Danny Crichton

2024 was the year of elections, with more than half of humanity voting (and Germany coming up in a few weeks and maybe Canada as well). So there was a little over-indexing on global politics than even I would normally read. Meanwhile, technology coverage has really hit a nadir. Thanks to awful media economics, our best writers have struggled to find long-term purchase in the industry, so quality has absolutely declined. Artificial intelligence, biotech, quantum computing and nuclear are extremely interesting areas, but coverage remains either superficial, ridiculously over-critical or just plain wrong. It’s really frustrating.

If there’s any pattern I have enjoyed this year (and in 2023), it’s simple stories that belie complex global narratives. Sometimes these essays can be overwrought, but it’s great to see writers tackling the complicated world we inhabit.

This year, I read 36 books and thousands of articles, watched 21 movies and 30 West End and Broadway shows, and played 3 video games, plus I listened to a smattering of live orchestra and opera. Below, the best of the sets.

This year, I’ve decided to bring together my favorite articles and books alongside other media into one look-back post. All of my previous posts from almost the last decade are available here.

The Best Books I Read

First Place: Human Acts by Han Kang

Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature this year in a surprise victory over Haruki Murakami and a long list of other notables waiting for their turn to head to Sweden. I read Kang’s The Vegetarian years ago, and found it difficult and not all that engaging. Critically lauded, and one that I probably would appreciate on a re-read, but one of those “not for me”-type books.

Human Acts, on the other hand, is extraordinary. Just passing the threshold of a novella, it narrates the violence and atrocities of the 1980 Gwangju Massacre in South Korea, when the military junta led by Chun Doo-hwan cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in the aftermath of Chun’s coup d’état, killing many university students and unleashing nearly a decade of terror and torture before South Korea’s democratization in 1987. Kang is able to take small moments of atrocious horror and profoundly inscribe them in the human mind. Poetic but crisp, visceral but laconic, Human Acts displays Kang as a superlative writer.

And of course, her Nobel Prize came just weeks before South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and attempted an overthrow of the National Assembly, in scenes almost directly from 1980 and Human Acts. The fact that her books sold hundreds of thousands of copies locally just weeks before his machinations has to be one of the most implausible stories of 2024 — and this was the year for implausible stories.

Second Place: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

The changing economics of book publishing means that editors have less time to edit, so page counts have steadily crept up even as quality has gone down. So I have increasingly inoculated myself from lengthy tomes after running aground on multiple 500+ page doorstops that end up as roads to nowhere.

Orbital is a perfect example of what an excellent novelist can do with a petite canvas. A slim novel that won this year’s Booker Prize, Orbital is the story of a cosmopolitan set of astronauts on the International Space Station covering one Earth day of their lives. There is no traditional drama or plot here per se, but rather a psychological description of a group of people hovering above the fray, where time has a completely independent meaning from reality and where the exciting allure of space is juxtaposed against the astonishing banality of surviving in a spacecraft.

Juxtapositions are Harvey’s tool, and they work so well when layered together. The balance of human warmth against the cold of space. The mechanical orbit of a metal space station against the natural world dying of climate change. The closeness of a video chat against the impossible distance from the physical world. This book doesn’t take you anywhere except 24 hours into the future, but it certainly feels like we have traveled a great distance.

Third Place: Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is obviously best known for The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), but his travelogues are where his real import is. I have previously read and enjoyed Night Flight (Vol du Nuit), which is about the existentialism of flight and why so many pilots took to the skies in the early-to-mid 1900s despite the incredible danger.

Wind, Sand and Stars connects not just flying, but the Republican war in Spain of the 1930s to ask fundamental questions of what it means to survive and live in a world of tragic endings. It’s indeed a travelogue, and so most of the enjoyment of the work is in the description of places and the experiences of the people that Saint-Exupéry meets. His core thesis is that we are all seeking experiences in solidarity with others — that each of us just wants to be part of a project or team that transcends the ability of any one of us to succeed.

Maybe it’s a meandering way to get to that conclusion, but I found Wind, Sand and Stars to be a dramatic and thoughtful ride in the back of the plane with an excellent pilot at the helm.

Fourth Place: Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh is an excellent observer of British affairs, and his works have solidly stood the test of time. This is perhaps most obvious with Decline and Fall, his debut work and one that helped him develop an early reputation for cutting realism. Its centenary is coming up in 2028.

The novel follows Paul Pennyfeather and his experiences with British institutions from the antics of the upper class to, most critically, the politics of the school system at a time of great social change. As can be surmised by the title, this is a “down on his luck” plot — everything goes wrong, usually in the most obscenely comic way. And there is no real comeuppance for Paul’s enemies, since none of his interlocutors will ever experience the pain that they have wrought on him. Decline and Fall is the British contemporary work to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a sendup of the rich at the peak of 1920s decadence.

