Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024

The Anthropologists

In the exceptional latest from Savaş (White on White), an idealistic young couple flounders in their half-hearted effort to put down roots in an unnamed city far from their respective homelands. Asya, who makes “joyful and naïve” documentaries about everyday life, met fellow international student Manu in college. Since graduation, they’ve been renting a small, dark apartment in the city, and now decide they’re ready to buy their own place. They visit a range of listings, including a converted factory, a house in the suburbs, and an apartment off of an alley, the last of which they conclude is perfect except for the layout, which feels wrong in a way they can’t articulate. Though they want to step further into adulthood, they also want to preserve their youth, and they chafe at the willful conformity of their peers. Their friend Ravi, who patches together a living with tutoring gigs and collects old photographs, is a kindred spirit. So is their elderly neighbor, Tereza, with whom they read poetry. Savaş captures the singularity of the couple’s logic in lucid prose, and the real estate search gives shape to the spare and subtle narrative, as the couple’s indecisiveness and their affection for Ravi and Tereza keep readers guessing as to what they’ll do. It’s a masterpiece. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Last spring, Haidt's treatise on the impact of cell phones on children reached #1 on PW's bestseller list. As we reported in our weekly analysis of the list, Haidt, coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind, argues in the book that a “phone-based childhood" has become "the major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness.”

Growth: A History and a Reckoning

Economic growth is a double-edged sword, according to this thought-provoking treatise. King’s College London economist Susskind (A World Without Work) suggests that world history was characterized by poverty and stagnation before an Enlightenment-era cultural shift toward “reason... over superstition” saw the application of the scientific method to such problems as increasing factory output, creating unprecedented economic expansion with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. Ever since, growing the economy has become the obsession of governments eager to wash away political antagonisms in a tide of prosperity, Susskind contends, arguing that this blinkered focus on increasing GDP has produced toxic downsides too glaring to ignore, environmental destruction and inequality primary among them. While Susskind rejects the “degrowth” movement (he posits that the rapid adoption of solar panels shows how certain forms of growth can be a net good), he recommends convening assemblies of randomly selected citizens to propose ways to balance economic boosterism against social and environmental objectives, such as deciding how much to curb foreign competition for the benefit of domestic workers. The high-level discussions evaluating the merits of economists Paul Romer’s and Joel Mokyr’s theories about the origins of human prosperity can be dense, but the discerning analysis is worth the effort. This brings clarity to a pressing and intractable quandary. (Apr.)

In Ascension

Scottish writer MacInnes (Infinite Ground) spins a thought-provoking story of underwater and outer space exploration. At the outset, Dutch microbiologist Leigh joins a mission to explore a deep vent in the Atlantic Ocean believed to host ancient organisms. A series of dramatic episodes ensues as she encounters inexplicable phenomena and falls victim to a mysterious illness. Undaunted, Leigh then accepts a job with a space agency in California. What looks like an opportunity to further her investigations into algae turns out to be the start of a remarkable trek into the cosmos. Much of the novel’s tension arises from whether Leigh will survive the journey and whether she’ll encounter alien life, but MacInnes gracefully contrasts well-paced moments of peril with his protagonist’s meditations on her relationships with her abusive father and detached mother, whose struggle with dementia complicates Leigh’s decision to join the space mission. The familial dysfunction mirrors one of the book’s major concerns: that the relationship between people and the natural environment has been damaged almost beyond repair. Despite the lingering sense of doom, MacInnes ensures readers never lose sight of what Leigh calls “the generosity of porous life.” This brims with humanity. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management. (Feb.)

Intermezzo

Bestseller Rooney returns with a boldly experimental and emotionally devastating story of estrangement (after Beautiful World, Where Are You). After their father dies, brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek drift further apart. Peter, 32, is a depressed Dublin lawyer torn between his college girlfriend, Sylvia, who broke up with him with after she suffered a disabling accident six years earlier, and 23-year-old Naomi, a sometime sex worker. Ivan, 22, is a socially inept pro chess player whose wunderkind status is in doubt when he meets and falls for 36-year-old near-divorcée Margaret at a tournament. Peter’s reflexive disapproval of the age gap in Ivan and Margaret’s relationship causes a permanent rift, and Rooney crosscuts between their perspectives as they ruminate on their father’s death and their complicated romances. The novel’s deliberate pacing veers from the propulsiveness of Normal People and the deep character work contrasts with the topicality of Beautiful World, but in many ways this feels like Rooney’s most fully realized work, especially as she channels the modernist styles of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Underlining Peter’s rudderlessness, she writes, “Lamplight. Walking her to the library under the trees. Live again one day of that life and die. Cold wind in his eyes stinging like tears. Woman much missed.” Moreover, her focus on Peter and Ivan’s complicated fraternal bond pays enormous dividends. Even the author’s skeptics are liable to be swept away by this novel’s forceful currents of feeling. (Sept.)

