#nonfiction favorites 2024

[mercerislandbooks]

Our Favorite Nonfiction of 2024

It's very nearly the last minute, and, just in the nick of time, we have our list of favorite nonfiction from 2024. I will admit that this area is not my strong suit, so my coworkers are doing the heavy lifting. These are for the readers who want to more deeply understand the world around us, the history behind us, and the future to come. Brave readers all.

If you're looking for a behind the scenes peek at the giants of the American writing scene, pick up one of Brad's favorites, A Chance Meeting. Brad says, "American Luminaries... they're just like us! They hang out, have coffee together and get into arguments. In Rachel Cohen's wonderful new book, we eavesdrop on artists and writers from Henry James to James Baldwin and witness the impact these men and women had on each other."

As for the editing and publishing side, Caitlin loved The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America. "Judith Jones was the legendary editor at Knopf. She shaped the careers of Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey, Anne Tyler and John Updike. Early in her career Jones saved The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank from the slush pile. What a life!"

Speaking of Julia Child, many of us love to cook (as well as read) at Island Books, and Laurie highly recommends Seriously, So Good by Carissa Stanton. She says anyone can cook from it and the food is delicious, which is exactly how I like my cookbooks!

Laurie also found Ina Garten's memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens "full of humor and dishy storytelling. The Barefoot Contessa entertains as she weaves the story of her childhood meeting Jeffrey and becoming THE Ina Garten. You'll enjoy this from start to finish!"

As for Cindy, her favorite nonfiction was Doppelganger by Naomi Klein. She says, "In Doppelganger, Canadian author, activist and cultural analyst Naomi Klein tours the persistence of The Doppelganger in history and literature while reckoning with her personal doppelganger, Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth turned conspiracy theorist ("Other Naomi"), with whom she is chronically confused or interchanged with by the public, mainly online. Part memoir, part social critique, Klein touches upon on issues of self-identity, self-presentation, online identity, the rapid dissemination of bad information, news, fake news, and the simmering entry of AI into our online constructs among many other factors that over the last few decades have contributed to the accelerated political polarization and societal disparity we are experiencing today."

Back to the realm of what we can control, from the author of Four Thousand Weeks, Victor highly recommends Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. "The perfect book for embracing and accepting your imperfections." Sounds like a good way to start out the new year!

Looking for a seafaring adventure to fill the void left by David Grann's The Wager? Brad says, look no further! "Hampton Sides brings Captain James Cook's final voyage to life in The Wide Wide Sea, while thoughtfully addressing the moral complexity of Cook's encounters with the indigenous populations of the Pacific Ocean."

If you'd like to explore a little closer to home, Nancy can't stop talking about Born of Fire and Rain. She says it's for the reader who is interested in the science and ecology of the Northwest. Plus it's beautifully written and illustrated. Come for the cover, stay for the words.

And for the micro-ecology of our own backyards, Backyard Bird Chronicles is perfect. Nancy says, "This is a great gift for anyone who likes to look out the window. Tan is showing us how to observe with no ulterior motive. Just the birds and beautiful drawings provide wonderful entertainment."

Caitlin loved There's Always This Year, saying it's "a book of fathers, sons, life, and, of course, basketball." And she picked Bluff, by Danez Smith, as a standout poetry collection from this year. She says she often read through individual poems multiple times, and calls it a "deeply thought-provoking look at civil action."

My own contribution is How to Winter, which I enjoyed so much that I wrote a whole blog about it. It's perfect for this time of year, but has tools that can help us shift our mindsets during any challenging times.

I hope one of these catches your eye, either for you, or for the nonfiction reader in your life! This link will take you to the book list on our website:

2024: Our Favorite Nonfiction

Happy perusing!

-- Lori

[andreai04]

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

If it doesn’t harm your character, how can it harm your life?

People try to get away from it all—to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.

By going within.

Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own soul.

The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.

Is an emerald suddenly flawed if no one admires it?

Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”

Consider the abyss of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations: what's the difference?

The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

How many unkind people have you been kind to?

Wait for it patiently—annihilation or metamorphosis.

Fight to be the person philosophy tried to make you.

You accept the limits placed on your body. Accept those placed on your time.

You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live.

You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. (Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?)

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Potential November Reads

Moving into the process of wrapping up my reading for the year! I won't hit my optimistic reading goal (let's be real: I've been behind since February) but I have stayed on top of the books I wanted to get to this year. For November and December, I have all of three TBR books I need to read; the rest can be mood reading if I want.

Currently Reading:

Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett - a little over 100 pages left

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger - I only got about an hour into this one yesterday

TBR:

The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James - 335 pages (my last Alphabet Challenge book! and if this one doesn't work out, I have several other "Q" options)

Other Potential Reads/Rereads:

a reread

a fantasy

a sci-fi

a classic

a sequel

a nonfic

[guardian-angle22]

[peterwknox]

My 2024 Year in Reading at Goodreads

40 books. 11,264 pages.

