Travel

Best Reads of 2024

Book Review, Climate Fiction, Creative Non Fiction, Crime Fiction, Eco-criticism, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Horror, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Thrutopia

2024 was another good year for reading – even better than 2023, it turned out. I feel I have successfully developed a good reading habit again and nothing makes me happier these days than sitting down with a coffee and a book to lose myself in it. This year I did a lot of international adventures – including two transatlantic trips (California and NYC), long car journeys into the far north (the Highlands) and the far south (Cornwall) and crossing Europe by train – and books kept me company all along. 

I’ve also realised that many books in this year’s list (almost half) are written by trans and non-binary authors and almostall books are queer in some degree or another – something that I wasn’t necessarily actively pursuing but I suppose reflects some (internal) journey I may have gone through in 2024!

Here is a selection of what I enjoyed the most this past year.

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A thought-provoking darkness: January 2024 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Creative Non Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Literary Fiction, Nature Writing, Queer Literature, Science-Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Caliente (Hot) by Luna Miguel

I learned of Luna Miguel by chance, in one of those late night internet searches which took me to an old blog of hers. I saw that she’d published plenty of poetry but also some non-fiction and became curious. When I was in La Librería de Mujeres (The Women’s Bookshop) – one of my favourite places in Madrid, they recommended this book to me, and so I bought it and read it in a couple of days.

Luna Miguel explores female desire in this book, which starts with her personal experience of going through a divorce after being with a partner (and also married) for many years and having a child in common. What follows is an exploration into self-pleasure, female masturbation and poliamory. It’s interesting to note here that Miguel brings in many other authors and examines their work and their life experiences to develop some of her points.

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But… where are the murders?: January 2023 Reading Log

Book Review, Books, Literary Fiction, Queer Literature, Speculative Fiction
Photo credits: Cuba Gallery

We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGTBQ+ Rights, edited by Amelia Abraham

I read Amelia Abraham’s Queer Intentions last year and really enjoyed it. Her writing style is very engaging and she covered many interesting LGTBQ+ topics that I wasn’t aware of (I found the chapter on drag really fascinating, for example). We Can Do Better Than This contains essays by thirty-five different writers, artists and LGTBQ+ advocates. To fit in so many essays they are – understandably – all relatively short which is all in all a good idea to include a vast array of perspectives. Some essays, written by authors from countries like Nigeria or Bangladesh, where being gay is illegal, are particularly heartbreaking.

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On Nope and horror movies

Films, Horror
Hollywood Boulevard, where we watched Nope

I went to watch Nope at the end of August this year. I’ve never watched a film by Jordan Peele before but I’d heard great things about them. This was also the second movie I watched in the cinema since the pandemic started (I watched Dune in October 2021 and it was a glorious experience, mostly because I hadn’t been in the cinema for so long, also, the cinematography and the music of that movie are a true work of art… the story… well, let’s discuss that another day).

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