This wasn’t my best media consumption year. Some of that was due to the state of the world, and some of it was because of personal crises and a demanding stretch at my day job. But the result is that my list is slimmer than to normal. I hope that 2025 will be better, because I have to say the only way I’m going to get through the next four years will be art. I’m going to need all the art.
As always, the normal caveats apply: this isn’t a best of list, it’s merely a list of things I read, watched, and listened to in the last twelve months that made me happy or gave me thinky thoughts. If you’re curious, you can check out my previous year in reviews: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.
Music and Podcasts
“Good Luck, Babe!“/Chappell Roan at the VMAs: like seemingly everyone, I saw Chappell Roan’s Tiny Desk concert and then mainlined her backlist. What a talent–and what an instantly iconic VMAs performance. I’ve watched it a zillion times since, and it’s got the energy we’re all going to need rolling forward.
“Right Back to It“/Waxahatchee: but sometimes, you don’t want to burn down a castle with your posse of knights. Instead, you want to kick back on the porch with an iced tea and the relationship that fits you like perfectly worn jeans. In those moments, this track is a vibe (as the kids say).
“I Just Want to Wake Up with You“/Helado Negro: I am a sucker for songs that sound the way romance feels to me, and this one fits the bill perfectly. It’s mellow and almost nostalgic (it gives me The Postal Service a bit). I may have listened to it on repeat for three days to get through writing a difficult chapter in the spring.
Live from Fenway Park/Noah Kahan: speaking of things I listened to on repeat, this album accompanied me through not one but two books. Kahan’s songs are raw and specific, almost bitter but never quite tipping over the line. When you read Bold Moves, if I nail the intensity of those first romantic relationships that you never quite get over, it’ll be thanks in part to Noah Kahan.
“The Unpopular Vote”/Radiolab: if we talked about American politics in the fall, I probably recommended this to you. I had no idea that we came so close to getting rid of the Electoral College in the 1970s. This one will give you hope, and then it’ll poignantly demonstrate why short term thinking so frequently undermines change.
Fiction
Slough House/Mick Herron: the author of 2024 for me was Mick Herron. I started the first book thanks to the excellent adaptation on Apple+, but I kept reading because hot damn, Herron’s prose is great. The basic set up is that Slough House is the assignment given to MI-5 agents who’ve committed serious errors, but despite their diminished status, the residents of Slough House keep getting drawn into intrigue. Jackson Lamb (their nominal leader) can be boorish and awful, but if you can stomach him, you’ll adore these books. Number 7 was my favorite because it shares the most DNA with romance, but I enjoyed the entire series. Bring on Book 9, which is due out in September 2025.
With Love, From Cold War/Alicia Thompson: I read this late in 2023, and thus it missed the cutoff for my previous list. But allow me to rectify that error here and acknowledge a book that I’ve already reread twice in a time when I’m barely reading. This remains the best contemporary romance from the last few years, IMHO. Thompson sells me on two complex, wounded characters, whose initial misunderstandings and misapprehensions about each other melt into a perfectly believable, perfectly beautiful romance.
The Duke Who Didn’t/Courtney Milan: what’s this I hear about the historical romance struggling? I can’t hear you over the sound of this amazing series. The entire book, I was so convinced that I knew where it was going, and I didn’t want it to go there. And then it didn’t. It delighted me instead–which of course I should’ve known it would.
We Could Be So Good/Cat Sebastian: this book will make you want to put a pot of soup on the stove, crawl into your favorite sweater, and listen to Chet Baker, preferably while its raining softly outside. Don’t be a fool like me and put off reading it any longer. The rest of this list can wait.
Alternate Endings/Ali Rosen: I read this book in late 2023 in a single morning. It has so many things I adore: leads with a complex history who make each other better, friend groups that I want to know and love IRL, and a realistic and nuanced representation of parenthood. There’s also Ireland, amazing food, and an incredible romance. Read this, pretty please.
Non Fiction
The Originalism Trap/Madiba Dennie: I picked this book up because I wanted to know if originalism–the legal theory that seems to be destroying the country–had been developed in good faith and used badly or developed cynically as a power grab (unsurprisingly, it’s the latter). But I left with a name and an understanding of what we need instead: inclusive constitutionalism. Read this for a roadmap out of the mess in which we find ourselves.
Chess Duels/Yasser Seirawan: at least nominally, I learned how to play chess this year. I’m still terrible, but I know enough to follow someone who’s brilliant talk about it. If I were going to recommend a single book about chess to you, it would be this one, partly because Seirawan is charming and also because he manages to clearly communicate the drama of the sport. It’s an amazing trick.
Movies and Television
The Diplomat, Season 2: okay, so I still have trouble believing that Kerri Russell is supposedly too messy looking to be VP (like, ha), but every twist and turn of season 2 of this show was pitch perfect. There’s a moment where Russell is changing a bandage on Rufus Sewell’s abdomen while they argue, and not since Friday Night Lights have the actual cadences of a long-term marriage been captured so accurately on screen.
Culinary Class Wars: do we need another cooking competition show? Do we really? Well, if it’s like this we do. Imagine two groups of chefs: the white spoons are the established, famous ones, while the black spoons are the scrappy upstarts who want everything that the white spoons have. Then add wildly dramatic challenges and ten of thousands of dollars worth of elite ingredients, and you have something wholly new. Who’ll win? My darlings, I wouldn’t contemplate spoiling it for you.
My Lady Jane: on the one hand, I’m sorry that we’re not going to get a second season. But also…season 1 was perfect. An excellent (and sexy) romance, with hilarious writing and performances from top to bottom. What’s not to love?
Hit Man: if I had a few requests for Hollywood, they would boil down to make movies sexy again and make movies fun again. Or maybe I could just shorten that to “put Glen Powell in all the things.” He’s just wildly charismatic, and at this point, I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do. I’m not even convinced that he’s good looking, but damn if he and Adria Arjona don’t spark off the screen in this one.
Music by John Williams: I watched this documentary about composer John Williams straight through, and then promptly hit “play from the beginning” and watched it a second time. I would listen to Spielberg and Williams discuss movies and music for hours. It was that good.
Experiences:
Nine of the best hours I had this year occurred in theaters: we saw a touring production of Les Miserables in Norfolk, the original Broadway cast of Suffs in New York, and The Twenty-Sided Tavern off-Broadway. I pretty much always cry at the theater, even when the work in question isn’t sad. I simply find human creativity and tenacity overwhelming and wonderful. People can make such beautiful things, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, they make them right in front of you.
We went to the Grand Canyon in June, and I have to tell you: I am not a rock person. At all. But the grandeur and majesty of the Grand Canyon are beyond description. I would voluntary go back to the desert, that’s how moving I found it.
In June, I attended a reunion of sorts, something I swore I would never do but yet am glad that I did. I can’t believe I moved to Washington, DC, twenty years ago. I can’t believe everything that’s happened since, good and bad. But standing on the West Front of the Capitol late at night alongside some of the coolest people I know, with the city sparkling in front of us, was a definite moment.
Emma Barry 