17 Fiction. 23 NonFiction.

18 Female Authors. 22 Male.

6 Print. 34 Digital.

25 Library Digital. 7 Audiobooks.

*2023

43 books. 13,757 pages. 17 Fiction. 26 NonFiction.

12 Female Authors. 31 Male. 13 Print. 30 Digital.

27 Library Digital. 11 Audiobooks.

*2022

48 books. 13,795 pages. 20 Fiction. 28 NonFiction.

13 Female Authors. 35 Male. 14 Print. 34 Digital.

27 Library Digital.

*2021

32 books. 8,582 pages. 16 Fiction. 16 NonFiction.

16 Female Authors. 16 Male. 7 Print. 25 Digital.

24 Library Digital.

*2020

33 books. 8,029 pages. 14 Fiction. 19 NonFiction.

16 Female Authors. 17 Male. 14 Print. 19 Digital.

18 Library Digital.

*2019

46 books/14,455 pages. 17 Fiction. 29 NonFiction.

20 Female Authors. 26 Male. 22 Print. 24 Digital.

21 Library Digital.

*2018

52 books/12,504 pages. 20 Fiction. 32 NonFiction.

30 Print. 22 Digital. 21 Female Authors. 31 Male.

18 Library Digital.

*2017

47 books/15,472 pages. 18 Fiction. 29 NonFiction.

19 Print. 28 Digital. 16 Female. 31 Male.

25 Library Digital.

*2016

50 books/18,944 pages. 22 Fiction/28 NonFiction.

18 Print/32 Digital. 15 Female/35 Male.

27 Library Digital.

*2015

44 books/14,765 pages. 25 Fiction/19 NonFiction.

30 Print/14 Digital. 10 Female/34 Male.

7 Library Digital.

*2014

39 books/14,316 pages. 18 Fiction/21 NonFiction.

20 Print/19 Digital. 14 Female/25 Male.

12 Library Digital.

-

This year I really rushed at the end to meet my goal of 40 books, 3 less than last year (and about 3,000 less pages too). To look at those trends, it felt like I went longer periods not getting through books this year. Next year I'll slow down, try to bring it back to 36 or so - which is where I was comfortably earlier this month.

I got back to reading more books published before 2024, but still read 11 NEW frontlist books (and about 4 more that were published only a year ago). But since last year, it was almost HALF frontlist books, I wanted to track that number again this year.

This year I read more female authors (not AS many as men, but much closer in balance than last year) but just as much fiction as last year. And almost NONE (6 out of 40!) in print when last year I read twice as many print books. It's just a lot of digital library books on my Kindle (the nice Voyage one, so worth it) and some more audiobooks to listen to on my walk to work.

As usual, despite loving nonfiction and reading more of that (especially male nonfiction writers) than fiction, my favorite top books were all female fiction.

Both The God of the Woods and The Secret History blew me away this year. They also feel like kindred spirits. I can't say enough amazing things about TGOTW and talking about it nonstop has gotten 25+ people to tell me they've picked it up and also loved it.

If any book ever catches your interest, I hope you follow through in finding a way to acquire and read it - check out my reviews (I write a review for every book I read) and let me know what you’re reading these days.

So in 2025 I'm pledging to pick up more fiction (as always), more women authors (as always), and more print (now more than ever)... if just to reverse some continuing trends from the last three years. Thus, send me your recommendations. And without further ado, here are mine...

My top 3 reads from 2024:

Favorite Fiction:

The God of the Woods

The Secret History

Project Hail Mary

Favorite NonFiction:

The Art Thief

Ambition Monster

Means of Ascent [LBJ #2]

Honorable Mentions:

The Measure

Godwin

Health and Safety

My 2024 Books Read (for Pleasure!)

[whatcha-reading-today]

Who Would Believe a Prisoner? IWPHP

Vitally important, extremely well researched, and well constructed. This is such an interesting and critical examination of the conditions of incarcerated women. This book is on Hoopla so if your library has access to it, I can't recommend it enough.

I hadn't heard of lived epistemologies as a way of positioning work but so value that concept and the way it shaped these researchers' perspectives.

This line from the conclusion really sums it up: how much violence enacted upon incarcerated women is enough for the citizens for whom the system acts to demand and enact change?

This book is available on Hoopla and I recommend it enough.

Format: E-book

Read in: February 2024

[aarlone]

In no particular order, these are some of my top audio dramas that kept me company during 2024.

1 Breathing Space: This is one of my favorite flavors of sci-fi. It is a series I have been savoring, and I do intend to relisten through at some point - because I listen to podcasts while working, it's easy for me to miss things. I haven't finished the whole series, but Breathing Space is definitely worth coming back to.

