Personal Selections No. 51- Lyrics and Liminal Spaces
songs for my (other) favorite books of 2024
2024 will go down as the year of trying to read outside of my comfort zone.
That is: romance and fantasy.
I say “trying” not because I didn’t finish any of them (I finished all of them!) but because I’m afraid there were parts of these books that were lost on me. There were plenty of moments when I had to do heart checks and ask myself if cynicism had broken a part of me. Specifically, the part of me that these authors were clearly targeting as they tried to get me to fall for their romantic figures on the page.
Historically, I am someone prone to crushing, especially if the subject of my crush is a fictional character. Will I ever find another Percy Jackson or Peeta Mellark, major literary crushes of my youth? Going out on a limb in the romance and fantasy world this year has revealed the sentiment, “ok, what’s this guy’s deal?” shoddily seared on my heart. I don’t think that was there when I was reading in middle school.
I spent a lot of 2024 reading outside of my comfort zone, and it’s okay if I didn’t always “get it.” I haven’t altogether given up on finding a romance trope that’s for me or a version of world-building that gets me invested. But all this is certainly not to say that there weren’t plenty of books I read this year that I loved. What’s more, I loved several that I read at the recommendation of others or because they were book club picks. I noticed common themes among the books that I loved were liminal spaces, surrealism, and underlying calls to challenge the limits of our collective imagination.

One of the titles I’ll discuss here is fittingly titled “More Than This” by Patrick Ness; my favorite books did all seem to argue that there is more/ask us to question what that “more” looks like. Be it through imaginative personal essays, dystopian stories, or the deconstruction of a mystery, all of these books live in somewhat liminal spaces. Stories in territory that is neither here (anymore) nor there (yet). That seems like apt reading for an election year, the last year in my “mid” twenties, and a year of a total solar eclipse and northern lights and historic inclement weather. Or maybe that’s just timelessly appropriate reading for being a person.
And there you have it: 2024 will go down as the year that, if I wasn’t reading outside of my comfort zone, I was reading about life beyond our comfort zones.
In June, I paired some of my favorite reads of the year with songs that felt like their sonic soulmates. As 2024 is rapidly approaching its end, I want to do some more musical match-making with these books I read in the latter half of the year that I won’t soon forget. This proved to be a difficult task simply due to how much I adore these books and want so badly to do each of them justice!
I Who Have Never Known Men x Jacqueline Harpman sounds like Dream Song x Samia
“I Who Have Never Known Men” was a book club pick by Liv, who had read it before but wanted people to discuss it with. It is indeed the kind of book that is nice to process with others. I don’t want to give too much away, because the unraveling of the story and the seeming randomness of some events is what makes it so compelling. But I’ll tell you that it’s set in the way distant future, a written account of a woman at the end of her life who spent her childhood in a bunker with a group of other caged women underground. What happens between that childhood in captivity and her writing this account is the story that moves this relatively short book along.
It raises a lot of existential questions and reminded me of the bits of Albert Camus I read in college. However, where I think it departs from Camus is how much hope it raises even in the face of utter bleakness. It offers a gentler, brighter acceptance of the notion of chaos and meaninglessness. I wanted to find a song that left me with a similar feeling; not a denial of darkness, but a kinder framing of it. Additionally, a major theme in this book was the persistence of curiosity even when answers and order remained totally unattainable. A thoroughly human heartbeat of this story. I felt like all these complicated and delicate feelings are somewhat present in Samia’s very poetic “Dream Song,” and especially in this particular verse:
"Swimming to the other side Someday I'm gonna When I finally forgive myself I'll be tired and sunburnt Tripping over Spanish moss again Today is all of it There are six minutes of brain activity After the body's dead"
“A precarious balance of existential and wholesome” is a fair analysis of both this book and song.
The Secret History x Donna Tartt sounds like Bocca Di Rosa x Fabrizio De Andre
There is a used book store near Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. that I bought a book from in January of 2020. In June, I found myself in the same used book store and, mostly compelled by nostalgia and maybe some superstition that another pandemic would come soon if I didn’t buy a book again (you didn’t know I was that powerful, huh?) I bought a cheap paperback of “The Secret History.” This is another one that has come up in conversation several times among friends, and I like reading mysteries/thrillers in the summer.
