The Best Books I Read in 2024 . . . (and Other Goodies)

My top Books, Movies, Shows, and Albums of 2024

A few years ago, I wrote about how Spotify’s inaugural “Year Wrapped” detonated the internet

I still look forward to the beginning of December, waiting to see Spotify interpretate my listening habits for the year. This year, there was some controversy—misreported stats, too much generative AI, lack of data visualizations, too short—and I agree to an extent.

What’s interesting, at least to me, is the way other companies (Strava, Google Photos, and of course Apple Music etc…) are following Spotify’s lead. My suspicion is more and more companies will begin to do this.

Your year in money.

Your year in books.

Your year in groceries.

Your year on the road.

Your year on XYZ social.

Your year on the sofa.

Frankly, I’m waiting on it. It’s more or less what I do with these end of the year posts every December. And what I spend 10-30 minutes journaling on every night before bed.

Since 2016, I’ve been enthusiastically—edging on neurotically—chronicling everything I do, read, listen to and watch. I remember wishing, in my early twenties, that our phones would do this at the end of the day: a feature that would show who you talked to, what you did, where you went, what photos you took.

My journal, because of this, is more like a travelogue through the JStreichverse than any meaningful reflection. But is it possible that a chronicle of what I’ve done is a better barometer of who I am, in earnest, compared to a forced, excessively reflective block of text written half asleep with SZA on in the background?

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It’s a shame Spotify won’t open source their data a little more—like this website lets you do. ¹

It’s a shame Spotify won’t open source their data a little more—like this website lets you do. The tenth circle in hell is reserved for those who must inflict their glorious music taste on others. I will c u there.

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I’m taking quite a roundabout way here of utterly, insufferably, foisting my new age zealotry onto you:

Keeping track of what I listen to, watch, read, and do on any given day has, so to speak, changed my mental prescription. Given my lenses more texture, order, and improved my recall.

Also … it may or may not be extraordinarily useful when you and your partner debate anything, like when you watched XYZ movie. 😉

Ok back now to bookish therapy.

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My Top Books of 2024

1. My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård

It’s often a challenge to choose my favorite, let alone narrow it down to ten, but this one was a clear winner this year. My Struggle is a rare, salty, dazzling, intense and, frankly, irresistible 3,600 page Proustian masterpiece. Despite being just shy of 600 pages, the first book in the series is brutally self-reflective and original and never stopped pounding the blood in my face. The TLDR: Knausgaard's introspective, autobiographical saga is unafraid of the big issues. Death, love, art, and fear. Fatherhood, meaning, addiction, and change. All while remaining committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived. It’s heavy and intense and likely skews toward ruminator types—like me.

You can never predict what books from our time are going to be read 100 years from now, but if I had to choose a few, this would be on the list. We also discussed it on Good Scribes Only, if you want to listen.

2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

In A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan accomplishes some feats I have rarely seen in literary fiction. Not only is it a sort of panoramic view of the music business, it is hilariously edgy, raw, sincere and amusing. The form of Egan’s novel is mesmerizing: it’s something of a narrative circle. It does not follow one character’s linear story, but rather a series of interleaved vignettes roaming around the story’s focal points, jumping from character to character in settings as varying as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Kenya.

It’s a book about the way music both roots us in time and urges us to change along with it, and about the way that all of our fates weave in and out of one another—sloppily, ruggedly, sometimes even angrily, like the Low E-note of punk rock. I highly recommend it. We also discussed it on Good Scribes Only, if you want to listen.

3. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Rest in Peace, King! I found Anthony Bourdain in college and he’s become something of a patron saint of mine ever since. This, however was the first time I read his writing: damn could that chef form a sentence. The prose is stunning and fresh, the content interesting and informative, and its as jam packed with sentiment and meaning as can be—which happens often when the author has died somewhat recently. It’s a buffet of shocking, wild-but-true tales from one of the OG “bad-boy” chefs, calling back to Bourdain’s more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and high society cuisine. Loved it.

4. Telephone by Percival Everett

Welcome to the top 5, Mr Everett, I have a hunch you will be back next year.

Percival Everett’s novel, Erasure, was the basis for last year’s smash hit film American Fiction, and his book sales have gone a-roaring ever since. Neither Dan nor I had read any of his work, so we chose to read Telephone (2020) on our novel-journey from 2000-2024. Man, was this book good. And it’s one of those books that since it has finished I’ve thought about more and more, with increasing fondness and excitement to read more books by him. The first half reads like John William’s Stoner, a cult classic about a stodgy college professor who dates a student, while the second half is closer to a Cormac McCarthy southwestern adventure. If you’ve listened to Good Scribes Only, you know we dig both of those authors so this was a treat to say the least.

