Here is a small roundup of some of my favorite books of the year. I love being nosy about what others are reading and thought you might be too.
While The New York Times and I certainly have some beef, we do agree that 2024 was the year of Elena Ferrante. I devoured the Neapolitan novels this summer, falling deeply into the world of Lila and Lenù. As a firm believer in the magical power of female friendships, Ferrante astounded me in her ability to capture the epic highs and lows of growing so close to someone that you start to see yourself in the other, mutually molding in ways you can’t quite articulate, but can’t quite pull away from. I also read her speeches on her literary heroes as compiled in In the Margins. A good reminder that brilliant women throughout history have wrestled with the same problems we do, themselves finding refuge in the writings of others.
The first half of my year in reading was defined by my book group, a loose conglomerate of my coworker and her friends (turned my friends) who gathered around a big wheel of cheese every month(ish) to talk books. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto was so tender, warming our hearts in the snowy Boston winter. Tar Baby was my first foray into the works of Toni Morrision, admittedly a nontraditional place to start. I was amazed at the artistry I had the opportunity to bear witness to: Morrision's ability to weave a complex web of race, gender, and class dynamics that slowly unspooled chapter by chapter. We also read Mary Oliver’s Upstream for beautiful remarks on life and nature that brought me serenity during a huge period of transition.
Wanting to read more Morrison, I read The Bluest Eye, a more minimalist examination of similar themes of race and beauty that hit me like a punch in the gut. I visited another long-overdue mid-century classic with Giovanni's Room for wintery beauty and queer longing. If you haven’t seen Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris, go watch it now.
For some easy, fun reads, I enjoyed Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue, The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, and Worry by Alexandra Tanner (yes, I know one of these is not like the other). Speeding through these titles reminds me of bringing home a tall stack of books for the library’s summer reading program and gorging myself on lives that were so different from my own (or in the case of Worry, rather similar to my own).
A major lesson of twenty-four was the importance of cultivating my curiosity and intellectual pursuits outside of an academic context. These recently released works of nonfiction tickled my interests across political history, art and media consumption, and feminist theory: The Riddles of the Sphinx by Anna Shechtman, Monsters by Claire Dederer, Filterworld by Kyle Chayka, and When the Clock Broke by John Ganz. Some made much more compelling arguments than others, but if you got a drink with me while I was in the middle of any of these, I probably talked your ear off about them.
A couple other standouts of this year resist categorization: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, an excellent little novella that made me think about the complexity of thought that can fit in tight spaces; Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which had a few essays that came into my life precisely when I needed them most; and an annotated reread of Capitalist Realism after finding a copy in a little free library. Some of the smartest, most interesting political theory, articulated in a way I find very compelling. RIP a legend.
If you want to keep up with my reading, I use Storygraph. It’s much worse than the alternative, but I guess that’s my politics in a nutshell. Up next is Intermezzo. If you are curious about the rest of my media consumption, I watched 107 movies and listened to 28,483 minutes of music. My favorite new release is La Chimera, my favorite older first-watch is Celine and Julie Go Boating, my top musical artist is Adrianne Lenker, and my most-watched director is Agnès Varda.
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