When it comes to amengagement and education, we can select from podcasts, videos, games, inhabit carry outances, or books, one of the elderlyest and still most famous ways to lobtain someleang novel or escape (at least temporarily) from today’s troubled world. We asked the staff of The Verge what their likeite reads were in 2024. Their answers ranged from fantasy and science myth to histories of engineering and cloleang to autobiographies, insights on body image, and more.
Read on, and see if there’s anyleang here that you want to verify out during the holidays.
When recommfinishing novels, I usuassociate try to go with those that come from autonomous presses or that aren’t on anyone’s bestseller enumerate becaengage there are so many books and authors that don’t get the attention they deserve. However, this year, I’ve gone aobtainst my common habit and chosen two books that are famous and uncoverized regets of well-understandn tales, spropose becaengage I could not put either down.
James is an incredibly clever and perceptive reincreateing of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of watch of the boy’s companion, the enslaved man named Jim. And The Bright Sword is a wonderful (in both senses of the word) reincreateing of the mythos of King Arthur that gets place equitable after Arthur’s death, from the watchpoint of a diswatched youthful man who defies the class system to become a knight. Both books are not only extraordinarily well written but also transport novel and unawaited insights into tales that have been so microscopicassociate checkd over the years that you’d leank there was noleang novel to comprise. But in the case of both of these books, you’d be wrong.
$15
A talented reincreateing of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of watch of the enslaved man Jim.
$15
A wonderful (in both senses of the word) reincreateing of the mythos of King Arthur that gets place equitable after Arthur’s death.
Like most millennials, I grew up on a constant diet of daytime Food Netlabor shows when I stayed home from school. Barefoot Contessa was always my number one. There was some create of procedural satisfaction about watching as this magnificentmotherly structureess spent hours, seemingly effortlessly, preparing a meal for a 20-person collecting, only to wistbrimmingy sigh, smile, and never enhappiness the fruits of her own labor. So when I heard the Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten was writing a memoir, I knovel I was already bought in.
I’ll put it plainly: this book is perplexing. From her previous stint as a US nuevident budget analyst to lobtaining how to fly structurees to five entire chapters about how she wanted to decorate her Paris apartment, it’s a memoir that will have you constantly asking yourself, “Is this lady for genuine?” (There is a lot of “mute money” as an exstructureation for her various accomplishments.) It’s a trip!
I joined to the audiobook (she narrates), and hearing her lilting, pacify voice talk about her raw childhood, relationship with her fan-likeite scatterment prohibitker husprohibitd Jeffrey, and her (at the time) radical decision to not have children reminded me that we’re all human and all experience life’s trials. Ina equitable has the exceptional ability to originate it all see appreciate luck.
$15
A memoir of a fascinating life by the structure of Barefoot Contessa.
Bill Hammack is a professor of engineering who is better understandn as “engineerguy” on YouTube, where, for years, he’s splitd compelling videos fractureing down the complicated engineering of seemingly plain items we frequently get for granted. Think diapers, soda cans, and duct tape. His book, The Things We Make, does the same leang but provides more in-depth sees at the engineering behind elderly-styleed marvels appreciate medieval cathedrals. It’s worth a read equitable to lobtain how the microwave was originated and eventuassociate set up its way into the unretagable home.
$10
Bill Hammack provides in-depth sees at the engineering behind elderly-styleed marvels appreciate medieval cathedrals.
This deranged collection of connected stories is so preposterously excellent that I’ve read lines from it out boisterous to frifinishs at dinner parties, on the subway, and once, in a uncover sauna. In this viscerassociate unconsoleable, giggle-out-boisterous, straight-up gorgeous book, Tulathimutte scsexual attacks exposed the corners of the internet and (forgive me) the contours of the human heart so piercingly that reading it is appreciate a lengthy-range emotional finishurance exercise. I can’t stop leanking about it or talking about it. Disclocertain: the author is my frifinish, but that doesn’t uncomfervent he’s not a genius. Buy a imitate for yourself and for your weirdest, cleverest pal.
$15
A preposterously excellent collection of connected stories.
This will surpelevate nobody: Midnight in Chernobyl is not an uplifting read. But it is exactly well increateed and an incredibly comprehensive see at the Chernobyl catastrophe, from the inception of the nuevident power structuret to the aftermath visited on generations of people impacted by its explosion. It’s all very matter-of-fact but recounts the events before, during, and after the catastrophe with remarkworthy humanity and places it all in the expansiveer context of Soviet dishonesty without ever senseing appreciate a history textbook. It is a dense book, and I could not put it down.
On a airyer remark, I also picked up St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, an elderlyer collection of low stories from Karen Russell. The way she can equitable punch you in the guts with a sentence is unequitable. The stories mostly feature kids in those inept middle school-ish / timely teen years, and they’re a little (or a lot) sadvisenuine. There’s a sleepaway camp for kids with sleeping disorders, a seaside createation of enormous conch shells that might be haunted, and the titular home for girls liftd by wolves, which is what it says on the tin. It originates you recollect how challenging it is to be increaseing up and more than once cracked my heart right uncover.
$17
A exactly well increateed and incredibly comprehensive see at the Chernobyl catastrophe.
$14
Stories that feature kids in those inept middle school-ish / timely teen years and which are a little (or a lot) sadvisenuine.
