Well, it is difficult to believe that we are once again at the end of the year. And the end of the year means wrap-up posts! In mid-January, An Historian About Town will be celebrating its ten year anniversary, and as such, I’ve been reflecting a lot. And throughout this whole decade, books have been at the heart of the site. I love reading, and I love sharing what I read. Hearing from someone that they enjoyed a book I’ve recommended is a true highlight. In honour of that, these are my top 10 books of 2024!
My Top 10 Books of 2024
I’ve included five non-fiction books and five fiction books here, depending on what your fancy is. This is not an exhaustive list, I did not want to overwhelm everyone with 50+ recommendations but these are books that really stand out for me when I think of my reading year!
Note: Some of these reviews are not on the site yet and are scheduled for the new year, but I wanted to include them here.
Non-Fiction: Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars, Francesca Wade
In the early twentieth century, Mecklenburgh Square–a hidden architectural gem in the heart of London–was a radical address. On the outskirts of Bloomsbury known for the eponymous group who “lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles,” the square was home to students, struggling artists, and revolutionaries.
In the pivotal era between the two world wars, the lives of five remarkable women intertwined at this one address: modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf. In an era when women’s freedoms were fast expanding, they each sought a space where they could live, love, and–above all–work independently.
With sparkling insight and a novelistic style, Francesca Wade sheds new light on a group of artists and thinkers whose pioneering work would enrich the possibilities of women’s lives for generations to come.
Review: Here
Fiction: The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
With vivid power, Wharton evokes a time of gaslit streets, formal dances held in the ballrooms of stately brownstones, and society people who dreaded scandal more than disease. This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to many the docile May Welland. Then, suddenly, the mysterious, intensely nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a long absence, turning Archer’s world upside down.
This classic Wharton tale of thwarted love is an exuberantly comic and profoundly moving look at the passions of the human heart, as well as a literary achievement of the highest order.
Review: N/A
Non-Fiction: The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures, Sarah Clegg
When you think about Christmas, you likely picture mangers, glowing fireplaces, sweet carolers, and snow-blanketed hills. But behind all this bright magic, there’s something much darker lurking in the shadows. In The Dead of Winter, Cambridge-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folklore of the Christmas season in Europe, detailing the way its terrifying and often debaucherous past continues to haunt and entertain us now in the twenty-first century.
Perfect for the growing mainstream audience obsessed with horror and monsters, this guide makes the perfect gift, beautifully packaged in a stocking-stuffer-friendly trim size.
Review: Here
Fiction: The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery #3), Claudia Gray
Someone is trying to kill Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Esteemed aunt of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, generous patroness of Mr. William Collins, a woman of rank who rules over the estate of Rosings Park with an unimpeachable sense of propriety—who would dare? Lady Catherine summons her grand-nephew, Mr. Jonathan Darcy, and his investigative companion, Miss Juliet Tilney, to find out.
After a year apart, Jonathan and Juliet are thrilled to be reunited, even if the circumstances—finding whoever has thus far sabotaged Lady Catherine’s carriage, shot at her, and nearly pushed her down the stairs—are less than ideal. Also less than ideal: their respective fathers, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Mr. Henry Tilney, have accompanied the young detectives to Rosings, and the two men do not interact with the same felicity enjoyed by their children.
With attempts against Lady Catherine escalating, and no one among the list of prime suspects seemingly capable of committing all of the attacks, the pressure on Jonathan and Juliet mounts—even as more gentle feelings between the two of them begin to bloom. The race is now on to provoke two confessions: one from the attempted murderer before it is too late—and one, perhaps, of love.
Review: Here
Non-Fiction: The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza, Britain’s Forgotten Monarch, Sophie Shorland
In an absorbing narrative, historian Sophie Shorland not only tells the full story of this long-overlooked figure and her difficult relationship with Charles II, but also reveals how Catherine changed the country in ways both large and small: part of her dowry was Bombay, Britain’s first territory on the Indian subcontinent; she also popularised trousers for women, Baroque art and music, and – perhaps most long-lastingly – tea drinking.
