My 2024 Absolute Freaking Best Reading Recommendations
Writing about every book read this year
Before the year ends, let me take you through the highest quality books I attempted in 2024. I stake my second left toe (the quirky one that's larger than my big toe) on these recommendations, confident they'll bring you delight, provide mental stimulation, help you become more interesting, and boost your conversational skills. This has been an annual tradition for over a decade and I take these recommendations very seriously.
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By the Numbers
In 2024, I read 49 entire books - 17 non-fiction and 32 fiction.
If you want to get wacky, I consumed 14,479 pages.
If you want to get downright dirty, I quit, aborted, tossed into the graveyard 11 books that nearly stole my love of reading.
NOTE: Do know this Provoked issue is longer than an email so make sure to continue reading through a web browser or the Substack app.
For the surprising therapy and self-insights.
Tightwads and Spendthrifts by Scott Rick.
Your relationship with money isn't just about dollars and cents; it's the condiment that flavors your friendships, romantic life, and your attitudes toward the next generation (that includes your kids).
Now, let's talk about those science-y books that read like a snooze-fest lecture. You know the type: endless droning about studies with college kids, making you wish someone like Susan Cain or Malcolm Gladwell had taken the wheel.
Enter Dr. Scott Rick. His insights are as original as they are practical, making you rethink your financial habits without the eye-glazing jargon. And he knows how to find illuminating quotes and tales:
Finally, it does seem possible that spendthrifts are just low in "financial literacy." If you don't understand the basics of money—for example, how interest on credit card debt compounds over time-then you might not be particularly cautious with your money. My favorite piece of anecdotal evidence regarding the financial literacy of spendthrifts comes, once again, from Sammy Davis, Jr. One of his business managers was warning him about how much income he'd need to generate to repay his debts, given his high marginal tax rate:
Mr. Davis, have you any idea how much money you must earn in your bracket in order to pay your debts?"
Listen, as long as you brought it up — and I'm not kidding now—just what the hell is a tax bracket?
On a personal note, this book sparked serious self-reflection. With a term for my style, a tightwad, for the first time ever, I dug into the 'why' behind my financial worries. Save money on therapy sessions by picking this up.
For a related article on the topic, do read this piece in The Atlantic - “The Well-Off People Who Can’t Spend Money.”
For bringing me close to tears multiple times.
The Boys of Riverside by Thomas Fuller.
A guy at a Nirvana cover band concert (Nirvani) introduced me to this story - an all-deaf high school football team from the California School for the Deaf who defy the odds to achieve a state championship. Knowing the ending does not ruin the brilliance of Fuller who reveals player biographies and within them, essays about parents who dislike their children, what scientists discovered about deafness, and homelessness in America (gut wrenching content).
This book is like a matryoshka doll, capturing numerous topics without the proselytizing often found in works by authors at political extremes. Don't skip it if sports aren't your interest—you'll enjoy it.
For producing a sense of awe and wonder.
A part of me resists recommending award-winning books. But it’s foolish to ignore greatness. I have read a lot of Richard Powers books and even more on the environment - this is the best of the bunch.
Consider this passage about the main protagonist of the story who found her mission in life:
She wrote about that dive in the Coral Triangle on her first research trip, when a seahorse the size of her little fingernail clasped a few strands of her flowing hair with its prehensile tail and held on as if hitching a ride on God. She told of the day she came across a lion's mane jellyfish in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic-a four-hundred-pound glowing creature with more than a thousand tentacles, the longest one reaching half the length of a city block. She said how it tasted to swallow seawater by accident, and with it several million phytoplankton and zooplankton, including hundreds of that titanic jellyfish's tiny relatives.
She did her best to depict the baroque, astonishing architectures of creatures who made up that three-fifths of the ocean biomass too small for humans to see.
She described how it felt to be scooped up on the forehead of a whale shark and taken for a lift on a creature as large as a school bus—a passenger on a giant grazer who fed on nothing but shoals of that same invisible plankton.
My lord, the imagery, the beauty! How many pages will you read before getting your PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) license to scuba dive? I checked how to get mine after finishing page 47.
Enjoy 382 pages of this awesome sauce.
For making insanity (relatively) sane.
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum.
At first, I was as skeptical as you might be—441 pages on the history of reality TV? Trust me, it's a fascinating read brimming with peculiar facts. For example, do you recall the show Blind Date, where cartoonish thought bubbles appeared during awkward silences in car rides and meals? I never considered that beloved trash as a step in the evolution of entertainment.
Or how about the origin story of Survivor. Whose original premise was “borrowed” from an earlier show where a contestant committed suicide shortly after being kicked off the show. Here’s how Emily Nussbaum details some of the connective tissue between shows:
At first, the suicide tainted the project's reputation in the global TV market, but then that shadow faded, too. For some, the tragedy even became part of the show's allure. In a documentary about Sin-isa's death, Survivor host Jeff Probst, who was filmed on the Survivor set in Borneo, described the suicide as the first thing he'd read about in his research. It had made him think, "Okay, this show is for real. This really is a show about saying, 'We don't want you around anymore. We don't like you'" Probst paused. "Yeah, hearing about the suicide made me"—and then he smirked, with a naughty-boy knowingness-"much more interested than I was initially."
The next year, the rules of Expedition: Robinson shifted. Now the contestants would be voted in by their mates, not kicked out. Over the years, the format would continue to adjust, as an expulsion that had once seemed cruel became just another part of the game.
Tantalizing, eh? Trust me, you will not want to put this down.
For the ultimate life enhancement skills.
Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg.
I’ve always been a fan of Charles Duhigg’s work. When he sent an email asking to interview me for an article on post-traumatic growth, I dropped my twin daughters and responded immediately - anytime brother!
As someone who studies social anxiety and social well-being for over two decades, I've read a lot of books on relationships and communication. Hear me clearly: none of them are as good as this one.
I'm not going to create a list of authors whose books are inferior. I'll just say this: buy Supercommunicators. You'll dog-ear, underline, and highlight the shit out of the pages. You'll be using skills and having better interactions within days. Kind of mind-blowing.
For shocking me, repeatedly.
The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Pamela Prickett.
Much has been said about the rise of loneliness and mental health problems. Some of it accurate. Some of it hyperbolic.
This book offers an original angle on frayed social connections. Consider this gem:
Just as policymakers use life expectancy to assess the overall health of a population-allowing comparisons between countries and over time—the number of unclaimed deaths offers a sensitive barometer of the weakening of kin support over time.
The uncomfortable truth is that the unclaimed are not marginal outliers. All signs suggest that their numbers will continue to rise if nothing changes, and those at risk already dwell among us.
They are the resident of the house on the block with the overgrown front yard and disintegrating cardboard boxes piled next to the front door. The man shuffling bent over on his daily walk, always by himself. The trans teenager hitting the streets after an ugly fight with their parents. The quiet nursing home resident, fighting tears after yet another Mother's Day without a phone call. The unclaimed-in-waiting are everywhere.
Who are the unclaimed, you ask? People who die without a contact who alerts authorities. These are people who truly die alone die and as such, with zero legacy. It’s a tragic feature of society that few mention, until now.
Pamela and Stefan know how to evoke powerful emotions. Even if the topic doesn’t capture your interest, read it for the writing lessons.
Special Hanukkah Man Offer
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