Orbital

Harvey’s beautiful latest (after The Western Wind) follows a space station’s six crew members as they orbit Earth over the course of a nine-month mission. The crew members study the effects of microgravity on the body, report on Earth storms from their unique vantage point, and conduct experiments to learn about the effects of space on flammability, gardening, and human muscle use. Among the crew are Chie, who receives news that her mother has died back home in Japan. As the shuttle continues on its orbit, she dreads their return to Earth—she doesn’t want to go back to a world where her mother is gone. Meanwhile, Shaun, an American astronaut who first wanted to be a fighter pilot, debates the existence of God with Nell, a British meteorologist, and they each point to the wondrous infinity of space as evidence of their opposing viewpoints. Recurring quotidian scenes drive the action—the toilet is always breaking and in need of fixing—and though Harvey carefully distinguishes each crew member, their reflections on their love for space and their shared activities lend a sense of cohesion. Harvey suggests that her characters all share various abstract ideas about the planet, which she conveys with lovely lyrical prose (“Its beauty echoes —its beauty is its echoing, its ringing singing lightness. It’s not peripheral and it’s not the centre; it’s not everything and it’s not nothing, but it seems much more than something”). This gorgeous meditation leaves readers feeling as if they’re floating in the same “dark unswimmable sea.” (Dec.)

Patriot: A Memoir

In this intrepid memoir, Russian political dissident Navalny, who died under suspicious circumstances last February, recaps his career fighting against what he depicts as a kleptocratic bureaucracy. After Putin’s rise to power in 1999, Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation exposed massive theft committed by government officials, state-owned companies, and Putin himself. Navalny ran for office several times, including for the presidency in 2018; his campaigns were thwarted by bureaucratic interference and trumped-up corruption charges. In 2020, Navalny suffered a near-fatal poisoning, allegedly by Russian intelligence services. The book’s second half comprises Navalny’s prison diary after his incarceration in 2021; in it he denounces Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, gets convicted of more corruption charges, and weathers subtler torments (“The fluorescent light is now flashing brightly at random intervals.... It’s impossible to read”). His narrative is full of mordant humor—“in Volgograd, thirty Cossacks... tried to drag me out of the headquarters by my legs, while my supporters were pulling me back inside by my arms”—and Kafkaesque absurdism. (His application to see a prison dentist was “withdrawn by the censors as containing evidence of a crime.”) Navalny faces demoralizing injustice with good grace, enduring it with simple appeals to decency and poetic evocations of his homeland (“I love the melancholic landscapes, when you look out of the window and want to cry; it’s just wonderful”). It’s a stirring final testament. (Oct.)

Someone Like Us

In the beautiful latest from Mengestu (All Our Names), a journalist pieces together the mysteries of his early life in the wake of his biological father’s death. The story takes place over three days after Mamush travels from Paris to the Ethiopian community outside Washington, D.C., where he spent the latter half of his childhood. Upon his arrival, he learns from his mother that Samuel, whom Mamush knew growing up as a family friend and later found out was his father, has just been found dead in his garage. The circumstances of Samuel’s death are murky and people are careful about making assumptions, partly due to the taboo nature of suicide in Ethiopian culture. After Mamush pays condolences to Samuel’s wife, he heads to Chicago, where he was born shortly after his mother emigrated from Ethiopia, hoping to find answers about Samuel and his mother’s early relationship. Mamush knows Samuel arrived in Chicago when Mamush was six, with plans to start a network of taxis around the U.S., but instead toiled as a cabbie and became addicted to drugs. From there, the story unfolds like a fairy tale as Mamush imagines the ghost of Samuel telling him how he met Mamush’s mother and why they were never together in the U.S. Mengestu shifts fluidly between fabulism and realism, and the narrative is full of wisdom related to Samuel’s disillusionment with the American dream. Mengestu’s tremendous talents are on full display. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (July)

Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right

Shame is driving the rightward turn in economically depressed rural areas, according to this piercing analysis. Hochschild, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, revisits the themes of Strangers in Their Own Land, this time interviewing the residents of Pikeville, Ky.—located in one of the whitest, poorest, and most conservative counties in the country—to understand how the once purple coal town turned deep red. She finds that many in Pikeville are entangled in what she calls “the pride paradox,” or the tension between dwindling economic opportunities and the belief that one’s successes or failures in life reflect one’s abilities. Residents consequently blame themselves and feel ashamed when their lives don’t turn out how they’d hoped, which, Hochschild argues, drives them to support Donald Trump, whose shamelessness provides a “cathartic release” for his followers. Hochschild’s empathetic profiles suggest a sinister side to American individualism as ordinary people hold themselves responsible for problems that arise from systemic wrongdoing, like opioid addiction brought on by Purdue Pharma’s pill pushing. She also debunks common misconceptions about Trump’s base, revealing that “those most enthralled with Donald Trump were not at the very bottom” but instead were those “who aspired to do well” or “who were doing well within a region that was not.” It’s an impressive and nuanced assessment of a critical factor in American politics. (Sept.)

The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing

A panoply of artists offer a rare peek into the mysteries and mundanities of the creative process in this captivating compendium. Former New York magazine editor Moss (coeditor, New York Stories) asked writers George Saunders and Louise Glück, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz, chef Jody Williams, and others to walk him through “in as much detail as they could muster” the life span of a single piece of art, providing along the way such “physical documentation” as annotated pages and coffee-stained napkin drawings. Profile subjects tell of building failure into the process, painting over canvases, and working in longhand to write “freer.” George Saunders gave himself six months to “just goof around” as he waited for another book’s release date before something “kicked... open in my head” and he started work in earnest on what became Lincoln in the Bardo. Elsewhere, Louise Glück speaks of the often-maddening value of patience (“you can will things, but whenever I’ve tried to do that, the poem just goes to hell”). Moss concludes on a fascinating note, musing that while “artists don’t have more interesting dreams than the rest of us,” they do possess “an unusual ability to cross over—to get entrance to that inarticulable place, and then to capture what they can make use of.” It’s a must-read for creatives of all stripes. Agent: David Kuhn, Aevitas Creative Management. (Apr.)