life“, which I rated lower than the rest, still joined the pile of books trying to answer a basic question: how do you carry yourself through chaos?
“The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino” provided an entertaining look at everyday life, power, and spectacle in ancient Rome, using one outrageous emperor and his arena antics to show how the whole system really worked.
Below is the full list of what I read in 2024, with a simple rating for how much each book stayed with me.
The Pianist
– Wladyslaw Szpilman –
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Trial
– Franz Kafka –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stoicism And The Art Of Happiness
– Donald Robertson –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Gods Themselves
– Isaac Asimov –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
You Should Have Left
– Daniel Kehlmann –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Letters From A Stoic
– Seneca –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Short Stay in Hell
– Steven L. Peck –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Meditations
– Marcus Aurelius –
⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino
– Jerry Toner –
⭐⭐⭐
12 Rules For Life
– Jordan B. Peterson –
⭐⭐
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