2 Monstrous Agonies: Monstrous Agonies was one of the few podcasts I didn't only listen to while on the clock. It is the perfect length for me to put on two episodes while chopping veggies for dinner, and an absolute delight every time.

3 InCo: Another podcast that shone, despite my inability to pick up on all the cool things going on. Another one I look forward to returning to.

4 StarTripper!!: Just thinking about StarTripper!! makes me smile. It is utterly charming.

5 Gastronaut: Incredible premise, executed beautifully. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

6 Paired: Paired is a longtime favorite of mine, and was one of a handful of relistens I did this year. I love Pairy. I hope she got to set a deer on fire.

7 Travelling Light: How much do I love Travelling Light? Every morning, I update my podcatcher and decide what to listen to based on that morning update. Travelling Light is the only one that gets downloaded as soon as I see an announcement that it's out. It's the only one that gets bumped to the next pod in the queue when listening.

8 The Green Horizon: Please I need to know where I can find more Irish-made audio dramas, this show fills the Motherfocloir-shaped hole in my life and I'm going to be finished with it soon.

9 Birds Of Empire: This show deserves better than for me to listen to while I'm at work. It's outstanding on several levels.

10 Metropolis: The first few episodes of Metropolis have set a high bar for this series. It is starting off strong, and I'm quite glad to be along for the ride.

11 October Jones & Fish With Legs: I've said this before, but OJ&FWL will fundamentally alter the way you say "mimosa" and that is just the beginning of this show's delights.

12 World Gone Wrong: The dialogue, both in terms of the writing and its performance, is so goddamn fluid and natural, if it weren't for the subject matter, I could have been convinced that this is a nonfiction chat pod between two besties.

[ash-and-starlight]

BOOKS OF 2024

the list nobody asked for. again <3 i think this time around i read less books than the previous year?? but still 😤 we did it boys we read some fine books. reviews under the cut since i love yapping and i cant be fucked to make a goodreads account

Cromorama - Riccardo Falcinelli this book was sooo cool so engaging so interesting, its a look into the history and science of colors but its also so much more rlly one of my favorite nonfictions of all time

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells disclaimer I only read this series up to Rogue Protocol, but I enjoyed it, I rlly liked the characters and the worldbuilding and the short novel format and most of all murderbooottt my best friend murderbot. when im in the mood for scifi again ill read the rest asw I prommyy

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong this is one of those books that as u read it you can already tell it will stay with you forever, dont be fooled by the shortness every single line will Kill You. it will kill you dead.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Shehan Karunatilaka probably my fav book of the year, it's beautiful it's gripping it's deep it's scathing it's irreverent it has a careful and deeply cultural magical surrealism it has sociopolitical satire it won the booker prize of 2022 and deserved it so much

Fuori le Palle! Privilegi e Trappole della Mascolinità - Victoire Tuaillon ill be hoooneestt I didn't find this uhh as groundbreaking as I was kinda expecting it to be?? but still it was a nice read and the "flipped" perspective to center the myth of """masculinity""" in a feminist text was interesting. also rlly pretty cover

Lavinia - Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula girl u did it again! constantly rising the bar for all of us!! another stunning book that sadly fell victim to the #girlboss tiktokification but DONT LET THAT STOP YOUUU its sooo good. bitches Love pre-hellenistic latin society <333 bitches love even more when the boundaries between story and characters and reality and fiction blur in such a masterful way that Lavinia can have a conversation with Vergil and it doesn't feel not even the littlest bit forced or out of place <333

Exordia - Seth Dickinson Went in for the giant snake alien/human toxic yuri stayed for the weird mystery body horror stuff almost left for the overabundance of USA military stuff that I just can't be bothered to care about. I liked it way less than the masquerade but it Does have all the classical elements that make it a Seth Dickinson book aka fucked up women. Imperialism Critique. the horrors. the trolley problem. being Very Long. etc

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao wow guys. this book fucking sucked. like I'm speechless. you'd think that with the crazy popular rep it has it would have smth worth salvaging but uhhh- anyway go stream cocoon by corrupter which is iron widow if it was actually good

Fire from Heaven - Mary Renault nothing more special than a cultured fujo and her special golden shiny perfumed blorbo that everyone wants to fuck so bad <333 finally a book that healed my tsoa related trauma, the only thing that could've made it better is if hephaestion discovered brat taming

The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez beautiful and with such a dreamy magical atmosphere once again I LOVEEE interwoven stories, and I feel like some of the writing's style Choices are so original. it starts a bit slow tbh but I found it impossible to put down from the second half of the book til the end

