Little Oracles

S04:E08 | Review: 2024’s Most Meaningful Reads & What I’m Digging in 2025

• allison arth • Season 4 • Episode 9

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It's a booktastic megasode! Nearly 20 minutes of big book energy, opening with books that made me go "mmm" in 2024, and closing with what I'm excited to read in 2025. (Could this be the soft relaunch of the Asynchronous Book Club? Yeah, why not!)

As ever, check content warnings before you pick up anything we discuss here on the podcast; reading should be a refuge, not a trigger. And remember: reading is reading is reading, whether you're reading books with your eyes or your hands or your ears.✌️

Until next time, as always: take care, keep creating, and stay divine!

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[Intro music]

Hi everybody, and welcome to the Little Oracles podcast, an oracle for the everyday creative. I’m Allison Arth.

Happy New Year; I hope 2025 is treating you well so far. So I’ve been wanting to put together a favorite reads of 2024 list for you all, because that’s kind of de rigeur around this time of year. But, uh, as I was reviewing everything I read last year, I realized I’ve already talked about a bunch of my favorites: in the episode about my favorite creepy reads, and in my Booksgiving episode — and I’ll link both of those in the show notes if you wanna relive those lineups — so rather than do a classic rundown of my favorites, I thought I’d share with you all a handful of books that, on reflection, were meaningful to me in some way — you know, books that moved me in the moment for one reason or another, and books I keep thinking about, again and again — and also wanna share some books I’m looking forward to reading here in the year of our lady 2025. So we have a bit to go through, so let’s get into it.

Like I did at the very beginning of this podcast, when I really kicked off Season One — and I’ll link that episode in the show notes, too; there’re some great books that mean a lot to me that are in that episode as well — I’m gonna categorize these memorable reads rather than rank them, because, at least for me, books grow more powerful and meaningful as they relate to other works of art, and, like, knit in me some kind of net of knowing and framing and re-seeing the human experience and endeavor. [chuckles] I mean, that’s a lot, I know [chuckles] but I find so much value in connecting and constellating creative things that come over the transom of my mind, if you will. And I guess that’s a lot, too. [laughs] But anyway, these are categorized and put together into little groupings for you to, maybe, help you draw some of those connections as well.
So first up on the 2024 list, a category I’m calling The Heavyweights, and we’re gonna start with Weather by Jenny Offill. So this is a 2020 novel told in fragments. Uh, our point-of-view character is Lizzie, a librarian and the email manager for a popular climate change podcast; Lizzie, like everybody around her, is wrestling with a world in crisis, and the novel absolutely reflects that: it’s delivered in this clipped, and clustered and disjointed narrative that’s just so dire and stressful, and it mirrors Lizzie’s existential dread pitch-perfectly. This is a book about climates, both natural and political, and it’s just wonderful and off-handedly funny, if ultimately kind of intense. It kind of reminds me of No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, which is another book that I was floored by a few years ago; but I keep thinking about Weather by Jenny Offill, and I will definitely reread it, and probably soon.

Also in The Heavyweights category, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. So I first read this at the end of 2023, and it stuck with me so much that I wanted to revisit it last year as well: this is a collection of personal essays about obstruction and erasure, about finding and hiding one’s various and intersecting identities; it’s about queer history and culture — it’s at times a very somber read, and at times it’s incredibly joyous, and it’s just a really beautiful depiction of Alexander Chee’s experience as a queer Korean-American kid coming of age and coming into his own.

Another Heavyweight for you: Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans: these are poems about growing up Black in America, about growing up a Black girl in America, about growing up a queer Black girl in America. And I was really so amazed by this; it’s equal parts cultural convocation and colonial take-down; it reckons with rape culture, racial violence in its overt and covert forms, and the heaping expectations of motherhood; it rejoices in generational traditions and what it means to journey outward and inward. It’s a really sharp and cutting collection overall, and because Jasmine Mans is a spoken word artist, too, the language is so crisp and so catchy and almost earwormy; just highest praise from me for Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans.

Next up, The Heartbreakers category, starting with We the Animals by Justin Torres. This is a novel about growing up; it’s about kinship, about queer awakening — it’s told in vignettes, which is something I really enjoy in a novel. And it’s just so beautifully written — Justin Torres has this light touch with language; it feels so effortless, and yet there’s this weight behind every sentence. It’s a stunning family portrait, on par with The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and it’s a deep revelation not unlike On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, which I also include in this section for its very heartrending framework — it’s written as letters to our main character’s mother, who doesn’t speak English, and so won’t ever be able to read the letters her Vietnamese American son is writing. Both of these novels are really urgent, I would say, in the way they portray these kind of cattywampus families, where relationships are intense and loving and also a little off-kilter at times. And both of these are tough reads; they deal with rejection and fear and losing family, and addiction, but they’re both so incredible, and they hit and they sit so close to the heart, as does my final pick in this category, Foster by none other than Claire Keegan — yes, I talk about her all the time [chuckles], especially her novel Small Things Like These, but, yet again, Claire Keegan manages to rend my raiment for me in this little novella, about a young girl whose rather large and unruly family fosters her out to relatives for a summer while they await the birth of their newest baby. It’s largely about the relationship between the girl and her aunt and uncle, and how they grow to trust and love one another; it’s just this amazingly graceful upheaval, this story that wonders at the definition of family, of father, of mother, of daughter. It’s truly remarkable, and you can read it in one sitting — it’s so, so short and so, so gut-punchy, in classic Claire Keegan fashion. So if you’re in the mood for some devastating and divine family portraits, I highly recommend We the Animals by Justin Torres, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, and Foster by Claire Keegan.

