Books I read and listened to in 2024, with commentary (Part 2)

Hello!

Welcome back to my annual book list. Last week I wrote about the 35 novels I read or listened to in 2024. This week we’re on to a smorgasbord of memoir, nonfiction, and poetry.

You can find my book lists from previous years here or click here to read why I’m ambivalent about the whole enterprise of making these end-of-year lists.

And away we go!

Memoir

• My Good, Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss. I learned about this memoir from a footnote to a Substack post about braising by my friend Tamar Adler. I was drawn in by the May Swenson poem, “Question,” that is the basis of the title of Moss’s memoir. I had no idea how much I would find to love in this memoir about girlhood, food, and the stories that form us. I especially enjoyed the parts where Moss weaves in literary criticism, exploring the ideologies behind Little House on the Prairie, Jane Eyre, Little Women, and other classic novels with young female characters. Readers should know that the story of Moss’s anorexia can be quite harrowing, especially the middle portion in which she suffers a relapse in her 40s, starving herself in accordance with the instructions of health experts on podcasts about intermittent fasting until her organs are on the verge of collapse.

• Making Babies by Anne Enright. This memoir of early motherhood by one of my favorite novelists had been on my shelf for years. I turned to it during a rough time with my kids, and it felt like an escape of sorts. Except for the last, stunning chapter about depression, this book feels somewhat tossed off in the most appropriate way—like she wrote it in drips and drabs in between nursing, changing diapers, etc. This interesting, uneven book would be a good gift for a new mother.

• Smile by Sarah Ruhl. My husband, who knows me very well, listened to this memoir first and insisted that I read it. As one of you wrote to me recently about one of my recommendations, “this book is not only up my alley, it is my alley.” Ruhl’s memoir chronicles her experience of post-partum Bell’s Palsy, but it is also a meditation on motherhood, healthcare, work, and spirituality. I loved the braiding of memoir and essay, and the scenes of a mother with three children