Welcome to the next installment of the Metal Monday Tippy Top Lists for 2024. This time, obviously, BOOKS!

Not counting graphic novels or issues of The New York Review of Books, I upped my total books this year from 40 in 2024 to 42 in 2025¹ . That’s cool! Though I only have 2 data points I think a clear pattern is emerging as to how much I can read each year. Mid 30s - low 40s might just be my natural limit to maintaining a fun reading schedule.

Also, I read more non-fiction than I ever have before. I think I’m entering my old man obsession with history era. That being said only one non-fiction book made the TOP list lolollo.

But I’ll go ahead and post my full reading list here.

In no particular order…

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

It’s wild that I made it this far in life without reading this book. Honestly, as much as I’ve played (and yapped on and on about) Metal Gear Solid V, I really should have read this sooner. Though I’m glad I read it now instead of in high school when I would have not appreciated the depth and weight of it’s contents.

Guess what? It’s one of the best books ever written. Especially fascinating to read today when the ideals presented in this book from 1851 are still so alive and even thriving in the zeitgeist of the modern American ethos. What I was not expecting when reading was the inventive format choices. Melville really used the medium to convey a lot of themes, at one point the book drops into the structure of stage play, with zero explanation.

A really incredible work of art that after reading I am certainly seeing it’s fingerprints on so much of media today.

Night Papers - Santiago Gamboa

Coming off a recommendation from Read Max substack by Max Read I was expecting a fun little thriller. But it is actually a fun BIG thriller.

In a Colombia reckoning with a military coup and a student revolution, the story follows the lives of two young adult siblings and their fruitless attempts at altruism in a world that only rewards ego. All the while Gamboa litters the book with references to other great books.

It is a deeply affecting read that is a testament to the power of good art to speak truth to power in trying times.

Living in Your light - Abdellah Taïa

No book has affected me this year quite like Living in Your Light. Written in an almost poetic petameter, the emotions of this young girl in post-WWII Morocco are rhythmically pounded into the reader.

This quasi-memoire ends up being a very queer story about chosen family and self-discovery.

The Fort Bragg Cartel - Seth Harp

Despite this book being about the weird, unfortunate and conspiratorial nature of crime surrounded the Special Ops force stationed at Fort Bragg: Harp draws a very clear connection between the endless American invasions of the middle east of the past decade and a growing horde of disillusioned and angry young men at the base of almost all American social violence.

A great non-fiction account centering on the strange circumstances of a former Tier One operator and his descent into drug-fueled madness. It’s easy to see how the culture of xenophobia, American exceptionalism and hyper-self-reliance cultivated among the unit built him into a killing machine filled with anger. That anger, fractured and aimed nowhere became a loaded shotgun ready to misfire on anyone around him.

Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman

I wish I could describe how I INHALED this book. The first reason is that it is a very good adventure book that always keeps moving. I just didn’t want to put it down. The other reason is that it’s almost impossible to get ahold of a physical copy so I had to read it on my iPad. I hate reading digital copies of books so I was flying through it so I could stop reading. It just shows how good this book is that I was willing to read it on my iPad.

It’s a very simple plot. Basically a video game escort quest akin to The Last of Us or the book The Road. But with that plot, this book managed to explore it’s fantastical and biblical themes in ways that only fantasy can do.

There’s almost no filler either. Each chapter builds and is essential to the deeply affecting ending.

Honorable Mention:

Norton American Literature Vol A: Beginnings to 1820 - Various

A girlfriend of mine years ago gave me her Norton Volume on English Literature and I absolutely loved it. It introduced me to so many authors and pointed me in directions that I never would have explored. So, after reading Moby Dick earlier in the year I felt inspired to read more American Literature. I figured; Where better to get a taste of so various stories than a Norton Collection?

So in my obsessiveness, I picked up all 6 volumes of the mid-2000s printing (8th Edition). That’s over 7000 pages of densely packed literature. I will be reading for awhile. What’s hilarious is that these books back in my college days were almost $100 each when bought at a college bookstore. I bought the whole collection for $25. It feels like I’m getting one over on the intellectual elite.

Anyway, I’ve committed to reading at least one entry a night since October and I’m loving it. For one thing, my ADHD brain loves that every time I read it’s going to be something different. And for another, in my non-fiction era, the introductions to each section has a lot of relevant information to the authors or historical context for era. I love it.

The readings have already lead me to reading more from some of the “authors.”

Other Notables

** The unquenchable MAGA thirst for Rush Hour 4

** Historical they/them architecture

** “Vibe coding”

1  Counting 3 books from last December not counted in last year’s post.