More 2024 Favorites

I try to keep blog posts short, but after listing all of the books I loved, I still had many other favorites to share. Here are some favorite newsletters, podcasts, shows, movies, and music I've loved this year.

Newsletters

a few pages from my Draw Together sketchbook

Draw Together Wendy Macnaughton and her GUT (Grown Ups Table) provides amazing art and mental health prompts for anyone who might want to feel a little more alive in life. 

CRAFT by Jami Attenberg is a great space for writers and that's where she runs her #1000words projects where writer's put down #1000words a day for a certain number of days. 

I also launched Take A Minute with Hazel Kight Witham, a newsletter about LAUSD's no cell phone policy. Each week we take a minute to reflect on how phones and tech have impacted our classrooms and relationships. 

Podcasts

The Stacks: Traci Thomas is a reader and she loves to talk books. She's been doing this since 2018, but I just found The Stacks this year which allows me to cherry-pick episodes with and about authors and books I love. My favorites: Ep. 90 Book Club conversation about Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson with Jason Reynolds, Ep. 204 A Journey South with Imani Perry, and Ep. 292 Writing Toward Beauty with Jesmyn Ward. 

On Base with Mookie Betts: I mean, how could I possibly love Mookie more? Well, if you listen to his podcast, you will probably love him more too. He just started this last season so he only has two, but every episode is a gem. My favorites have been the episodes with Hunter Green, Kiké Hernandez, and Dave Roberts. 

Poetry Unbound: These 20 minute poetry essays are the best, and I could listen to host Pádraig Ó Tuama talk about anything. He starts each episode by reading the poem, then discusses and dissects it. Then, he reads it again. Every time, it's a wonder how the poem changes my perspective. 

Others I listen to regularly include: Reckon: True Stories with Kiese Layon and Deesha Philyaw, Code Switch on NPR, and Vibe Check with Zack Stafford, Saeed Jones, and Sam Sanders. 

Shows I streamed until there was no more left: Shrinking, Hacks, Abbott Elementary. Shows we're in the middle of streaming: The Bear, Pachinko, Great British Bake-Off, Survivor, The Simpsons. 

Movies (we honestly didn't watch many) but we liked Wicked and Inside Out 2.

Music I listened to (because Kiara had the aux.) and also music I ended up liking: Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, Olivia Rodrigo's GUTS, Sade's catalogue, Liz Phair Exile in Guyville, Chappell Roan, Kendrick Lamar.

Top 10 Song Playlist: "II MOST WANTED" "Murder On The Dancefloor" "bad idea right?" "HOT TO GO!" "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" "Double Bubble Trouble" "Not Like Us" "squabble up" 

What did I miss this year? What are you loving? 

2024 Favorites: BOOKS

I love end of the year lists. In 1988, I remember feeling so seen by the top songs of the year: George Michael's "Faith" and INXS' "Need You Tonight," and for the past two days, I've been working out on Peloton a little more than usual in order to confirm my favorite song is there as well: Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em" tops that list. So this year, I'm sharing some of my favorites things, not in an Oprah, buy these things kind of way, but in a, "you might like to read these" kind of way. I'm starting here, with books I loved this year. 

BOOKS

nonfiction:

Falling Back in Love With Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom

This book of small essays pushes the capacity to love. From embracing your shadow, your imperfection, your worst moments, to embracing those who hate you and wish do you harm. This queer, trans voice expands the concept of love for self and others. 

The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay

It took me a good while to get through these delights mostly because I enjoyed sipping them and appreciating each one. Again, Gay brings us on trips to the coffee shop or hours on a trail. He shares moments in life and transform the ordinary into something profound. Like laughter. 

1000 Words by Jami Attenberg

These essays are wonderful bits of craft and motivation from the shared voices of a literary community that lifts one another up. I love the gentle pushes toward our craft and the many different ways into a project that Attenberg and her community provide. 

honorable mention: You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, Not Yo' Butterfly by Nobuko Miyamoto, and On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé

fiction:

Yellow Face by R. F. Kuang

This anti-hero’s perspective on her friend’s death and the stealing of her manuscript is a lesson in the mental gymnastics people use to contort reality in order to live with themselves. It is not an easy read because it's narrator, Juniper is all kinds of awful, but the capture of a publishing industry’s racism and misogyny are laid to bare. 

Long Division by Kiese Laymon

After listening to a few espisodes of the Reckon: True Stories podcast with Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw, I wanted more of Kiese, so I started the audiobook. Such a compelling narrator and the time travel caught me off guard. A smart and haunting book considering all of the multiverse and how the decisions we make each day impact the future. And the names: City Coldson, Lavander Peeler, Baige Shepard, Shalaya Crump. This novel maybe wasn’t really written for a West Coast multiracial Asian girl, but I enjoyed, nonetheless. 

Real Americans by Rachel Kuong

It’s been a minute since I found myself this compelled by a novel. I started reading it on my phone in a bout of insomnia and couldn’t stop for the entirety of a week. It's the story of Lily, Nick, and May, three generations connected by genetics but separated by family secrets and generational differences. Beautiful writing propelled me through a plot that kept me following these characters so much that when it ended, I wanted that last conversation so badly!

honorable mention: Danzy Senna's Colored Television and Percival Everett's Erasure, Rachel Kuong's Goodbye Vitamin. 

young adult:

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

Really enjoyed this YA novel about the JA incarceration. Shifting narrators, all teenagers at the time of Pearl Harbor, take us from the streets of San Francisco to detention centers, concentration camps, off to war, and eventually back to the streets of San Fran. I liked the variety of experiences she captured and the many ways these friends saw one another through this tumultuous time in ways their families could not. 

The Truth About Secrets by Hazel Kight Witham

Who doesn't have a secret, or many, during middle school? In this memoir in verse, Witham captures the stress, fear, and anxiety that comes when the girl you are at school and the girl you are at home collide in a crowded hallway. What do you do? Well, first, you hide in the bathroom, and then, maybe then you can get free.  

The Aves by Ryane Nicole Granados 

This delightful read follows our narrator, Zora, her sister, Prose, and their protective and strict mother, Mercy, as she navigates her adolescent days in a South LA neighborhood. A rich cast of characters and beautiful prose captures this coming of age tale like we have yet to see chronicled in Los Angeles. A beautiful and stunningly written debut. 

Stories All Our Own by Tisha Reichle-Aguilera 

These cousins invite us to hang out with them. These five cousins, all distinct and named, are all unique  and universal. For these slim pages, we endure Sunday Mass, splash in the pool, ride bikes across town, and scratch at chicken pox while our Tías, for the most part, leave us alone. For these days, these years, these pages, we are reminded of the girls we once were, and “wish we could always be right here.”

honorable mention: FLAMER by Michael Curato and PELÉ: The King of Soccer by Eddy Simon and Vincent Brascaglia, and New from Here by Kelly Yang

Any recs for me, y'all?