My Favorite Reads of 2024

8 books that moved me this year

It’s end of the year time and that means lists. Lots and lots of lists.¹ Never one to be mistaken for being original, I too have compiled a list or at least a summoning of books that I read in 2024. Unsurprisingly, many of the books I read came for either the HATM or Reckoning podcasts, though several were just for my own amusement, or were so short in nature that they allowed me to plausibly claim that I read another book so that I did not fall too far behind on the book club leaderboard.²

This year’s readings were slow in starting and it took me a while to find my groove. However, by late summer I hit a stretch where I started devouring books in ways similar to graduate school, only I did not need to perform for my classmates. So I suppose that was nice. Another thought- while last year seemed to be the year of reading immigration histories (books by Sarah McNamara and Natalia Molina were favs), this year favored memoirs. More to the point, it favored memoirs on Audible, which I feel is actually a better format than a traditional book since you get the author’s inflections during the recording. I like that.

A note about our books below. Most of them were published in 2024, but not all. These were simply the books I read this year and the ones that really stuck with me. I’m not putting these in any kind of order other than whatever looks good on the page. I’m providing Amazon links where I can because even though Jeff Bezos is the Devil, the books are cheap and they’ll arrive soon, so you can gift copies to people you either like, or to people that you want to think that you think they are smart.³

Without further ado:

Kathleen Sheppard, Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age.

I think hope we all know how many amazing women scholars are working in any number of fields. Somewhat strangely, the story of women Egyptologists working in the late 19th century slipped under the radar. Enter Kate Sheppard’s book, which introduces us to a number of women who advanced not only the field of Egyptology, but also women’s rights on a larger scale. Maybe the story is that behind every great history is a woman doing the damn work in the first place. Each chapter focuses on the lives of one or women amazing women, making its episodic structure incredibly readable. Put it on your nightstand and knock out a chapter each night.⁴

Link: https://amzn.to/4geIhzC

Ed Zwick, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood.

I feel like I owe Ed an apology. I’d always considered him as a very good, but not elite, filmmaker. He’s the man behind hits like Glory, The Last Samurai, Legends of the Fall, Shakespeare in Love, and a slew of other films. That should be enough, especially when you consider that his films have consistently been on either the Sunday night watch party or the podcast itself (we’ve literally recorded on two of his films in the last ten days). But so much of my thoughts were rooted in ignorance since he’s also the man behind benchmark television like Thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, and others. He’s created so many works that have touched so many of us. How could I not realize that? He’s actually one of the great filmmakers of our time. And it turns out that Zwick’s storytelling expands beyond the screen to the page. Folks, this is a riveting story of a man who navigated the ups and downs of Hollywood for over four decades and managed to survive. I loved this book.

Link: https://amzn.to/4f1vv6t

Kelsey Johnson, Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos.

This is the book that scared me. By that, I mean that I was worried I would not understand the words of an astrophysicist. But worry not, because Kelsey Johnson is a master teacher. Despite dealing with complex issues like black holes, the Big Bang, extraterrestials, and the nature of time, Johnson relates her points to you like we are all laying out under the stars, wondering aloud about our place in the universe. This book will surprise you in how quickly you are enmeshed in it and that’s a testament to Johnson. It’s layered with cool science, funny anecdotes, thoughts from philosophers and religious figures, and of all things, turtles. It’s ultimately about using how we think about the cosmos to understand what we are doing here after all. I’ve said this multiple times this year, but I feel like she wrote this book just for me.

Link: https://amzn.to/3ZEwuF0

Shae Smith Cox, The Fabric of Civil War Society: Uniforms, Badges, and Flags, 1859-1939.

