The Best of 2024

What I Read, Watched, & Listened To This Year

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Since 2016, my friend Thomas Dixon and I have shared our reading lists with one another at the end of each year. Over the time, I’ve slowly expanded my list to include my favorite music, movies, podcasts, essays, and YouTube conversations. Besides being a good excuse to catch up with a friend, these lists have allowed us to cheat off of each other’s recommendations for future reading. I hope it will help you in similar fashion. Skip to the bottom for my absolute “Best of 2024.”

NOTE: These are emphatically not all works published this year; just things I read and listened to this calendar year (mostly listened to—I’m an audiobook person). Generally speaking, I don’t pay attention to newly released books, though there are a couple. Taking Lewis’s advice, I tend to read old things and re-read the best things. What were your best of 2024?

— Ross

P.S. Check out last year’s list for more recommendations.

2024 Books I Read

1. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley - classic for a reason; Shakespeare-level prose at moments; can’t believe she was 18 when she wrote it; still speaks volumes into our technological (and transhumanist) moment; see my “Disney’s Wish & Unanswered Prayers” for further analysis.

2. The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson - masterful fantasy; mentioned this one last year, because I had just started reading it (thanks PJ); I’m not fantasy-nerd enough to appreciate all the complexity, but enjoyed it enough to finish it (it’s crazy long) and then read the second one (even longer).

3. The Wind and the Willows, Kenneth Grahame - Lewis’ favorite children’s story; probably inspired Narnia; read it to my boys - very difficult prose, took a few chapters to get them into it; by the end, they couldn’t get enough of it; the encounter with Pan woke them up, and Toad’s comedy of errors—which, at first, seemed an almost tacky interruption to an otherwise beautifully quaint, if boring, domestic tale—is what really made them love it.

4. The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis - thousandth time reading; read to my boys; perhaps the most underrated of the saga; there are those who will say it’s the best (and I see why), but I will also say that it hasn’t stuck in my kids consciousness nearly as well as almost every other book in the series, including Horse & His Boy.

5. The Horse & His Boy, C. S. Lewis - thousandth time reading; super fun to read out loud; there are those who will say it is the worst of the series, and it may be, but it is still better than almost every other modern children’s story, period; the boys still quote it.

6. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner - needlessly, needlessly opaque prose; the man is a genius, don’t get me wrong; but I enjoyed almost none of this (truly great) story, because Faulkner decided to use the English language as a torturing device for four hundred pages; I know, I know, I’m wrong, it’s a masterpiece, etc. Say what you will. This is an actual sentence from the book: “And Judith, who could no longer be expected, not since that day, not in her present state, what with Sutpen away along with that wild stock with which he had created his hundred, which though convivially restrained to the edge of that lugubrious adolescence of discontentment which had found itself torn asunder by the shadows of an unremitting and passive uncomprehension, which she, Ellen, could no more see fit to acquiesce the subterfuge of her unrestrained dormancy than to yield to that precarious attenuation of time, to oblige." J/k, I made that quote up. But an average sentence in AA is just as opaque and twice as long. (I loved The Sound & The Fury btw.)

7. Phantastes, George MacDonald - an absolute masterpiece; embarrassed to admit I had started this one THREE times before and never finished it (this time I read it with our book club, which was the accountability I needed!); turned out the ending was worth all four attempts and more; can’t say enough good things about this one; wrote about it HERE; will likely read to my boys this year.

8. Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson - second in the Stormlight Archive series; crazy long, worth the read, but apparently didn’t quite hook me enough to keep going; honestly, I think it was just the sheer length that made me quit after the second one.

9. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad - a classic for a reason; my writing mentor’s favorite book, so the prose struck me in a different (good) way for that reason; not sure what to make of the meaning of it all; didn’t strike me as quite as deep as I expected it might, but nonetheless good; happy for Conrad fans to tell me what I missed.

10. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka - Kafkaesque (j/k); actually very funny but also dark; still felt poignant in our moment, if not so much for the dehumanizing effects of modern economics (though that too), as for the alienating effects of consumerism, internet-addiction, and mental health crises. Blessedly short, glad I read it, prob won’t read again.

11. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky - second read; can’t get enough Dostoevsky; fun to analyze after with the book club, but also maybe made me like it a bit less (when forced to be critical of it—lesson learned there, hopefully); Myshkin is a beautiful character, though not a hero IMO; the book’s tragic end seems not only due to the sin of others but to Myshkin’s own immaturity (not sure if Dostoevsky would agree, though the final lecture from Yevgeny Pavlovich hints that he might…Pavlovich’s rebuke of the prince seems right on to me.)

