“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
-John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Maybe books won’t heal our societal wounds. But when you find one that strikes a chord with the deepest part of your soul, you can’t help but think that maybe there’s at least a chance. When such a book comes along, the only right thing to do is to share it with the world.
For the ninth year in a row, I’m doing just that, sharing the books that have given me the most joy and fulfillment over the past 12 months. Old and new, fiction and non – each of them represents a unique facet of my own inner landscape and my own aesthetic judgment. Maybe there’s something objectively good about them, but then again, maybe there’s not. All I know is that these books meant something to me, and I hope one or two of them might mean something to someone else, as well.
The usual disclaimers still apply. The numbers below do not represent a ranking of any sort. I’m simply listing the books in the chronological order that I happened to read them. And as always, please understand that these selections can’t be divorced from the unique moment in time that I encountered them. Plenty of books I once thought were fantastic would elicit little more than a painful cringe if I revisited them today (just look at my past lists), and these books may do the same when I look back on them down the road. It’s all just part of the growth and evolution process we’re continually undergoing.
That being said, behold, the selections for 2024:
1. Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott). The irony of most writing books is that they tend to be full of mediocre writing – and they’re usually boring as hell to boot. But Lamott’s classic is in a category of its own. Not only does it inspire good writing through practical instruction, but it also models it by showing just how beautiful the right combination of words can be. As I shifted from “writing as hobby” to “writing as profession” over this past year, Lamott was one of my mentors and guides. There’s a reason this book is an all-time great.
2. Trail of the Lost (Andrea Lankford). Hope. Loss. Frustration. Grief. Beauty. Resilience. Mystery. This book about several hikers who have gone missing on the Pacific Crest Trail offers a little bit of everything, all while maintaining the pace of a true crime thriller. I became completely engrossed in this story and fascinated by the cool and quirky hiking culture it depicts. Spoiler alert: There’s no big satisfying payoff at the end. But for me, that’s what made the book so compelling. We live in a world where we won’t always find the answers we want, but there’s still tremendous value in the search.
3. The Exvangelicals (Sarah McCammon). Part memoir and part social commentary on why a generation of people like myself are leaving the American evangelical church, this book is hands-down the most relatable piece of writing I have read in years. It’s painful at times, but it’s also strangely nostalgic. (I mean seriously, who else is out there talking about the good old days of Brio and Breakaway magazines?) I’m honestly not sure how helpful this would be for someone on the “inside” who is still committed to the evangelical way of life, but for those of us making our way out, it’s hilarious, heartbreaking, and therapeutic.
4. The Great Believers (Rebecca Makkai). At its best, fiction awakens us to parts of the human experience that we might not otherwise have access to, leading us out of our ignorance and into a place of understanding and empathy. Makkai’s novel did exactly that. Although the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s did not affect my life in any way whatsoever, I’m now able to appreciate the devastation and trauma it brought to an entire community. It made me think, but even more importantly, it made me feel – for people whose voices were silenced by society’s prejudice and its penchant for avoiding anything that makes us uncomfortable.
5. Born To Run (Christopher McDougall). This book is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, and fellow runners will find it shameful that it took me so long to get around to reading it. Although I already knew the basic outline of the story, the characters turned out to be even more colorful and enthralling than I had imagined. If you want to know why some of us are strange enough to go out every day and run mile after mile with smiles on our faces, this book contains the most compelling answer you’ll probably ever find.
6. True Grit (Charles Portis). Most people know this story through the films – either the 1969 version starring John Wayne or the more recent 2010 adaption by the Coen brothers – but as an uncultured buffoon who has yet to see either, my belated introduction to the iconic Mattie Ross came the old-fashioned way. Everything that could be said about this book has likely already been said, and rightfully so. It’s a gripping, humorous, and quintessentially American novel. On multiple occasions, I found myself drawing comparisons to John Steinbeck while reading Portis’s efficient and witty prose. That’s about as high of a compliment as any book can receive.
Revisit all my lists from previous years:
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Drew Thomas Humphrey 