Best Books and Films of 2024
For best books and films of 2023, here. For 2022, here. For 2021 and earlier, here.
I log books and films if I read them in 2024, even if the publication date is earlier. I also note media like podcasts and miniseries. Frequently, I've taken in the books as audiobooks.
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The Infernal Machine (dynamite and society), Stephen Johnson. Johnson is a best-selling author on the intertwining of technology and culture. Here, he shows the amazingly widespread role of dynamite in social unrest in US and European cities around the turn of the century. "Anarchists" and other political groups used dynamite freely and often. He argues that this important chapter in our social history has slipped out of memory and is worth exploring. (Johnson is now Editorial Director for Google Notebook LM).
The Gutenberg Parenthesis, Jeff Jarvis. The printing press of the 1490s was a revolutionary change in human technology-- but is the evolution of internet, social media, and AI continuing that era or breaking open a new one? Jarvis suspects the latter, and presents cultural history as three epochs, one before 1490, one from about 1490--2000, and a new one we are rapidly entering He argues that most of the "Gutenberg era" is behind us and the cultural future will be as different from the "Gutenberg Era" of 500 years, as that era was, from the middle ages before it.
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History
Historical Women / Eleanor Morton. One of my favorite YouTubers, Eleanor Morton, is a comedian who has dusted off her Master's degree and written a couple dozen chapter-length biographies of important, but often forgotten, women leaders and the difficult lives they led. It's called, Life Lessons From Historical Women: Stories of bravery, wit, and rebellion for modern times. She reads the audiobook herself., Find her comediy channel on YouTube.
(Another favorite YouTuber of mine, J Draper,creates comedic history of London on YT and will release a 2025 book on worth-knowing eccentrics, "Mavericks.")
Orwell's Roses (2021) Rebecca Solnit) brings to life the author and his work and times, by visits and meditations on places he lived. Easy-listening and interesting.
Those Angry Days 1939-1941 (2014, Lynne Olson) brings to life how split and polarized the US was by 1938, after 8 years of FDR, and facing war or not-war, in Europe. Temperatures ran hot and disagreements were hostile. (Can be paired with any number of other recent histories of hte 1930s, just one being Rachel Maddox's book "Prequel" and the two seasons of her matching podcast Ultra.") See also Malcolm Gladwell's, 'The Bomber Mafia," (2021) bringing to life debates on whether airpower would be decisive, or really secondary, in WW2.
Business
Alchemy, by Rory Sutherland. This guy is a British marketing guru with a limitless presence on youTube or Instagram in both short videos and long interviews. He's very insightful and clever on marketing, and his mental jumps and tricks may be useful for those of us in other walks of life. Fun.
The Only Business Writing Book You'll Ever Need, Laura Brown. OK, we know, there are 500 books with similar content, but if you'd like to quickly read one to refresh the rules of quick-clear-good communciations, this one will do it.
Films
My tastes can run from black comedy to suspense and adventure, but this year I had three films that totally "popped' for me. These three have in common, each is primarily driven by evolving characters and dialog, not by any active events. They were:
- The Conclave. A big-budget, big-star film where suspense invades the Vatican during the voting for a new Pope.
- His Three Daughters. Three uncomfortable daughters are brought together in a small NYC apartment as their father enters hospice care. The last 15 minutes are unguessable. Stars Natasha Lyonne, who I loved in her ultra-quirky series 'Poker Face" (on Peacock; $20 on Amazin for season 1)
- The Teacher's Lounge. As this movie finished, I thought, this is not just on my best-10 for 2025, itwould be on my best-5 for 2020-present. From Germany, told in a minimalist way with just a few characters, a few rooms, a few days, as we watch a social minunderstanding spiral out of control.
Honorable Mention: The Outrun (film) paired with The Outrun (audiobook). As an unusual honorable mention, I'd argue that Amy Liptrot's memoir (which I'd recommend as audio) and the film (starring Soirse Ronan) deserved to be paired as one holistic work. The film can stand on its own, especially by its end, but for me, the first half of the film is too engaged in flashforwards- and flashbacks. Loner girl grows up in the Scottish islands, makes her way in London as a writer, crashing and burning into rehab by age 30, and spends the next year pickup up the pieces of her life while living back on a remote island.
Podcasts
Enjoyed Power: Hefner, 10 episodes, Amy Rose Spiegel (2021). About the publisher.
Persona: The French Deception Podcast, 9 episodes, Evan Ratliff for Wondery brand. About a bizarre, pften wacky, fraudster spy ring.
