Books I read and listened to in 2024, with commentary (Part 2)
Last week we did novels, this time it's nonfiction, memoir, and poetry.
Welcome back to my annual book list. Last week I wrote about the 35 novels I read or listened to in 2024. This week we’re on to a smorgasbord of memoir, nonfiction, and poetry.
You can find my book lists from previous years here or click here to read why I’m ambivalent about the whole enterprise of making these end-of-year lists.
And away we go!
Memoir
My Good, Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss. I learned about this memoir from a footnote to a Substack post about braising by my friend Tamar Adler. I was drawn in by the May Swenson poem, “Question,” that is the basis of the title of Moss’s memoir. I had no idea how much I would find to love in this memoir about girlhood, food, and the stories that form us. I especially enjoyed the parts where Moss weaves in literary criticism, exploring the ideologies behind Little House on the Prairie, Jane Eyre, Little Women, and other classic novels with young female characters. Readers should know that the story of Moss’s anorexia can be quite harrowing, especially the middle portion in which she suffers a relapse in her 40s, starving herself in accordance with the instructions of health experts on podcasts about intermittent fasting until her organs are on the verge of collapse.
Making Babies by Anne Enright. This memoir of early motherhood by one of my favorite novelists had been on my shelf for years. I turned to it during a rough time with my kids, and it felt like an escape of sorts. Except for the last, stunning chapter about depression, this book feels somewhat tossed off in the most appropriate way—like she wrote it in drips and drabs in between nursing, changing diapers, etc. This interesting, uneven book would be a good gift for a new mother.
Smile by Sarah Ruhl. My husband, who knows me very well, listened to this memoir first and insisted that I read it. As one of you wrote to me recently about one of my recommendations, “this book is not only up my alley, it is my alley.” Ruhl’s memoir chronicles her experience of post-partum Bell’s Palsy, but it is also a meditation on motherhood, healthcare, work, and spirituality. I loved the braiding of memoir and essay, and the scenes of a mother with three children under the age of five just trying to get out of the house made me laugh and cry.
Practicalities, by Marguerite Duras and Jerome Beaujour. In this unique book of essays, we get the septuagenarian French novelist and filmmaker’s views on men, alcohol, housekeeping, various people and places, assorted shames and regrets. I wrote about Practicalities in House and Home, and I have a feeling I’m not done writing about Marguerite Duras’s pantry.
The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with Recipes) by Kate Lebo. This memoir-in-essays was recommended to me by an astute reader who surmised from my post about Marguerite Duras that I would be charmed. If you were studying how to write a hybrid memoir (a book that blends personal writing with expertise on a certain topic, such as food or science writing) you would be wise to study how Lebo does it. In alphabetical order, each essay uses a specific “difficult fruit” as a point of departure to visit stories from Lebo’s life and family as well as natural history and food writing. She blends in the right ingredients in the the right proportions, adding up to a delicious concoction. On my wish list is her cookbook, Pie School: Lessons in Fruit, Flower, and Butter.
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisely. I stood in the aisles of a comic bookstore in Portland, ME, reading this graphic memoir by a comic book artist for so long that the store owner actually shooed me out of the store, confirming all of my biases about New England but not managing to spoil my enjoyment of the book. I’m hoping to find a used copy on my next trip to the Half Price Books in my hometown so I can try some of Knisely’s illustrated recipes.
Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux is a compilation of the journal entries that Ernaux kept during the intense affair with a Russian diplomat that ended up being the basis of her memoir, Simple Passion. In other words, this was the raw material. I feel like it won't be a complete experience until I read the memoir. In the meantime, I would very much like some Ernaux merch, please.
Becoming by Michelle Obama. I finally listened to this after Obama’s speech at the 2024 Democratic Convention, and it was just as good as everyone said it was back when the book came out in 2021. Obama’s candor about the weirdness of life in the White House, her openly feminist views, and her affection for her friends and family stand out. I also loved her description of growing up on the South Side of Chicago, where my father grew up in the 1950s.
We Are Too Many: A Memoir (Kind of) by Hannah Pittard. I chose this memoir about infidelity/divorce for a book club, and it was not a popular pick. I appreciate memoirists who think outside a typical plot structure. Reading a memoir should not be the same as reading a novel, in my view. But Pittard’s book, which includes lengthy, imagined dialogues, felt too much like an extended writing exercise to me. I preferred the more essayistic portions of the book to the pages that looked like a script.
In Waves by A.J. Dungo is a graphic memoir about the author’s late partner, her battle with cancer, and the history surfing. I read the whole thing in a library in Vancouver, where my vacationing family had stopped for some downtime. I cried in public because of this book.
