2024 Year in Review

Jonathan Snook opened his 2024 recap post musing, Sometimes I wonder if doing these recap posts at this point are masturbatory. It’s a great opening and the statement is not without truth. His recaps are a bit more introspective than mine, where I just compile my consumption habits for the previous year, and who else is really interested in that besides me? I still find the exercise fun, so let’s take a look back at what I read, listened to, and watched in 2024.

Reading

I read 43 books in 2024! That’s a total of 11,904 pages, with an average book length of 278 pages. The shortest book was 20 pages (The Visit, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), while the longest book was 671 pages (The Winners, by Fredrik Backman). I equaled my book total from 2023, but with a much shorter average book length. Short stories and novellas will do that.

Of those 43 books, I managed to explore 40 unique authors. Stacey Abrams, Nnedi Okorafor, and Fredrik Backman were the only authors I read from more than once. 23 of those authors were new to me, including Abrams, Isabel Cañas, Andrew Sean Greer, Akwaeke Emezi, Hisashi Kashiwai, and Rebecca Roanhorse.

As usual, the genres I read most frequently were science fiction and fantasy. I managed to squeeze in two whole non-fiction books though! Check out this fancy bar graph of the genres (don’t worry that the numbers add up to more than 43, since most books can be attributed multiple genres).

• Fantasy 21
• Science Fiction 20
• Contemporary 12
• Mystery 8
• Romance 6
• Thriller 5
• Historical 3
• Nonfiction 2
• Humor 2
• Horror 2

Listening

I had 12,256 scrobbles in 2024! This translates to 1,763 artists, 3,208 albums, and 7,289 tracks. You’ll find the usual suspects amongst my top artists and albums below, and naturally my top tags were hip-hop, soul, and funk. New artists accounted for 36% of listening, and I’d say my top discoveries were Joel Culpepper, Orgone, and The Bamboos.

As for live music, I saw Blu & Exile in what was a throwback experience for me, and I saw Sy Smith perform with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra in what was an all new yet thrilling experience. I enjoyed the orchestra, but Sy definitely stole the show.

Watching

I watched 52 movies, 12 stand-up specials, and 47 TV shows in 2024! Some of the movie highlights were Dune: Part Two, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Rebel Ridge. Travelers, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, A.P. Bio, and The Expanse impressed me on television. Unfortunately none of the stand-up specials really stood out, with the exception of maybe Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan.