Over the next few days, Current writers and editors share their favorite things of 2024.
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Some things I enjoyed, not new this year or necessarily connected to it for others:
Susie Boyt, Loved and Missed
I liked the Flannery O’Connor film, Wildcat (see Christina Bieber Lake’s review here at Current)
I liked graduations not only because my kids were in them but I think they are good rituals.
New book Lucy Jones, Matrescence
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Favorite professional theater production: Pericles at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Zach Wyatt gave an emotionally riveting performance as a man for whom everything sad comes untrue.
Favorite amateur theater production: Love’s Labour’s Lost at Wheaton College’s Arena Theater. Mark Lewis directed a rollicking production which winks at our over-earnest campus. The four gentlemen who have sworn off romance surreptitiously join the ladies by disguising themselves as a Russian boy band!
Favorite live music: Gregory Porter. His tribute to his preacher-mother, “More than a woman,” gets me every time.
Favorite Catholic college: Marian University, Indianapolis. Our son Theo is having a great experience in its medical school. They have created a pastoral environment that is far more nurturing than most.
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My favorite from 2024 was the release of Language of the Night, which is a bunch of Ursula LeGuin essays.
After that I’d say the science weirdness that is P. Djeli Clark’s The Dead Cat Tail Assassins was the best.
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Favorite book of 2024: I will not be alone in naming Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse as one of the best books I read this year. I have enjoyed Enger’s previous books, but I think this one is something even more special. It’s rare to find a post-apocalyptic or dystopic novel that feels realistic and nuanced. This one is both, and is well worth your time. (And see Ronni Kurtz’s beautiful review of it here at Current)
Favorite song of 2024: I have listened to the Longest Johns’ version of the Mingulay Boat Song over and over this year. It’s not new this year, but was new to me. The song is a good one for drawing your attention toward eternity when the nitty-gritty suffering of this world discourages you. As St. ThĂ©rèseof Liseux wrote, for a Christian, “the world is thy ship, not thy home,” and the Mingulay Boat Song echoes this: “What care we though white the Minch [a dangerous straight] is?/What care we, boys, for windy weather?/When we know that every inch is/Sailing homeward to Mingulay.” Sometimes we very much need this reminder to hold onto our joy, for we are sailing home.
Favorite food of 2024: Where have dill pickle chips been all my life? They sound gross, but they’re not. Kind of like salt and vinegar chips, the slightest bite is enough to shock you back into reality. Much needed in today’s day and age.
Favorite children’s book of 2024: American children have been sorely underserved with Scandinavian kiddie lit. Pippi Longstocking we may have, but what about the rest of the Astrid Lindgren canon, for example, so well-beloved by the children of the European North? Nothing has made me (and my children) laugh more than reading through Lindgren’s “Emil” books this year. I just about died when Emil got his head stuck in the soup tureen for the second time in one day. If you need cheering up — perhaps the theme of my picks this year — look no further than Emil and the Sneaky Rat, Emil and the Clever Pig, and Emil and the Great Escape.
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Jim Cullen’s favorite movies of 2024
1. Conclave. Sinfully delightful acting and plotting.
2. Anora. Gritty American Dream saga with wildly unpredictable twists.
3. A Real Pain. A surprisingly funny movie about a very grave subject.
4. Hit Man. Glen Powell!
5. Twisters. Pass the popcorn. Glen Powell!
6. Challengers. Courtship tales.
7. Ordinary Angels. An honest tear jerker lifted by Alan Ritchie and Hilary Swank.
8. Saturday Night. Frenetically appealing piece of history.
9. One Life. Anthony Hopkins as an Oscar Schinder.
10. Fly Me to the Moon. Valentine to the promise of the sixties.