Voyage of the Damned - Frances White well. it was a cherished super pretty shiny gift from a beloved friend so that's why I finished it but uh. uhhMMMMM uhghhh whhhhfhhmmm uhhhhh hmmmmm uhhhhh. yeah. I'm iconic 💅

Bad Gays: a Homosexual History - Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey ill be honest I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did but its really nice!! its a critique and analysis of white male gayness told through the lives of some Notable Controversial Homos, and I liked how it rlly paints a full picture not only of their lives but also of the socio-political landscape that shaped them and the concept of queernes of the time. only lil gripe tho is why there was only One woman and One Japanese guy then-

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Best book you read this year? Be it fiction or non-fiction? (My tbr is also huge and I must feed it even more books)

I could never narrow it down to a single title (not even close, I evidently ended up listing like twenty entire books), but here's a list of my favorite & most notable reads from 2024:

fiction:

Happy Medium (Sarah Adler)

The Most (Jessica Anthony)

Fledgling (Octavia E. Butler)

Survivor (Octavia E. Butler)

The Daughters of Izdihar (Hadeer Elsbai)

Little Rot (Akwaeke Emezi)

Funny Story (Emily Henry)

The Broken Earth Trilogy (N.K. Jemisin)

Delicious in Dungeon (Ryoko Kui, trans. Taylor Engel)

Luster (Raven Leilani)

The Low, Low Woods (Carmen Maria Machado, Dani, Tamra Bonvillain)

Him (Geoff Ryman)

Rejection (Tony Tulathimutte)

Thirst (Marina Yuszczuk, trans. Heather Cleary)

nonfiction:

No Name in the Street (James Baldwin)

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (Akwaeke Emezi)

Africa Is Not a Country (Dipo Faloyin)

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Caroline Fraser)

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (Cathy Park Hong)

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World (Naomi Klein)

Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (Aileen Moreton-Robinson)

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age (Annalee Newitz)

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs (Ina Park)

[lexreadsdiversely]

Second year of my adult reading adventure (context: read a lot when I was younger, only read one book over the course of 8 years, started again January of 2024), and I'm doing the 2025 bingo created by @batmanisagatewaydrug ! I'm super excited and want to share my (tentative) picks for the board.

1. Literary Fiction: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

2. Short story collection: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

3. Sequel: The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin

4. Reread a childhood favorite: The Baby-Sitters Club: The Ghost at Dawn's House by Ann. M. Martin

5. 20th century speculative fiction: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

6. Fantasy: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

7. Published before 1950: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

8. Indie publisher: Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado, published by Graywolf Press

9. Graphic novel, comic book, or manga: Tomie by Junji Ito

10. Animal on the cover: Never Whistle at Night, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

11. Set in a country you have never visited: Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi

12. Science fiction: Catnip by Vyria Durav

13. 2025 debut author: Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom

14. Memoir: The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir by Jami Nakamura-Lin

15. Read a zine and make a zine: DROPS "Secrets We Long For" by Gio (very excited for this one - I love making zines!)

16. Essay collection: Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems by Audre Lorde

17. 2024 award winner: Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

18. Nonfiction, learn something new: One of my wife's wild birds of eastern north america books

19. Social justice & activism: Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

20. Romance novel: A Wolf Steps in Blood by Tamara Jerée

21. Read & make a recipe: Apple crumble roses

22. Horror: We Don't Swim Here by Vincent Tirado

23. Published in the aughts (2000-2009): Leslie by Omar Tyree

24. Historical fiction: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

25. Bookseller/Librarian Rec: Pedro and Me by Judd Winick

[kvothes]

BEST BOOKS READ IN 2024

favorites of the year, newest first. the goal next year is to read more more more, but what was good this year was very very good.

poetry

no more flowers, stephanie cawley (2024)

be holding, ross gay (2020)

hera lindsay bird, hera lindsay bird (2016)

never be the horse, beckian fritz goldberg (1999)

the angel of history, carolyn forché (1994)

dream work, mary oliver (1983)

fiction

enter ghost, isabella hammad (2023)

in cold blood, truman capote (1966)

a canticle for leibowitz, walter m. miller jr (1959)

lady chatterley’s lover, d.h. lawrence (1928)

nonfiction

the other olympians: fascism, queerness, and the making of modern sports, michael waters (2024)

missing of the somme, geoff dyer (1994)

drama

the invention of love, tom stoppard (1997)

how i learned to drive, paula vogel (1997)

[dykerory]

2025 Book Bingo!!

My dearest @batmanisagatewaydrug issued this challenge and here I am listing the books I intend to read in 2025! Under a read more because I'm not a monster

Literary Fiction: Our Share of Night (2019) by Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell

Short Story Collection: Alien Sex: 19 Tales by the Masters of Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy (1990), edited by Ellen Datlow