This is a book on the Civil War which describes no battles. Let me rephrase that. This is a book on the Civil War that demonstrates how conflicts over identity and belonging extended beyond the battlefield onto the very clothes people chose or were assigned to wear. Cox’s brilliance takes several forms over the course of the book. First, she deftly hooks us in to think not only about the blue and the gray, but in doing so to question the decisions we make about what we wear today and the messages they send. Beyond that, Cox remarkably extends how we think about the war both geographically and temporally. Cox does a tremendous amount of heavy work by including Native peoples in the book, particularly with her detailing of Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, and the decisions they made. But this book also carries us all the way until 1939, demonstrating how through fabric and other material goods, the war and questions over it continued throughout the entire lives of its participants. This book will make you think about the Civil War in ways you never imagined.

Link: https://amzn.to/3OIhLTd

Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

I don’t read a lot of fiction, but I’d heard so much of this book that I knew I’d circle around to it eventually. Maybe I liked this because it’s a fictional history because the hook is that the book is essentially a collection of people telling their stories. It works so damn well, too. People are right: this book and the movie have little in common (though I still enjoyed the film). Here’s a tip: get the audible version of this. It’s acted out by a number of actors who recount their experiences in the Zombie war. It’s absolutely engrossing.

Link: https://amzn.to/4f8UnZM

Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.

Perhaps the only story more gripping than the fictional one of zombie war survivors is the real one of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster that claimed the lives of eight people, including several of the world’s best high altitude climbers. Jon Krakauer happened to be on that expedition and was one of the few to summit the mountain during the trip. His retelling is harrowing. This is one of those books where everything starts great and then it seems that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. I listened to this in the truck as I drove around Colorado. Even here, it has changed how I look at the mountains.

Link: https://amzn.to/3D5lKa3

Rex Chapman, It’s Hard for Me to Live with Me: A Memoir.

If you were a kid in Kentucky in the 1980s, Rex Chapman was a god. And if not a god, then definitely a king. Chapman’s beautifully written autobiography reveals the ugly side of addiction, racism, sports, and people seeking to use a man’s fame for themselves. I listened to this book over several days, often sitting in the driveway well after I’d arrived just to listen to Rex talk. This is not always a happy story. I think Chapman’s addiction is probably well known at this point and the read is worth it alone. But the most powerful aspects of his memoir often touch upon the racism a young white kid faced by loving a young black woman. This book is will absolutely destroy any notion you ever had about the “good ol’ days” of college athletics, and reveals the dark side of how universities treated “student athletes” in the 1980s. Is this a redemption story? I don’t get the sense that Rex would consider it as such. I think it’s the story of man living his life. And it’s incredible.⁵

Link: https://amzn.to/49q0DuZ

Mary E. Hicks, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery.

This was the book I was waiting for, literally. I first learned of Mary’s work back when we were all on twitter and then she told me more about the book in progress when we recorded a podcast on Master and Commander.⁶ She’s since become a great friend. What Mary’s book does is reorient our understandings of South Atlantic slavery by showing the remarkable fluidity of free and enslaved Africans to navigate the cultural, economic, and linguistic challenges that confronted them. I am currently halfway through the book now and absolutely gripped by it. Studies of the transatlantic slave trade or the African diaspora will be calling upon this work for years.

Link and use code 01HATM30 for 30% off of this book: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469671468/captive-cosmopolitans/

Guys, there are so many books I could have listed on this. And I hope to put together a list of all the people who have been on the podcast as well. But this is just a taste of some of the amazing works and people who have influenced me, made me laugh, made me tear up at times, and made me think. It was a damn good year for the written word.

What did you read that you liked this year? And what are you looking forward to in the future?

Jason

1. Yes we saw your Spotify wrapped.

2. Thanks for keeping the bar low, Mike.

3. We’re playing chess, not checkers here.

4. Fun fact: Kate is one of my best friends on the planet. I have never met her in person.

5. I’ve included a link to the hardcover, but I strongly, strongly advise that you listen to Rex on Audible. You will be moved by this.

6. Fun fact about Mary: more people ask to do Master and Commander on the pod than any other film. And I always get to blame Mary for choosing it first.