Also, Everett has cajones. The novel actually has three different endings, and the conclusion to my version actually made me laugh out loud. Another gem.

5. Rabbit, Run by John Updike

   

If you catch this one on Good Scribes Only, you’ll scratch your head how it made it to my top 5. I was extremely critical; I had heard the hype about John Updike (one of the only authors to win the Pulitzer for fiction twice). On the pod, I conflated my disdain for the main character with distaste for the novel when, in reality, it should be the opposite. The characters are more or less unforgivable, but in a low and anti-dramatic way that is both frustrating and disappointing. That is a testament to Updike’s skills, Updike’s skills, not a knock. Rabbit, Run is an emblematic novel for the 1950’s and is beautifully written—that I never denied. Perhaps I am overcompensating because I didn’t give it enough credit on the podcast, but I’m still thinking about it, and what Updike was able to do to me via Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. That speaks for itself.

2024 Honorable Mentions:

6. The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

7. The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgård

8. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

9. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

10. Harry Potter y el Prisonero de Azkaban by JK Rowling

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Movies

1. Uncut Gems

2. American Fiction

3. Dumb Money

4. My Old Ass

5. Elemental

6. You’re Definitely Not Going To My Bar Mitzvah

7. The Holdovers

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Shows

1. The Crown

2. Shrinking

3. The Boys

4. Lodge 49

5. West Wing

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Albums

My Top 20 Playlist

1. Kendrick Lamar - GNX
2. Maggie Rodgers - Don’t Forget Me
3. Jorge Rivera-Herrans  EPIC: The Musical
4. Tyler, The Creator - CHROMAKOPIA
5. Childish Gambino - Atavista
6. Travis Scott - DAYS BEFORE RODEO
7. Gracie Abrams - The Secret of US
8. The Kid LAROI - THE FIRST TIME
9. Tyla - Tyla+ 
10. Fred again… - ten days
11. Morgan Wallen - If I Know Me
12. Lizzy McAlpine - Older (and Wiser)
13. Luke Combs - Father & Sons
14. Lyrical Lemonade - All Is Yellow
15. Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well
16. Noah Kahan - Busyhead
17. Beyonce - Cowboy Carter
18. Taylor Swift - Tortured Poets Department
19. J. Balvin - Energia
20. Camila Cabello - C,XOXO

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Is It Worth Setting a Reading Goal?

I keep coming back to the idea of reading goals.

I never made the 50-book-club in elementary school. Nowhere near.

Still, for as long as I can remember, there have been books around me. I look back on the kid who read just because with respect, and remind myself that so long as I keep the young Jer’s mindset when reading—rather than fall into the great wide maw of plummy corroborative intellectual vainglory—the 52 book goal is worth it. ²

I read more, discover more, and the practice inches me closer to writing books that I would want to read.

These little rituals might not capture everything, but they force me to slow down, to pause and notice and take note of where my thoughts have been in the year.

So I’m going to keep going, and keep writing these posts (2021, 2022, 2023) until it feels like a disservice and/or vanity.³

Because whether the goal is 100 books, 4 books, or even one, it’s an agreement with self that my moralizing brain cannot help but recommend.

Books are magic. Learning is magic. Stories are magic. And my biggest wish for 2025 is that you treat your mind with the books it deserves.

Thank you all again for reading and listening to the podcast, as well as all your support across the board. It really means a lot to know that I’m not on this journey alone. As always, reach out if there’s anything that I can be helpful with

Take care, enjoy yourselves, read a good book, and happy new year, friendos ✌️🎊

—Jeremy

1. I’ll tell you what my two favorite things about Spotify this year were: finally being able to be sent other people’s top song playlists, and the daylist.

2. I wanted to see how much snoot I could rub into one sentence before it lost meaning. Approximately 5 words.

3. I try not to let a 52 book goal force me to finish everything. I skim plenty of books, and even leave some unfinished: ones that are like rich cake—Consider the Lobster, Braiding Sweetgrass, and Determined, to name a few. Too good to race through. Every year I take some L’s by finishing books that are, frankly, trash, but I’m getting passed that. And I’m definitely exposing myself to some damn good books