The best non-fiction I read in 2024
This is the post that I’ve been waiting to write, so it is a bit shameful that I’m posting this after the new year has already started. But I procrastinated about what form it would take and made it way too hard for myself, so now I’m getting down to basics and just writing a plain substack post.
(Note: this list is roughly chronological, not in order of preference).
Earthly Delights: A history of the Renaissance by Jonathan Jones.
Starting off strong with some art history. I got this book for Eid in April and it is a beautifully illustrated history of Renaissance art. It is not encyclopedic, nor is it a detailed academic book on just one aspect of it; it covers geographical locations ranging from (modern day) Belgium to Italy to the Netherlands, and is told in the most engaging style. Each chapter was a surprise because Jones brings together different, seemingly unrelated strands together to give you a breathtaking picture of historical currents that you would not have put together yourself. For example, the chapter entitled “Melancholia” starts with Holbein’s "Dead Christ in the Tomb” to reflect on the avant-garde nature of his depiction and then segue into the dissections being performed by Leonardo da Vinci and their effect on his artistic experiments.
It is a beautiful book and I won’t give more away, except to say that I was first intrigued by its name since Bosch (he of “The garden of earthly delights”) is one of my favorite painters and the book did not disappoint because it focused on him sufficiently ❤️.
The Book-makers: A history of the book in eighteen lives by Adam Smyth.
2024 was, incidentally, filled with books about books. The history of the book is an area that I’ve always been interested in but living in Pakistan, without ready access to the material I’d want on this, seriously hampered my curiosity. I was only able to read about it sporadically, whenever I could get my hands on a book on the subject.
The first book on this subject that I read for 2024 was Smyth’s “The Book-makers”. At first I thought it would be a listicle in longer form, given its name, but was most pleasantly surprised. It starts with Wynkyn de Worde, the first publisher in England and seeing the name stirred my memories of reading literature in college when this name came up at the very start of my degree. It is one of those unfortunate circumstances that some of the most interesting parts come at the start of your studies when you’re just trying to stay afloat, and miss out on many gems because you don’t have the capacity to appreciate them then. Thus it was with me and de Worde and Caxton and Shakespeare’s first folio. I am now making up for lost time by reading about all of these and boy, is it fun! Smyth’s approach is very engaging - he writes conversationally and starts off down rabbitholes brimming with obvious curiosity and drags you through the most fun anecdotes, and you find yourself coming out at the other end having thoroughly enjoyed the way he told the story of each chapter and made sense out of many disparate parts. He is also pretty feminist. He has chosen as some of his subjects women whose contributions to the book’s history were previously overlooked, and he tells his history in an idiosyncratic manner, placing in the spotlight many left-of-center- characters who weren’t deemed all that important before.
Treasured: How Tutankhamun shaped a century by Christina Riggs.
I don’t know anybody who didn’t once dream of becoming an Egyptologist. If anybody from my generation hadn’t dreamt that before, the 1999 film “The Mummy” showed them what they were missing. For me personally, this was the highlight:
I rewatched the movie at the Luxor airport waiting for our flight back to Cairo. I was thinking of Evie the entire time I wandered The Valley of the Kings and the museums in Cairo. Excellent stuff!
Christina Riggs’ book sheds light on how we got here. The discovery and excavation of Tutankhamun (and of course his treasures) ignited a never-ending interest in Egyptology, including Riggs’ own, but she is the first person I’ve read who writes about the colonial violence, discrimination and looting that went into all the excavation projects undertaken at the height of the British Empire. In this book is a proper look at the laws in effect that allowed white archaeologists to take artefacts to their home countries to people their museums, and how the field of archaeology was more or less closed to the indigenous peoples whose history was being studied in this vacuum. Here too is finally an acknowledgment of the question of the sacredness of the dead and who is allowed to remain buried. My thoughts on Western museums, the subject of history and who it belongs to threaten to overwhelm this list, so I will save them for a separate post.
Legacy of violence: A history of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins.
It took me one and a half months to finish this book because I kept getting so angry while reading about the violence unleashed and systematized by the British. I made it worthwhile though by writing a full review of it, which you can read here. At the risk of repeating what I already wrote, it was a good look at the laws and tactics put in place by the British to rule their Empire and subjugate people from many different races. Most interesting were the details of the policing strategies honed in Ireland and then exported to the other territories under the British, especially Palestine. This book, cataloguing the violence used by the British, is also an excellent answer to those who try to make excuses for British rule or justify it on some bullshit grounds or the other.
