Favorite Books of 2024

In this final episode of season one, Brett discusses his favorite books out of the 145 he read this year. All books discussed can be found on his bookshop.org page listed below.

Watch Behind the Stack on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@brettsbookstack

Bookshop.org page:
https://www.bookshop.org/shop/brettsbookstack

Brett's instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bretts.book.stack

Behind the Stack email:
brettsbookstack@gmail.com

Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:00

Hey, it's Brett, and welcome to Behind the Stack, my final episode of the year. Appropriately, I'm talking about my favorite books of 2024. I have a number of titles to go over with you, so stick around. All right. So this year I read 145 books. books, which was a record for me by a long shot. I actually don't looking back. I have no idea how I actually did that. I'm kind of surprised. I really start to think, did I ever actually leave the house, but I read so much good stuff. Really? Hardly any stinkers. 36 new authors, debut authors, which was the biggest surprise to me this year. I just really leaned into them. And ultimately, uh, four of the titles that I'm going to be talking about today are debut authors. So in terms of 2025, I think. I'm going to lean into that even harder. I really want to celebrate these new writers and seek them out. Um, not only because they, they need the boost because they are new, but also just because of the incredible stories that they're telling. so kudos to these writers, kudos to the publishers who are taking them on and taking chances on, on new writers and discovering new talent. And I can't wait for all of these people to see what they're going to come up with next. Okay, so here we go. Number 10 for me is James. Arguably I could have put this up higher in my list. I thought this was such a fantastic book. It is the book of the year. Really it is the book of the year did I think it was my favorite book of the year? No, but do I think it's an incredible book? Absolutely. For those who don't know, James by Percival Everett is a retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story, but told from the perspective of Jim, the slave, Percival Everett has said that this is to him about giving a character his due. And he absolutely does. It is a phenomenal novel. What he does with this story is just so great. You don't have to have read Huckleberry Finn to read James. Obviously, if you're familiar with Huckleberry Finn, it's going to enrich the experience a lot more, but it is a really beautiful, brutal, but, uh, incredible book. So that's number 10. Number nine is Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp. This was such an interesting book. To me, Adam Rapp currently has written the book to the musical of S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders, which is running on Broadway, but this book is, is very different from that. It is about a family and it starts in the 1950s up in upstate New York. We follow the different. Family members, there are three daughters and one son, and each chapter is dedicated to either one of the siblings, or there's parts of it that the mother's story comes into play as well. You know, at its beginning, it seems very much like a traditional, family novel, a la Jonathan Franzen, Claire Lombardo. But very early on, Adam Rapp is playing with the idea of. Darkness and violence and how close our proximity is as people to harm. And that plays out as the book goes on, as the mother begins to suspect that the son might be a serial killer. It is truly gripping. I will say this, that it is a tense book, but it is not a book that is rampant with violence or anything like that. Despite the book being about. You know, violence in one's proximity to it, um, so I just say that, but wow, what a, what a fantastic book that I feel like went under the radar for a lot of people this year. So I'm hoping that a few more people turn out to discover it. So that's Wolf at the Table. Alright, at number 8 is Anyone's Ghost by August Thompson. This is a debut novel, just a really electric, book about a 15 year old young man, Who has a summer job and he meets this older guy who's in his early twenties, who is the epitome of like coolness and hipness. And this boy is immediately drawn to him. It really explores that. That point in people's lives when I know for, for men and maybe for women as well, where you kind of hero worship someone for this kid, it's, it's a, it's all kind of mixed up and is he in love with him or does he want to be him? And it follows their kind of relationship over the next several years. The hook with this book is from the hook with this book. The hook with this book is in the very beginning of the novel. Like the first line, uh, the author gives up that this older friend is going to die. We don't know when it's going to happen or how it's going to happen, but it's going to happen. So, uh, That kind of sticks in the back of your head as you're reading the book. Uh, it's just a really beautiful coming of age narrative. Really moving. Um, very raw, a lot of emotion. Great book. Number seven, another debut, Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang. Wow. I've talked about this book a lot, on all my platforms and for good reason. I thought this was one of the most original debuts in a sea of original debuts, this begins in China and it, there is a movie theater in China that is a meeting place for gay men to hook up with each other. And. Many of the men are on the down low, but the interesting thing about this book is it's, that's not the center of the book. That's kind of a launch off point. And rather than focusing on the men who are coming here, he, he