1974 by Francine Prose. [Edited!] I do not know how I missed this fascinating memoir when I compiled my year-end list. Primarily, this is the story of Prose’s friendship with Tony Russo, an eccentric Vietnam War objector who served jail time for conspiring with Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers. It’s also the story of Prose adrift in San Francisco in her twenties, figuring out what she wants to do in her life at a pivotal moment for American women. I loved this glimpse into my mother’s generation.
Nonfiction
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond was one of the best books I read in 2024. Urgent, compelling, sobering—all the adjectives you would expect for a story about the housing crisis. Also, it’s incredibly well written. Something that will stick with me forever is Desmond’s assertion that poor Black men in America are locked up, while poor Black women are locked out.
How the Word Is Passed: a Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith is a perfect blend of political and personal writing, as Smith explores the history and legacy of slavery while visiting former plantations. Smith is also a poet, and his sentences sing. This book would be an interesting companion to Jerry Stahl’s Nein, Nein, Nein: One Man’s Memoir of Psychic Torment, Depression, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust.
How To Be Perfect: the Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur. Another audiobook discovered by my husband while driving our daughter to school. If you have watched Michael Schur’s show, The Good Place, you will get the premise of this book. I loved the little weird facts about philosophers. (Jean-Paul Sartre had a cat named Nothing! Jeremy Bentham had his skeleton stapled to a chair!) This audiobook (read by the cast of The Good Place) was smart and funny in all the right ways, plus it actually made me want to be a better person.
These Truths by Jill Lepore. I wanted to read a big fat history book before the 2024 presidential election, so I did. I’ve never read a history book from cover to cover, and I’m not sure I will again. It didn’t have the narrative pull of a biography, but Lepore’s writing (which I knew from many wonderful essays in the New Yorker) is a steady guide through the choppy waters of U.S. history. I especially liked the book when it descended from the overview to focus on a specific person, such as Frederick Douglass or Margaret Fuller. I would like to read Lepore’s 2014 Book of Ages: the Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin (Ben Franklin’s sister).
Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder. This is an odd book to categorize as nonfiction, as it includes fictional chapters imagining Eileen O’Shaunessy’s life with George Orwell. But for the most part it is a biography. Along with Dayswork, My Good, Bright Wolf and Reproduction, Wifedom is one of four books I read this year in which a writer grapples with the life and legacy of earlier books and writers. (Dayswork and Reproduction are packaged as novels, though they read like memoir or autofiction, so I wrote about them in last week’s post.) I wrote about Wifedom in Orwell and Women, which also includes some notes on one of my favorite books of all time, Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know.
Poetry & Other
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. I love how Vuong takes full advantage of the page: his lines meander across margins like stray thoughts but are held together by sensuality and concrete images. I love poetry that feels like the poet only wanted to write the juiciest parts of a memoir.
Gorgeous Freak by Julie Poole. These poems, written in 2016-17 as Poole looked for solace after the presidential election by walking around Austin, are very much my Cup of Tea. Poole wrote while walking and structured her collection as a series of letters to a future soulmate. If you, like me, use the Notes app on your phone while you walk, you might be inspired to think of what might come out of it.
How to Abandon Ship by Sasha West. I bought this collection after hearing West read “Ode to Fossil Fuels” at the Texas Book Festival. Using the story of the Greek prophet Cassandra, West describes the weird mind-state of motherhood on a dying planet, in a world that seems increasingly perched on the brink of disaster.
Can’t and Won’t: Stories by Lydia Davis. After the presidential election, Davis was the only writer I wanted to read, and I hope to read more of her in 2025, including her translation of Madame Bovary. If you’ve ever seen one of Davis’s very short stories on the page, you will understand why I include her with the poets. If you haven’t, please check out my post, Lydia Davis Forever!
Several Short Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg was the only craft book I read in 2024. It’s also enough like poetry to include in the poetry section. You need to see this book to understand its unique charm, so here’s a picture (apologies for the shadows):
That’s it for the book lists. Next time I’ll return to the regular format of hybrid personal essay/book review plus interesting links from the world of reading. I hope you’ll keep coming back to read with me in the new year!
An announcement
If you subscribe to A Reader’s Compendium, you already know that I send out semi-monthly dispatches about what I’m reading and writing plus occasional interviews with writers. These posts are free and will remain free for as long as I can get away with it.
In the new year, I’m planning a series of posts about how to read like a writer. I’ve heard from many of you that this is a topic you care about, and I’m excited to share more about some of the practices I’ve developed as a reader, such as keeping a commonplace book and sentence log. If you would like to support my ability to continue doing this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Happy New Year and bye for now!
This is such a good roundup! I just finished reading "My Good, Bright Wolf" and had a similar reaction. The subject matter was already relatable, but the literary criticism made it even more compelling. It's unlike any other eating disorder memoirs I've read. "Smile" has been on my list too!