favorite books of 2024



past annual favorite book lists:

2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016

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I read 66 books in 2024 (no one is more surprised than me bc design school?! I credit a healthy dose of escapist fiction/series last winter and many shore days reading during the summer) and loved many of them. Initially this stack of books was a few volumes higher but I really tried to pare it down to just the very top standouts.

Per usual, these are in no particular order, and my favorite selections within essay and poetry collections are listed where applicable, with an asterisk for my very favorites.


The Idiot // Elif Batuman
I relate all too well to my girl Selin, overthinker extraordinaire. This book feels very true-to-life in that the plot is very slow-moving, comprised of a slow accumulation of days and events as Selin moves through her first year at college and the summer that follows it. I think you will either love this book or hate it, but I loved it *so* much and reading this book made me want to give my college self a big hug. Batuman captures the feeling of newly exploring the world as an adult, with friendships you happen to fall into due to proximity, and trying to navigate the social politics of college. Selin also spends a lot of time thinking about language and translation and meaning—as a fellow overthinker, I relate all too well to her parsing of meaning and wondering if everyone else spends as much time forming their thoughts and words as you do. Batuman's wry humor is so subtle but had me cracking up for much of this book. If you like bookish young women and feeling secondhand embarrassment and tenderness, you might like this one too (or maybe, quite simply, you, like me and like Selin, are a bookish girl who has, at one time or another, been tricked by your girl brain. I felt very seen reading this book).

The subsequent Either/Or has been patiently waiting on my shelves for when I am ready for some more Selin time, which I think may be very soon. I also want to read more Russian fiction (notably some Dostoevsky) and then revisit this one; there are a lot of layers here that I think I would appreciate even more with a better grasp of some of the Russian classics I haven't yet read.

"Back in Svetlana's room, we listened to the CDs she had bought—Joni Mitchell's Blue and Bach's St. Matthew Passion—and made necklaces, periodically holding up the strands and comparing them. Svetlana explained how her necklace was characteristic of her and mine was characteristic of me, and I thought about how probably, as long as civilization had existed, women had been threading beads onto strings or reeds or whatever. Then I wondered whether it had always been women. Maybe in ancient times men had been into beads. Today, though, it was hard to imagine boys sitting around on beanbags, listening to Joni Mitchell, holding necklaces against each other's necks, and talking about Svetlana's sister. Some part of me worried that this was why women would never amount to anything, that we were somehow holding ourselves back."


Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things // Jane Bennett
If The Power Broker is the book I spent the most time talking about in 2024, Vibrant Matter is the book I spent the most time thinking about. I was first introduced to material theory by my friend Rebekah a few years ago, but things didn't really click for me until I arrived at landscape architecture grad school where it all suddenly made sense and resonated very deeply. We read a couple chapters of Bennett's Vibrant Matter in my first semester theory class and as it turned out, those were the chapters (1 and 2) which ended up being my favorite upon reading the entire book, but I loved the book on the whole nonetheless.

For those unfamiliar, Bennett and other vital materialists advocate for an ethic that ascribes agency and motive to objects and things, rather than relegating them to inanimate status. I think landscape architectural examples capture the essence of these ideas very well—Harold Fisk's meander belt maps of the Mississippi River are a favorite and very lovely visual illustration of the vital materialist idea/principle that something like a river, through the physics and processes of water, gravity, weather, etc., is enacting a sort of agency as it shapes sediment in its movements and changes course over time. Bennett explores these ideas in many other contexts as well, examining things like stem cells, electric grids, garbage, and other environmental and political systems that comprise other types of assemblages with material agency. Bennett's work is quite academic in tone and style, but many of my favorite writers explore similar themes in their work (such as Robin Wall Kimmerer [though Bennett may disagree in that instance as her particular brand of vital materialism is distinct from other more spiritual traditions of animacy], Mary Oliver, Annie Dillard, and Amy Leach) and I found it so helpful to gain a better familiarity with the particular theorists who have written extensively on these topics, summarized nicely by Bennett in this volume and ultimately comprising a further reading list for future me (when I have the mental capacity to delve into those more philosophical works).


My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer // Christian Wiman
Wiman's My Bright Abyss is the runner-up for books I spent the most time thinking about this year. Wiman's musings on belief with a modern sensibility really resonated with me (my apologies for probably overusing the verb "resonate" in this post! I digress!) and my particular experience of religion, faith, and belief.

"I always have this sense that something is going to resolve my spiritual anxieties once and for all, that one day I'll just relax and be a believer. I read book after book. I seek out intense experiences in art, in nature, or in conversations with people I respect and who seem to rest more securely in their faith than I do. Sometimes it seems that gains are made, for these things can and do provide relief and instruction. But always the anxiety comes back, is the norm from which faith deviates, if faith is even what you could call these intense but somehow vague and fleeting experiences of God. I keep forgetting, or perhaps simply will not let myself see, what true faith is, its active and outward nature. I should never pray to be at peace in my belief. I should pray only that my anxiety be given peaceful outlets, that I might be the means to a peace that I myself do not feel."

"[Y]ou can know everything about a religion—its history, iconography, scripture, etc.—but all of that will remain intellectual, mere information, so long as your own soul is not at risk."

My Bright Abyss*
Sorrow's Flower
God's Truth Is Life
O Thou Mastering Light
God Is Not Beyond*
Varieties of Quiet*
Mortify Our Wolves


Hamnet // Maggie O'Farrell
I loved this speculative historical fiction about (the never-named) William Shakespeare’s home life. Maggie O’Farrell’s prose is exquisite and rich with details; the reviews I read are mixed and some readers described it as overwrought. Personally, I thought she was able to characterize a sensitivity that several of her protagonists shared in how they viewed and moved through their world attuned to the finely rendered details around them. Most of all, this was a story about grief and about relationships between parent and child; this latter theme most explored through the contrasts of the two generations of parent-child relationships. Hamlet has always been my favorite Shakespeare play and I loved this book all the more for its take on the tragedy, weaving it into the context of this novel with a beautiful, poignant, heartbreaking ending.


Everything I Know About Love // Dolly Alderton
Perhaps Dolly's best-known work, I came to this late in the game but no less enthusiastically. Although Dolly and I had very different young adulthood experiences, the emotional tenor of this book resonated with me completely, just the same. She writes about dating foibles and growing up, common fodder for the 20-something coming-of-age genre, but the common theme throughout is female friendship as ballast.