decides to focus on the women in these men's lives. There is a woman who works at the movie theater. She's the ticket taker, and she's very aware of what's going on. And she begins a relationship with one of the men and, what kind of transpires from there, but it moves then to an immigration story to Chinatown in New York City and these characters immigrating. What happens and how these women adapt. And it's about betrayal. It's about forgiveness. It's a beautiful, beautiful book, which is also a little heartbreaking, but just a really incredible character study. And I thought it was just a phenomenal debut. Speaking of. Phenomenal debuts at number six on my list is the safe keep by Yale Vander Vooden. This was one of the booker finalists this year. It's on the Aspen words list. It's been all over the place. And. Deserving of all of its accolades, this is a great story about a woman in 1961 in a small Dutch province who is very tightly wound. She's very ordered. She has her life. She does things the way she wants them done. And her brother arrives one weekend and her brother actually owns the house that she's in after their parents passed away. He shows up one weekend with his new girlfriend and says, I want her to stay here for a while while I have to go do some work. Well, she adamantly is opposed to this, but she's in a no win situation. So of course, this young woman stays with her. And what happens? I don't want to say anything else about it because I think the beauty of this book is in the discovery. I will say that this woman begins to question everything, including potentially her own sanity, as she starts to think things are missing, as she does not trust this woman. And. What transpires between the both of them, I thought this was so well constructed. I read this on a plane traveling from New York to Los Angeles. I read the whole thing on the plane. I couldn't put it down. I was riveted. it's also a quite a spicy novel. I think I've said Yael van der Vooden does for pears what Andre Aciman did for peaches and call me by your name. Wow. Anyway. Um, just an amazing, amazing book. And I will say, you know, as a visual thing, the American cover is positively just stunning with these two pairs on the cover. It's beautiful, but great book. All right. So my number five, I had a quandary. I had my 10 books picked out, you know, and I'm still reading as we all are towards the end of the year. Well, I finished this book, another book a week ago that I was like, Oh my God, this for sure would be in my top 10. And so what am I going to do? So my number five are two books. So I'm going to talk first about the book that I had on my list already. And then I will talk about the book that bumped in. The first one that I already had on my list was tell me everything by Elizabeth Strout. if you are an Elizabeth Strout fan, and there are many of you, then you totally get it. When I say. Spending time in her world is like hanging out with friends or relatives. You just never want it to end. Elizabeth Stroud is also so genius to me because she is capable of conveying so much with so little writing in a way that I've Hardly see with hardly seen with any other author and I think it's such a gift that she is the queen of brevity This is like a mashup of all of her characters coming together from all of Kittredge to Lucy Stroud to the Burgess boys among others It is like a who's who television crossover event that they used to do like in the 80s and 90s on network television. And that's what this reminded me of. You know, if I had one little complaint about this, I wanted some of it to go on longer because like I wanted more Olive Kittredge and I loved Olive Kittredge with Lucy Barton. However, it just makes you want more. I also really appreciate with Strout that she said like, she's never going to kill off all of Kittredge. That's not in her interest to do that, which makes my heart kind of glow because I, I personally, I don't want to see that. I don't want that story. I like this kind of still living crotchety old woman, but. If you're a Strout fan, this is an absolute must. I just think she's one of my go-to authors and one of my favorites, and I just thought it was terrific. Alright, so my bump in at number five was Miranda July's, all fours. Uh, this to me was probably one of the most polarizing books that I've read about this year, seeing people's reactions on BookTube, also on Instagram, people either loved it or hate it. There wasn't a lot of in between. I ended up loving it. That said, it's definitely unhinged, but I was here for it. So July's book concerns a successful woman who is married. She has a non binary child and she lives in Los Angeles. At the start of the story, she. Is setting out on a road trip to go to New York as a business trip to see some shows, to see some friends. Well, 30 minutes outside of Los Angeles, she pulls into a small town to get some gas, to buy some snacks and on a lark, she ends up staying. She runs a hotel room. She meets this young man. Who's wife is a designer. She has the designer then come and redesign her hotel room, almost to be made up to look like a Parisian drawing room. And meanwhile, she's telling her family that she's driving across the country because she had this two week trip plan. So she knows she has. It is crazy, but I have to tell you, I got it. I understood it. For some reason I keyed into her and I was with it. Now the book goes beyond the hotel room and it continues to develop. It's a fascinating book and it's a, it's a book that ultimately It made me think a lot and I'm still thinking about it. The ideas of where we are in our lives. Are we content? What else is out there is what we currently have the best thing. It's also, I think, a really interesting book for women in particular because of what it says about the sexes and what it says about female empowerment and taking control of your life. It's really, to me. It, it was a really fascinating read. It's really sexual, but not always in the way that you expect it to be. But I say that because I think some people were. I've been bowled over a little bit and thought it aired on trashy. I don't know what it says about me that I didn't necessarily think that. Um, but there is, uh, you know, there's a lot of masturbation talk anyway. All right. So that was all fours at number four. