Keeping with traditions, we will post our separate top 10 reads of 2024 lists throughout January. This year we’ll have 4 such posts for you: Arina’s, Jen’s, Bjorn’s, and Timy’s. Some of these will be only top 5 lists, however, as sadly not all of us had a great reading year, but it happens.
Our only rule was that any book on these lists has to be read during 2024, regardless of when they were published and by whom. And we had to love them, obviously. Maybe. I mean, when you keep shouting at the author in private for things they did, it’s surely a sign of love, right? Even if you call said author names… *ahem* Anyway. Third up is Bjørn’s Top 5 Reads of 2024!

I haven’t read as many books this year as I would have liked for reasons that were mostly personal, but I was lucky enough to find some real gems, even if none of my top three are books actually published in 2024.
Here it goes, Bjørn’s top 5 reads for 2024!
5. Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac
I’ve been following the whole story with great (special, if you’re autistic) interest and I still do. Kate Conger and Ryan Mac have gone much deeper; I haven’t realised I was only slipping on the surface. This book has been meticulously researched, facts cross-checked, CVs examined. If you’re wondering how Twitter turned into X and how X turned into whatever it is now, this is the book for you. Except for Sylvia Plath’s biography I struggle to recall a non-fiction read so…complete. Of course, it had to be published at some point, and by now there is plenty of material for book two: Character Unlimited: How Elon Musk Became the World’s Greatest Emperor.

Rising star New York Times technology reporters, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented hostile takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout.
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before. While its founder had idealistically dreamed of building a “digital town square,” he detested Wall Street and never focused on building a profitable business.
Musk joined the platform in 2010 and, by 2022, had become one of the site’s most influential users, hooking over 80 million followers with his mix of provocative posts, promotion of his companies, and attacks on his enemies. To Musk, Twitter — once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech — had badly lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the “woke mind virus” and claimed that the survival of democracy and the human race itself depended on the future of the site. In January of 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and soon after, he made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion dollars. Backed into a corner, Twitter’s board accepted his offer—but Musk quickly changed his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him to close the deal in October. The richest man on earth controlled one of the most powerful media platforms in the world—but at what price? Before long Twitter would be gone for good, replaced by something radically new and different, as Musk remade the company in his own image from the ground up.
The story of the showdown between Musk and Twitter and his eventual takeover of the company is unlike anything in business or media that has come before. In vivid, cinematic detail, Conger and Mac follow the inner workings of the company as Musk lays siege to it, first from the outside as one of its most vocal users, and then finally from within as a contentious and mercurial leader. Musk has shared some of his version of events, but Conger and Mac have uncovered the full story through exclusive interviews, unreported documents, and internal recordings at Twitter following the billionaire’s takeover. With unparalleled sources from within and around the company, they provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers.
This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost?

4. Prima Facie by Suzie Miller
The story is simple. Tessa, a high-flying criminal defense lawyer loves her job – which often means defending rapists. The only thing that counts for her is winning. Then she gets assaulted herself and suddenly finds herself on the very stand where she so successfully tortured other accusers.
This doesn’t sound extremely inviting, I know. The book is based on a theatre play and probably worked even better in stage setting. As a read, it’s stunningly realistic (unfortunately that doesn’t mean it’s an easy read). Justice triumphs in the end, of course. But as Tessa knows, justice belongs to those with better lawyers… and the victims tend not to be the most reliable witnesses.
You won’t forget this book quickly. Although you will want to. It’s a slice of life we all want to only happen to other people. Prima Facie shows what it’s like to be other people.

Every winner might be the one who loses the next day
Tessa Ensler always plays by the rules. A brilliant defence barrister at the top of her game, she works in prestigious London chambers fighting the most challenging criminal cases. No one believes in the law more than she does.
But when a date with a colleague goes awry, she quickly discovers that the rules by which she has chosen to live are not in her favour.
Now forced to confront the patriarchal power of the law where the burden of proof and morality diverge, what will it take for Tessa to get justice?

3. Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson
As a child, I loved the Moomins. I saw myself in the characters, dreamt (or had nightmares) about their shenanigans, envied Moomin his parents and the fun he kept having. I certainly haven’t noticed that Moominvalley in November is a masterful painting of all facets of depression; I also missed the Moomins not actually appearing in the book, except, at the very end, as a possible vision of the character I identified with so much it almost hurt.
There is so much to discuss when it comes to the Moomin books. That is one dysfunctional family with no boundaries. But the side characters are as fleshed out, as evidenced here; I used to identify as Fillyjonk until Moominvalley in November made it clear to me that I was Toft. I would totally go and stare into the glass ball in search for the light and live inside an unused boat that its owner has been just about to board for years, except never found time. (That’s also me. Hmmm.)
You need to be either young enough or old enough to appreciate the Moomins. I am definitely old enough now. I bought a super deluxe boxed set with all the books and it definitely helped me get closer to my Goodreads goal, which I still missed, because 1) the books are short, 2) the writing exquisite. Only the first two instalments are really children’s books with little more. The rest is Tove Jansson dealing with life in a way that isn’t entirely unlike my own writing, autobiographical while pretending to be fantasy. I am yet to reach the level of mastery, though, that would allow me to hide real pains and fears underneath the surface of children’s books that children actually like.
If you’ve read the Moomins as a kid and you’re above the age of, say, thirty now, I really recommend a refresh. You’ll be stunned.

