One of the great things about working in education is the two-week long break we receive as part of winter intersession (their words, not mine; wintersession was right there).

I planned to spend most of that time on big projects I kept putting off and writing a shit-ton of pages. Outside of a few meanderances between errand runs, or as part of a marketing blitz, I limited my social media use and turned on the news only once or twice, mostly to check the weather. Ignorance truly is bliss! I could pretend reality was some unreachable planet, or a fantasy land you could only visit by intense hugging.

In these trippin’-ass final days of the year, I’m unsure of the date, continuously surprised at how the passage of time works, and floating in a cookie-fueled daze. Without end-of-year lists to anchor me somewhat, the year behind would be a confusing, pointless slog.  Forget all that introspection nonsense, let’s look back on our escapist undertakings instead!  

I have to give critics their due; they can describe their feelings concisely in a way that makes you want to partake without giving away all the best parts. It’s especially hard to write about music in a way that puts the tune in readers’ heads without them hearing a note. 

Every year I vow to write a short little description/review of these titles, but I’m really bad at it, both the execution and the persistence.  You’ll just have to imagine I’m tugging on your sleeves and making a lot of excitable, unintelligble dolphin-like yelps while I stuff your arms full of media.

As usual, the caveats: I don’t include friends’ and colleagues’ works; everything is ranked based on personal preference, not “merit”; and I don’t reveal the worst experiences because that’s a shitty thing to do.  Consider these “recommendations”.

BOOKS!

Best Fiction - adult and YA

1.       The Final Revival of Opal & Nev: A Novel, Dawnie Walton

2.       Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

3.       Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus

4.       Shopgirl, Steve Martin

5.       TIE: The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride and

Quichotte, Salman Rushdie

6.       Al Capone Does My Homework (Tales from Alcatraz, #3), Gennifer Choldenko

7.      The Loner, Ester Wier*

(*I read this in second grade and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Was it as gory as I remembered? Yes, yes it is.)

Fiction Honorable Mentions

1.       Honor, Thrity Umrigar

2.       A Man Called Ove, Fredrick Backman

3.       Starter Villain, John Scalzi

4.       This Book Betrays My Brother, Kagiso Lesego Molope

5.       Skellig, David Almond

6.       Suds in Your Eye (Suds, #1), Mary Lasswell

7.      Wasps in the Ice Cream, Tim McGregor

8.       Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume

9.       Deenie, Judy Blume

10.     Eeeee Eee Eeee, Tao Lin

Best Short Story Collections - adult and YA

1.       Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fourteen, edited by Ellen Datlow

2.       Red Ridin’ in the Hood: and Other Cuentos, Patricia Santos Marcantonio

3.       The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction, edited by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay

4.       The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories, Eric LaRocca

5.       NANO Fiction Volume 8 Number 2

6.       Robots Have No Tails, Henry Kuttner

Best Nonfiction and Memoir

1.       The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan

2.       The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays, Megan Stielstra

3.       The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

4.       Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Kristin Kobes DuMez

5.       This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, Susan Rogers

6.       On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder

7.       Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent

8.       Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs, Dave Holmes

9.       The Public Library: A Photographic Essay, Robert Dawson

10.   Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe

MOVIES & TELLY!

I keep switching the order of these. Ranking is always hard, even if you don’t take it super-seriously, but ohhhh Hitchcock is gonna be pissed if he sees this. Don’t tell him.

Best

1.     Odd Man Out** (1947)

2.     Crank (2006)

3.     Crash (1996)

4.     The Order (2024)

5.     Leap of Faith (1992)

6.     Heretic (2024)

7.     Hundreds of Beavers (2022)

8.     Roaring Twenties (1939)

9.     The Postman Always Rings Twice** (1946)

10.   Crumb Catcher (2023)

11.   American Fiction (2023)

12.   Kinds of Kindness (2024)

13.   Carry-On (2024)

14.   Brute Force** (1947)

Second Place

1.     S.O.B (1981)

2.     Cemetery Man (1994)

3.     Only God Forgives (2013)

4.     Never Open that Door** (1952)

5.     Faust (1926)

6.     Hardly a Criminal** (1949)

7.     TIE: Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965)

8.     The Greatest Night in Pop (2024)

9.     TIE: The Bear, season 3 and Only Murders in the Building, season 4 (2024)

Recommendation of a Sort!  I Don’t Remember a Single Word! //jazz hands//

1.      Il Fuggiasco (2003). I listed it as a B+ in my spreadsheet. ??

**Seen as part of Noir City, Music Box, Chicago.

***For the style nerds: yes I know the movies should be in italics too, but it’s hard on the eyes.

MUSIC!

For reasons I can’t entirely explain, I went on an zealous li’l mission to borrow every CD from the library—including via interlibrary loan—to discover some “new” music.  I wondered: what the Barenaked Ladies have been up to since Stephen Page left? (Lots.) And why hadn’t I ever picked up an album by Dwight Yoakam? (A folly on my part, since he seems unable to record a lemon.)

Since I love making “mix tapes”, I added a playlist to my usual books and movies lists. And as with the books and movies, almost none of these tunes were released in 2024.  What can I say?  I’m too hip for trends, man.

There’s a total of 158 songs on this list, and that’s me being conservative. However, if you don’t like either BNL or Yoakam, your listening time will be reduced considerably.

Songs run from 1925 onward, comprising nearly 100 years of music. It’s pretty heavy on rock and country, but quite a few genres are represented, including Bulgarian folk music, dark humor, and a weird little ode to Coca-Cola. The last three are last on purpose, because the album is a masterpiece.

Note: some of the lyrics are profane and a few contain videos, so enjoy at your discretion and put on your headphones.

Any music recommendations to share? Not books. Please. For the love of beans. (My TBR list went UP from 833 to 1038 totally by magic.)