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo. Um, again, big Sally Rooney fan. This really might have been my favorite book by Sally Rooney. You know, I, I really liked Normal People. But I also think that my love for normal people kind of escalated when the mini series came out because it was the first time I personally had ever seen, I think anyone had ever seen, Paul Meskel but also Desi Edgar Jones and the two of them were so, riveting and heartbreaking in that that I just became just next level. It's one of those times, rare, that, I thought that the, the movies or the miniseries for this case was better than the book. and it was working with amazing source material. So, but it to me was better. This one is about two brothers who their father has just recently died and they're both kind of in their grief. The younger brother, Ian is 22 and a chess prodigy. His older brother, Peter is, in his late thirties and is a barrister. After thinking about this book, what I've said about it is It's it's the ways we deal with grief, but it's also a love story. I think it's four love stories. I think the first is Peter, the older brother. There are two women in his life. The first is his ex girlfriend Sylvia, who is really the love of his life. They were meant to be together. Previously, she had been in a horrible accident and after that accident broke up with him because she just never felt that. She could be or they could be what they were going to be with her new life. So they've remained friends He really loves her still and it's very evident on the other side of him is this young 21 22 year old student named Naomi who is sultry and sexy and just the epitome of edgy youth, which he's very drawn to, but, um, also very aware of their age difference. Ian is for our third love story. one weekend at a chess tournament, the woman, who was working at the hall where the chess tournament was done, her name is Margaret, they meet, she is an older divorced woman, almost 40, and they begin a love affair, which, for both of them, her especially, she's very aware of the age difference. And The fourth love story to me is really between the two brothers, who have a very, uneven, tempestuous relationship, trying to figure each other out, kind of like, two wild cats sniffing at each other. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful book. I say that a lot. I say beautiful a lot with all of these, and I don't know, that seems to be my, adjective of the year but it really is. And Sally Rooney does dialogue that crackles like nobody's business, but she's another one like Strout where she's able to convey a lot just even in her dialogue without adding much to it. And, and I think that is, is just. So incredible. I also happened to listen to this on audio and it is fantastic. It's read by Anna Hardwicke an Irish actor, he, he just does such an amazing job. It also, you know, I've said this might've said this here before. I really appreciate audio books when they're set somewhere else to have them read to me because I love hearing stories. A lilt, a brogue, an accent. I love all of that. But anyway, excellent book. Number three for me is Garth Greenwell's Small Rain. If you would have said to me at the beginning of the year, Hey, one of your favorite books this year is going to be about this man who gets this, serious illness and ends up in the hospital. And what happens? I would have laughed in your face. But here we are. And yes, that's exactly what happened. So Garth Greenwell's Small Rain is a semi autobiographical novel based on his own experience of having a medical problem and going into the hospital. So this unnamed narrator, Has that incident happen and we follow him moment by moment in his mind and body in the hospital. I've said this book is kind of like, a Stephen King novel for hypochondriacs, but I say that in jest because it's not horrific by any stretch of the imagination. But as someone who does get concerned with health related issues, it's certainly made the first half of the book. Read like a thriller and I was kind of flying through it to see what was going to happen But what the book ultimately is is a meditation on life and the beauty of life and living and the preciousness Of life and how quickly any of it can be taken from anyone And what greenwell really does and you know greenwell is a poet first and his writing is just so exquisite And I have found Over the years that some of my favorite books are actually are written by poets because to it sounds kind of um obvious to say they they have such a way with words, but but it's true and What he says and what he kind of conveys with this book is so Moving it's also really a loving testament to health care workers, especially nurses and the kind of selflessness You in their jobs and what they do to help us at our most vulnerable. Just a truly stunning book that again, I think has slipped under the radar for a lot of people, but a really, really beautiful book. Speaking of beautiful again, God, they're all just so beautiful. Our evenings by Alan Hollandhurst. In 2004, Alan Hollenhurst won the Booker Award for his book, The Line of Beauty This is my favorite book of his