A Sequel: Don’t Fear The Reaper (2023) by Stephen Graham Jones

Childhood Favorite: When You Reach Me (2009) by Rebecca Stead

20th Century Speculative Fiction: The Time of the Ghost (1981) by Diana Wynne Jones

Fantasy: To Shape a Dragon’s Breath (2023) by Moniquill Blackgoose

Published Before 1950: Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë

Independent Publisher: Creatures of Passage (2022) by Morowa Yejidé, published by Akashic Books

Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Something is Killing the Children Book One (2021), by James Tynion IV, art by Werther Dell’Edera

Animal on the Cover: Coyote Rage (2019) by Owl Goingback

Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Let the Right One In (2004) by John Ajvide Lindqvist, trans. Ebba Segerberg

Science Fiction: Finna (2020) by Nino Cipri

2025 Debut Author: Needy Little Things (2025) by Channelle Desamours

Memoir: Camgirl (2019) by Isa Mazzei

Read a Zine, Make a Zine: Leaving this one blank for now! If anyone has any zine recommendations I'd love to hear them!

Essay Collection: Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror (2023), edited by Lee Murray and Angela Yuriko Smith

2024 Award Winner: Linghun (2023) by Ai Jiang, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Nonfiction: Learn Something New: Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids (2012) by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero

Social Justice & Activism: Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia (2019) by Sabrina Strings

Romance Novel: Such Sharp Teeth (2022) By Rachel Harrison

Read and Make a Recipe: The Sopranos Family Cookbook: As Compiled by Artie Bucco (2002), by Allen Rucker, David Chase, and Michele Scicolone

Horror: SOUR CANDY (2015) by Kealan Patrick Burke

Published in the Aughts: Abandon (2009) by Blake Crouch

Historical Fiction: The Hacienda (2022) by Isabel Cañas

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: Leaving this one blank for now as well! If any booksellers or librarians want to recommend me a book so I don't have to talk to someone in real life. I'd love that.

[reading-w-sierra]

Some of my favorite nonfiction reads for 2024

[msmargaretmurry]

hello tumblr! i read a lot this year and i want to talk about the epic highs and lows of my 2024 reading list!!

i went through all the books i read and divided them into four-ish categories — fiction, nonfiction not for school, nonfiction for school, and rereads, plus two poetry collections that didn't fit in any of those categories, and now i am going to talk a little bit about my favs and least favs, because i like doing a little end-of-year reflection. i was going to do top five in each category but instead i am doing my top however many i think meaningfully represents my favorites in that category. also these are new TO ME, not necessarily new in 2024. i have never in my life been caught up on reading the lastest book releases and i am not going to start now.

top five six fiction reads of 2024

In Memoriam by Alice Winn — a beautiful, achy, tragic, devastating, horrifying, hopeful romance between two english boys who get caught up in wwi and each other. my favorite non-reread book of the read.

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter — a deliciously detailed historical fiction set in the early twentieth century labor movement in the pacific northwest. great characters; i appreciated that the author tried to Do Things with his novel structure even if i didn't that they all 100% worked as well as he wanted them to.

Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles — i loved the entire will darling trilogy but this first installment was definitely my favorite of the three because it has the best of the plot twists and complicated romance.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (trans. Elisabeth Jaquette) — this novella was one of the first things i read in 2024 and it stuck with me all year. told in two equally harrowing parts, it tells the story of the murder of a palestinian girl in 1949 and then the story of a modern-day palestinian woman trying to navigate through occupied palestine to investigate the incident.

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert — i have to be honest, i was surprised by how much i enjoyed this book, since all i knew about gilbert going into it was eat pray love memes. but i loved the cast of characters and the historical details and the exploration of female sexuality and autonomy.

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark — i read this book and was immediately like "wow i bet some people REALLY hated this lmao." the narrator is DEEPLY unlikeable and unsympathetic, and most of the people around her aren't much better. but she's like that on purpose, and while it's not for everyone, i relished reading her go on this self-destructive spiral, like a trainwreck that keeps getting worse. equal parts funny and disturbing. the excerpts from her best friend's tumblr had me howling.

top five six nonfiction reads of 2024

There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Adburraqib — the thing is, if hanif writes a book it's gonna be in my top reads of the year. that's just the rule. loved what he did with the structure of this book, love how he uses language, love how thoughtfully and poignantly he writes about everything from sports to social justice.

The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government by Brody Mullins and Luke Mullins — one of those books that did make be feel even more deeply depressed than usual about the united states and the us government specifically, but deeply researches and very readable, put so much into context for me about various horrible men whose backstories i was not totally aware of.

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein — this book is excellent all the way through, but what really surprised me was that even in sections on topics where i felt like it probably wouldn't have much new to offer me (like, i am already SO aware of how the people who think vaccines cause autism work) it still did give me some new perspective or context.

