Roula Khalaf
Editor
The shortlisted titles for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award are, by definition, some of the most compelling reads of 2024. For readers who missed the announcement of the shortlist, I recommend every one of the six books. Since I chair the judging panel, I can’t reveal my personal favourite and we have yet to decide on the winner. Stay tuned. I do most of the reading of the longlist over the summer. My rule, however, is to read one novel before I start. My pick this year was Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History, an epic tale of three generations of a Franco-Algerian family. It has everything I love about a novel — sensitive character studies and the sweep of history.
Janine Gibson
FT WEEKEND EDITOR
If you are alive in 2024 you will know that X (né Twitter) is either haemorrhaging users or was the most important and influential spreader of misinformation during the US election campaign. Elon Musk, who bought the world’s 12th most popular social media platform for $44bn just two years ago, is either a delusional posting-addict in thrall to RTs or the man who won it for Donald Trump. And as one of X’s most enduring memes says, why not both? In 2024, where major newspapers do not bother to endorse their preferred candidates in public, a platform that does not officially at least consider itself media dominated another election campaign and its owner claimed victory. Let that sink in, as he likes to say. The ballad of Elon and Donald doubtless has a few more verses to go, but in Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, tech reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac have produced a deeply reported, revealing and slightly terrifying book that is considerably subtler than its subtitle.
Frederick Studemann
Literary Editor
Much has been written about the chilling realities of Putin’s Russia. Yet, in a very crowded field, Patriot by Alexei Navalny is in a class of its own. This haunting autobiography ranges from vivid, often funny accounts of growing up in the lie-infested Soviet Union through the hopes of the post-communist years and on to Navalny’s emergence as the opposition leader prepared to stand up to state power for which he was hounded, imprisoned and poisoned. Unflinching, defiant and even hopeful, the book was published after Navalny’s death in unexplained circumstances earlier this year in a penal colony in the Arctic Circle. It is — to borrow the author’s own description — a shocking and extraordinary “memorial”.
On a very different note, I enjoyed Long Island by Colm Tóibín. Sequels are often best avoided. But in this follow-up to his celebrated novel Brooklyn, Tóibín elegantly brings the story back to Ireland where he unfurls a poignant tale of paths not taken and opportunities lost.
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