19:38

It's about an actor.

Brett Benner: 19:39

Who had a Burmese father and a British mother. We follow him as a young boy going to boarding school through his entire life. And that's what the book is, dealing with class, privilege, race, sexuality. It is so simple and so stunning. I never kind of wanted this thing to end. I could have just followed along with it. For those of you who are fans of BBC dramas, Brideshead Revisited, um, E. M. Forrester, this is going to be your book. It is not something that is fast paced. It is very measured. That's what I loved about it. Despite that, I still found myself really flying through the book. First of all, he's, Such a gorgeous writer. The prose is so beautiful, but I just really found myself captivated by this character, Dave, and his life and what he goes through. And I just really never wanted it to end. So that is Our Evenings by Alan Holland. Now, my last book My number one book for the year, is also my favorite audio book of the year. This is such an interesting thing because it is, again, a debut, debut novelist. He does have one other book out, which is a book of nonfiction, but this is his first collection of fiction stories and it is a collection. That's an interesting thing to me because I talk all the time about how I am not a fan of short story collections, primarily because there are always one or two that I love. There's a couple that I think are fine. And then there's one or two that I'm like, and arguably what happens with me as I'm reading those ones that I love. And I think I want that story to keep going. I don't want to read these other stories. So they don't always work for me. This did, and it worked big time. The title story from the book has just wrapped as a feature with Paul Meskel and Josh O'Connor, and will be coming out sometime in 2025. The author adapted the story for the screenplay. it is a full cast narration on audio, and I would highly recommend it. Paul Meskel Incidentally reads one of the stories along with actors, Chris Cooper, Rebecca Lohman, Jenny Slate, who is the wife to this author among others. The book is the history of sound by Ben Shattuck. It is a series of linked stories that take place in and around New England and up into Nova Scotia. The stories are connected by something called the hook and chain. Which was the name for a song or poem form that was popularized in 18th century New England in which the first and last lines rhyme and contains rhyming couplets within, as in A, B, B, C, C, D, D, E, E, F, F, A. The second half of the couplet often completes the sentence or sentiment of the first. So using that technique, what he does is take the first story and then Something in that first story comes up again at the very last story in between each next two couplets of stories. Share something between them. It might just be an object that is pertinent and one that shows up in the next story, but that's the way these stories are all linked together. And, uh, it's kind of genius. It is truly special. When I was listening to it and reading along with it, I knew that this was a book that felt classic immediately, I just think it's a really really special book And so I hope you check all these books out, but certainly this one in particular I I hope that You will check out all of these books are on my bookshop. org page, and you can go check them out there and, buy them. Also. I just want to say thank you for, for listening to me this season. I will be back on january 7th for a brand new season of the show and I hope you all will be returning with me if you like what you've heard, please Tell your friends And also like, and subscribe, if you can give a rating, that would be incredible on your podcast platform of choice. I appreciate all of you. I wish you a happy, safe and prosperous new year. And I look forward to coming back with you all next year.