A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa — a gorgeous and haunting and unique book that is so hard to describe. it is autofiction about womanhood and motherhood but it's also about history and poetry and translation and the silences of the archive.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado — i read so much of this in a single sitting because i was like girl i can't put this book down until you get out of there!!!!!!!!!!! oof. OOF.

Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall by Zeke Faux — i find crypto so hard to read about because it is deliberately convoluted but this book was not only well-written and readable but VERY funny. faux feels so aware of how so much of the crypto enterprise is built on speculation and wild greed and he treats it accordingly.

Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait by Bathsheba Demuth — obviously this book made me depressed about what capitalism and human industry and greed had done to the land and wildlife in this region but also it's so beautifully written and imo super interesting.

top five nonfiction for school reads of 2024

(i have these in a separate section because i am so aware that academic texts are not written for a popular audience but sometimes they are still really good and i rec them to people anyway.)

Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius — reading this book, centered in antebellum new orleans, about the politics and economy of public health and widespread disease in the wake of so much public/policy failure around covid was uhhhhh harrowing. but it's VERY good and imo very readable.

Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert — reading this book added important new dimensions to the way that i understand global capitalism.

Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World by Mike Davis — reading this book added important new dimensions to the way that i understand imperialism and colonialism.

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin — this is the most ~for a popular audience~ of my favorite school books this year. whomst among us doesn't like reading about a very nasty very rich man barging confidently into a huge new venture and failing miserably. unfortunately you will also leave feeling furious about the environmental and human impacts of said venture.

other stuff!

i read two poetry collections this year and loved them both:

What You Want: Poems by Maureen N. McLane

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi

my rereads this year were all part of my ongoing goal of revisiting all the fantasy books i loved as a teen/young adult that have been sitting on my bookshelf for years, which has been such a cozy and enriching endeavor for me, especially revisiting robin hobb's books. soon i will get to the point in her realm of the elderlings series where the rereading ends and the new reading begins (i dropped off after the tawny man trilogy in my youth due to reasons) and i am so excited for me.

also, these were not rereads, but i read tamora pierce's alanna quartet for the first time this year and had such a fun time. obviously they're written for a much younger audience than me, but that's fine! i read a few of pierce's books as a kid but was never super into them like some of my friends, so it was really nice to explore these books that are so meaningful and were so formative to people i love. i would love to do more of that next year.

fourth wing — it was so hyped and i truly thought it would at least be bad in a fun way if it wasn't good but instead i found it to be so bad the only reason i finished it is because i read it in my downtime at a work conference when my brain was only half-functioning anyway. bad inconsistent worldbuilding; bad inconsistent characterization; transparent boring plot and relationships. good for the people who inexplicably love it because i'm sure they're having a great time but MAN i hated it.

least favorite reads of 2024

i don't love spending tons of time harping on media that i think sucks in public, but i do love picking apart books that don't work for me in private with my friends, so i am putting these here in case friends want to pick them apart with me 😂

mister hockey by lia riley — i joked that i read this whole book just to see if gordie howe showed up but honestly i was pretty unimpressed that he actually didn't show up even once. your typical bad hockey romance problems (this author doesn't seem to know much about hockey, etc) plus deeply cringey writing plus weird breaches of journalistic ethics that the author does not seem to realize are weird and bad = not a book for beckys.

my next two least favorite books this year were very very small indie books so i am not putting them on blast here, lmao.

accountable: the true story of a racist social media account and the teenagers whose lives it changed by dashka slater — this book was so frustrating and upsetting not only because the subject matter is frustrating and upsetting, but none of the non-victim teens and parents seemed to learn a damn thing and the author did not interrogate that at all. ugh.

reading goals in 2025

my reading goal each year is just a flat 50 books of any kind, so we're doing that again! i want to do a better job reading books i own but haven't read before buying more books but we will see how that goes for me. i might make a spreadsheet about it, which will actually help me 😂 but broadly, i want to read more genre fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi. i am being very easy on myself on the reading front and not setting any super lofty goals about what or how much to read because grad school brain means i will read what my brain will accept, but i am very much looking forward to another year of reading! and always accepting book recs!

[whentherewerebicycles]

2024: a year in books

FIRST, some general reflections on reading this year.

my original goodreads goal for the year was 70 (increased to 80 sometime in the late summer) and my total books read for the year was 87! i did count four or five fics early on in the year towards that total, but my rule of thumb is that they have to be 70k+ and they have to "feel like" a novel (a seemingly arbitrary designation but one that makes sense to me lol. not every long fic feels like a novel!). every year i go back and forth on whether i should only count published fiction towards my goodreads goal, but idk, if i am reading hundreds of pages of a single work i feel like it should count.

during the pandemic and just after i skewed heavily towards nonfiction, for whatever reason. in the last couple years, but especially this year, i've really swung back to reading novels and it has been GLORIOUS. god i love STORIES!!!!! i stayed up way past my bedtime reading many times this past year and often felt like i was recapturing that breathless exhilaration i associate with reading in childhood. what a wonderful way to feel!!

