The selfhosting Jelu project is going well. I’ve spent a little bit of time over the past year cleaning up my library and I’ve updated the application a couple of times. And of course I’ve tracked all my reading. The application still has some rough edges but they keep making it better and it does what I need it to. If something better comes along hopefully I’m in a much better spot to migrate my data.

It looks like I read 43 books in 2024. Which feels like a lot. A lot of them were part of series and maybe were not that long. Also, there were a couple of long running non-fiction books that I’ve been working through for a while and finally finished in 2024.

Fiction

Fantasy (but also Science Fiction)

Cradle Series

The books I probably enjoyed the most in 2024 was Cradle series by Will Wight. I think I did all 12 books, all in a row. The audio books have a great narrator and have a lot of humor in them. The story is a little bit predictable, but that’s not all bad. I was looking into it a bit and this series belongs to a sub-genre called “Progression Fantasy”. It was fun, but 12 books was a lot, I probably will need to limit intake of this stuff for it to stay enjoyable.

Non-Fiction

While I read mostly fiction the non-fiction tends to occupy my thoughts a lot more and affect my actual life.

History

Crazy Horse

“Crazy Horse, Third Edition: The Strange Man of the Oglalas” by Mari Sandoz was a real slog. It took me almost a year to get through this book. It was a challenging read because so much of the story was so sad and the language required some extra work to make sense of. At some point in the not too distant future it would be interesting to read a more “zoomed out” history of the plains tribes. This book’s goal was to put you very much on the ground and with the people, emphasizing what felt significant to them.

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

René Girard and his work is hard to put into a box. I’ve been learning about his work for several years now, and for whatever reason they’ve started coming out with audio book versions of books, which means I have started reading them. I started with “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning” which is one of the best book titles ever. It’s also a great book. Because of all the podcasts and other books I’ve read summarizing Girard’s work there was nothing too surprising in it. However hearing it in his own (translated) words was helpful.

I’ve started watching the Documentary about Girard. So far it seems pretty good.

Self Help/Advice

Lives of the Stoics

There are 2 books I’d like to mention here, “Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius” by Ryan Holiday was a real joy to read. I bought several more of Holiday’s books and hopefully I’ll get to them soon. I think this is just the second of his books I’ve read.

The Tech-Wise Family

“The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place” by Andy Crouch. Technology has already had a big impact on my family’s life. I have a couple of kids who are still very early in their technological journey. By reading this book and starting to think about this subject more in general hopefully I’ll get out ahead of a lot of the potential pitfalls and I’ll be able to set my kids up for having a healthy relationship with the technology I love so much. I don’t plan on following every bit of advice in this book, but the big principles are quite good.

2024s Best Books