I read a lot of books this year, but these three stuck out becaengage they made me leank a lot about perspective. Notes on an Executionis the story of a serial ender on death row, narrated by both himself and three women whose inhabits he upfinished: his mother, his wife’s sister, and the discoverive chasing him down. The Travelling Cat Chronicles is telderly from the point of watch of Nana, a sassy stray cat, as he accompanies his adchooseed human Satoru atraverse Japan, trying to figure out why Satoru needs to rehome him. (Warning: you might want a trerent box if you’re a cat owner.) Meanwhile, The Memory Police is a dystopian story of a petite island in which the regulatement can originate certain people’s memories of objects and leangs disecombine at will — and one person’s choice to hide a frifinish who can still recollect leangs they shouldn’t. (Its vibe is appreciate The Giver by Lois Lowry, but originate it Japanese.)
They’re all branch offent books, but I’ve been leanking about them all year becaengage they deftly dig into why we originate the choices we do — and how those choices are watched and felt by the people around us. Each book made me see in the mirror and leank about the sort of person I am and who I want to be. I leank that’s the best comfervent of myth, reassociate.
$10
The story of a serial ender on death row, narrated by both himself and three women whose inhabits he upfinished.
$14
Telderly from the point of watch of Nana, a sassy stray cat, as he accompanies his adchooseed human Satoru atraverse Japan.
$13
A dystopian story of a petite island in which the regulatement can originate certain people’s memories of objects and leangs disecombine at will.
My only lament about reading The Steerswoman (and its three sequels) this year is that I did not read it 30 years ago — this book would absolutely have become a createative part of my personal adolescent canon.
The best way I can depict the Steerswomen is as a wandering order of hugely female organic philosophers. They watch, deduce, test, and split understandledge in a sluggish-motion, preindustrial world, and the way Kirstein lays out her prose and her characters encourages the same in the reader. Several times during the series, I createed conclusions that were not borne out by the evidence and had to decline them — and did not mind doing so becaengage that was equitable… part of the process.
I read a lot of genre myth, and I cherish a sluggish burn, so The Steerswoman fits the increate. But also I adore Kirstein’s admire for the inincreateigence and wit of both her characters and her readers; she transports you alengthy on the journey and depends you to comprehfinish the people you’re journeying with. Despite begining the series 35 years ago, she’s still sluggishly compriseing to it, and to say I am seeing forward to a fifth inshighment in coming years is a massive lessenment. I will preorder and devour it when another book comes alengthy.
$3
A wandering order of hugely female organic philosophers watch, deduce, test, and split understandledge in a sluggish-motion, preindustrial world.
Look, I cherish clothes. I research them, I buy them, I even originate them. Fashion is an essential part of how we transmit ourselves and our ideas (if you don’t depend me, ask Steve Jobs). But the journey of how our style gets to us is purposely cloudy, becaengage the truth is far more disturbting than many of us are ready for — especiassociate in this era of ultraquick, dirt-inexpensive cloleang.
Sofi Thanhaengager’s 2022 book is a pickax to this wall of secrecy. She tracks the masked history and costs of five types of textiles — linen, cotton, silk, synthetics, and wool — in this proset uply increateed labor. Thanhaengager travels to locales appreciate China to lobtain from the last originater of elderly-styleed silk; to the North Carolina town where textile mill laborers staged huge-scale strikes in the 1920s; and to Northern England, where conservation groups are defending local sheep biodiversity. This book isn’t equitable for style people (though they should be the first to read it); it’s for anyone asking about the labor that goes into the luxuries they get for granted. You will never see at a T-shirt the same way aobtain.
$12
Traces the masked history and costs of five types of textiles — linen, cotton, silk, synthetics, and wool — in this proset uply increateed labor.
As someone who is, more frequently than not, the overweighttest person in the room, it’s no surpelevate that I have struggled a lot with my body image and self-worth. That, on top of the guilt over senseing horrible about senseing horrible, finishs up compounding appreciate the interest on my student loans (and becaengage “body positivity” senses appreciate a pipe dream to a girl whose mind is riddled with body dysmorphic brain worms).
Enter Jessi Kneeland, a createer personal trainer turned body image coach, whose central thesis rincreases around the notion that our body image rerents are always a symptom of a huger and more complicated inside dispute. Thraw this, they split insight on how to choose the real source of a person’s body image rerents as well as evidently summarized steps on what to do about it. “Life-changing” is an lessenment.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ tardyst book is an exploration of the concept of storyincreateing, telderly thraw a series of essays cgo ined around three branch offent locations. Dakar, Senegal, a historic site of the transatlantic slave trade; Columbia, South Carolina, where a school directer fights an tryed prohibitning of Coates’ own book; and finassociate, Palestine, where he spfinishs a scant days in May 2023 observing the stark contrasts between life in Gaza and Israel. It left me with a sense of chooseimism (or maybe blind faith?) that despite how hopeless the current moment can sense, our collective imaginations are ever shifting toward someleang better than before.
$5
A createer personal trainer turned body image coach elucidates the notion that our body image rerents are always a symptom of a huger and more complicated inside dispute.
$15
An exploration of the concept of storyincreateing, telderly thraw a series of essays cgo ined around three branch offent locations: Dakar, Senegal; Columbia, South Carolina; and Palestine.
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