"Nearly everything I know about love, I've learned in my long-term friendships with women. ... I know what it is to know every tiny detail about a person and revel in that knowledge as if it were an academic subject."


Bright Young Women // Jessica Knoll
One of my favorite novels of the year—moving and devastating as you know the end from the beginning. Knoll deconstructs the celebrity of a certain real-life serial killer by never naming him, a hat tip to the young woman court stenographer who exclusively referred to him as only "The Defendant." The title of this book is a twist on the judge's closing remarks in which he referred to The Defendant as a "bright young man," a heinous display of sexism in its erasure of the enormous potential and shattered lives of the actual bright young women this man coerced and brutally murdered. Knoll weaves a multilinear narrative that is extremely well done and plumbs the complexity and depths of the women (both survivors and victims) so often maligned in this true crime narrative.


Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted // Suleika Jaouad
I've been meaning to read this for a few years, ever since I started following Suleika's project The Isolation Journals during the early months of the pandemic. One of my friends picked this for our book club one month and we all loved it. It's beautiful and moving and heartbreaking and lovely. I laughed and I cried and I held her words close. Suleika’s prose is stunning and she writes about her emotions with striking precision, and seems to have weathered some truly challenging experiences with grace and compassion.


The Open Space of Democracy // Terry Tempest Williams
My favorite essay in this collection was "Ground Truthing," which I first encountered in 2023 on a recommended reading list for incoming landscape architecture students at Penn. I loved this collection of essays which revolved primarily around conservation and politics in the intermountain west. TTW's words are encouraging and a prescient reminder as we contend with a new presidential administration hostile to the reality of climate change and with a track record of reducing the conservation gains of the past.


Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters // Annie Dillard
I have loved Annie Dillard since first encountering her work in college and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is one of my very favorite books. I've also read/loved An American Childhood as well as several volumes of her poetry. Teaching a Stone to Talk contains many of the Annie Dillard hallmarks I adore, including essays of her nature writing where I think she really shines ("Life on the Rocks: The Galápagos" was incredible). I appreciated the more eclectic and varied nature of this collection and loved moments of crossover between one of my favorite writers and my more recent Jane Bennett-vital materialism interests ("Teaching a Stone to Talk" is very much in this vein). But I think my very favorite from this book was "An Expedition to the Pole"—an inventive exploration of worship and belief juxtaposed with accounts of polar exploration, the impetus for polar exploration serving as stand-in for belief. It sounds bizarre and moments of it are, but I loved it so so much. Several times I caught myself comparing Dillard's writing to another favorite writer of mine, Anne Fadiman (this essay specifically reminded me a lot of Fadiman's At Large and At Small, which includes an essay titled "The Arctic Hedonist")—I think this was largely in part to how Dillard wove the polar exploration narratives into this essay and the way she described the Romantic but sparse prose found in the accounts of these Victorian adventurers.

    "A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples' dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right—believe it or not—to be people.
    Who can believe it?"

Total Eclipse
An Expedition to the Pole*
Living Like Weasels
In the Jungle
Teaching a Stone to Talk*
Life on the Rocks: The Galápagos*


Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays // Mary Oliver
This is an incredibly lovely collection of some of Mary Oliver's poems about birds, plus some prose pieces. The essay "Bird" about a seagull she and her partner rescued was beautiful and devastating. I loved the entire collection.

Wild Geese
The Dipper
Such Singing in the Wild Branches
The Swan
Owls
Bird*
September
Backyard


Instructions for Traveling West: Poems // Joy Sullivan
I have loved Joy Sullivan's work for a while now and this was one of my most highly anticipated releases of 2024. The titular poem is my very favorite and ironically many of my big moves in that vein entailed my traveling east, but as a long-term inhabitant of the intermountain west I understand the pull that region has on a person and the ethos of the poem resonates deeply.

I have too many favorites to list all of them so here are the poems that I dog-eared:
Instructions for Traveling West*
Safe
Buttercream
State of Emergency
Culpable*


Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems // Lucille Clifton
I have loved Lucille Clifton for a long time but had only sporadically read a few of her poems here and there. This is a great volume including some of her best-known poems. Some poems are tragic and devastating, others are wry and humorous. I absolutely love her takes on biblical subjects and how she reimagines these familiar stories in fresh and compelling ways. Other topics she frequently writes about include her family/family history, Black life in America, and womanhood. Some of her poems (including a few listed below) are available to read online through the Poetry Foundation and Poets.org.

alabama 9/15/63
what i think when i ride the train
study the masters
why some people be mad at me sometimes
my dream about falling
my dream about God*
my dream about the poet
poem in praise of menstruation
photograph
lot's wife
to my last period
wishes for sons
adam thinking
eve thinking
the story thus far
blessing the boats
note, passed to superman
dear fox
a dream of foxes

(but actually probably all of these warrant an asterisk)


Martyr! // Kaveh Akbar
This was the penultimate book I finished reading this year and one of my favorites. It's the debut novel of Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar and received a lot of well-deserved acclaim this year. I found it to be a really lovely exploration of identity, belief, mortality, and art (in the case of these characters, writing and visual arts). Several times while reading I felt distinctly reminded of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin; I think my main point of mental comparison is that both novels explore creativity in a beautiful and resonant way as a form of self-expression and self-exploration. Martyr! also has a series of dream scenes that reminded me of the game sequences in T&T&T—while these operate as distinctly unique literary devices in each novel, I thought both resulted in a similar effect of infusing the work with an element of magical realism that is very grounded in the narrative and tone of that novel. I also loved the glimpses of the Iranian and Persian poetic tradition (in which Akbar's previous work is obviously grounded) in several chapters as part of the multilinear narrative. Akbar uses the multilinear narrative very effectively in driving the story and revealing the characters. I look forward to reading more of his work (poetry and prose).


The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vol. 8 // Beth Brower
I loved every minute reading the highly anticipated eighth installment of Miss Emma M. Lion's journals. The previous 7 books in the series are included in my last two years of favorite books, although this year I reread the entire series in the lead-up to book 8 (a partial tandem-reading over Thanksgiving with my friend Elizabeth in which we sat fire-side with a cat-napping-cat and would read our favorite lines out loud to one another from our respective current installments—a delightful experience which I highly recommend).