12. Planet Narnia, Michael Ward - a truly brilliant work of scholarship; not always impressed with ‘Lewis scholars’, but this was on another level; if the thesis—that Lewis secretly and consciously structured the Narnia series after the seven planets of medieval cosmology—is incorrect, that might make the thesis all-the-more impressive, since it fits so well. Mind-blowing. Also inspired me to make my first meme.

13. Life in the Negative World, Aaron Renn - expanded from a viral article, perhaps unnecessarily; the original First Things article, which argues that Evangelicals have moved from a positive to a neutral to a negative reception by our secular counterparts, was rightly celebrated; it’s a helpful framework, and actually bears some resemblance to my “Joseph Movement / Moses Movement” thesis in “A Parish Manifesto” (which Renn was kind enough to read and give me feedback on); Renn is a sharp thinker and the book is worth a read, though he still seems caught in a “Joseph Movement” paradigm IMHO.

14. Samson Agonistes, John Milton - a masterpiece; was privileged to read along with Zach Kuenzli and local Milton scholar Jeremy Larson, which made the reading experience all the more profound; will read again.

15. Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry - what can I say? Berry continues to captivate my soul; as I said last year, basically nothing happens in these stories, and you can’t put them down; the beauty of the ordinary; heavy emphasis on “continuity,” which was sort of my word for the year; Jayber has been my favorite of his thus far; highly recommend.

16. Poetic Diction, Owen Barfield - mind-blowing, prob my favorite non-fiction book of the year; one of the Inklings, Barfield had a deep effect on Lewis’s thought (to whom the book is dedicated); I slow-read it—re-reading each section—over the course of about 18 months, sipping it like a fine scotch…I might start all over again with it this year; his main thesis is that language arose out of a more unified, concrete world altogether prior to the subject-object distinction by which we now interpret reality; for very ancient peoples, a word was not a mere sign or representation of reality but carried the reality itself; this confirms and expands on much of my own epistemology.

17. Gender, Ivan Illich - a wild ride through a difficult topic; my first experience of Illich (somewhat controversial 20th Century Catholic priest & scholar) and honestly, it was exhilarating; part of his thesis here is that modern gender-blindness leads to sexism, while pre-modern gender-consciousness ironically tends toward deeper mutual respect and open-mindedness: "When, from infancy, men and women grasp the world from complementary sides, they develop two distinct models with which they conceptualize the universe. A gender-bound style of perception corresponds to each gender’s domain of tools and tasks. Not only do they see the same things from different perspectives and in different hues, but early on they learn that there is always another side to a thing..." And again: "The genderless key words of contemporary discourse compel us to describe the ambiguous two-sidedness of vernacular reality as a sex war started by Adam and Eve. Invidious comparison now replaces awe as the reaction to otherness.”

18. Begotten or Made?, Oliver O’Donovan - read, along with Illich, for Alastair Robert’s excellent course on “Male & Female in Modernity;” an Anglican priest and scholar writing with great wisdom about procreative ethics; didn’t agree with every word, but he’s my type of thinker for sure. Recommend.

19. C. S. Lewis Essay Collection, ed. Lesley Walmsley - I pretty much live in Lewis’s essays, and this is the most complete collection I know of; cannot recommend highly enough. A+ (of course).

20. Peace Like A River, Leif Enger - read with my oldest daughter, Ila; third or fourth read (for me); a masterpiece; perhaps my favorite contemporary novel; sharing it with my daughter was a joy.

21. Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton - thousandth time reading; still finding new gems; the man was a poet of prose.

22. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco - second time reading; a work of genius; saw more in it than I did the first time, though I also gave less benefit of the doubt to the seemingly nihilistic ending; great book club book.

23. The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis - fourth(?) time reading; Lewis’s earliest non-fiction book as a Christian, though it shows in some ways, boy does it stand the test of time (even relative to his other works); I love it; cool to see how early in his faith life some of his deepest and most lasting ideas were formed; this is the place to go for Lewis’s take, not just on pain, but on the complex problem of human and divine agency (my favorite topic).

24. Fear & Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard - second time reading; obviously brilliant; did not absolutely love it this time around; too many thoughts; I have a bit of Kierkegaard in me, and for that reason, I’m perhaps a bit wary of his somewhat dramatic style; probably comparing him too much to Lewis, but whereas Lewis tends to make high notions more accessible, Kierkegaard tends to make even common notions less accessible; Abraham’s “faith” is, of course, heroic, but the “mustard seed” is also more common than we might suppose (cf the Gospels); thankfully, a Kierkegaardian friend reminded me afterward of the context in which he was writing (against Hegelianism, etc) and the timeliness of his bold wisdom then and there, and I was able to chill out and appreciate his genius once more.

