COPY’s Favorites of 2024: Literature
Read these on the train to seduce your soulmate (and expand your mind).
By THE COPY TEAM
12.20.24
Taylor
“An Eye in the Throat” by Samanta Schweblin (trans. Megan McDowell) in The Paris Review
This short story has haunted me since I read it; it rekindled my interest in reading and writing short fiction. I genuinely gasped.
“The Wolf Man” by Caroline Gioiosa in The Drift
I love a story that ostensibly takes place in the “real” world but has an ever-so-slightly askew sense of internal logic, creating a thick atmosphere that is both uncanny and enchanting. I also love a story that marries ecology and desire, as those landscapes feel tethered by their extremity.
P.S. Not at all a new book, but my most formative reading experience of the year was It by Stephen King. It’s so much more than a horror story about an evil clown; it’s about home, friendship, childhood, and the terror of seeing a darkness you can barely comprehend in a world that doesn’t see you back.
Naava
Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm by Emmeline Clein
THIS IS THE ONE! This is the book on eating disorders I’ve needed, desperately, for years. Clein combines ridiculously thorough research with cultural examinations of Tumblr eating disorder communities, feminine sexuality, and parental relationships to eating. I read this ravenously, like I’d been studied in a lab and was reading my own case folder.
There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
2024 was my year of basketball. I got injured during a game of 2v2 on the court by my apartment. I attended my first Brooklyn Nets game. I watched the Knicks lose to the Pacers and felt genuinely emotional. Not only was it my year of basketball, but it was also the year I fell deeply, head-over-heels in admiration with Abdurraqib’s writing—specifically, the way he honors his own obsessions. This one is a radical examination of where we come from and how we uplift our own experiences. I’ll be learning from his work for years to come.
There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Creative Independent
with Sarita Doe
In this TCI piece, Doe talks about interconnectivity between art and the earth, an idea I’m currently primed to receive. Finding this piece in my email inbox after spending a weekend in upstate New York making art with friends felt like an answer to a prayer I’d unknowingly cast.
with Emily Wells
I wasn’t familiar with Wells’s work until I read this, and now I can’t get enough. She talks about making art as a lifeline through despair and the way that fueled the making of Regards to the End. I like thinking of TCI interviews as chapters in an almanac for a creative life. They don’t always hit entirely, but there’s a resonant sentiment or two to be gleaned from each one.
Phil
Reader, I by Corey Van Landingham
To be loved is to be seen, right? Well, then, to be seen is to be hunted. To be hunted is to hunt. To hunt is to love. Corey Van Landingham’s poetry haunts yet reveres. What to do with “marriage,” this thing that destroys, subjugates, and violates? On the other hand, what to do with “love,” this inescapable, wonderful thing we do without trying? Must one lead to the other? And so what if it does? Corey Van Landingham’s third collection of poetry is hypnotic, terrifying, and sticky with blood and history.
A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper-New
Get in the pool and play Mermaids. Get out of the pool and take shelter from the hurricane. Do a magic trick so no one knows who you are. Tell everyone who you are and make it look like a magic trick. Caroline Harper-New’s first collection of poetry is out-of-this-world fantastic. I cannot stop thinking about “The Bathtub.”
A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper-New
Theodora
Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon
In this work of memoir and cultural criticism, Suzanne Scanlon explores the madwoman who writes. She compares her own experiences in a mental hospital while a student at Barnard to admired writers like Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf (as well as their characters). It’s an account of institutionalization but also explores how the idolization of literary heroes fits into her experience. She goes through the novels that made her feel like life was worth living, made her curious or envious, and presented her with women and girls she related to, like Marguerite Duras’s The Lover. For sad readers and writers everywhere.
Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon
Sophie
Kitchen Confidential Annotated Edition: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
With handwritten annotations and never-before-seen photos of Anthony Bourdain, this special edition of Kitchen Confidential feels like experiencing time travel through the lens of a chef who has seen and done everything that pertains to food. The annotations make the reader feel like they’re chatting in a bar with Bourdain himself; a must-read for anyone who’s ever eaten in a restaurant.
Kitchen Confidential Annotated Edition: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Amelia
“The Life and Death of Hollywood” by Daniel Bessner in Harper’s
Spoiler: It was capitalism all along. Possibly one of the best-reported longform articles I’ve ever read, chronicling Hollywood’s business history to understand how we got to where we are now: an industry that exploits creatives in favor of the bottom line instead of championing them.
"The Thirty-Two Fouettes" by Dwight Curtis in The Wrath-Bearing Tree
Spectacular short fiction about spectacle, art, and entertainment. As a former ballerina, it’s a disturbing reality that self-destruction is a given in the art form, but what does this say about the audiences who consume it?
The Club Med Compilation on Broadcast
From the minds at Broadcast (the Pioneer Works magazine) comes a collection of pieces about the Adderall epidemic and the drug's effects on internet culture. It strikes the perfect balance between researched and anecdotal, funny and smart, and scary and hopeful. There's a lot to chew on!
The Club Med Compilation on Broadcast
Health and Safety by Emily Witt
This has everything I look for in a book: super tight writing, sexdrugs&rocknroll(EDM), and a poignant account of how the political affects the personal. It's an incredibly smart and compelling read, especially if you are somehow tied to Bushwick and/or Berghain.
This has everything I look for in a book: super tight writing, sexdrugs&rocknroll(EDM), and a poignant account of how the political affects the personal. It's an incredibly smart and compelling read, especially if you are somehow tied to Bushwick and/or Berghain.
Halle
Discipline by Debra Spark
An incredible novel by my former writing professor, Debra Spark, Discipline weaves together three compelling narratives: a displaced boy navigating a shadowy boarding school, a modern-day art appraiser, and a series of love letters exchanged between two painters. These distinct threads beautifully converge to explore the transformative power of art and its ability to unearth our deepest emotions. With themes of love, loss, betrayal, and even a hint of a heist, this novel was a standout addition to my 2024 reading list.
Discipline by Debra Spark