I'm loath to get too specific about book 8 here (STONE!CROP!), lest I delve into spoilers territory, so I'll share my briefest synopsis of the series, as recently pitched to my friend Julia: "1880s London, a 20-something girl who gets herself into the most ludicrous scrapes," to which she correctly responded "Say less I'm INTERESTED"!

I think my favorite thing about Beth's writing in this series is the way she so perfectly captures the highs and lows of Emma's life. These books are SO delightfully funny, and yet at other times are poignant or melancholy, laced with grief. This is the kind of fiction that feels the most true to me, because real life includes all of it. Emma has a particular pluck with which she has very intentionally looked her difficulties in the face and determined to make the best of it—a way of living that I very much admire.


The God of the Woods // Liz Moore
My sister read this novel early in the summer and mentioned a brief reference to our dad's hometown, at which point I immediately added it to my to-read list; we spent a lot of childhood summers visiting extended family in upstate New York, so the book's setting immediately piqued my interest. Moore tells an epic family tale spanning several decades and generations of the Van Laar family and their Adirondack idyll, tinged with tragedy and mystery as two different children of the Van Laar family go missing under mysterious circumstances, their disappearances happening over a decade apart. Moore's writing is wonderful and she kept me guessing the entire time, one of my favorite feelings when reading a book. The less you know going in, the better.


Small Things Like These // Claire Keegan
This is my sister Lauren's favorite book and it's been on my list to read for a couple years. I read it just after Christmas (nicely timed for the setting of the novel around Christmas). Keegan's prose is so sparse and pared down, but she writes about small, specific moments and occurrences that evoke such clear mental pictures of her characters and their lives. This short novel is a beautiful meditation on people and goodness and at a very basic level, what we owe to each other. I've heard wonderful things about the film adaptation as well and hope to watch it soon.


The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays // CJ Hauser
I have been a CJ Hauser fan girl ever since her essay "The Crane Wife" was first published in The Paris Review in 2019 (if you haven't encountered it before, please go read it!!!! I genuinely believe four exclamation points is not too many). Topics of other essays in this collection included a handful of my favorite things/media: Hepburns Katharine and Audrey, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and Shirley Jackson/'s house(!).

epigraph to section I
Hepburn Qua Hepburn
The Crane Wife*
Kind of Deep Blue
The Lady with the Lamp
Nights We Didn't
Act Three; Dulcinea Quits
The Second Mrs. de Winter
Unwalling Jackson's Castle
The Fox Farm
Uncoupling*
Siberian Watermelon


The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York // Robert A. Caro
This book represents a significant investment of my time, the book I spent the most time talking about in 2024, and I wrote a separate review for it here. It's well-regarded for a reason and a great read for anyone interested in the shaping of modern NYC, planning history, and government.



honorable mentions: (with my goodreads reviews linked!)
The Husbands // Holly Gramazio (no formal review on this one, but a very fun and tender debut novel)
/ / / 

Thank you for reading! Did we have any favorite books in common this year? I always love hearing what my friends read and loved during the year (or in the past) so I can add to my reading list!

THE POWER BROKER: review


I have so much to say about The Power Broker and this is my failed attempt to share some distilled/simplified thoughts in the form of a review here. "Failed" because this is still long in spite of rigorous editing/culling but there you have it. I suppose it's commensurate with the length of the book, sorrynotsorry!

First of all, I would like to give a personal standing ovation for Robert Caro, who is truly an incredible and impressive researcher and writer. He absolutely deserved the Pulitzer that he received for this book.

This is probably the book I spent the most time talking about this year (lol and oops) and I have a lot of thoughts about it. I have wanted to read this Pulitzer-winning biography of Robert Moses for a long time, mainly because of my various interests represented in its pages—NYC history, politics, local government, city planning, and planning history. As a kid, my cousins lived on Long Island and I spent my childhood driving and frequenting many Robert Moses-named and -built works; the name 'Robert Moses' was a part of the cultural milieu in which I grew up, a name among many of the named public works my family frequented (some others being the Walt Whitman Bridge, Commodore Barry Bridge, Ben Franklin Bridge, etc.). My level of familiarity with these different names varied and I didn't know much about Robert Moses until I was in college and out of curiosity read a bit about him online. I remember on a visit to NYC in 2012, my family spent a week in the city and stayed in Greenwich Village, and some signs protesting a high-rise project prompted me to learn more about that part of NYC, including Jane Jacobs and her involvement with preserving Washington Square Park from development threatened by Moses.

I started reading The Power Broker in March 2023, then took a long hiatus while I moved cross-country and started grad school. In late fall 2023 I picked it back up and read a little here and there, and then resumed in earnest in May 2024 with the intent to stay focused and finish it during the year. I spent a lot of days reading at the Jersey shore last summer, which is where I did some of my longest stints, and finished the day after Christmas. Many many people have asked me if I'm listening to/have recommended the 99% Invisible podcast accompanying the book, but I haven't listened yet mainly due to a wish to keep my reading experience singular. Now I absolutely need a break from Moses for a bit (especially given the Moses-oriented [or anti-Moses, rather] bent of my studio project this past semester—I have literally spent so many hours thinking about this man!), but I'm sure it's something I'll listen to eventually because, again, I am very interested in the subject matter and the many topics Moses' influence reaches.

One of my only complaints came upon learning fairly early in my reading (arising from a casual Google search after I couldn't find Jane Jacobs in the index) that Caro wrote a chapter on Jane Jacobs and ultimately cut it due to the length of the book. Allegedly had the book been any longer, the binding would not have accommodated any additional pages and it would have required two volumes. The Jane Jacobs chapter (for the uninitiated) would obviously not follow the prevailing narrative of the Moses modus operandi (his M.O. being 'driving stakes'—starting a project that had not been funded or approved in a semi-permanent way, then when funding or approval was nigh, citing the loss of taxpayer dollars if it were then denied as a reason to approve the rest of the venture), as she succeeded in her neighborhood organizing efforts, and as a result we still have Washington Square Park and the West Village in modern NYC. I've made peace with the omission, as I realize Jane has plenty of air time elsewhere—I obviously love her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities and also highly recommend the documentary "Citizen Jane," among other things. In that spirit, I really appreciated Caro's extensive focus on Lillian Edelstein of East Tremont in the Bronx and her organizing efforts opposing the Cross Bronx Expressway—ultimately and tragically no match for Moses' abuse of power, but a powerful figure of civic organizing who stood up to Moses and deserves our attention in the context of his biography.

