We may be a bit technology-obsessed here, but the Engadget team does occasionally get around to low-tech activities, like reading. Well, some of us read on ereaders or our smartphones, but you get the point — books are great, and we read some exceptional ones this year that each deserve a shoutout. These are some of the best books we read in 2024.

The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals after failing to meet quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch.

On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed the journal Chemosphere from its platform, the Web of Science, which is a key index for academic journals. The indexing platform tracks citations and calculates journal "impact factors," a proxy for relevance in its field. It's a critical metric not only for the journals but for the academic authors of the journal's articles, who use the score in their pursuit of promotions and research funding.

To be included in the Web of Science, Clarivate requires journals to follow editorial quality criteria. In an email to Ars Technica, Clarivate confirmed that Chemosphere was removed for "not meeting one or more of the quality criteria." According to Retraction Watch, Chemosphere has retracted eight articles this month and published 60 expressions of concern since April.

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• Taylor Swift released "The Eras Tour Book" at Target on Friday.
• It instantly became Target's best-selling book of the year.
• The book had some issues, from typos to printing mistakes.

Black Friday was a Swiftie holiday this year — though it didn't bring every fan holiday cheer.

Taylor Swift released "The Eras Tour Book" along with a vinyl and CD version of "The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology" on Friday.

Eager fans lined up in the wee hours of the morning to get a copy. Business Insider spoke to shoppers who arrived at a Lynchburg, Virginia, store at 3 a.m. to ensure they could secure the book and vinyl album.

Amid the excitement of a new Swift product, some fans quickly pointed out that the book had multiple printing and layout errors. Publishing experts told Business Insider that Swift's decision to self-publish might have contributed to the hiccups.

Representatives for Swift, Target, and ST8MNT, the brand agency credited with art direction, design, and illustration, did not respond to requests for comment.

The 'Errors' Tour Book

Swift sidestepped traditional publishers for her 256-page coffee table book, publishing it through Taylor Swift Publications and selling it exclusively at Target for $39.99. It features over 500 images, some of which fans had never seen, and Swift's musings on the tour.

Following the book's release, some Swifties posted on social media about issues they noticed in their copies of "The Eras Tour Book" — or as they called it, "The Errors Tour Book," a nod to an inside joke between Swifties to refer to mistakes the singer made on the tour.

Some of these problems seemingly appear in multiple copies, like the "Folklore" song "This Is Me Trying" being listed as "This Is Me Rying" in a section about surprise songs. The same section lists "Gold Rush," a track from "Evermore," as one word, even though the song is two words.

Likewise, the book listed Swift's stop in Toronto as "November 14-16, 22-23," but she also played in the city on November 21.

Shoppers also questioned the book's layout and photos. A handful of pictures of Swift were arranged in a two-page spread with the singer in the center, which fans said made it difficult to see her.

Others said images in the book appeared slightly blurry, which made them wonder if they were stills from "The Eras Tour" film instead of high-resolution shots.

Aside from typos, Swift's written sections — including notes to the fans, paragraphs about each era of the tour, and information about her pre-show rituals — garnered mixed responses, with some expecting more insights from Swift herself despite it being largely marketed as a photo book.

Eryn Kieffer, a 23-year-old content creator and longtime Swiftie from Los Angeles, told BI she loved the sections Swift wrote but had anticipated more behind-the-scenes content.

"I thought there would be a lot more little blurbs about the making of the show," she said. "Not full essays, but like, 'Oh, here's me behind stage,' you know, little things and a few more behind-the-scenes pictures."

Still, Kieffer said she would have wanted the book even if she had known there wouldn't be as much behind-the-scenes content.

Many other fans also shared how much they loved the book on social media in the days after the book's release, regardless of production missteps.

Printing problems

The biggest problem with the book appeared to be printing issues in certain copies of Swift's book. The text was bleeding off the pages in some — though it's unclear if that was a stylistic choice — and others said they had books printed entirely upside down or with folds on random pages.

Erik Hane, the founder of Headwater Literary Management, told BI that working with a traditional publisher may have helped Swift avoid the typos and misprints.

"The errors being described are ones that a competent production department — or honestly, most production departments of any quality — at a traditional publisher would have caught and corrected before printing," he said.

"This is especially true for the quality and caliber of publishers that would have been available to Taylor Swift had she chosen to traditionally publish," Hane added.

Jessika Hazelton, manager and creative director at The Troy Book Makers, a book publisher based in Schodack Landing, New York, told BI that a rushed timeline could also have contributed to the errors.

"We often tell our clients there is no such thing as a perfect book," Hazelton said. "Even if the copy was well-edited, and everything was reviewed carefully before the book goes to print, it is possible for mistakes to slip through."

