The books of 2024

[@AugustaRants]

Hello! Oh I’m so excited you’re posting long-form content here, I’ve been following you on the clock app for years. I’ll give you two recommendations, one fiction, one nonfiction! I just finished a book called Gods of the Upper Air: How a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century. Written by Charles King. I was FASCINATED the entire time. I definitely suggest reading a summary before you dive in because it sounds like you might know a lot of it already with your background BUT the way it’s told is really good. The audiobook is fantastically done and I was engaged through the whole thing. Learned a LOT about anthropologists that I had heard things of but had no idea just how amazing and awful these people could be. I think it did a good job of balancing who they are perceived to be with actual facts pulled from their journals, correspondence, colleagues etc. (Margaret Mead was… uh… 👀 promiscuous to say the least. I’m not shaming, you do you but I had NO idea 😂) The other book I’ll give you is a fiction book but it’s based off of real history. It’s called Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. It’s the most powerful book I read in 2024 and I still think about it almost daily, even though it’s been months since I finished it. I read this one, but I’d imagine the audiobook would be great too. It’s the story of a boy named Elwood who is growing up in Florida during the time of the civil rights movement. He gets shipped off to a reformatory, and you kind of bounce back and forth between present day and his days at Nickel Academy. It’s heartbreaking but it was the first book that really made me want to seek out more information regarding Jim Crow, rhetorical civil rights movement, etc.

[@ElainaBeck]

Thank you for making the move over with me! I enjoy long form content and just haven’t had the time or energy to try and produce it. Hoping the new year (even though time is made up lol) provides a fresh start to content creation. And thanks for the recs! I’ve heard of Nickel Boys but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Last I looked, my library didn’t have it available in their audiobook catalog, might need to find a print copy somewhere

[@DeniseBente]

Laughing at bad horror is the best & I want Sarah to start a book club so badddd. Are you on Goodreads or one of the other book apps?

[@ElainaBeck]

I am on Goodreads, yes! Tried StoryGraph for a little bit but struggled with the UI. Might make the change some day, but for now: www.goodreads.com/user/show/183655984-elaina