10 Belated Book & Music Recommendations from 2024

Start the year right by stretching your mind

Photo by Gary Lee on Unsplash

Before we get too deep into the new year, I wanted to share some of my favorite reads and listens from 2024. I don't watch enough television or see enough movies to give many recommendations in those formats, but good reads (and listens) are always in demand and 10 pieces stand out. I’ll try not to belabor the explanations - the point, after all, is that you’ll check out the suggestions, not spend too much time reading my words about someone else’s words. Following are two recommendations in each of the following categories: music, fiction books, non-fiction books, memoirs, and poetry.

Music

1. Hermanos Gutierrez - This literal band of brothers was new to me in 2024, and I was fortunate enough to catch them live at the Ryman where they did not disappoint. Their instrumental, Central American-inspired guitar duets have become my go-to while working at the computer or on long runs. There are too many great songs to list but you might start with “El Jardin,” “Don Pecho,” “Tres Hermanos” (featuring Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys), and “Amor y Vivir.”

2. Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover - In 2024 Glover, under the nom de plume Childish Gambino, released two albums. The first album, Atavista, was technically a reissue of his album 3.15.20, which, as you might have guessed from the title, had the great misfortune of being released right as the COVID-19 shutdowns began. The now completed Atavista was followed up with another record, Bando Stone in the New World. Both are fantastic, and Bando Stone feels like a concept album that showcases Glover’s range. If you have broad musical tastes, you'll really dig this second release. My favorite tracks are “Happy Survival, featuring the very vibe-y Khruangbin, “Can You Feel Me,” “Lithonia” (likely to resonate with once angsty Gen-Xers), and “A Place Where Love Goes.”

* Honorable mention - I must give a hat tip to my 14 year-old who recommended Gracie Abrams. Having a teenager is a great way to stay [somewhat] plugged into new music. I enjoyed Abrams’s (daughter of J.J. Abrams) songwriting and clean vocals. There’s a reason she opened for Taylor Swift.

Fiction Books

1. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - This seminal piece of magical realism came highly recommended by my friend Dele Olojede. The richness of the first sentence alone warrants a semester's worth of study:

   “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

   That line would have been enough but thankfully the wonderfully creative story continues as you become intimately acquainted with the Buendía family.

2. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu - What if “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was rewritten and erased all traces of satire? You might end up with The Dark Forest. This is the second work in The Three-Body Problem trilogy, a science fiction saga that deals with time travel, mutually assured destruction, religious zealots, geopolitics, and the importance of trust. Obviously don’t jump right into this volume without reading the first book. Also, be prepared for your head to explode a little.

Non-Fiction Books

1. Cointelligence, Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick - A super helpful book for anyone seeking to get up to speed on artificial intelligence and large language models (I dare say this should include all of us). Far from fearing the impending robot takeover, Mollick emphasizes the need to keep a human “in the loop” as technology becomes ever more pervasive in our lives. “Cointelligence” also reminded me that AI technology is improving so quickly and across so many fronts that we should assume that the state of play we encounter TODAY is the worst that it will be going forward. So, for all the flaws and foibles we may experience with current AI, it’s only getting better and we’d do well to incorporate it into our routines.

2. Freedom's Dominion by Jefferson Cowie - Cowie justifiably won a Pulitzer Prize for documenting how the concept of freedom gets bastardized to mean “being able to subjugate other groups”. The story is situated in a single county in Alabama and spans three periods of time: when indigenous people were pushed off their land, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era. While I wasn’t sure that the three eras could be held together by Cowie’s theory, I found the book to be illuminating and especially relevant as we are in another moment when the term “freedom” is overused.

Memoirs

1. Extraordinary Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family by Condoleezza Rice - Dr. Rice is well known for her policy acumen but her personal history is just as compelling. Dr. Rice’s story is a microcosm for the complexities experienced in the United States during the Civil Rights era. She touches on race-relations, educational opportunity, regional differences, affirmative action, and gender roles. Here’s a fact I bet you didn’t know about Dr. Rice: in addition to being an above-average pianist, she was also an above average figure skater. I also appreciated how well she tells this story. Most memoirs that come from the world of politics and policy are dry, but this is a wonderfully told human interest story.

2. The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six-Day War by Steven Pressfield - Like many, given the recent tumult in the Middle East, I wanted to learn more about the region’s conflict. Pressfield tells the story of the Six-Day War (1967) from multiple Israeli perspectives (politicians, soldiers, civilians) and shows how people’s feelings about the conflict changed even over the course of that week-long war. Multi-dimensional narratives are a great way to avoid falling into the trap of believing that actors in a complex situation are monolithic. I’m all for Occam’s razor, but certain situations really are complicated.

Poetry

1. Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry - Yes, the poem is from a collection that is ostensibly about farming, but I needed this call to disarm myself from the trappings of our instant-gratification, status-driven modern society. While I’m unlikely to take up my plow I am nevertheless challenged by passages like this:

   “So, friends, every day do something
   that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
   Love the world. Work for nothing.
   Take all that you have and be poor.
   Love someone who does not deserve it.
   Denounce the government and embrace
   the flag. Hope to live in that free
   republic for which it stands.”

2. Ozymandius by Percy Byshee Shelley - If you were interested in case studies of political hubris, 2024 was a great year. If you’d like a succinct reminder of the fleeting nature of such dispositions, Shelley’s sonnet will scratch that itch. The fictional ruler, Ozymandius, has statues erected in his honor and these now crumbling icons stand in stark contrast with Wendell Berry’s admonishment to invest in things like Sequoia trees. Tl;dr - don’t get high on your own supply!

If you’ve consumed any of these works, please leave a comment and let me know how it struck you. And I’m always looking for additional recommendations so send them my way.

And Happy New Year!