A few of our favorite things from 2024

Issue 150: Sharing the essays, books, shows, movies and music we most enjoyed in 2024

Jan 07, 2025

As the new year starts, we would like to look back on 2024 and share some of our favorite books, podcasts, essays, and bits of pop culture from the past year. These are some of the things we most enjoyed—many of which are, in one way or another, linked to our interests in groups and identity.

Here are some of our biggest recommendations!

Jay’s Favorites:

Show: Shōgun is the collision of two men from different cultures: an English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan and a powerful daimyo engaged in a life and death game with his own political rivals; and Lady Mariko, a brilliant woman who translates between the two men and is often tasked with defending Japanese traditions. It was the single best show I’ve ever seen that portrays cultural psychology—revealing the constant clash between individualism and collectivism. It also won 18 Emmy awards—setting a new record as the most awarded television show in history. This is prestige TV at it’s best.

Book: I really enjoyed The Chaos Machine (by Max Fisher) and Outrage Machine (by Tobias Rose-Stockwell) which both investigated how social media has damaged democracy and other aspects of society. Jon Haidt’s best-selling book “The Anxious Generation” did a great job describing the impact on children and communities, but I encourage people to read these other books to understand how this technology impacts the rest of society. These books take a broader historical and cultural view to make sense of how 5 billion people are using this technology and where this is all headed (and, yes, it’s terrifying).

Podcast: My friend Ana Gantman always sends me the most interesting podcasts, including this one. She recently sent me this discussion with Sarah Haider who had taken ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic, which contributed to her decision to quit her popular podcast. The internet suddenly seemed different. She would log on to social media and no longer feel the sense of outrage that had previously fueled her podcasting career. Instead, she realized that her anger was just enough to get her to rant online, which provided a lucrative career, but not enough to engage in real social change. She compared the drug to 1,000 hours of deep therapy. I wonder if more of us would have this same insight if we could break our addiction to outrage and find healthier ways to engage with others. Listen to it here:

Essay: In October, the New York Times published a deep dive into the University of Michigan’s D.E.I. Program. Over the past decade, the university has spent over $250 million dollars on various activities to promote D.E.I., yet current students and faculty seem more frustrated than ever. The essay outlined how many of the initiatives have been ineffective and it closed with an excellent quote from Daicia Price, the D.E.I. director at the Michigan school of social work, who was frustrated with students’ inability to talk about Gaza productively: “Social justice is not screaming, fighting, yelling at people, telling them they’re going to burn in hell.” She noted that many students wanted to talk about these complex issues, but had never seen how to do it effectively. This is one of the problems I’ve seen over the past few years on campus as these initiatives have taken a turn away from inclusive dialogue that aims to find common ground and actionable solutions. We urgently need a new paradigm for cross-identity discourse on campuses.

Dom’s Favorites:

Book: This is probably a recency effect, but I read Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Intermezzo, over the holidays and loved it. It’s a story about two very different brothers—a socially adept lawyer, a deeply awkward chess nerd—mourning their recently deceased father. They find themselves in a liminal, in between period when they and their (in one case, multiple) romantic partners find themselves redefining their relationships and their very selves. As one character reflects about herself, “Life has slipped free of its netting. She can do very strange things now, she can find herself a very strange person… It means nothing. That isn’t true: it means something, but the meaning is unfamiliar.”

Podcast: Small Town Murder is a guilty pleasure. Each episode involves one comedian telling another comedian the story of a real-life killing that occurred, you guessed it, in a small (usually American) town. Always gruesome and often a tad crude, the tales are nonetheless fascinating for what they reveal about small town life (gossip galore) and the reasons that people turn to murder…the most common being sex, money, and disrespect.

Music: I thought Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album was brilliant. I enjoyed Brat by Charli xcx too. Yes, I do have a teenage daughter.

Yvonne’s favorites

Essay: The Ghosts in the Machine. An exposé on Spotify’s internal Perfect Fit Content (PFC) program revealed that Spotify adds cheap, ghost-written filler songs to at least 150 of its curated playlists to save money on artist royalties. As a music lover who streams at least 80,000 minutes of music per year, the essay had me thinking about how online music streaming/subscription services have changed the music industry and the way artists are paid. (And you know, the profit maximizing of it all). It seems these filler tracks are pushing aside artists who pour heart and soul into their music and are dreaming to be featured in Spotify’s discover algorithm.

“Spotify’s own internal research showed that many users were not coming to the platform to listen to specific artists or albums; they just needed something to serve as a soundtrack for their days, like a study playlist or maybe a dinner soundtrack. In the lean-back listening environment that streaming had helped champion, listeners often weren’t even aware of what song or artist they were hearing. As a result, the thinking seemed to be: Why pay full-price royalties if users were only half listening?”

Music: Americana & Alternative Folk were my biggest genres this year, but I’ve also been getting into alt-country and bluegrass. I’ve been loving Molly Tuttle and Kathleen Edwards, two artists I discovered this year. But my 2024 top artist was Maya de Vitry, an indie folk-rock artist who I had the pleasure of meeting and seeing live twice this year. Her newest record, “The Only Moment” was heart-opening and healing for me. My favorite track, “Watching the Whole Sky Change” is about connecting to your inner world and appreciating small precious moments. I think the lyric, “I need less of the standing right here, in the only moment—and somehow still looking away” transcended my brain to a new plane of existence. Maya is an amazing songwriter and live performer— her lyrics and delivery illustrate the most complex, beautiful and confusing facets of life on earth.

Movie: The Wild Robot was my most memorable movie this year. When I came across a TikTok video of a young child crying and repeating, “It’s so good” as he walked out of the theatre I knew it would be great, but I wasn’t prepared for the emotions I would feel and how much I’d root for the main character. In a recognizable sci-fi future on earth, the movie emphasizes the need for technology to respect nature. Honorable mention: Dìdi, an Asian-American coming-of-age film that takes place near my hometown! I hinted that I worked on set for this movie last year. It was also a top pick for Barack Obama.

Book: No Such Thing as a Bad Kid: Understanding and Responding to Kids with Emotional & Behavioral Challenges Using a Positive, Strength-Based Approach by Charles D. Appelstein has helped me reframe and understand the challenging behaviors of the foster children I work with as a court-appointed advocate and case supervisor. I attended Charles’ in-person talk and I got a taste for his ideas and tools for working with at-risk children, but his book is a comprehensive guide for all parents, teachers, and child-guiders. The book is filled with research and evidence-based practices, but also his uncommon wisdom and personal successes (and failures) which culminate into essential knowledge for working with children.

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