25. The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry - good ‘ol Wendell keeps the hits coming; this one is from very early in his writing career, but doesn’t feel like it; to the contrary, the darkness and depth of this book feels typical of a “later work;” don’t know how he wrote it so young; reader beware, it’s not a tragedy, but in some ways it’s more subtly tragic than a tragedy.

26. All Things Are Full of Gods, David Bentley Hart - not a huge Hart fan, but maybe now I am; the best treatment of the modern problem of consciousness (i.e. what is it?) I have read; the mix of theology, philosophy, and science is mind-boggling; and the format—a Platonic dialogue between Greek gods—made it, actually, quite a bit more accessible than it otherwise would have been; the book is LONG and covers a lot of ground, so it’s difficult to say much about it briefly; but here’s a great one-liner: "We can come to know because we want to know, and we want to know because we already know more than we understand."

27. Reading Genesis, Marilynne Robinson - one of my favorite books of the year; a marvelous writer and a truly creative thinker; oh to be at a place where you can write raw, extemporaneous musings about the entire Book of Genesis from beginning to end with very little thought to structure (from what I can tell), publish it, and have thousands of people read and admire; I am one of those admirers; didn’t agree with all her thoughts, but it made me think so many new thoughts myself; felt like a very feminine version of the Jordan Peterson Genesis lectures (in a good way).

28. At The Back of the North Wind, George MacDonald - second time reading; was a bit slow the first time, but this time felt like an entirely new book; oh, the depths of wisdom and beauty in that man’s mind; gave a nice illustrated version of it to my boys for Christmas; we will start reading it together in the New Year; highly recommend.

29. Snow White, Jonathan Pageau - gorgeously illustrated and cleverly told; a very strong start to the promised fairy tale series from the Symbolic World; my kids loved it; gave it to my nephews and nieces for Christmas.

30. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Howard Pyle (½ way through) - reading to my boys right now; a beautiful book; the artifactual Arthurian lingo can be a bit of a hump for them to get over at first, but they’re all in now, and I think the story is all the better for it; however, I don’t love Pyle’s particular prose (I may have mentioned this last year with Robin Hood)—he just takes too long to say things; I find myself skipping sentences, even paragraphs sometimes, to keep the boys attention; and yet I am still beholden to him for making these stories as accessible as he has.

31. Through New Eyes, James B. Jordan (½ way through) - loving it; wasn’t aware there was a nearly-contemporary Protestant thinker (besides Meredith Kline) who thought this way about the Bible; so glad to have come across his symbolic thinking; I’ve been leaning on my Eastern Orthodox brothers for too long! (j/k).

2024 Unfinished Books (I likely won’t finish)

1. Democracy & Solidarity, James Davidson Hunter - great political thinker from my alma mater; I got pretty far into this one, but alas I just wasn’t patient enough to keep going through the middle section, a long moral-historical jaunt through the evidence of why, “We no longer have the cultural resources to work through what divides us;” he’s right, by the way: a renewed solidarity is what we need if we are going to continue to be a nation; however I’m not as convinced as he seems to be that renewed liberalism on a national level is the way to accomplish that; perhaps that’s why I couldn’t finish it or perhaps the argument was over my head or simply outside my interests; idk, let me know why I should pick it back up.

2024 Podcasts

Not a big year for me and podcasts…

1. “The Symbolic World,” Jonathan Pageau (most)

2. “The Rest Is History,” Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook (some)

3. “Conversations with Tyler,” Economist Tyler Cowen (some)

4. “Lord of Spirits,” Fr. Stephen De Young & Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick (some)

5. “Unherd with Freddie Sayers” (some)

6. “The Jim Rutt Show” (some)

2024 Interviews, Courses, Essays, & Lectures

1. Matthieu Pageau: The Language of Renewal - This was the video that broke my internet this year. And yet, I can hardly even recommend it to people, because the stuff he is getting at is so deep-down (in my opinion) that it risks being way underappreciated or worse, misunderstood, for all kinds of reasons. Matthieu is the author of The Language of Creation, a commentary on the symbolism of the Book of Genesis, which has had quite an effect on me. The things being discussed in this video are the substance of his upcoming second book, The Language of Renewal, which in many ways will continue the work of the first, yet, as Matthieu puts it, “through the eyes of Eve rather than Adam.” Again, proceed with caution. It’s not for everyone. But for me, my mind is still dancing.