Despite Catherine of Braganza’s crucial place in British history, and that of its Empire, she has since been overshadowed by stories of the king’s many mistresses and forgotten as Charles’ boring, powerless wife. This could not be further from the truth.
Review: N/A
Fiction: The Other Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria’s Goddaughter, Denny S. Bryce
With a brilliant mind and a fierce will to survive, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a kidnapped African princess, is rescued from enslavement at seven years old and presented to Queen Victoria as a “gift.” To the Queen, the girl is an exotic trophy to be trotted out for the entertainment of the royal court and to showcase Victoria’s magnanimity. Sarah charms most of the people she meets, even those who would cast her aside. Her keen intelligence and her aptitude for languages and musical composition helps Sarah navigate the Victorian era as an outsider given insider privileges.
But embedded in Sarah’s past is her destiny. Haunted by visions of destruction and decapitations, she desperately seeks a place, a home she will never run from, never fear, a refuge from nightmares and memories of death.
From West Africa to Windsor Castle to Sierra Leone, to St. James’s Palace, and the Lagos Colony, Sarah juggles the power and pitfalls of a royal upbringing as she battles racism and systematic oppression on her way to living a life worthy of a Yoruba princess.
Based on the real life of Queen Victoria’s Black goddaughter, Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s story is a sweeping saga of an African princess in Victorian England and West Africa, as she searches for a home, family, love, and identity.
Review: Here
Non-Fiction: Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency, Bea Koch
Regency England is a world immortalized by Jane Austen and Lord Byron in their beloved novels and poems. The popular image of the Regency continues to be mythologized by the hundreds of romance novels set in the period, which focus almost exclusively on wealthy, white, Christian members of the upper classes.
But there are hundreds of fascinating women who don’t fit history books limited perception of what was historically accurate for early 19th century England. Women like Dido Elizabeth Belle, whose mother was a slave but was raised by her white father’s family in England, Caroline Herschel, who acted as her brother’s assistant as he hunted the heavens for comets, and ended up discovering eight on her own, Anne Lister, who lived on her own terms with her common-law wife at Shibden Hall, and Judith Montefiore, a Jewish woman who wrote the first English language Kosher cookbook.
As one of the owners of the successful romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, Bea Koch has had a front row seat to controversies surrounding what is accepted as “historically accurate” for the wildly popular Regency period. Following in the popular footsteps of books like Ann Shen’s Bad Girls Throughout History, Koch takes the Regency, one of the most loved and idealized historical time periods and a huge inspiration for American pop culture, and reveals the independent-minded, standard-breaking real historical women who lived life on their terms. She also examines broader questions of culture in chapters that focus on the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, the lives of women of color in the Regency, and women who broke barriers in fields like astronomy and paleontology. In Mad and Bad, we look beyond popular perception of the Regency into the even more vibrant, diverse, and fascinating historical truth.
Review: Here
Fiction: The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies, Alison Goodman
Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,” is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents itself: to rescue their friend’s goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.
The sisters set out to Caroline’s country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago. What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan.
Back in London, Gus can’t stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.
Review: N/A
Non-Fiction:When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion, Julie Satow
In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel’s took risks, innovated and competed as very different kinds of career women, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. In the 1930s, Hortense came to her husband’s department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy championed American designers during World War II–before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies–and beyond, becoming the first businesswoman to earn a salary of more than $1.5 million. And Geraldine re-invented the look of the modern department store in the 1960s, and had a preternatural sense for trends, inspiring a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.
The American department store: a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof – afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.
In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three American women who made twentieth-century department stores a mecca for women of every age, social class, and ambition. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.
Review: N/A
Fiction: A Death in Diamonds, SJ Bennett (21 January 2025)
1957 – A young woman is found dead in a mews house a mile from Buckingham Palace, wearing only silk underwear and a a diamond tiara. An older man is discovered nearby, garrotted and pierced through the eye with a long, sharp implement.
According to the police, a high society card game was going on downstairs that night. One of the players surely committed the murders, but each of them can give the others an alibi.
When someone very close to her is implicated, the young Queen is drawn in to the investigation…
Review: N/A
What are your top 10 books of 2024?
Cheers,
The Historian
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