My other primary complaint is the lack of treatment of Staten Island projects and topics within the book. I may be biased as I spent the entire last semester studying Staten Island in my landscape architecture studio, but I think there is a lot of fascinating history that Caro omitted from this book, notably the development and use of Fresh Kills landfill and the network of Staten Island expressways and parkways (some constructed and some ultimately not—again, the non-development of a Moses project being somewhat of a departure from Moses' usual track record; in some cases these failed projects occurred even in spite of his use of the 'driving stakes' methods). As I spent a lot of time studying this specific history of public works, public space, and the built environment of Staten Island, I'm interested in comparing the timelines of those events with the later chapters of The Power Broker to see how Moses' ultimate fall from power may have contributed to the petering out of these projects, as I suspect the way these timelines align may ultimately be the reason for Caro's omissions. I am also planning to read a separate account of Fresh Kills, written by Martin Melosi, which examines consumption and waste more broadly in NYC and in the context of Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island (which was initially a Robert Moses venture, but remained in use until 2001, long after Moses' time).

Caro is also a very evocative writer—he excels at painting portraits of the different people who figure into the Moses entourage, the people who most influenced Moses early in his public life, and the series of NYC mayors and governors Moses worked under/over/with (the preposition most applicable very much depending on the mayor or governor in question). I found some of his descriptions to be very earnest or dramatic at times, but overall this served him well in telling this epic New York tale.

One thing I continually found fascinating and distinctive about Caro's writing was a particular subjunctive sentence construction that Caro employed over and over again. As a student and speaker of Italian, I love the subjunctive tense (il congiuntivo!) and always lament that we don't use it more in the English language. Well I got my wish with Caro and I was puzzled about it for a while as it made for some very odd, and at times convoluted, sentences. Somewhere along the line, I realized it was probably a way to avoid a libel suit, as well as a way to explore motive when much of the time it may not be confirmable fact. But its prevalence made an impression and I'm curious whether Caro's other works employ that construction nearly as often, or if Moses is an exception (which would not surprise me).

I'm interested in undertaking a reread at some point (like, maybe a decade from now) with an eye toward the chronology of the book. Caro spent 7 years researching and obviously a work of this immensity is a feat. As part of the biography genre, the work is loosely chronological, but throughout the last half of the book I found myself getting turned around as Caro would jump chronology to stick to the theme or topic at hand. Again, for a work of this immensity, this makes complete sense and I think by doing so, Caro made a coherent narrative from what might otherwise read as a lot of dates, numbers, facts, and figures. This book is so weighted with numbers and data that having a strong narrative arc is essential to its legibility and coherence. Caro does a masterful job with this and the narrative imposed is convincing and feels true to the events and timeline of Moses' career.

In some ways, The Power Broker reads as a biography of New York City in the 20th Century, as much as it reads as a biography of Moses. New York City, for better or for worse (truly, both of these), would not be what it is today without the impact of Moses on its built environment and neighborhoods. It's easy to paint Moses with broad strokes as a villain in the city's history, but I think Caro does an excellent job articulating the evolution of Moses' ethics in public life and over the course of his career. He truly began as a reformer and did a lot to eject the ineffectual Tammany politics out of NYC governance, particularly in regards to the governance of public space in NYC. But Moses was not above corruption, and his hunger for power and recognition led him to essentially the same avenues of dubious ethics, in his case the ethically questionable contracts that were this 20th Century 'reformer's (technically-legal-but-in-spirit-no-better-than-Tammany-Hall) answer to Getting Things Done.

I appreciated that Caro took a nuanced approach in exploring this controversial figure; I am by no means a Moses fan, but I appreciated that Caro's lengthy biography necessarily grapples with the nuance of Moses' past. Caro clearly illustrates Moses' journey from idealist and honest reformer in his 20s to the pinnacle of his career when he had amassed considerable power and insularity and was basically untouchable. Caro does not shy away from the very obvious negatives of Moses' impact, including Moses' racism and how he reinforced this bigotry in the built environment, as well as his distaste for the poor, as shown again and again in his policies and projects. In some of the later chapters in particular, Caro paints a grim picture about how far back Moses set NYC and Long Island by denying obvious (planning- and finance-wise) expansion opportunities for mass transit.

I've said this before, but one of my favorite things about the 2021 adaptation of "West Side Story" was its inclusion of the urban renewal subplot of the development of Lincoln Center (yet another Moses brainchild); this actual event was in the works as of the mid-1950s but I don't think the full effect of its construction and development was fully felt at the time of the original musical and 1961 film's creation. I think it is a clever (and realistic) backdrop to a story that includes significant themes of social and racial upheaval in NYC.

I mention this movie connection because I think The Power Broker is a classic of non-fiction and biographic literature largely because of the staying power of its themes—most notably of power and how it is amassed and used to various ends in politics and government, and its impacts on people in cities. In the 21st Century we theoretically understand the devastating effects of urban renewal projects and the importance of garnering constituent support for various capital improvement endeavors AND YET even in Philadelphia over the last year, residents battled elected officials bent on shoehorning an unpopular and costly arena project into the heart of Chinatown (just this week the arena developers announced their plans to instead stay in South Philadelphia's stadium district, to the immense relief of residents and activists across the city and the chagrin of the politicians who had been trying to make a buck). Robert Moses' impact in creating and shaping bad public process for the better part of the 20th Century in NYC has lessons all of us need as we engage with our city and state governments.

In summary, it was an excellent book and I'm glad I read it. I think if you are interested in the topics I mentioned, you might find it worth reading, or perhaps you might enjoy a more abbreviated experience in the form of the 99% Invisible podcast to get the highlights. And if you made it this far, thanks for reading!!

/ / / 

p.s. In November I visited the New York-Historical Society and got to see TWO exhibits related to The Power Broker—one set of cases was dedicated to an exhibit for the 50th anniversary of its publishing (on view through early August 2025), and another (standing) exhibit covered Robert Caro's writing process. My friend Julie (of co-Power-Broker-book-club-of-two-reading-fame) recommended to me the documentary "Turn Every Page" about Robert Caro and his editor, Robert Gottlieb, which I am also planning to watch at some point. These were all great things to accompany the reading experience!

some utpol thoughts

With MWEG colleagues Emma Addams and Laura Eyi at the Utah Supreme Court hearing in July 2023.