I gave in, fully, to reading on my kindle this year. this was initially out of necessity (first i couldn't hold a physical book because of my carpal tunnel syndrome, and then i couldn't hold a physical book while feeding a baby). but i also have to admit that it is easier to replace a phone addiction with another screen, and the kindle at least is a screen free from notifications that allows me to read with total focus for many hours. i also find it easier to quickly acquire ebooks (through [mumble mumble] means) which means i can start reading a book mere minutes after someone recommends it to me. it's also way easier to have a bunch of stuff queued up so that i know that the next thing is waiting for me. i also like that with ebooks i don't know how long they are, so i have sometimes ended up reading books that were much longer than i expected (which sometimes i avoid doing if i'm not sure a super long book will be "worth it" in the end). so idk. lots of things to like about ebooks and i think this was the year i finally saw the light on that front.

HOWEVER i do worry about my turn towards ebooks a little bit because i want my kid to see me reading voraciously, and i worry that seeing your mom staring at a screen all the time is not going to have quite the same effect as seeing her read books all the time. i mean all you have to do is ride the bus or stand in line at the grocery store or sit in a doctor's office if you want to see every single adult around you staring at a screen lol. so that's something i want to think about in 2025. maybe i can deliberately try to mix it up a bit, like trying to ensure that a certain percentage of books read are physical books or something. and i can think about other ways to incorporate lots of conversations about reading into our daily lives as he gets older. i will have to think about that some more!

reading is just so good.... it's so so so so so much better than scrolling on my phone... but even though i was reading at a rapid clip this year and regularly experiencing the AAAAA NOVELS ARE SO GOOD high, i still had weeks and months where i'd get out of the habit and then it would be really, really challenging for me to get back into it. so the solution is to just never stop, lol. but like for real. i think the solution is to just make nightly + weekend reading so integral to my routine that i don't even have to make a decision to pick up a book. i also found that in moments where i was stuck this year, it was really helpful to reread old favorites to get myself restarted. reading something i already knew i was going to love helped me get back into the saddle and gave me some time to start looking for my next new book. so yeah just want to remember that!

i really discovered the pleasures of rereading this year... i used to very rarely reread except for my All-Time Faves because there are so many books out there and i didn't want to waste time on stuff i had already experienced. but that is silly. it is an immense pleasure to reread books, even ones that you just thought were Quite Good the first time around and not All-Time Faves. there is always something new there, and there is a particular kind of pleasure in reading a book already knowing how things are going to unfold. so! i might also reread more next year. we'll see.

next up: my faves from the year.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

2024 tuesdaypost retrospective

it's hard not to make this all about my nearly full 365 days of unemployment. i have cut a great deal from this wrapup. thank you all for your love and support (often financial!) this year :') it has never been scarier to have no familial safety net and i really, really appreciate all of you relative strangers (i have met very few of you in person!)

jobs applied to: my best estimate is 4500 given my daily target balanced with periods of more acute despair and physical illness

interviews: 2

calls to the massachusetts unemployment agency: 73

cats spayed and/or neutered: 3 (phil, orange boy, ruby)

eclipses seen: 1

hurricanes: 1

completely fallow weeks: 5

i have GOT to be more specific about writing out loud what worked and what didn't work instead of resorting to "vibes were off". i also have to remember to be better about saying where i found things and saying the premise/genre of the film. i try to draft these on sunday nights so i can kind of mull things over for a bit, but that rarely happened this year.

highlights of the year: a tomato plant in a five gallon bucket, hotvintagepoll, the eclipse, my new zebrawood desk, throwing my own birthday party (NOT passive aggressive it was very comforting to be in full control), ren faire, the modern zelda games, genshin impact, heist films, naomi novik's temeriare series, Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, the Popping Tins newsletter about tinned fish products, new joywave and beyonce and charli xcx and kesha albums, and an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding smart characterization and fun interaction between good friends.

questions? comments? concerns? something about the structure/critique of these posts or a work i talked about really click or really not work for you? i would love to know!

listening

all the tuesdaysongs are in one spotify playlist below. if i recced a whole album (only did that this year with The Offline’s La couleur de la mer and Toshiyuke Honda's SONGS OF THE MILKY WAY ) i put the song i thought most representative of the album.

special shoutouts to the Well There's Your Problem engineering disasters podcast, the Sangfielle season of Friends at the Table, The 404 Media Podcast news/tech/culture podcast, and the Whale Hunting podcast about financial crimes.

i would like to find music through other avenues than the spotify weekly recs playlists, especially since the platform has noticeably nosedived after their last round of firing people. unforch i have yet to find a music influencer/blog/tastemaker/podcast whose tastes jive with my own.

