My Favourite Books of 2024.

From Toni Morrison to Ibtisam Azem, these are the books that stopped me in my tracks.

At the start of 2024 I had no reading goals, no plans, no list of authors I wanted to read, and I was very much winging it. I was also studying during the first half of last year, and, for the most part, I felt like my mind was being pulled in a thousand different directions. Like many of you, I’m sure, I was also fully preoccupied and concerned with the state of the world and the endless horrors unfolding daily before our eyes and this was, unsurprisingly, reflected in my reading.

These days my mind doesn’t hold onto the details of the books I read as easily as it once did and I’ll be the first to admit that a book has to work pretty hard to keep my mind from wandering away from it, so this list is made up of the books that succeeded- the ones that made me slow down, attend to them fully, and left a real impression. These are the books that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

Now, before I get to the actual list, I have to include a few (several…) special mentions. Some I’ve spoken about before, others I haven’t spoken about at all. On another day, some of these might have been favourites. Either way, I think they are absolutely worth reading and I dislike the idea of wrapping up 2024 without mentioning them.

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*FYI a link to all the books mentioned can be found at the end of this post.

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Granada by Radwa Ashour (translated from the Arabic by Kay Heikkinen). Published last year for the first time in English as a single volume, overall this trilogy is so, so good but I will say that I preferred the first two books- Granada and Maryama- to the last, Departure. With that said, reading them together feels like the best approach so I’m glad it is now so readily available as a single volume. The trilogy is about the downfall of Moorish Spain and follows multiple generations of a Muslim family whose way of life is systematically suppressed through forced conversions to Christianity, with any attempt to practice Islam forced underground by the powerful Inquisition and the cruel punishments meted out to those who dared disobey. There were a few aspects, particularly in the third book, that sort of made sense but also irked me, but overall I really enjoyed the experience of reading this one. If you like family sagas and appreciate historical fiction that looks beyond the typically-explored time periods and offers a perspective of Europe that is often overlooked, I think you’ll like this one too.

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No One Knows Their Blood Type by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat (translated from the Arabic by Hazem Jamjoum). “On the day that Jumana’s father dies, she makes a discovery about her blood type. Hers could not have been inherited from her father…”

If I had to name a book I want to reread, this one would probably be it. I appreciated the story the first time around but I think I’d get so much more from a second, closer reading. From the blurb: “This extraordinary novel of Palestine centres its narrative not on the battlefield of history, but on how women live every day and the colonial context of their embodied lives. With humour and exhilarating inventiveness, it asks: why aren’t questions of love, friendship, parenthood, and desire at the core of our conversations about liberty and freedom? how would this transform our ideas of resistance?”

If books that hone in on aspects of identity and belonging and complicated (but realistic) family dynamics interest you, you’ll want to make an note of this one.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. An eighty-year-old novel about a young woman who decides on the kind of love she wants and goes after it regardless of how many times she is encouraged to settle for less in the name of security, or how many times she is told that the love she feels can’t be trusted. I loved it.

The Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein). Alba de Céspedes is one for fans of Elena Ferrante and Natalia Ginzburg and if you like books about women exploring what they desire versus what is demanded or expected of them, this is one I’d highly recommend.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. In an interview with The Booker Prizes, Lynch stated that he took his inspiration from ‘the problem of Syria – the implosion of an entire nation, the scale of its refugee crisis and the West’s indifference’ and that he wrote this novel as an act of ‘radical empathy’. Having read it in the year that finally saw the liberation of the Syrian people, this book stands out to me that much more.

The Watermelon Boys by Ruqayya Izzidien. If a WWI novel offering a less predictable angle sounds like something you’d appreciate, you’ll want to know about this one. Set predominantly in Iraq, this story follows two men- Ahmad and Welshman, Carwyn whose paths cross in ways that are, ultimately, incredibly tragic. This is a story of war, betrayal, and the ways that colonialism and the colonisers’ greed and insatiable appetite for that which does not belong to them destroys lives indiscriminately.