I began reading it on a sunny day in Georgetown that weekend, which was just perfect. It’s pretty dense, so I read it slowly over the summer and I’m still processing the character developments months later. Donna Tartt’s skill at painting people who also look a bit like monsters is fantastic and reminds me of her fellow Mississippian, Faulkner.
I discovered “Bocca Di Rosa” on a “Lake Como vibes” playlist I listened to in Italy long after finishing this book. I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I gathered from the way De Andre sings that he’s telling a rather dark or scandalous story, maybe even a secret. I looked up a translation and my suspicions were confirmed. When we arrived in Lake Como, I told my friends that it felt like a place rich people go to hide their skeletons, so the song did indeed feel very Lake Como-y to this American. “The Secret History” is written as a confession from one of the bystanders in a murder mystery from decades ago, so its tone is compatible with that of this song.
What’s more- though most of the book is set in New England, a major plot point in the book involves a hotel in Rome, making an Italian song an appropriate nod to the plot twist.
More Than This x Patrick Ness sounds like Coloured Concrete x Nemahsis
“More Than This” was my friend Anni’s pick for our book club to read. She shared with us that she picked it up in the store purely for the cover (valid- it’s great) and then couldn’t put it down. Like Lic and “I Who Have Never Known Men,” she had already read it, but wanted to have people to talk about it with. Also very valid- it’s a trippy story, to say the least. It was the first of two books that we read this year with a rather ambiguous ending, where the author doesn’t ultimately answer all the questions that you probably develop as the reader.
Without pulling too much of the plot’s thread, a teenage boy dies and then wakes up in his childhood home. Initially, he thinks he’s alone, but is he? Is he even really dead? Antics ensue in his quest to solve this living (?) riddle. Perhaps, then, that is why “Coloured Concrete” came to mind, as the refrain claims “I’ve figured it out.” Or maybe because the opening lyrics are, fittingly:
"Woke up today in my Middle school bedroom Except it isn't mine But the one I'd always dreamed of."
The artist Nemahsis wasn’t writing about a near death experience, but rather the song is a reflection on how growing up poor has impacted how she moves through the world as an adult, even out of the circumstances of her childhood. Still, this is resonant with the novel as the main character is periodically flashing back to memories of his life and using them to make sense of where he is in the present. Both the book and the song are meditations on how the past has created our present. Plus, sonically, the song really conveys a sense of running, which there also is plenty of in this action-packed novel.
Little Weirds x Jenny Slate sounds like Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth x Caroline Polachek
I’ve had a couple of friends (whose taste I deeply trust) rave about “Little Weirds” in the last couple of years, so when I wanted a book to bring along to Europe, it came to mind. Why, precisely, I’m not sure (beyond divine intervention) but I’m so glad I borrowed it from my friend Mary. She had dog-eared pages she loved and it was exciting to get to one of those pages and guessing what exactly Mary had thought was of note.
The book is a collection of essays by Jenny Slate, who I knew was a brilliant comedian so I was expecting plenty of whit. What took me by surprise was how equally tender and poignant each of her essays were, all while never sacrificing the book’s humor. Her writing style was at once colorful and down to earth. Descriptions of her emotional experiences were warmly relatable and yet written in such a singular voice that was so uniquely her own. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect book to take along with me on a trip divided between time with loved ones and long stretches of time on my own. It read like an invitation to look at the world with fresh eyes, and what better place to do that than on a train headed to Naples from Rome?
The unique playful/sincere/hopeful tone of the book reminds me of Caroline Polachek’s 2023 project “Desire, I Want To Turn Into You,” which will go down in history for me as the soundtrack of my Spring 2023. But it’s one of the bonus tracks, “Spring Is Coming With a Strawberry In The Mouth,” (a cover) that I find most compatible with the book. Is that mostly because the title sounds like it could be direct quote from the book? Well of course.
I would love to know if you’ve read any of these/what your favorite books of 2024 were! I encourage you to question if there was a theme amongst your favorites. I didn’t appreciate the similarities between mine until I sat down to write about them individually!