The Swerve: How the world became modern by Stephen Greenblatt.
I saw this book for the first time in the bookstore at Columbia University in New York. I’d never heard of it but I had read Greenblatt in college because he’s written a lot on Shakespeare. I finally bought it a few months later and it turned out to be one of the best books I read this year (which is why it’s in this list, duh). It is the story of a book hunter, whose search for an ancient medieval book in an old German monastery was a major contributor to the Renaissance. I LOVE detective stories and this year showed me that I love literary detective stories even more than murder ones (who knew!) This book is an excellent journey through the book and real worlds of the middle ages, the early modern era, and some years from the archaeological digs in Pompeii. Greenblatt is an excellent storyteller and I am not surprised that this book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Coda: this was such an unexpected find for me since I’d never heard of it before, that any time I go to the bookstore I go into whichever section holds it and look around it for other similar gems I might have missed.
Papyrus: The invention of books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo.
I’ve owned a copy of this book since 2022 and i finally read it during my visit to Lahore in September this year. It was a very very fun book about books and their production, as the name indicates. It ranges from Alexandria to Greece to Rome and encompasses the texts of that literature alongside its material reality. It is written in a very accessible way and the author’s curious, active mind is evident throughout the book.
A flat place: A memoir by Nosheen Masud.
I think any girl who grew up in Pakistan as a millennial owes a debt of gratitude to Masud for writing this book and giving words to what most of us have experienced in our tight-knit, usually emotionally unstable or unavailable families. Masud is a beautifully lyrical writer, not to mention a very brave one to take on the subject of familial emotional abuse and the impact it has on its members who are convinced that it “wasn’t bad” and that “nothing really happened”, while wondering why they feel the way they do. Masud’s writing on her own complex trauma intertwined with the descriptions of physical landscapes that impact her is heartrending and completely necessary for everyone to read. I promised her I would tell her in detail what I liked about her book but instead I am writing it here ❤️.
The gilded page: The secret lives of medieval manuscripts by Mary Wellesley.
Aaand we’re back to the subject of books’ history. This time with Mary Wellesley’s book on medieval manuscripts and the histories they tell, not just through their texts but also through their material production, where they were made, by whom and why. She starts with the gospel made in Wearmouth-Jarrow, Bede’s old stomping grounds. The story then winds through the burial of St. Cuthbert to his exhumation and reburial and weaves a fascinating tale through the religious upheavals of Great Britain. Wellesley’s book is a very British one, focused on manuscripts held by the British Library in London (possible one of my favorite places on Earth), where she worked as a research affiliate. The discoveries of long lost manuscripts is an area of particular interest for me and her description of how “The book of Margery Kempe”, thought to be irrevocably lost, was accidentally discovered was particularly satisfying. Wellesley’s book also stands apart for its focus on the contribution of women to these manuscripts, not just as craftspeople but also as writers, and her descriptions of the lives they lead in medieval times, especially as members of the church. I had apparently saved this book in my “to-read” list years ago but under its British name, which is “Hidden Hands”, and only after buying and reading it in the US completely independently did I realize that it was the same book. Goes to show how consistent my taste is I guess.
Meetings with remarkable manuscripts: Twelve journeys into the medieval world by Christopher de Hamel.
I’ve had a copy of this book on my shelf in Lahore for at least 6 years now. I wanted to read it properly, which meant a Venn diagram with the greatest overlap of enough time and the right mood. That did not happen for years, even though I managed to read de Hamel’s (equally fat) sequel to this, “The Manuscripts Club” the day I got it so 🤷🏻♀️. I finally borrowed a copy of this from the library here in the last days of the year and sat down to devour it. And it was the best thing I could have done to see out the year (despite reservations!) De Hamel has been a librarian at Cambridge University and worked at Sotheby’s with medieval manuscripts before that so he is an expert on the subject and despite the popularity of the book (I see it everywhere even in the US) he has not dumbed the subject down, which is always a major win in my books.
The best parts of the work were de Hamel doing detective work to trace the histories of various medieval manuscripts which have been misattributed or gotten lost along the way. BUT he is quite racist sometimes: he is hard on the Book of Kells being “over” decorated 😮, he cracks racist jokes at the expense of the Russians… to their faces! That’s to name a few. However, despite these reservations, it was still such an excellent book that it made this list. Imagine!
So this was my list. I hope your 2024 was a good reading year and that 2025 is even better.
Thank you so much for discussing my Book-Makers!