Now that autumn is turning into winter, a group of unlikely friends―including the Fillyjonk, the Hemulen, and Toft―are waiting in Moominvalley to see the Moomins, for winter doesn’t seem right without them. But the Moomins are not at home. So all the visitors settle down to await their return, and oddly enough find themselves warming up to their new life together. For Moominvalley is Moominvalley still, even without the Moomins in it.

2. Day by Michael Cunningham
Cunningham can’t be accused of being a prolific author and with 7-8 years between books he still manages to be hit-and-miss. Day is his best novel since The Hours, and since The Hours is my favourite book ever, that’s saying a LOT. In peak form, Cunningham is my absolute idol, and in Day, he perfected the formula he’s been working on for 25 years (three books). The triptych is divided into three April 5’s – 2019, 2020, 2021. There is of course fluid sexuality, relationships that are closer than they should be while never quite becoming close enough, and immensely real portraits of children. (How does he know so much about children? How does he know so much about everyone?)
The lives and emotions of the characters are analysed and dissected until the reader feels uncomfortable, almost voyeuristic. Between those April 5’s, life gonna life; in 2019, nobody expects Covid and the lockdowns; a music career resurrection; trying to raise a child separately, partly through a window; what’s expected is death, and, um, Cunningham doesn’t disappoint, if that’s the right word. You will sob.
It’s a short book that has no superfluous word. Cunningham likes his adverbs (insert gasps from 21st century readers and authors) and all of them are essential. Even his punctuation is essential. The editing is flawless. So is the writing. If not for the fact that Cunningham has very clearly not even bothered to look up the weather in Iceland in April, and yes, this is something I am bound to notice, this would be an absolutely perfect book for anyone who enjoys dissection of three-dimensional, living, breathing people we call characters because that’s the word you use in ‘novels’.
I really didn’t think The Hours could be beaten. I need a decade or two (Cunningham might manage one more book in that time) to digest both properly. Those are books that warrant not-too-frequent re-reads, and both Day and The Hours show me, every time, how much I still have to learn as an author.

As the world changes around them, a family weathers the storms of growing up, growing older, falling in and out of love, losing the things that are most precious—and learning to go on—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours
April 5, 2019 : In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, troubled husband and wife, are both a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, has created a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. Meanwhile Nathan, age ten, is taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.
April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the brownstone is feeling more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe, while Nathan attempts to skirt her rules. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled jabs and frustrated sighs. And beloved Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.
April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.
From the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on love and loss and the struggles and limitations of family life—how to live together and apart.

1. Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed by Christopher Shevlin
The best satire bites hard. This book chews and spits the remains out. And this book is absolutely perfect.
Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed is basically Douglas Adams writing a thriller. You know thrillers. You, hopefully, know Douglas Adams. Your first choice, or even your hundredth, of the most natural author of thrillers is probably not going to be Douglas Adams. If it is, you weirdo, you might actually suspect that the protagonist is going to be the clumsiest man who’s ever lived, also you might have read the first Jonathon Fairfax book (this is the second in the series). Now also make it a 90s action movie (in form of a book) including 90s Zip disks, a 90s office, someone who has so many muscles that his muscles have muscles (see: 90s action movies) (in form of books), and British bureaucracy.
Obviously what you should do now is go and read the rest of my GR review. LOLOL kidding! You should read Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed. 2024 saw book 4 in the series and while it’s a solid 9.5/10, this is approx. 13/10 and my favourite read of the year. I’ll be coming back to Cunningham when I want to be blown away; I’ll revisit Christopher Shevlin when I want to be blown away and entertained at the same time. Sacrilege warning: at his best, Douglas Adams got quite close to writing a book as good as Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed. Christopher Shevlin at his best sets a bar impossible to clear even for himself. I can’t wait to see him improve on it. Although when reality is already satire, satirists’ jobs become much more difficult…

Jonathon Fairfax, the world’s most socially awkward hero, works for a giant corporation where he specialises in muttering ‘um’ and tripping over bins. When he accidentally discovers a colossal corporate conspiracy, it soon becomes clear that someone will do anything to keep it secret – including murder.
“Finding a perfect book is THE WORST. Because I have to write a review that contains sentences. A running joke between reviewers is ‘buk gud, buy buk’ – well, I have much more (two letters) to say than that, at least. Buk great. Buy buk.”

And that concludes Bjørn’s Top 5 Reads of 2024.
Thanks for reading and I hope I’ve piqued your interest in one (or all) of these fabulous books. Let us know which of these books you’ve read or would like to read and what you think about them!
You can also check out the others’ favorite reads of 2024: Timy’s top 10, Jen’s top 5
If you don’t want to miss any of our posts, please consider signing up to our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media:
Leave a Comment