The Counterpublic Papers vol. 9 no. 11 (Best of 2024 pt 1)

One of the benefits of having some of the dopest friends on the planet is that they always come up in spades when I ask for end of the year suggestions. I’m going to split what was originally a longer New Years Eve post into two. You’ll get the Best of 2024 books, albums, and podcasts today, and then bring in the New Year (or maybe the day after) with 2024’s best pictures. Only one link—the list is too long. But I hope you get something out of these—I know I did, as maybe I’m familiar with ten percent of this list but that might be pushing it:

Best Podcast:

American Scandal

The Handsome Pod

Drink Champs (co-sign…except for the fact that sometimes N.O.R.E. really does drink too much to be an effective interviewer/co-host)

The Craft of Campaigns

Scam Goddess

Vibe Check

If Books Could Kill

Reveal

Throughline

The Stacks 

New Books Network

The Black Studies Podcast (looks like I’ll be on in 2025)

King Slime: The Prosecution of Young Thug and YSL

Know Your Enemy

Ones and Toozes

Upstream

Death Panel

Buried Bones

The Economics of Everyday Things

Coaching Real Leaders

Black History, For Real

Across Generations

Native Land Pod

Karen Hunter Show

Native Land

In the Red Corner

The Dig

The Rest is History

Best Album

October by October London

Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper (self-titled)

Hood Hymns by Tobe Nwigwe

Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé

Lana by SZA

GNX by Kendrick Lamar

Quiet in a World Full of Noise b y Dawn Richard and Spence Zahn

Cognitive Dissonant by The The

MJ Lenderman by Manning Fireworks

No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin by Meshell Ndegeocello

Songs of a Lost World by The Cure

The Platinum Collection by Nina Simone

New Blue Sun by Andre 3000

The Way Out of Easy by Jeff Parker

The Grand Design by Philmore Green 

Third Time’s a Charm by King Magnetic

Where I’ve Been Isn’t Where I’m Going by Shaboozey

Leon by Leon Bridges

Beethoven Blues by Jon Baptiste

Anyway I Can by Elmiene

Best Non-Fiction Book (some of these didn’t come out this year)

Black AF History by Michael Harriot

Nightflyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr

Knife by Salman Rushdie

There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys & the California Myth by David Leaf

King: A Life by Jonathan Big

The Wounded World by Chad Williams

White Malice by Susan Williams

Refuge by Heba Gowned

A Man Amongst Other Men by Jordanna Matlon

Circle of Hope by Eliza Griswold

Black Women Taught Us by Jenn M Jackson

The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters

Fantasies of Nina Simone by Jordan Alexander Stein

The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis

Madness by Antonia Hylton

Ocean of Sound by David Toop

Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman

When the Clock Broke by John Ganz

Eve by Cat Bohannon

No Politics But Class Politics, by Adolph Reed and Walter Benn Michaels

Black Political Parties by Hanes Walton jr. (easily the oldest book on this list…1972!)

The Fundamental Voter: American Electoral Democracy by John Aldrich et al

BlacK Scare/Red Scare Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Uche Blackstock

Excited Delirium by Aisha Beliso de Jesús

In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life by Regina Kunzel

The Counter Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s by John Ganz

After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix it by Will Bunch

Make Time by Jake Knapp

Salvage by Dionne Brand

Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the ongoing Attica Revolt by Orisanmi Burton et al

Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Triumph by Sheila Johnson 

All the Black Girls Are Activists: A Fourth Wave Womanist Pursuit of Dreams as Radical Resistance by Ebony Janice Moore

Deeper Dating by Ken Page

For the Culture by Marcus Collins

Black Reconstruction by W. E. B. Du Bois (ok….so THIS is the oldest one!)

Index Cards by Moyra Davies

Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen

Sovereign Love by Dene Logan

Love and Whiskey by Fawn Weaver

Carceral City by John Bardes

Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito

There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abduqarrib   

The Religion of Whiteness by Michael Emerson et al

Hitler’s American Model: The United States and. The Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman

The Rage of Replacement: Far Right Politics and Demographic Fear by Michael Feola

Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth by Ingrid Robeyns et al

Bloodlines: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

Ghost Wars by Steve Collection

Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition by Liat Ben-Moshe

The Feminist Killjoy Handbook by Sara Ahmed

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer

Who is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Róisín

The Power Broker by Robert Caro (another old but good one)

Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture by Ruth Benedict and Ian Buruma

Survival is a Promise by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein

Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts

Subversive Seventies by Michael Hardt

Library Girl: How Nancy Pearl Became America’s Most Celebrated Librarian by Karen Henry Clark

Best Fiction

James by Percival Everett (the only work on the ENTIRE LIST that got more than two shout outs)

Colored Television by Danzy Senna

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Chilean Poet by Zambra Alejandro

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgard

The Best That You Can Do by Amina Gautier

Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (the audio book was suggested as well)

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar

Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Durraj

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Babel by R F Kuang

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis

The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar

The Witchstone by Henry Neff

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

Antimemetics Division Hub (open source!!!)

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandresakara

Yellowface by RF Kuang

The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy 

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Caucasia by Danzy Senna

Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanzine Jeffers

Dearborn Stories by Ghassan Zeineddine

Elephants in the Sky by Heather Clark

Playground by Richard Powers

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Crosby

Sensitive by Sara Levine and Mehrdokht Amini (illustrator—the only children’s book on the list)

That’s it. Like I said, the plan is to share some of my best pictures tomorrow. See you in 2025.