 
As promised—some helpful links in reference to the Utah politics video I posted:

St. George News: "The Utah Supreme Court checked the Utah Legislature again. What now?" — this is a really great overview of the Amendment D debacle, some background, as well as what we might expect in the future.

Better Boundaries is the organization which was created to run the original ballot initiative for an independent redistricting commission in Utah. They are a great source of information and good to follow for the latest happenings on the issue in Utah.

Campaign Legal Center is a fantastic organization that is representing the plaintiffs in the redistricting case in Utah. They have really helpful resources as well as detailed information on all the legal proceedings, with links to the various court filings and decisions. Here is their landing page for LWV Utah and MWEG v. Utah State Legislature.

Below I've listed out the Campaign Legal Center press releases related to the redistricting case and Amendment D, with a link to the court documents where helpful/applicable (in descending chronological order; most recent first).

The 3rd district court decision linked on this page also has an exceptionally thorough background of the redistricting process in 2021-2022 that predicated the litigation:


And finally, here is some background information on "Count My Vote" 2014 initiative, SB54, and how this resulted in Utah's hybrid primary election system (whereby candidates can get on the ballot via the convention process or through collecting signatures). As I mention in the video, with Senator Curt Bramble's retirement from the Utah State Senate, I think we can anticipate additional challenges to this process by the state legislature, since Sen. Bramble will no longer be a legislator in the upcoming session and won't be able to defend the promises and commitments he and other legislators had made to Utahns at the time of this initiative and subsequent compromise legislation.

down the shore: Jersey shore recommendations

Don't you dare make me choose between the beach or the mountains, but if pressed, I will always and forever say the ocean—a Jersey girl through and through. My friend Angie recently asked to pick my brain on Jersey shore tips and recommendations and I thought I would write them up similar to other travel recommendations I've shared in the past!

Many Jersey beaches notoriously require beach tags—a pass to use the beach (which pays for lifeguards, trash removal, and keeping the beaches in pristine condition, among other things) which can typically be purchased for the day, week, or season. There are a number of free beaches interspersed as well (should the concept of beach tags prove an impediment either philosophically or financially) along the south Jersey shore.

I have personally spent the most time in Ocean City, Wildwood, Atlantic City, and Cape May, though have been to others as well (Stone Harbor, for one, as evidenced by the childhood photo at the beginning of this post!). When I was a teenager, I loved the sand bar of Atlantic City's beaches for boogie boarding, and Wildwood has a great boardwalk and really nice beaches as well (the location of a most infamous skates [a stingray lookalike] sighting when I was in high school, which resulted in a horde of screaming teenage girls running in from the water; only afterwards did we learn skates are harmless).

HELPFUL LINKS:

Free Jersey shore beaches

guide to all Jersey beaches

Philadelphia Inquirer: other transit options to the shore



FAVORITE SHORE TOWNS & RECOMMENDATIONS/NOTES:

  • Ocean City (NOT to be confused with the lesser Ocean City, Maryland!!) is my all-time favorite, in terms of the beach and the boardwalk. Beach tags are required in OC and can be purchased for daily, weekend, or seasonal durations. There are booths along the boardwalk where you can purchase with cash, or you can use a card at the Ocean City Music Pier office (on the boardwalk between 8th and 9th street and also a convenient location for public restrooms). When you enter the beach from the various ramps or stairs down from the boardwalk, there are beach staff who will need to see your beach tag. When you're out on the beach (definitely on weekends) an employee will come around periodically to check for beach tags. Some people pin theirs to their swimsuit or clothing, but I usually attach mine to my bag in a prominent/visible spot so I can easily show it but it won't get lost or washed off by waves while I'm in the water.

    There are several paid municipal parking lots close to the boardwalk but they are more expensive and tend to fill up early, but nice if you have a lot of beach gear or small kids with you as you won't have to walk far. There is some metered street parking as well but usually it is only for up to 2 hours, so you just have to keep an eye on the time to move your car. I can usually find free street parking if I am willing to walk a little further.




My go-to blocks of the boardwalk and beach are from about 8th to 12th street, but the boardwalk officially begins at 1st street and extends all the way to 23rd so there is lots to explore! (There is a certain ubiquity of vendors along the boardwalk so I don't think an exhaustive tour of the entire length is necessary, but it is definitely possible!) My favorite food vendors are all easily accessible along this stretch from 8th-12th, along with Ocean City Music Pier for beach tags and bathrooms. When you get down to the beach, you can also channel the Amalfi Coast by renting striped umbrellas and beach chairs (or boogie boards!) from Bert's! I just did this for the first time and it was lovely—the high schoolers staffing the booth will set up your chairs and umbrella, and if you need to relocate due to the tide coming in, you just have to ask and they will help you get re-situated above the tide line. They advertised a deal on their website for 2 chairs and an umbrella for the day which was overall very reasonable, and well worth the cost in my opinion.

Ocean City favorites:
    • Manco & Manco's Pizza
    • Kohn Bros. custard
    • boardwalk fries w/ malt vinegar
    • Shriver's salt water taffy (pro tip: store your taffy in the fridge and take a piece out and wait a few minutes before eating. It will soften enough to eat but the time in the fridge will allow the wax paper double-layer wrapper to peel off very easily with no mess!)
    • Fudge Kitchen
    • My favorite shop for tshirts/sweatshirts/hats/etc. (reasonable pricing and they have some great embroidered designs!) is the Shirt Shack, but I feel like I inevitably go in every store to try and find just what I am looking for because it is a boardwalk ritual.

  • Wildwood also has a boardwalk (with Kohr Bros!) and is probably my favorite of the free beaches I've been to. I haven't been since I was a teen but am hoping to revisit this summer!

  • Atlantic City is notorious for many things, but my favorite thing about it is that it provided the origins for the game Monopoly with many of its street names. When I was in high school, Atlantic City was my favorite beach for boogie boarding as it had a really nice, long sandbar. Obviously sand is subject to erosion and deposition and sedimentation, so there's not telling how much things have changed since then, but it's another of the free beach towns with a boardwalk and one of the longest seaside resorts in the country. And this summer (not sure if it's an annual thing or just this year) they have a free jazz series of concerts on the beach! Atlantic City is also the best/most expedient option if you are taking the train from Philly rather than driving!