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In Search of Fatima by Ghada Karmi. I used to love memoirs but I’ve struggled with them in recent years. It feels as though writers are blurring boundaries and overstepping the mark, and I strongly dislike reading about other people and feeling as though I know things about them that I shouldn’t. In Search of Fatima is a perfect example of a memoir that gives the reader insight into a life that isn’t theirs in a way that doesn’t feel unnecessary intrusive, all while still making it possible to imagine what it might have been like to live it. The story of Ghada Karmi’s family is one lived by generations of Palestinians displaced by the Nakba, and this book is a reminder of what displacement really means for those forced to experience it.

James by Percival Everett. A fiercely satirical, captivating, humorous, wild adventure of a novel, this is another book I really enjoyed reading. A reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the novel follows James, an enslaved man on the run in an attempt to save his family from forced separation. As someone who hasn’t read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I’d say it isn’t a requirement but I do wonder if there’d be an even greater appreciation of it had I experienced that novel first. Let me know if you’ve read both and have any thoughts on this. There is something slippery about this novel, which definitely feels intentional, and I came away feeling as though the full extent of its offering had evaded me just a little. I liked it a lot though, and I’m now even more excited to read the five other Percival Everett novels I’ve had on my shelf for far too long…

Co-Wives, Co-Widows by Adrienne Yabouza (translated by Rachel McGill). Gosh, this was a lovely little novel to end the year on. Two co-wives navigate loss, dispossession and greedy relatives following the death of their husband. I have a soft spot for books about friendships between women/ sisterhood and it’s always refreshing to read about women desiring the best for each other and doing what they can to achieve it. Just lovely.

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Now, onto the final shortlist! In no real order, here are my favourite reads of 2024.

3 Poetry Collections

I read and shared a lot of poems last year and I realised that I’d included poems from my three favourite collections in previous posts so, rather than go into too much depth, I’ve linked these below. I wasn’t surprised to find that they were all written by Palestinian poets but, just so we’re clear, I didn’t choose these because they were written by Palestinian poets. I wish these collections didn’t have to exist in the way that they do and I wish the subject matter wasn’t what it was. I suspect no one wishes this more than the poets themselves.

‘Forest of Noise’ by Mosab Abu Toha

See the Kites?

“There is a little moon
in the dark sky over Gaza.
The moon is made of kites.

Now it grows bigger– more kites,
shining over Gaza,
protecting her children as they try
to sleep through bombs and screams
in the laps of their mothers' souls.

Both poetry and eye-witness testimony, Forest of Noise is the second collection by Gazan poet, Mosab Abu Toha and it is an incredibly powerful collection that left me reeling. You can find my thoughts on this collection, as well as two more poems from the collection in the post below.

My Son Throws a Blanket Over My Daughter by Mosab Abu Toha

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‘[…]: Poems’ by Fady Joudah

“To those whose memory, imagination, and bodies are my memory, imagination, and body. From the collective to the one under the same assault, no matter our location on Earth. “Our bodies have different ways of knowing, but our bodies know.” To martyrs who witness from above, and the living who witness on the ground. To those who will be killed on the last day of the war. To those who will be killed on the first day after the war ends. To those who succumb in the humanitarian window of horror. An hour before the pause, a minute after. To those who die of a broken heart during and after the war. To those who gather their families to die together so that no survivor suffers survival alone…”

I’d recommend this collection for the three-page poem, ‘Dedication’ alone but it offers so much more and every word is worth attending to. If you still need convincing, I shared two other poems here.

[...] by Fady Joudah

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‘You Can Be the Last Leaf: Selected Poems’ by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat (translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah)

Daydream

I'll write about a joy that invades Jenin from six directions,
about children running while holding balloons in Am'ari Camp,
about a fullness that quiets breastfeeding babies all night in Askar,
about a little sea we can stroll up and down in Tulkarem,
about eyes that stare in people's faces in Balata,
about a woman dancing
for people in line at the checkpoint in Qalandia,
about stitches in the sides of laughing men in Azzoun,
about you and me
stuffing our pockets with seashells and madness
and building a city.