What’s critical though compared to The Great Gatsby is that Decline and Fall is just hilariously funny. Fitzgerald was not farcical in his attempts to describe Gatsby and Nick, but Waugh uses farce so effectively to skewer the problems he sees in society. Just incredibly enjoyable.

Fifth Place: Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen

This is an all-time classic of the development economics literature, written 25 years ago at a very different time in the history of the Washington Consensus. Nonetheless, Sen’s essential thesis holds up better than ever, which is that economists (and other social scientists) should reposition away from money, GDP and other simplistic quantifiers of human success toward models of “capabilities” — can people read, have independence, take shelter, etc.

What Sen does so well is highlight that to be rich in a dictatorship is to not be rich at all, something that quantitative measures can easily overlook. Instead, analysts must have a qualitative approach to freedom and independence, one that often correlates with wealth but by no means is causal.

With decades of hindsight, it’s sad that capabilities theory remains completely off the table in economics and that broader reforms have never taken place. Development as Freedom had a great impact on the thinking of many, while having almost no impact in changing the applied microeconomics zeal of all of the leading departments. Maybe next decade we’ll finally see some progress.

One Anti-Recommendation: Burn Book by Kara Swisher

I don’t usually write anti-recommendations (why draw attention to something you don’t want people to pay attention to?), but of all the lauded books that I read in 2024, none were more ghastly disappointing than Kara Swisher’s memoir Burn Book. I ended up writing a 2,500 word personal note on everything I hated about this book, which was essentially all aspects of it. Let me summarize and say: I hope that after decades of being a writer and reporter, I can have a thought that’s worth putting down on paper.

The Best Articles I Read

First Place: Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic by Ben Taub

It hardly needs stating that Vladimir Putin is using every tool in his arsenal to undermine the West. What that means in practice though can be hard to identify, but Taub does an extraordinary reporting on what the edge of that quiet war looks like in places such as Finland, Norway and Sweden. Democratic societies held together by careful norms are now placed in the crosshairs of Russia’s depredations, forcing a paradox: to fight back may very well mean losing your own values as well. Loved this piece.

Second Place: Embedding With America’s Top Hostage Negotiator by Adam Ciralsky

This is one of those “if you get the access, it’s almost inevitably interesting” profiles. Following around Roger Carstens, who handles all hostage negotiation for the U.S. government, means traipsing to some of the most dangerous locales in the world to negotiate with some of the most mercurial and evil leaders anywhere. And yet, it’s done, and it’s often done successfully at least in the asymptote. What I took away from Ciralsky’s profile was the resilience of patience — the only way for success to be secured is to be infinitely patient and essentially “wait them out.” The right moment will eventually come along.

Third Place: The forces of chance by Brian Klaas

Brian Klaas wrote the book Fluke (and was also a guest on the Riskgaming podcast this year), but this essay on the uses of chaos theory in the social sciences I thought did a great job of summarizing the challenges with academia. I also read J. Doyne Farmer’s Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World this year which makes a similar argument. Chaos theory provides a better explanation of the world than others we have available to us, and yet, social scientists continue to ignore it mostly out of inertia and their inability to handle the math required. Kuhn paradigm shifts are right in front of us — and there’s still magic in discovering what the future will know in several decades and you can know right now.

Honorable Mentions

• Inside North Korea’s Forced-Labor Program by Ian Urbina — A harrowing look at how Kim’s regime acquires foreign currency through the most grotesque human rights violations imaginable.
• No one buys books by Elle Griffin — A fantastic look at all of the documents of the Penguin Random House antitrust trial on just how skewed the book industry is from popular imagination.
• How Might We Learn? by Andy Matuschak — A penetrating lecture on how advances in psychology, metacognition and technology can combine to accelerate human development in the 21st century.
• Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic by Chris Bing and Joel Schectman — An astonishing reminder that yes, even democratic governments can commit horrific sins when their metrics aren’t aligned with public values.
• Putin hijacked Austria’s spy service. Now he's going after its government by Matthew Karnitschnig — An astonishing investigation into how a country can be entirely waylaid by a foreign dictatorship without a bullet being shot.

The Best Films I Watched

First Place: Anatomy of a Fall

This film won a bunch of awards, and it’s so obvious why: what a comprehensively beautiful and human depiction of a troubled marriage and the existentialism of proving its fragmented romance to others (in this case, a court). The protagonist isn’t lovable, and when her husband is found dead having fallen out a window, she is accused of murder. There’s the frisson of tension for the audience — did she do it? — but what works so well is watching someone recollect their own feelings on the subject after years of marital tension. Just extraordinary.