"For something like this 'Eras Tour Book,' I suspect there was a tight deadline to get the book out in time for the holidays, and it was not looked over as thoroughly as it might have been," she said.

Hane told BI that Swift's business reasons for self-publishing — like saving money and having total creative control — made sense. Still, the errors might be a side effect of that decision.

"This is one of the drawbacks of that choice: You don't get the production expertise that would have caught and corrected these mistakes and perhaps would have even added value to the physical package of the book in other ways we'll never know about," he said.

Traditionally published books can have errors, too

Traditionally published books aren't always error-free.

For instance, when Red Tower published Rebecca Yarros' "Iron Flame" in November 2023, readers said they received misprinted copies, sharing photos and videos of books printed backward or crooked.

Likewise, social media users shared that they received misprinted copies of Sally Rooney's "Intermezzo," published by the Macmillan imprint Farrar, Straus and Giroux in September.

Red Tower and Macmillan did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

Despite the misprints, Swift's decision to self-publish seemed to pay off from a business perspective.

A Target representative told BI that by 10 a.m. ET on Friday, just hours after it became available, "The Eras Tour Book" had become Target's highest-selling book of 2024. On Sunday, Swift also released a second stock of "The Tortured Poet's Department: The Anthology" vinyl at Target to meet fans' demand.

Spotify is expanding its audiobook selection thanks to a deal with publisher Bloomsbury, adding over 1,000 books from authors like Sarah J Maas, Alan Moore and Ann Patchett. The new titles are arriving just a day after Spotify introduced new tools for audiobooks, like playlists, visual accompaniments and a sleep timer. 

Some of the new audiobooks include fantasies for adults like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke), award winners including Cuddy by Benjamin Myers and kids adventure books like Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures. The new collection also includes non-fiction titles by historians like Peter Frankopan and Want, an anthology collected by Gillian Anderson. Narration will be performed by high-end talent like Meryl Streep, Emilia Clarke, Adjoa Andoh, and Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Spotify started offering audiobooks in the US a year ago, with Premium subscribers gaining access to 15 hours of content per month (that can be topped up with an additional 10 hours for $12.99). With the average audiobook being about 8-12 hours, subscribers to the $11 Premium tier will be able to listen to about a book per month. Spotify said today that it has paid "hundreds of millions of dollars to publishers on an annualized basis." 

Bloomsbury already offers its audiobooks on Amazon's Audible, with many of the titles mentioned above already available on that platform (Want, Cuddy and others). Depending on the audiobook, it may be cheaper to just buy it outright than topping up your Spotify account, if want to listen to multiple titles in a month. 

The Spotify audiobook experience has been lacking when compared to rivals like Audible, but it looks like that’s beginning to change. The streaming platform just announced a bevy of updates for audiobook listeners and some are downright useful.

Perhaps the biggest one for me is the addition of a sleep timer. Audiobooks are great for lulling people to sleep, but it sucks when you sleep through a hundred pages and can’t remember where you left off. The built-in sleep timer lets users set how long the content will play. This sleep timer already exists for podcasts and music.

Spotify users can also now make audiobook-specific playlists, helping people keep track of what they want to read or, uh, listen to. The platform says this tool will “help you keep your library organized” and that playlists will “be a place for you to aggregate the audiobooks on your reading list.” In addition to traditional playlists, the streamer will publish curated playlists from the audiobook editorial team.

There are new Countdown Pages, which are splash pages for forthcoming audiobooks. These let people save a book prior to the release date, making it easy to find once it actually comes out. Spotify says this feature can be used by authors, publishers, and narrators” to “help promote their upcoming titles ahead of launch.”

Spotify

Speaking of promotions, Spotify’s new Author Pages display biographical information on specific writers and will allow perusal of their entire catalogs. This is in a pilot program for now, with only a “select number of authors” having access to the tool. There’s also a new video player specifically for audiobooks, that lets "select authors and publishers submit a short video about a specific title.” The platform likens this to a book’s jacket, offering a “taste of an audiobook before pressing play.”

Finally, some audiobooks are getting a follow-along feature. This is described as an “immersive visual experience” akin to a music video that displays illustrations, photos and graphics as the audiobook is being read. Look for this in the “extras” section of eligible audiobooks.

Last year, Spotify began offering 15 hours of audiobook listening to Premium subscribers. There’s also a subscription specifically for audiobooks that costs $10 per month that provides 15 hours of listening. The Premium subscription, however, costs $12 per month and adds ad-free music to the mix. It’s good to know that humanity’s collective musical output is worth $2 per month.