  • Cape May, at the southernmost point of New Jersey, is quaint and has an abundance of brightly colored Victorian houses. It's also an excellent area for birding! (beach tags required) Cape May also boasts the Cape May-Lewes ferry which you can take to Delaware if you are visiting any of the Delaware beaches and prefer the sea route rather than driving on the highways.


SOMEWHAT CONFUSING BUT HOPEFULLY USEFUL DRIVING DIRECTIONS! 

As far as accessing the beaches, there are several ways to get to them, but many face lots of notoriously bad shore traffic on the weekends (be advised!). The Atlantic City Expressway is a toll road that bypasses the back roads of New Jersey in a more direct diagonal path across south Jersey, especially if you are coming from the Philadelphia area. I feel it tends to get a bit backed up in the summer, so it does not always end up being faster. My preferred but probably confusing (anytime anyone spouts driving directions of any kind to me my mind goes blank and I retain none of it, but never fear, I have a TL;DR GPS hack immediately after it) driving route is below.

MY PREFERRED ROUTE: From Philly I recommend taking I-76 East over the Walt Whitman Bridge. Follow signs for Route 42 (there is one interchange right after the bridge where the signage is a little unclear but just don't get off any exits into Camden and stay the course; then the signs immediately after this start showing Route 42. Someday maybe eventually I will contact NJDOT and ask them fix this oversight/point of confusion that still throws me off even though I have drive this route literally hundreds of times). Take Route 42 and then follow signs for and exit onto Route 55 (the signage will say Glassboro/Vineland in case city names are easier to remember than route numbers). You can wave to my family as you pass the Centerton exit! Continue on Route 55, and eventually take Exit 24 for Route 49-E via Tuckahoe. You'll turn left onto Route 49 and then stay on Route 49 until you reach Tuckahoe (about 16 miles). Turn right at the stop sign onto Rt. 50-S (which curves left; stay on 50-South for 1.9 miles). If you are going to points further south than Ocean City, you can stay on Route 50-S which eventually ends at the Garden State Parkway (running parallel to the Ocean). If you are going to Ocean City, after 1.9 miles, turn left onto Tuckahoe Road. Stay on Tuckahoe Road for 5 miles, where it changes to Old Tuckahoe Road, and then curves and becomes Roosevelt Blvd. Stay on Roosevelt Blvd for about 2.5 miles and you will reach a stoplight and intersection with Bay Avenue—you made it to Ocean City! Turn left onto Bay Avenue and once you reach a street number commensurate with the area of the boardwalk you'd like to go to, you can turn right and navigate to one of the cross streets parallel with and increasingly closer to the ocean to look for parking.

TL;DR/GPS HACK: if all of the above is way too confusing (sorry! but also not sorry!), just set your GPS for Millville, NJ upon leaving Philadelphia, then when you get on Route 55 or get closer to Millville, update the location to Ocean City, NJ. The main issue is just that the GPS apps will default to the Atlantic City Expressway which is only faster when there is *no* traffic, which is highly unlikely/unusual on a summer weekend! This confusing method of my insider directions will spare you being parked on the expressway and will allow you to subvert the default route supplied by GPS when it inevitably tries to take you via a route you don't want to go. There will likely be shore traffic but it is usually not as bad as the expressway, at least in my experience!


If you are coming from Maryland/Delaware/DC/points further south, some kind soul on this forum has written up those instructions (which kind of merges with my preferred instructions above after you get on Route 55 and may in fact be easier to follow than what I wrote above: 

Someone posted these directions for me last year and I used them. They were great -- spot on and nice back roads through NJ. Also, there is always the Ferry, which is fun.
I-95 thru Delaware, cross the Del-Mem Bridge. Take the "last exit before toll" (Rt. 40). Follow it thru Woodstown and Elmer to Rt. 55. Exit onto 55 is just before you get to Malaga. Go South on 55 through Vineland and Millville. Exit onto Rt. 49 (look for the big water tower off the highway). Follow 49 to Tuckahoe. Turn right onto Rt. 50, and follow till you get to the split off to Tuckahoe Road. (623?). At Marmora, the road turns into Roosevelt Blvd. follow Roosevelt Blvd across Rt. 9 and under the GSP and into OCNJ. (This route will drop you onto the island at 34th Street. Have a great vacation! (3 to 3.5 hours, depending on where you are starting from and when you are going 'down the shore.)


I may update this as I revisit other shore towns this summer but I wanted to get my baseline recommendations compiled and written so I can share them while there is still a lot of summer left to enjoy the lovely Jersey shore! (take me with you!)

 . . . . 

on a related note: I love this print of Jersey shore towns by illustrator Libby VanderPloeg and Haptic Lab's Jersey shore quilt is probably going to be my graduation gift to myself in a few years.

favorite books of 2023

 
past annual favorite book lists:

2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016

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Sharing my favorite books read during the past year is one of my favorite annual traditions. I had a goal to read 30 books in 2023, and ended up reading 36 total during the year. Of my favorites pictured, I read three on my kindle and listened to two on audio (and read print copies of the rest) so I borrowed those five from the library to include in my stack. Also this might be the first year in which I didn't finish reading any poetry collections—usually I read at least a few during the year, but I have gotten held up with one I started and still haven't finished, so I hope to rectify this in the coming year since poetry remains one of my favorite genres.

Usually I don't rank my favorites, but I will note my standout favorites here: T&T&T, Ghosts, Station Eleven, and the Emma M. Lion series (of which I read vol. 2-7 this year; volume 1 was included on last year's favorites list). But, per usual, and in no particular order below—the complete list!


Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow // Gabrielle Zevin
Wowowow. This novel was incredibly beautiful and moving. The story follows two friends (and some of the people in their close circle) who meet as children, bonding over playing video games in the children's wing of the hospital, and who grow up to form a creative partnership designing video games. On its face, this is not the usual subject matter that would interest me, but I have my friend Allison to thank for introducing me to the artistic aspect of many games a few years back (notably via the game Firewatch, which Allison correct surmised I might enjoy for its storytelling and gorgeous graphics, as well as subject matter). This novel really taps into those aspects of video games, giving you firsthand insight into the minds of several fictional designers who innovate within the industry in notable ways and create games that reflect their unique vision of the world. The relationships within the story are complex and layered, with many years passing over the course of the book. The title is indeed a reference to the famous Macbeth soliloquy and the way this phrase was woven into the story thematically was so deftly done and gave a gorgeous literary and lyrical bent to the prose and story throughout. The way Zevin also used the imaginative world of games to create scenarios that illuminated the inner lives of the characters was truly incredible, and several parts made me cry because they were so beautifully written (you may know I have long loved William Morris as a craftsman and designer; the strawberry thief chapter made me weep). A secondary theme in the novel was chronic health issues/disability which I found very compelling as well. I don't feel I can say much more without introducing spoilers, so I'll leave it at that. I almost didn't get to this book this year but I am so glad I did.