Second Place: Zone of Interest

Another big award winner from last season, this film and its soundtrack is so haunting and so brilliant that it reminds you that film’s evolution still has so much more room to go. Zone of Interest follows the domestic life of the commandant of Auschwitz, and the quotidian struggles of a middle-class German family amidst the ghastly atrocities happening just meters away past the fenced-in yard. Horrors can be quietly heard through the walls and everyone pretends not to notice, but the villainous acts have a way of seeping into every relationship and degrading them completely. Watch the film, and then read about how it was shot and edited — it’s just an example of extraordinary filmmaking.

Third Place: Prima Facie

Prima Facie is a play written by Suzie Miller, and I watched the West End film version in the (movie) theater. So yes, this is a bit of a cheat. It’s about an English defense barrister named Tessa who works to protect men from sexual assault charges, only to undergo her own assault experience and change her mind about the meaning of testimony in the legal system. Not all that dissimilar from some of the themes of Anatomy of a Fall, Prima Facie asks how and when do we accept evidence of a crime, whose voices get heard, and how can we create fairness in a system that attempts to adjudicate the most personal of crimes. I found it mesmerizing.

Honorable Mentions

• Problemistas: A delightful and compact comedy of an immigrant working in the art world of New York.
• The Wild Robot: Also delightful, and a great sign that there is still original life in animation.
• Conclave: Perhaps a bit overwrought, but who doesn’t love a Papal conclave political thriller with multiple prophetic twists?

The Best Theater I Watched

First Place: Appropriate

Appropriate brings together an unhappy family for a patriarch’s funeral and the ultimate inheritance of a decaying Southern plantation and its worldly goods. It’s a morose time, but that becomes the moment for retrospective thoughts on the meaning of individual lives and the secrets behind them. The play has such a beautiful tension running through the entire show — you know dreadful and terrible things await as the family explores the past — but the catharsis of how they resolve those memories and crimes is what makes this play such an outstanding and brilliant story. The production by Lila Neugebauer at the Belasco was outstandingly cast and directed, and I was enthralled.

Second Place: People, Places & Things

This was an extraordinary work depicting the mental health decline of Emma, whose alcoholism, partying and general drug usage brings her into a rehabilitation clinic for long-term treatment. But the tension here is one of truth: whose truth and what’s really happening? Do we understand what we are witnessing, and is Emma the one who is crazy — or is everyone else? It’s a great play, but what makes it extraordinary is Denise Gough in the lead role. My god, the reserve of energy you need to play a character like this day after day is just unfathomable to me.

Third Place: Patriots

Let’s be clear: an entire play about the inner mind of Vladimir Putin is either going to strike your fancy or it will not. This is not a play for everyone. But I really enjoyed The Wizard of the Kremlin (Le Mage du Kremlin) by Giuliano da Empoli (last year’s fifth place book), and Patriots has essentially the same conceit: what makes this evil man tick? In both cases, the answer is at once pedestrian and extraordinary. The act of humanizing this awful human’s thoughts doesn’t make one sympathize with him so much as comprehend how differently someone can look at the same events and come to radically different conclusions. Excellent casting meets decent set design at this production at the Ethel Barrymore.

Fourth Place: Next to Normal

Another West End win for me, Next to Normal is a play about a family which is slowly breaking apart due to stresses and mental illness. As per the title, this is a family that is Next to Normal, with children struggling to grow and develop, concerns about money, all punctuated by the constant irrational actions of a mother who is constantly trying to do her best against the stresses of life. A great cast plus brilliant stage design held this one together marvelously.

Fifth Place: The Constituent

James Corden now has a reputation in New York City, but he takes a dramatic role here as the titular constituent, who is haranguing his local member of parliament for services after he returns from war in Afghanistan. Suffering from mental illness (this was a theme in theater this year, no?), he becomes increasingly belligerent and begins blurring the line between politician and citizen. Parts of the plot are ripped from the headlines, but what I enjoyed was the complexity and nuance from such a simple story and small cast: what do you do when you want to help, but helping can lead to destruction?

Honorable Mentions

• Mind Mangler: Just an incredibly enjoyable farcical magic show that has so many brilliant punchlines and memes.
• Bad Kreyol: Haiti doesn’t get enough airtime, but this humanizing portrait of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country was moving.
• Oh, Mary!: An extremely hilarious and campy romp about Mary Todd Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. So over the top, as are the ticket prices (I recommend buying theater tickets before shows become popular).

The Best Video Games I Played

First (and only) Place: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Video games take so much time to complete, and so I don’t complete many of them. Tears of the Kingdom is an exception – I finished it in about 95 hours, and it’s just an extraordinary entry in the annals of gaming. The follow-up to the practically perfect Breath of the Wild, most players and critics felt that the original couldn’t be outdone — as did I. Not only did the development team outdo themselves, but they have set the new bar for what a video game can be and the playfulness of open-world environments. Just an extraordinary achievement.