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reading

the sort of three broad categories of stuff i talk about in the reading section are articles, comics, and actual books. fairly pleased with my RSS feed, which is filling the twitter hole and also has a separate Real US News tab i can look at in a more controlled manner. people seem to have liked the article/book combo bc reading a book a week is usually kind of a heavy lift for people who are employed. as long as i do either an article or a book i feel like this category is checked off in my brain. i would like to do both more weeks and figure out how to do more concise book reports. i am pleased that people seem to like the couple weeks of giant DNF lists where i briefly state why i did not finish a specific older scifi paperback.

shoutout to @rae-being-naughty for introducing me to one of my favorite new authors, t kingfisher! what a delectable niche. those books go down SO easy. shoutouts also to the temeraire books, Trouble And Her Friends by Melissa Scott (what if neuromancer was good?), Dark Wire by Joseph Cox (nonfiction about the encrypted phone company the FBI shadow-ran) and Witch Hat Atelier.

the OPPOSITE of a shoutout to the most frustrating books i did not finish this year, a fragile enchantment by allison saft (the very weird fantasy meghan/harry fantasy au????) and jennifer dugan's the ride of her life, a cowgirl wlw romance that had some kid pop up in the second chapter and yell about how they shipped the leads and were making a tiktok about it. hello??????? huh????? i had that book on hold for SIX MONTHS. what the fuck did people see in that book???

reading and holding and interacting with a physical hard copy book is so much better for my shattered attention span, and i have giant bookcases full of physical books i desperately want to read, but i read ebooks so much faster. a dilemma that will for sure continue into the new year.

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watching

logged almost 169 things on letterboxd this year so far (almost nice). the giant spike is when i watched a a dozen individually loggable betty boop shorts. tasty tasty stats.

saw one entire film (howl's moving castle) in theaters and i do not think i will be doing that again bc (while fun) it was a very anxiety inducing experience.

more tv and shorts and tv comprised entirely of shorts than i expected to watch this year!

watching highlights of the year:

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playing

the gaming rig i bought in 2020 is really staring to show its age and only very light-resource pc games are feasible rn. very many thanks to both @sybilius and @pasta-pardner who both bought me games i will one day play!

spent most of the year with big open world exploration/puzzle/action games, as is traditional. barely touched a fallout this year, which is less traditional.

by hours, the ranking is probably

genshin impact

breath of the wild

tears of the kingdom

STUFF SORT on my phone

stardew valley

powerwash simulator

what are people interested in seeing in this section?

the trouble with this section is that has been a thorn in my side basically since i started this series, but games are such a part of my life it feels weird NOT talking about them? but talking about video games is difficult bc none of them are very good. i find myself Still a little burned out on them even after almost three years on from the video games job. finding something fun and free on itch or steam is very time-consuming. every time i talk about genshin i feel like i have to caveat it with one million Don't Play Gacha Games warning stickers like the ones that come on cigarettes. and i don't feel like a screenshot of whatever achievement i hunted on genshin in a specific week is very interesting to people.

maybe the solution is to cut this section for a while and have a special bonus add on section every once in a while??? i dunno. would love to know people's thoughts here on how to make talking about/telling stories about the games i play more interesting.

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making

the tuesdayposts as a whole have been both very good and very bad for my mental health, bc i really needed a project to work on to break up the soul crushing monotony of writing cover letters. however writing the tuesdaypost every week was often a very anxiety inducing expereince bc i felt like i didn't do much. or did stuff very unevenly. the "point" of the tuesdayposts is to remind myself every week that absorbing a lot of different things helps me stay on a more even keel. esp in times of great unrest. unfortunately, a year of unemployment.

i saw my siblings twice, managed to actually write and post christmas cards, framed a bunch of shit, discovered a new favorite soup, and did some indifferent gardening and cross stitch.

the making section this year tended to be more lifestyle blogging/what i cleaned. a lot of weeks i did not have Anything in the tank except basic vacuuming and halfhearted wiping counters down.

however??? i managed to post three fics??? two were previously written but at least they are no longer languishing on my harddrive??

this goofy little NFT genderswap blondeyes has the craziest hits to kudos ratio on anything ive ever written.

i really do intend on finishing this cait/fahrenheit 5+1. the stars have not been aligned.

this very brief crossover has gotten some of the loveliest comments!!! when i am done directing and choreographing the big prisoner/arcade argument in my brain i am excited to actually write that.

im genuinely for real afraid to ask or expect anything of 2025, but here it comes anyway!