2. Jordan Hall w/ Benjamin Boyce: Courage in the Age of Madness - Jordan is a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned philosopher turned Christian. Also just a great guy with a great family. (I had the privilege of getting to spend some time with him this year.) A more powerful mind you will hardly find, but also an uncanny degree of wisdom and faith. I thought this was a good introduction to Jordan’s thought. Let me know what you think.

3. Jordan Hall on the Jim Rutt Show: Is God Real? - In which a new believer and an agnostic debate the logical necessity of the Trinity. Ha! This particular conversation is an intellectual double black diamond, that is to say, not for everyone. The better place to start might be their initial conversation, where Jordan discusses his past work as well as his conversion. I am still absolutely amazed at Jordan’s ability to handle and wield traditional Christian doctrine the way he does, simultaneously marrying it to and letting it correct his own prior philosophical presuppositions on the fly. He is truly gifted, and now he is a gift to the body of Christ.

4. Martin Shaw: Christian Wonder Tales - A video course on traditional story-telling, in which master story-teller and recent Christian convert Martin Shaw…mostly just tells old stories. The man is from another world (kind of a Chestertonian spirit), in the best way. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

5. Alastair Roberts: Male & Female In Modernity - An online course with Davenant Institute, which, I’m sorry to say, may not be available for public purchase after the fact. But if he ever offers it again, I highly recommend. Honestly, I recommend all things Alastair.

6. Alastair Roberts: Lewis The Anglican - In which Alastair argues that Lewis’s particular Anglican context played a great role in the wide appeal of his thinking and writing: “To understand Lewis, it helps to consider a certain form and vision of the Church of England and of a distinctive Anglican spirit. Lewis and his work grew in a sort of cultural soil that is much depleted now, even in those pockets where it is still partially encountered.” Great read.

7. Paul Kingsnorth: Against Christian Civilization - This lecture, hosted by First Things, turned some heads. Kingsnorth, also a newer Christian, is a reactionary, for better and worse. As I argued in a brief thread on X, I think it’s best to hear this argument prophetically, not strictly theologically. It may not be a categorical fact that a Christian civilization can never exist, that jellyfish tribes & Christian barbarians are always the way. But Kingsnorth still compels us to consider whether it might be true now. This plays into my thesis that the modern church is currently in transition from a “Joseph Movement” to a “Moses Movement.”

8. On Not Being A Cubicle Monkey - Maybe my favorite article I read on Substack this year, by Anthony Scholle and Grant Martsolf. “The conclusion many draw is that work itself is pointless. But I would argue otherwise: work is not pointless. Pointless jobs are what we hate, not work itself.” Some deep insights here, for those with ears to hear.

9. Richard Rohlin & Jonathan Pageau: Dante’s Inferno - A video course on the first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy. As many old books as I’ve read, I’m still one of those people who is genuinely helped by a “jump start” into any great ancient or medieval work of literature. On my own, I can never get all that far. This class was a great jump start.

10. Iain McGilchrist: We Are Living In A Deluded World - Brilliant work on the border of science, philosophy, and theology from McGilchrist the last few years. This one’s on the problem of the domination of left-brain thinking in the modern world. I might have mentioned this one last year, but I keep coming back to it.

2024 Music I Enjoyed

1. Lawrence - this band absolutely blew my socks off this year; A+ musicianship, A+ vocal performances, and creative pop song-writing; I’ve been meaning to write about their use of gospel style and harmonization in very secular tunes; start with their acoustic-ish versions of Don’t Lose Sight and 23 and thank me later (language warning).

2. William Sumner - William is a close friend and a true poet of words and melodies; he put out a fantastic album this year (with some other good friends of mine playing alongside him) and it is every bit worth your time; my favorite song is La Vie En Noir, which I have mentioned before. Check him out.

3. Jacob Collier - Djesse Volume 4 is so good; okay fine, there are some weird ones too; but tons of great stuff from the Mozart of our time.

4. Scary Pockets - brilliant funk covers of classic pop hits

5. Bach - the GOAT

6. Fleet Foxes - favorite band for the last decade at least; continues to feel like the soundtrack of my life

7. Billy Joel - my musical father, for better and worse, but mostly for better.

2024 New Movies & Shows I Watched

1. Killers of the Flower Moon - disturbing but good; not sure I would watch again nor that I will remember it a few years from now (sorry).

2. The Hunger Games (Prequel) - being a fan of the originals, I was pretty disappointed; it had its moments, but overall not great; too intense without satisfactory plot and character development.

