According to my Goodreads, i’ve read 31.653 pages across 76 books this year, where the average length of the book was 416 pages, with the shortest at 80 and the longest at 1504 pages. The most popular book i’ve read this year was Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, the least popular a philosophical book on planetarism. My average rating seems to be 3.4 with my highest rated book being Percival Everetts James.

Of those 76 books, there were 51 novels, 12 of them Reacher novels (i’m reading the whole series), and 25 nonfiction books.

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<figcaption class="image-caption">Jim the slave reads 76 books to Huckleberry Finn on the mississipi / Flux.1</figcaption></figure>

My five favorite books last year were:

• Shirley Jackson - The Haunting οf Hill House

• Aleida Assmann - Im Dickicht der Zeichen

• Peter Frankopan - The Earth transformed - An untold history

• Herman Melville - Moby Dick: or, the White Wale

• Percival Everett - James

So, here’s all my readings 2024, ranked, from crap to excellent.

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1. Tibor Rode - Der Wald: Er tötet leise (en. The Forest: Silent Killer) ☆☆☆☆☆ “I read pulp for all my life and every stupid John Sinclair story is better structured, more coherent and more entertaining than this shit.” (full review here)

1. Tom Rob Smith - Cold People (dt. Kälte) ★ “Ugh.” (full review here)

1. Max Barry - Die 22 Tode der Madison May (eng. The 22 Murders of Madison May) ★ ”a boring Jennifer Aniston movie with clichéd genre elements” (full review here)

1. Michio Kaku - The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything (dt. Die Gottes-Formel) ★★☆☆☆ “i wanted a shallow, basic understanding of string theory, Michio Kakus field of research since the 60s, but it's not even that, unfortunately.” (full review here)

1. Alaina Urquhart - The Butcher and the Wren (dt. Die Jagd) ★★ “Cheap thriller fodder from a true crime podcaster”. (full review here)

1. Stephen Baxter - The thousand Earths (dt. Die tausend Erden) ★★ “I like to read Baxter novels from time to time when i just want a throwaway scifi story”. (full review here)

1. Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child - Crooked River (dt. Ocean - Insel des Grauens) ★★ “Likely my first and last Pendergast novel as i don't like Pendergast very much.” (full review here)

1. Anthony Ryan - Red River Seven (dt. Ein Fluss so rot und schwarz) ★★ “It's a somewhat entertaining novel, an amalgam of 28 Days Later and The Girl with all the gifts, but plotholes and inconsistent logic turned me off”. (full review here)

1. Silvia Ferrara - Der Sprung: Eine Reise zu den Anfängen des Denkens in der Steinzeit (eng. The Jump: A trip to the beginnings of thinking in the stone age) ★★ “She's more occupied writing about her whizzy crazy associations and some random memories with cave art than writing a good, structured book on the history of the topic.” (full review here)

1. Lee Child - Without Fail (dt. Tödliche Absicht, Reacher #6) ★★ / Gone Tomorrow (dt. Underground, Reacher #13) ★★★ / Better Off Dead (with Andrew Child, dt. Der Kojote, Reacher #26) ★★ / Past Tense (dt. Der Spezialist, Reacher #23) ★★★ / Night School (dt. Der Ermittler, Reacher #21) ★★★ / Lee Child - Worth Dying For (dt. Wespennest) / A Wanted Man (dt. Der Anhalter) (Jack Reacher #15 / #17) ★★★ / Lee Child - Im Visier (Reacher 19: Personal) ★★★ / Keine Kompromisse (Reacher 20: Make Me) ★★★ / Der Bluthund (Reacher 22: The Midgnight Line) ★★ / Lee Child - Persuader (Reacher #4) (dt. Der Janusmann) ★★★ / Lee Child - 61 Hours (Reacher #14) (dt. 61 Stunden) ★★★ — I’ll lump all 12 Reacher novels i read last year into one: “Reacher is still my fallback if i just want some not-dumb entertaining action without subtexts or messaging”, nothing more, nothing less. (Reviews scattered all over the place)

1. Fabio Stassi - Die Seele aller Zufälle (Vince Corso #2) ★★★ “I think i’m very much done with books about the love of books.” (full review here)

1. Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah (Dune #2) (dt. Der Herr des Wüstenplaneten) ★★★ “The book often feels like an add-on, some explainer making way for the rest of the series.” (full review here)

1. Johan Huizinga - Homo Ludens. A study of the Play-Element in Culture (dt. Homo Ludens. Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel.) ★★★ “At 80 year old, this classic of cultural studies feels a bit dated.” (full review here)

1. Johanna Sebauer -