This collection is heartbreaking but also full of love and hope and life, all of which continues to exist even in the midst of occupation and all its brutality. I was so moved by it.

That Smile, That Heart by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat

I believe it was Palestinian poet, Rafeef Ziadah who said of her people ‘we teach life, sir’. To experience these collections is to understand just what this means. These collections are full of heart and bursting at the seams with life hard-won and valiantly fought for.

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6 Novels & an Anthology

The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem

“Yesterday marked twenty days since they bombed Gaza. That’s what I initially wanted to say, but it wasn’t how I wanted to begin. They were pulling corpses out of the rubble as if they were dolls. They pull, but the corpses refuse to come out of the debris. They were covered with dust and blood. I had a strong urge to go and wipe the dust off myself. Maybe because I wanted to see the faces clearly. I say “bombed Gaza” and not “declared war on it,” because “war” sounds lighter. “War” was a big word when I was young. But I grew bigger and it grew smaller. There are so many wars around us we’ve gotten used to them…”

What might happen if overnight, all the Palestinian occupants of occupied Palestine simply disappeared? I’ve spoken about The Book of Disappearance quite extensively in a previous post so I won’t repeat myself but I find myself thinking of particular aspects of it even now. It’s very intelligent and striking, while also made incredibly tender by the inclusion of the grandchild/grandparent relationship that I’ve now come to associate with so much Palestinian literature.

A Mouth Full of Salt by Reem Gaafar

A Mouth Full of Salt is Reem Gaafar’s debut novel set in an unnamed village in North Sudan where death and loss leave villagers fearing for their futures. It opens with a search for a young boy, presumed drowned in the Nile and, as the search for his body continues, the villagers find themselves beset by a series of catastrophic events: camels die of a mysterious illness, date tree fields catch fire and, as the villagers despair over these blows to their livelihoods, these losses only seem to grow in number.

Split into two parts, this novel explores a number of key themes including the roles and expectations of women and racial discrimination within Sudanese society - the consequences of which these villagers must face for reasons the reader eventually becomes aware of. Overall, I found this novel and its many strands utterly compelling; it is a quietly devastating tale that leads the reader towards the inevitable conclusion that, where there is injustice, sooner or later the balance must be restored.

The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

Last year I read more bigger books (400+ pages) than usual and I might give this 600 page title credit for reminding me of the joys of getting lost in an excellent tome- a book that makes every word count and earns every page. There is a wealth of modern literature about the lives of Palestinian people after the Nakba of 1948 but the choice to write such a substantial novel about Palestine before this Catastrophe is an important one- a reminder that Palestine was never ‘a land without a people’, and a reminder of who and what what was intentionally destroyed in order to bring about the creation of the state of Israel.

There is something quietly harrowing about this novel when it is read with an understanding of what was to come. Even those characters who sense the impending doom and do their best to fight against it, would have no way of knowing what their people would face right up until this very moment and, in this way, it is incredibly tragic.

Hammad’s second novel, Enter Ghost was a 2023 favourite and a special mention to Recognising the Stranger, which I would also highly recommend. I’ve now read all of Isabella Hammad’s published works, which is both satisfying and a little disappointing as I’d read more of her work tomorrow if I could.