3. Napoleon - people hated it, but I liked it; I’m not one with historical bones to pick in this case (though I’m sure there were many); I just thought it was beautiful and rightly depressing.

4. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - no, no, no, no, no; loved the first Mad Max, but this one just seemed to get worse with every minute, the ending being the worst of the worst; a celebration of resentment; ugh, I don’t know what else to say.

5. The Fall Guy - maybe my wife and I’s favorite at-home movie rental of the year; great fun.

6. Rings of Power, Season 2 - I apologize, I cannot yet pass judgment; almost everyone I trust says it’s better than Season 1 (which, as a rabid Tolkien fan, could not keep me awake); the beginning of Season 2 was a little too grizzly for me to watch with Hannah, and when I tried to steal time to watch on my own…I fell asleep; but I am assured it gets better as the season progresses; I will get it done and perhaps I will enjoy…but not yet.

7. Kung Fu Panda 4 - I have LOVED watching these movies with my kids, who love them quite a bit more than I; but I’m sad to say this was the first one that got mediocre reviews from all of us; so many plot lines, just too much going on.

8. Civil War - enjoyed it from beginning to end, though the ending itself felt like a missed opportunity; I’m not sure if the film was trying to glorify journalism or demonize it; I suspect it was trying to glorify it(?), but I came away feeling that it had done nothing if not demonize it to exactly the degree it deserves and beyond.

9. Twisters - tons of fun; enjoyed the earnestness (a bit of a Top Gun: Maverick vibe); to me, not as good as the original, but I hold the original very dear to my heart.

10. Dune 2 - the ending it deserved, in every sense; I’m a fan of the book, and I felt the first film’s cinematography and casting did the book justice, though it suffered from that very annoying feeling of incompleteness that often happens when a film is split in two (and I don’t mean cliff-hanger—more like haven’t even gotten to the cliff yet); the second movie brings everything to its rightful conclusion, making the whole thing an epic accomplishment of cinema; however, in doubling-down on the author’s failed intent to make Paul an anti-hero, it gets what it deserves, leaving the viewer (who couldn’t help but root for Paul all along—and for good reason!) empty-handed.

11. Mission Impossible 7 - say what you will, I love Tom Cruise, and I continue to love these movies; was it annoying that they broke this one up into two movies? yes; will I go see the next one when it comes out? indeed.

12. Gladiator 2 - saw it with my dad, who had already seen it and enjoyed it enough to go see with me again, and that made me enjoy it all the more; not as good as the first (obviously), but a valiant effort; worth the watch.

13. Inside Out 2 - my family enjoyed it well enough; it was good fun, but I couldn’t help but sort of pick it apart philosophically from beginning to end; that, however, might be my problem, not a problem with the film itself.

14. Dark Matter (Apple TV+) - by far my favorite show of the year, maybe the last few years; loved it from start to finish; go watch it.

15. Bad Monkey (Apple TV+) - really fun/funny murder mystery sort of show with Vince Vaughan playing himself, as usual; can’t say it was profound or anything (and wouldn’t watch with the kids), but Han and I looked forward to each new episode; Apple’s production team continues to be doing something right.

What did I miss? Please let me know in the comments.

Ross’s Best of 2024:

• Best Classic Fiction I Read: Phantastes, George MacDonald (1858)

• Best Contemporary Fiction I Read: The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (1986)

• Best Non-Fiction I Read: Poetic Diction, Owen Barfield (1928)

• Best New Music I Heard: Lawrence

• Best Show I Watched: Dark Matter (2024)

Ross’s Best of 2023 (for the record)

• Best Classic Fiction I Read: Robin Hood, Louis Rhead (1910)

• Best Contemporary Fiction I Read: Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry (2004)

• Best Non-Fiction I Read: Remaking The World, Andrew Wilson (2023)

• Favorite Music: Jacob Collier (esp. the new released tracks of Djessee Vol. 4) (2023)

• Best Film I Saw: Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan (2023)

Ross’s Best of 2022 (for the record)

• Best Classic Fiction I Read: East of Eden, John Steinbeck (1952)

• Best Contemporary Fiction I Read: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke (2004)

• Best Non-Fiction I Read: Seeing Like A State, James C. Scott (1998)

• Best Film I Saw: Pig, with Nicolas Cage (technically 2021)

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That’s it! Thanks for reading. I’d genuinely love to hear your “Best of 2024.” Leave them in the Comments below. And if you enjoyed this post, please hit the LIKE and RESTACK buttons below. It helps a great deal.