Ghosts // Dolly Alderton
This was another of my favorite novels of the year. Dolly Alderton is best known for her widely loved "Everything I Know About Love" (which I am absolutely finally going to read this year!!) and Ghosts is her first novel. I loved it a lot and found it to be one of the most apt and accurate depictions of the milieu of dating in your 30s I have ever read. I found myself underlining and marking so many passages that felt like they were pulled straight from my own consciousness and life experiences. Alderton hones in on the too-oft-unspoken reality that women in their 30s face—the pressures of our biological clocks (of preserving a future of possibility and choice that we may not now be ready for but still have to consider and grapple with) and how this complicates ones love life. One of the other major themes of the novel is navigating the reality of aging parents/parental health issues as a young adult, and this secondary theme added dimension and depth to a novel about app dating that I had not expected and which I related a lot to as well.


The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volumes 2-7 // Beth Brower
I would not be able to choose a favorite volume if I tried—this year I finally caught up on reading the (so-far-released) rest of the series of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. They recount the hilarious and delightful exploits of one Emma M. Lion, newly minted 21-year-old by the end of volume 7, our British heroine ensconced in a garret-attic of her rightful-inheritance-residence in a quirky neighborhood in 1880s London. If I could pick one book/series in the world in which I would like to set foot, it is with no hesitation these ones. Beth Brower has created characters who feel so real and wonderful, and this series feels so real with its blend of humorous mishap, melancholy, heartbreak, joy, and at-times mundane reality. The diary format also recalls something of a literary tradition I loved from a young age (Dear America books, anyone?) and I enjoyed every single installment so thoroughly and fully expect that I will reread them in 2024 (and continue to foist them upon anyone who will listen).


Station Eleven // Emily St. John Mandel
I would categorize this among my favorite novels I read this year, but it is typically catalogued as sci-fi which is a fair assessment. I have not read much sci-fi, but I am fully on board the Emily St. John Mandel train and will read anything that she writes (Sea of Tranquility is patiently waiting on my bookshelves). I read this early in the year and at the time was grateful I had not read it sooner, its eerie resonance with our recent CoVID-19 pandemic looming large during my reading. There is a line in it about the protagonist adding a bouquet of daffodils to a grocery store run at the onset of the pandemic in the story, and I remembered doing the same thing when I made a grocery store visit in mid-March 2020, unsure of what was to come but seeking consolation through small acts of beauty. This imagery (and how it has stuck with me months later) feels like the best in-brief summation of a novel that was about the staying power of art and creativity, and how these are essential parts of what makes us human and what connects us to each other. Also maybe 2024 will be the year I finally read King Lear (my friend Sam's favorite Shakespeare play so it has been on my list for that reason and it's about three sisters so it feels like a personal prerequisite [although I realize that the inter-sister politics of King Lear may not be totally accurate to my own sisters-three])? Also Emily St. John Mandel's run-on sentences are masterful.


Under the Tuscan Sun // Frances Mayes
This is a book that transports you, and I read it during the winter months at the beginning of the year and found the escape to sunny Toscana the perfect antidote to a long, snowy Utah winter. I adore the film (it has so many good one-liners and a wry humor that feels slightly different than the rest of the 90s romcoms I love but resonates just as much) and the book was just as delightful.

"In my next life, when I am an architect, I always will design houses with kitchens that open to the outdoors. I love stepping out to head and tail my beans while sitting on the stone wall. I set dirty pots out to soak, dry my dishcloths on the wall, empty excess clean water on the arugula, thyme, and rosemary right outside the door. Since the double door is open day and night in summer, the kitchen fills with light and air. A wasp—is it the same one?—flies in every day and drinks from the faucet, then flies right out."

"The first morning train takes me through fields of red poppies in bloom, olive groves, and by now familiar stony villages. Haystacks, nuns in white four abreast, bed linens flung out the window, sheepfold, oleander, Italy! I stare out the window the whole way."


How to Keep House While Drowning // KC Davis
This book came highly recommended by several friends and it resonated with me so much. Davis reframes the banal, tedious, repetitive chores of daily life as “care tasks,” removing the moral value we/our society has ascribed to them and instead thinking of them as kindnesses we perform for our future selves or our loved ones (if you are a parent or caretaker or partner). The book is for everyone but especially geared toward anyone who is going through a challenging period, deals with any debilitating effects of mental health, or is neurodivergent, with the recognition that any of these things can create barriers or obstacles to handling care tasks without becoming overwhelmed. The layout of the book lends itself to quick bouts of reading or skimming and makes it easy to quickly identify the key points without a huge time investment.

Davis outlines a clear and simple path with a low barrier to entry of navigating care tasks during a state of overwhelm and how to make your space function for you (rather than the other way around). I also think she does this in a very thoughtful way so you can take what serves you and leave what doesn’t; it’s a bunch of ideas along a continuum, not an all-or-nothing approach. Davis’ mindset has been so helpful to me as I have been a bit overwhelmed by life since starting grad school a few months ago. She also reframes rest in ways that were really eye-opening to me and helpful as I continue trying to practice self-kindness around rest and recovery from stress and school and life. She also discusses the gender politics of labor in ways that I could see being very helpful for many of my friends who shoulder the majority of the unpaid caretaking labor in their domestic partnerships—there are several chapters dealing with the quantifying of unpaid or emotional labor and how even those not performing paid work outside the home are as deserving and in need of rest as the wage-earners in a family. Anyway, it’s a quick read and I highly recommend it!