So next up, The Head-Expanders, I’m calling this, starting with The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan, a collection of microfiction that’s eminently relatable, just everyday oddities and failures and fractured communication, some of these stories are sweet, some of them are pretty horrific, most of them a little weirdsmobile, but if you’re looking for something supremely fleet and focused, like Lydia Davis, or something a bit strange, almost like an alien [chuckles] is writing these snippets of human existence, then check out The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan.

Another Head-Expander for me this year: Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates, which I mentioned over on Instagram a couple of times. I mean, what a collection of poems this is. What really drew me in was her incredible menagerie of metaphor — like, literally: there are so many animals in this book, and so many ways they intersect with the speakers in these poems. There’s this umbrella of apophenia, almost — you know, the– the human tendency to find pattern and apply meaning to, like, whatever you see in life — but this poetry collection feels like actual augury, you know? [chuckles] Like Gabrielle Bates is seeing through the veil and apprehending some kind of cosmic realness, even when all these poems are absolutely grounded in the body: in blood and bruises and dirt and dead things. The writing itself is pure and pruned and overflowing with these images that stick in your head — some of them truly debilitating (I mean I cried more than once),  and some of them you never want to forget. It’s just bangers all the way down, to be honest with you, so if you’re looking for a poetry collection that’ll really turn you inside out, may I humbly recommend Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates.

And last in this Head-Expanders category is Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, which you probably have seen on tons of best-of lists recently. I really enjoyed this book of connected short stories about, you guessed it: rejection, in all sorts of forms. It examines personal trespass and betrayal, shame and transgression, transactional dismissal — I’m not gonna give any more away because there’s just some really exciting writing going on in this book. It’s shocking and horrific and, at the same time, really, really familiar, especially the first story (I believe it’s called “Feminist”). And it made me rethink how short stories can work, and what they can do and be; it kind of rewired me, I guess. So may I gently goad you into picking up Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte.

And finally, the last category, The Hopefuls, opening with The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, in translation by Thomas Teal. So this is another reread for me; I read this in 2023 as well, and it was just so sweet and quiet and impactful that I had to read it again last year. This is a novel — again, told in vignettes — about a grandmother and her granddaughter, and they’re spending the summer on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland; and I hesitate, even, to call it a “story,” because not much happens, really [chuckles]; it’s just this idyllic portrait of these two, and what the girl learns from her grandma, and it’s so tender and gentle and nostalgic. Just a really calming read. So if you’re looking for something really low-key, maybe try The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.

And in a similar vein, and our final book on The Hopefuls list, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers. So this is the second part of the Monk and Robot duology, which begins with A Psalm for the Wild-Built. It’s about a peripatetic tea-serving monk in a post-industrial society who meets a robot in the wilderness and they have a very cute, very philosophical adventure, and said adventure continues in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. They’re meeting people along the road; they’re having deep conversations about life and existence and need and want; they’re getting to know one another — it’s just so darn heartwarming, and I think we all need that every once in a while: there’s not a lot of strife, no violence, no bigotry, no extremism; just a story about friendship and kindness and empathy, and that’s pretty much it. So if you need some sweetness right now, I highly recommend A Prayer for the Crown-Shy or just the Monk and Robot duet by Becky Chambers.

And, you know, just for good measure, The Honorable Mentions, books that made a mark, but this episode is already super long, so I had to draw a line somewhere. [chuckles] But here are a handful of books that I liked last year: Lanny by Max Porter, one of the most singular writers I can think of — he wrote Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, which was one of my favorites last year; I talked about that in my Booksgiving episode. The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore; it’s a pretty high-register, but wonderful picaresque about a traveling circus’ sideshow eater in France in the 1780s. Idol, Burning by Rin Usami in translation by Asa Yoneda, this is a spiraling, tumbling narrative about superfans, social media, and toxic obsession. Icon, edited by Amy Scholder, a collection of essays by famous people about other famous people who influenced and inspired them; very cool stuff. The Horse by Willy Vlautin, a novel about a reclusive former country-western singer-songwriter and the very sick horse who wanders into his encampment, told in a slingshotting, time-jumping vignette style. The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt; this is a dryly hilarious and kind of sad novella about a girl’s tense relationship with her very precise and proper mother. The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, who wrote Cursed Bread, one of my favorite books of the year, which I talked about in my Booksgiving episode — but The Water Cure is a modern fable, I’d say, about a family of young women and their mother who live on a remote island and have all kinds of rituals that the father imposes, and then their father goes missing — I think you get the idea. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, a super surreal and freaky book about a person going to meet their partner’s family for the first time, and I won’t say anything else about it because there’s a lot to give away, but I really enjoyed this very weird book. And, finally, in the Honorable Mentions catetgory, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, a novel about a mildly successful white author who steals her Asian friend’s manuscript after she dies and publishes it; this is a deep dive on cultural appropriation, and a truly great send-up of the publishing industry and social media.

