At the end of last year, I published a newsletter called “the review”, a reflection both on a year in my life and our online obsession at the end of the year with ‘best of’ lists and the ‘wrapped’ approach to our media consumption and how we think about our experiences and engagement with the digital world each year.
In the spirit of tradition, this year I’m back with another year in review! Full disclosure, I’m eschewing attempts at cultural criticism this time around and instead leaning into the solipsistic aspect of looking back at the year. Enclosed in this newsletter you will find lists, stats, travel photos, and more as we reflect on my favourite little commemorative trinkets and digital ephemera of the past year.
i. the besties
My top album of 2024: Charm - Clairo. There was a lot of good new music this year - let’s not forget the cultural force that was BRAT summer or the rise of Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter - but Clairo’s newest album was one that really stood out to me, and in my music listening stats it is the clear winner as my most listened to album, with the track “Thank You” being my most listened to song of the year(closely followed, of course, by “Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op. 92: II Allegretto”). I’ve been a Clairo listener for a few years, but I’ve liked each of her albums better than the last, and this year’s release has fully persuaded me to move from casual listener to fan.
Honourable mention to a few other 2024 albums I have been loving recently: What a Devastating Turn of Events by Rachel Chinouriri, This is How Tomorrow Moves by beabadoobee, New Internationale by Kit Sebastian. Also, doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal, and in particular her recent Tiny Desk Concert, which is one of the best of the year. (And while we’re on the subject of the Tiny Desk, my absolute favourite of 2024…)
2024 Books: My reading total this year was 102 books, and my favourite 2024 releases were Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. As a Trinity College alumnus/Dublin resident I feel obligated to read everything Sally Rooney writes, and while I am perhaps in the minority of not loving previous releases like Normal People, I really enjoyed her latest work, and it is easily my favourite of her novels. I also have to admit that my love for it is slightly swayed by the beautiful hardcover copy I bought in a Dublin bookshop which they specially stamped for me while a women in the queue told me and the bookseller about how she “knows Sally’s mam” if the shop wanted to ask her to get Sally(international literary sensation Sally Rooney.) to sign a few copies(???).
My nonfiction pick of the year, The Message, is an excellent read, first brought to my attention by the very controversial negative(and often outright racist) reviews it received when first released, the book is filled with interesting stories and insights, really elegantly written with Coates’ trademark knack for exploring incredibly complex issues of cultural trauma, history, and memory in very precise and accessible ways.
Other 2024 favourites: I got into Dostoevsky for the first time this year and absolutely loved Crime and Punishment and then endured The Idiot. I read a lot of classics and genre staples that were new to me as part of my Riverdale Reading List project, which was a lot of fun! I did a ton of academic reading this year, including reading all of Being and Time and Emmanuel Levinas’ Totality and Infinity for school. At the very top of my list this year were Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, and The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Films Watched in 2024: I watched(as of writing) exactly twice as many films as books I read, with a total of 204 according to my Letterboxd. This might be controversial, but I don’t have a movie of the year.1 I watched and enjoyed some 2024 films, but none of them reached the level of Great—it just wasn’t a very good year for movies(especially in comparison to the feast of film that was 2023.)
However, I did still watch some wonderful films during the year! In no particular order, the best new-to-me watches of 2024: The Red Shoes(1948), Double Indemnity(1944), 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), La Chimera(2023), Ball of Fire(1941), and Lola(1961).
Games of the year: 2024 was a very fun year for video games! Lately I have really been enjoying the latest Zelda game Echoes of Wisdom, plus still enjoying the previous instalment/my game of the year 2023, Tears of the Kingdom - my favourite gaming experience was completing the game’s quest to discover the location of every well on the map, a challenge that was surprisingly engaging and satisfying. Also have gotten to replay some games that I haven’t played in years in the past few months thanks to recent releases including the new My Sims2 cozy bundle, the remaster of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, and the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection which includes a game never previously released internationally3, and have had so much fun revisiting old favourites :)
ii. personal statistics
Countries4 visited: 12
Auroras seen: 1(Borealis)
Pets adopted: 1
Beatrice!!! Duolingo ranking: top 4%
Sufjan Stevens listener ranking: top 1%
Dolmens/megalithic portal tombs visited: 2 (a 200% increase over previous years!)
Most popular newsletter: “your body is a battleground”
Number of minutes spent listening to the soundtrack to Les Parapluies de Cherbourg(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) by Michel Legrand(according to apple music): 666
Most fun newsletter to research: “alienation”
Surgeries: 1(but all other hospital visits are down yippee)
Favourite lake: Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland
Most underrated newsletter: “watch what happens”5
Pieces of jewellery lost: 3
Glossier lip balms I’ve had since college finally finished: 2
Museums visited: 166
Favourite soup: Salmon soup(lohikeitto) in Helsinki
Ph.D programmes started: 1
Ph.D programmes dropped out of: 0!!!
Days survived: all of ‘em.
vail, colorado/the hill of tara, ireland/zuerich, switzerland/tallinn, estonia/cardiff, wales/leiden, netherlands/bath, england/helsinki, finland/porto, portugal
i hope the holidays have been kind to you and that the start of the new year is a gentle one, with lots of light ahead.
let’s catch up next year <3
isobel
As of now! I might have changed my mind by the Oscars but we will see.
A series I wrote about earlier this year, in particular a game still not (yet) available on modern consoles, My Sims Agents. Currently I’m playing my sims kingdom.
I had to play a fan translation on a DS emulator on my laptop! For years that was the only way to access it! And now it is fully translate and remastered and playable on the switch!!! This is huge for people who care at all about ace attorney!!!
I am counting by COUNTRIES. Not states. Not nation-states. Not independent nations. (This is how I get away with counting England and Wales separately)
(I really liked this one sorry!)
Counted by individual museums, not repeat visits(also I’m not 100% sure of this count).