Emma // Alexander McCall Smith
I found this book a few years ago at DI and bought it because I love Jane Austen. This was my first introduction to Alexander McCall Smith's writing—he is best known for his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which I hope to read eventually. This was a clever little novel that was an easy read and low time commitment, so all said I enjoyed it immensely. There were so many understated humorous moments that had me laughing. This retelling is set in 1990s England, essentially just a couple centuries removed from its original inspiration, situated in the same locales. Emma is a university student studying interior decorating and she is trying to find an eligible guy to fund Harriet Smith's gap year [of Emma's projected dreams]. My only complaint is that I felt the friendship/relationship between Emma and Knightley to be a bit underdeveloped. But I thought Smith's cultural positioning to be very aptly rendered, with the Woodhouses occupying the upper class social echelon in their country town with its 90s equivalents of the usual Austenian foibles.


Book Lovers // Emily Henry
This year I joined the ranks of the Emily Henry fangirls. I rarely read from the romance genre, but enough of my friends and trusted readers raved about Henry's work that I delved into the genre a little more this year. I think Book Lovers was a great introduction to Henry's work for me—she taps into a topic I (and most readers I daresay) love—books—and uses this in a great way to connect the two protagonists, Nora and Charlie, who both work in the book biz. Henry also takes some of the most common romance tropes and turns them on end, using them to explore a new side of the genre in a way I really enjoyed (again, not having read much in the genre, but knowing at least a little from past exposure, movies, etc.). I also just really enjoyed her writing and characters.


Tokyo Ever After // Emiko Jean
This YA novel was delightful and a fun, quick read (along with the sequel Tokyo Dreaming). I think the best description of it is "Princess Diaries" meets "Crazy Rich Asians" with a dose of Japanese imperial history and dreamy security detail. I also think the book explored some interesting themes relating to the Japanese diaspora and race, as through the course of the story the main character Izumi has very different experiences in her Washington-state hometown versus those she has in Tokyo, Japan.


The Peregrine // J.A. Baker
This book by British author J.A. Baker first came on my radar through the memoir H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (one of my favorite reads in 2017) and the writings of Robert Macfarlane. The Peregrine is considered a classic of British nature writing, and I completely understand why. I listened to an audio production during my cross-country drive this summer and was delighted to find that it was narrated by David Attenborough. His narration was excellent and I felt it added a lot to my enjoyment and experience of the book, which is Baker's account of trailing and observing a pair of peregrine falcons near his home in the Essex countryside.

Baker's descriptions of the British countryside through its different seasons are striking and lovely. Most of my favorite moments of these books described these encounters with weather and landscape during his romps and excursions watching and tracking the falcons. One particularly gorgeous section describes Baker's encounter with an owl. I also loved the delightful quirks of British prose and Attenborough's delivery—"anti clockwise" instead of counter-clockwise, Attenborough's pronunciation of the word "turquoise." The peregrine falcons are also rendered in incredible detail—my favorite part about the falcons was Baker's painstaking description of their eyes, of their incredible power of vision and sight, the impressive size of their ocular system in proportion to their slight feathered bodies.

"December 3rd. All day the low clouds lay above the marshes and thin rain drifted in from the sea. Mud was deep in the lanes and along the sea-wall; thick ochre mud, like paint; oozing glutinous mud that seemed to sprout on the marsh, like fungus; octopus mud that clutched and clung and squelched and sucked; slippery mud, smooth and treacherous as oil; mud stagnant; mud evil; mud in the clothes, in the hair, in the eyes; mud to the bone. On the east coast in winter, above or below the tide-line, man walks in water or in mud; there is no dry land. Mud is another element. One comes to love it, to be like a wading bird, happy only at the edges of the world where land and water meet, where there is no shade and nowhere for fear to hide."

Anywhere you open the book, open to any page, and it is rife with this prose, never repetitive or dull for a moment in its many intimations of earth, heaven, ground underfoot, birds trailing through the sky. I highly recommend the audio, but I intend to find a secondhand (or kindle) copy so I can reread and further savor the prose.


Spare // Prince Harry
I listened to the audio version of this highly anticipated memoir by Prince Harry. Lots has already been said on the book but I included it on my favorites list as I thought it was very well done and I enjoyed the audio version narrated by Prince Harry himself. Monarchy and its trappings have their own problematic history and present, still I am sympathetic to the Sussexes' plight and think they deserve safety and security just as much as anyone else. In his memoir, Harry really delves into his experiences with the British media and his grief following his mother's tragic death, among other things, and I found these parts of the book especially poignant and heartbreaking.


Beach Read // Emily Henry
This was my second Emily Henry read of the year, and while I didn't love it quite as much as Book Lovers, I would still consider it a favorite from the year and I did really enjoy it. I will say I think the title is a little misleading, as the beach in question is actually more of a lakeshore (rather than the ocean, which is always 100% what I conjure in my mind at the word "beach" as an ocean-loving coastal/Jersey girl), but I will forgive Henry the word choice as I think it is a cute title and I believe the name is meant to conjure another common trope and turn it on its head—"beach reads" is often used as a synonym for "chick lit," another phrase too often used to malign women's interests and the things women like. The protagonist in Beach Read is a writer of the romance genre and I think Henry explored some interesting themes in the book as through the story she explores the things we ascribe with literary merit and as good writing versus those that we don't. Again, not having read much in the romance genre, I appreciate the between-the-lines argument Henry makes to legitimize and normalize the things many women love and enjoy and to give us permission to do the same. Again, as with Book Lovers, I enjoyed Henry's writing and characters a lot. I'm looking forward to her new release to come out this year, and to get caught up on her other books in the meantime.


Trick Mirror: reflections on self-delusion // Jia Tolentino
favorite essays (top favorites*)
The I in Internet*
Always Be Optimizing
Pure Heroines*
The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams*
The Cult of the Difficult Woman*
I Thee Dread

Trick Mirror was the last book I finished reading in 2023 and another that has been on my list for several years at the recommendation of several friends (notably Ynna). Tolentino describes the collection: "These essays are about the spheres of public imagination that have shaped my understanding of myself, of this country, and of this era." Her musings are erudite, personal, and meticulously researched, ranging on topics from the internet and reality TV to the Greek system at her alma mater and the pomp and circumstance of modern weddings. Her writing is incredible and she has such a strong voice and perspective; I look forward to reading more by her.



What are your reading goals for 2024? I am hoping to make a dent in reading more of the books I already own and want to read 25 books this year (a goal moderated by the realities of grad school life). Happy reading!
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