So now, I might as well give you just a few of the titles looking forward to in 2025; maybe we can call this the soft relaunch of the Asynchronous Book Club, or ABC, for short, and if something on this list strikes your fancy, maybe pick it up, read along, whenever, wherever. It’s a really low-stakes book club that we have here.

So in the rereading space, I’m planning on picking up Rachel Kushner’s essay collection The Hard Crowd, primarily because in it she has an essay about Marguerite Duras, who I’m really getting into lately — I read her first novel last year (uh, The Impudent Ones) and her last novel on the first day of this year (The Lover), and I’m just so fascinated by her style — but Rachel Kushner’s collection is one that I think about a lot: there’s an essay about this, like, off-grid, super harrowing motorcycle race in Baja that she participates in; there’s a piece about, uh, the wildcat strikes at Italian Fiat factories in the 1970s; some personal essays about writing and music and growing up — it’s just a really rich and well-rounded collection, as juicy as something like Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, and as incisive and insightful and culturally conscious as the best of Olivia Laing or Rebecca Solnit or Susan Sontag.

And, related, in the world of nonfiction and essays, I’m excited to read Like Love by Maggie Nelson, who is one of my north stars; she’s a wonderful poet and thinker and critic; I read everything she writes, and this is her latest. It’s a chronologically arranged collection of essays and conversations about, like, everything [laughs]: life and love and feminism and famous people and queer issues and performance and language and art and perversion — just, you know, everything that Maggie Nelson is famous for writing about and thinking about. And if you wanna hear me talk more about Maggie Nelson, I’ll link to my episode about her hybrid prose-poetry book, Bluets, a book I think about all the time, to be honest with you, so that’ll be in the show notes for you.

So in the classics and new-classics arena — and by that I mean, classics of modern literature, not, like, Ovid or Madeline Miller — but I’m looking forward to reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, a coming-of-age novel about a girl growing up in, of course, Brooklyn in the early years of the 20th Century; it’s one of those books I’ve heard about my whole life, and now I’m finally gonna read it. And, also I think in the new classics category, I’m planning to read My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante; this is a book that’s captured the hearts and minds of the bookish set, at least on social media, in the last few years. It’s the first of the Neapolitan Novels, and this is a quartet of books about two girls, born in Naples in 1944, and how they make their way in the world over the course of several decades. So, yeah; a couple of sagas, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, and I’m looking forward to experiencing what millions of readers have been raving about for years.

A couple of poetry collections I’m looking forward to reading this year: Victoria Chang’s latest, With My Back to the World, based on the abstract paintings of Agnes Martin; I’m not familiar with her art, but I will definitely check it out before I read the book. And I Do Everything I’m Told by Megan Fernandes, which The New Yorker says “transforms verse into multiverse,” whatever that means [chuckles], but suffice to say, I’m intrigued. Plus the cover on this collection is pretty sick — it’s neon acid green, with a polaroid of a brown rabbit curled in on itself, and this really hard-edged modern block print type; just very cool, and [laughs] not me judging a book by its cover again [laughs], but I’m not gonna say no. Plus is published by the same publisher of Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates, so I’ve got high hopes. Thank you, Tin House, for bringing us some great stuff.

And speaking of Tin House, last by not least, the hotness for me this year is a book called Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou — I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly. This book is coming out in April, another Tin House publication. So this is a recasting of the Bluebeard story, and according to the publisher description, it’s “twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.” So I’m there; this is all my jam. I’m super excited to get my sticky little mitts on Sour Cherry come April. As ever, do check content warnings before you pick up anything we talk about here on the podcast; reading should be a refuge, not a trigger.

And that is the long and the long of it. [laughs] If you wanna talk about what you’re reading or tune into what I’m reading, you can find me at arthograph — that’s a-r-t-h-o-g-r-a-p-h — on Instagram and Bluesky. And if you’re itching for more big book energy like this, as well as other creativity content, you can find every episode of the podcast at little oracles dot com. Until next time, as always: take care, keep creating, and stay divine.

[Outro music]

[Secret outtake]

… and it was just so sweet and quiet, and do not walk on the computer, Mitchell. [chuckles] Please, not again. And it was just so sweet and oh my god, Mitchelli, do not walk on the computer–