State Library's best summer reads 2024

It’s the most wonderful time of the year A.K.A. the perfect few weeks to read (or even write?) that book you’ve been eyeing off for 12 months. Many thanks to a few Queensland Literary Award winners and State Library staff who have gleefully racked their brains to recommend to you the best books they’ve read this year.  

The Stories and Ideas team at State Library of Queensland wishes you a safe and joyful festive season. We’re lining up lots of exciting, thought-provoking, inspiring projects and events in 2025. We look forward to sharing them with you in the new year! 

Sharlene Allsopp, 2024 Queensland Literary Award winner for The Great Undoing

I rarely read non-fiction but this year I was so moved by Carly-Jay Metcalfe’s Breath and Khin Myint’s Fragile Creatures, that next year I will consciously add memoir, written by everyday humans not fictitious celebrities, to my reading list. 

I also loved The Belburd by Nardi Simpson and Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran. Both tell the truth about this nation and imagine who we could be if we are expansive rather than narrow – we can reject fear as the narrator of our stories. 

Abbas El-Zein, 2024 Queensland Literary Award winner for Bullet, Paper, Rock

I'm choosing two Jameses this year: 

• James Bradley's Deep Water: the World in the Ocean. Beautifully written and extensively researched. Especially impressive is the way Bradley brings together science, ecological and colonial history, and personal experience. It will undoubtedly change the way you look at oceans.  
• Percival Everett's James. Predictable, I know, since everyone is talking about it. But Everett's reimagining of Mark Twain's characters is brilliant, profoundly sad and laugh-out-loud hilarious. I rarely have "cannot-put-it-down" reading experiences, but this was one of them (although, for the record, I did put it down, several times – life obliges). 

Carly-Jay Metcalfe, 2024 Queensland Literary Award winner for Breath

In January, I revelled in Water by John Boyne, the first book of his Elemental series. Boyne’s ability to write the female voice is extraordinary, and even before I turned the last page, I knew it would be my standout read of the year. Now, I eagerly await the series finale Air, a copy of which his editor is sending me.  

Staying rooted in Irish literature, I immersed myself in the entirety of Claire Keegan’s works – her prose never fails to captivate. How she can break your heart, then piece it back together in under 100 pages is astounding. She completely blows me away.  

Finally, Catherine Wheel by Tasmanian writer Liz Evans is a tautly written psychological thriller that’s as sharp as it is engrossing. 

Sarah Kanake, 2024 Queensland Literary Award winner with a Queensland Writers Fellowship 

I’m a big reader of anything to do with the ocean and after the Queensland Literary Awards this year I read Deep Water: the World in the Ocean by James Bradley – well researched and beautifully written. I also read Dusk by Robbie Arnott and I loved it. It has everything I would want in a fiction book and the writing is sharp and beautiful. Earlier in the year I re-read Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe and was reminded what an original and gorgeously written book it is. 

I read Gunflower by Laura-Jean McKay and it is flooringly-original and strange. I haven't loved a short story collection as much as this one in a long time. 

I have two young children, so lots of my reading is also picture books. Recently we loved Book of Hours by Clare McFadden. 

My books to read over the holidays are The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright and How to Speak Whale; a Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication by Tom Mustill. And next year, I am very excited for Laura Elvery’s first novel, Nightingale.  

State Library staff offer their must-read suggestions

Chris, Communications Officer

The Sitter by Angela O'Keeffe: A really interesting approach to telling (or avoiding telling) the story of an historical figure, in this case, the artist Cezanne.  

Clear by Carys Davies: I got so much pleasure from this book, and can only imagine the writer felt the same at pulling off the nearly impossible in fiction: an inevitable yet surprising ending. 

The Gorgon Flower by John Richards: This book had absolutely no business being as fun as it was. If you grew up reading (and especially trying to write) gothic fiction, this collection is an absolute treat. 

Woo Woo by Ellen Baxter: Funny, propulsive and excellently weird.  

Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney: Irish women doing their best to disappear while making themselves more visible – officially my favourite genre of the year (see also The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes). 

Josie, Specialist Digital Media Technician and Photographer

I really enjoyed Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It's a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before. I also loved Morgan is My Name and its sequel, Le Fay, by Sophie Keetch. Beautiful writing, nuanced and complex female characters – even if you think you know them from previous stories/myths. The books also contain positive and happy queer female representation, which is such a rarity. The world needs more of this right now. 

Greg, Engagement Officer,  Anzac Square Memorial Galleries  

Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties by Bob Batchelor. It offers fresh insights into the cultural and political undercurrents of the time, the musical legacy of the Doors, and naturally, Jim Morrison the man. My second pick is An Autobiography by Agatha Christie – the acclaimed mystery writer lived an extraordinary life, and her anecdotes abound with wit, warmth and droll observations. And finally War By Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation Who Revolutionised Resistance by Daniel Akst is a thought-provoking reflection on the hitherto untold stories of brave people who had the moral courage to maintain a pacifist stance during World War II, and their impact on shaping future activism in the United States.

Meg, Acting Coordinator, Library Shop

Always Will Be by Mykaela Saunders – this collection of speculative fiction short stories envisions a sovereign First Nations future around the Bundjalung/Tweed area where I spent a lot of time growing up. Country, culture, and technology come alive through characters and moments that create lasting impressions of hope, creativity, and resilience. 

Reuben, Specialist Librarian, Collection Building

I'm full of praise for two Giramondo titles: Anne de Marcken’s zombie-lit It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over and Jon Fosse’s Septology, an immersive, hypnotic experience told in seven 'books', however, encompassing a brief period in the life of an ageing, reclusive painter Asle. Told in the almost delirious, stream-of-conscience internal monologue of the main protagonist, Septology is written in one continuous sentence, and was a reading experience like none other.

Annabelle, Collection Curation & Engagement

My best book of the year is Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood.   

And, finally, what do Stories and Ideas team members suggest?

In 2024 Jane was very moved by Edenglassie by Melissa Luchashenko. Another vote, this time from Nat, for Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional. Raynee's favourite was James by Percival Everett; she calls it "an action-packed, buccaneering reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and brilliantly funny. Everett takes Mark Twain's classic tale and places the enslaved sidekick Jim at the centre, showing a rich world hidden from Twain's white characters". Grace echoes Meg in the Library Shop, recommending Mykaela Saunders' stunning short story collection Always Will Be. Allanah says she admired The Great Undoing by Sharlene Allsopp and Wurrtoo by Tylissa Elisara ("like revisiting childhood – such a beautiful and warm book"). Laura too loved Everett's James plus other recent releases such as The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley), Dusk (Robbie Arnott), Firelight (John Morrissey), Question 7 (Richard Flanagan), and The Alternatives (Caoilinn Hughes), and finally got around, in 2024, to reading the incredible Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears.

Here’s to more stories and more ideas in 2025. As Annabelle in Queensland Memory tells us, the best idea she heard all year was to “retreat from the world – even briefly – to find peace, in any way you can.” Wishing you all a happy holiday and a safe return in the new year.