Samahani by Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin (translated from the Arabic by Mayada Ibrahim and Adil Babikir)

“Life had always been simple. But once the Europeans had arrived on the island, the sultan was faced with tough decisions that required tact. He had to navigate the conflicting interests of all parties in order to protect his own. He had to put an end to the slave trade, but without giving up the slaves. He had to give full control to the British, but also protect the sovereignty of his land. He had to build a modern state in order to maintain his sultan-style rule. And now a new problem emerged: the sudden upheavals of the native Africans. What did they want? Who stood behind them?…”

Samahani is story set in 19th century Zanzibar at the height of Arab control- a time where the slave trade with all its horrors provided a substantial income and affords the sultan and his ilk their lives of luxury. It follows an unnamed brat of an Omani princess who is completely oblivious to her own complicity and hypocrisy as she seeks to escape the oppression of both her father and her husband, and Sondus, the princess’s enslaved eunuch lover, who is determined to escape enslavement and retrieve his manhood (literally). This book is truly something. It is so scathing, so frank and utterly unforgiving, while also being heavily satirical and more than a little amusing at times. There’s also an unpredictability to it, illustrated most significantly by the book’s brutal denouement.

I think it would be fair to say that in discussions about the history of slavery and the trafficking and trading of Africans for economic gain, the focus is usually on the Transatlantic Slave Trade as opposed to the Arab Slave Trade. Still, should you forget about these atrocities and the ways in which they too shaped and altered the continent, Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin is ready to remind you as the novel lays bare the hypocrisy and dehumanisation that allows slavery and other forms of exploitation to thrive.

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Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Life and Culture

I generally find anthologies a little tricky. I see their appeal and I love that they so often serve as an introduction to new writing/writers but the experience is often uneven, which is why it is rare that an anthology will become a favourite. Daybreak in Gaza is a worthy exception.

Daylight in Gaza is a time capsule: it contains the words, memories, and experiences of Gazans- many of whom have tragically been killed in the past year and a half. It would be all too easy to lose sight of Gaza as it was before it became the site of the catastrophic devastation and ceaseless brutality we have all witnessed over the last 400+ days but this anthology seeks to communicate what was and what is. It affords the reader a greater understanding of not only what has been destroyed, but also what Gazans have so steadfastly fought to preserve and it is a privilege to be able to read it.

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Foster by Claire Keegan

“God help you, child,’ she whispers. ‘If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers.’”

Foster was a reread and one that held up the second time around so I have to include it here. I wrote a whole Claire Keegan run-down a few months ago so you can find my thoughts on all Keegan titles here if you missed it. Gorgeous little book, highly recommend. Also, thank you to

Jessie Lethaby

for reminding me about the film adaptation, ‘The Quiet Girl’. I finally watched it a few months ago and it is such a fitting adaptation. If you loved the book, I would absolutely recommend you watch that too.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Every time I read a novel by Toni Morrison, I thank myself for

reading it only when I really wanted to and not just because she’s an author people are so often made to feel they should have read (What do you mean you’ve never read x by Toni Morrison…) The thing is, reading Toni Morrison for the sake of reading Toni Morrison is the worst way to approach her work and your experience will likely suffer for it. On the other hand, if you pick up her books when you’re really called to do so- when you open it up and you’re truly captivated and compelled to continue- the reward is so great. I’d say this is especially the case with a book like Beloved, which is haunting and harrowing even while it is so incredibly beautiful.

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There we have it: the books I loved in 2024. You’ll have noticed that there were some clear themes and, with the state of the world as it is, and my interests being what they are, I’m not sure how much I anticipate that changing any time soon. Hopefully that just means that I get to read more great literature and you get to hear all about it.

As I prepare to publish this post, I find myself distracted and elated by scenes of jubilation as the ceasefire in Gaza finally begins. May 2025 be the year we see freedom for the people of Palestine, freedom for the people of Sudan, freedom for oppressed people wherever and whoever they are.

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If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! If you have a favourite read of 2024, I’d love to hear it; if we have any in common, I’d love to hear that too.

Until next time,

Tasnim

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If you want more info on the books I’ve shared, or you’d like to order any of the titles for yourself (all while supporting independent bookshops), you can find most of the books listed here.*

*This is a Bookshop.org affiliate link so if you purchase through the site I’ll get a small commission at no cost to you but obviously buy/borrow books however you want.

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