Tiger Tribune’s Top 5 Reads of 2024
By Niamh Coldren
As 2024 draws to a close, my ever-growing pile of unread books provide a judgmental stare that never quite leaves. However, the end of the year also provides a space to reflect on the books I did make time for, and subsequently, the words and stories that expressed, expanded, and altered my deepest thoughts, fears, and perceptions. This yearly reflection allows me to realise yet again just how extraordinary and necessary the medium of writing is in affirming and altering our pre-held conceptions.
This list aims to provide a summary of five books that I found to be challenging, transformative, and mind-altering. These are stories that made an indelible mark on my understanding of the world around me, and I hope they might do the same for you. This list seeks to present a diverse variety of genres that many other readers may enjoy. However, these books naturally reflect the ones I tend to enjoy the most (sorry, but I avoid horror at all costs).
*The selections are placed in no particular order. *
Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar
Genre: Literary fiction, biography
Martyr! follows Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian-American man coping with generations of loss, grief, and addiction. At five years old, his mother’s plane was mysteriously shot down from Tehran skies by the US military, forcing Cyrus’s father to emigrate to the United States. Here, he spends his days working on the cramped and dirty Midwestern chicken farm that he eventually calls home. A newly sober, twenty-something Cyrus is an angsty and fanatical writer consumed by the concept of death. He wants, more deeply than anything else, for his own death to mean something. Thus, Cyrus becomes infatuated with the idea of martyrdom, and the exploration of giving up his life for something greater. When he hears of a terminally ill Iranian painter spending her final days in a Brooklyn art gallery, he’s fascinated. The two connect in a profoundly mysterious way, and Cyrus’s relationship to family, nation, border, and language is forever changed.
Martyr! Is a deeply enjoyable book. It succeeds in balancing both immense grief, but also humour, mercy, and surprise. It’s exciting, twisty, and unpredictable. Kaveh Akbar gives readers a novel of meticulousness and obsession. I walked away from this book feeling an immense gratitude for the ability to be a witness to a work of such grace, honesty, and humanity. I cannot sing its praises highly enough!
Circle of Hope by Eliza Griswold
Genre: Nonfiction
Overview:
Circle of Hope is a searing and honest portrayal of a single church located just outside Philadelphia, PA. The church, Circle of Hope, emerged from the “Jesus movement” of the 1960s and 1970s— a group of young, countercultural Evangelicals who sought to follow a version of Christ rooted in liberation and freedom. The ‘Circle of Hope’ started with a vision of being radically different and dedicated to living out a world free from oppression. However, it soon began to foster a negative mindset surrounding leadership, power, and growth that would irreparably fracture its community, leading to its ultimate dissolution. This book is extraordinarily researched. It’s ugly, but honest. Difficult, but illuminating. Griswold, the daughter of the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, is unflinching in her exploration of human relationship, trust, betrayal, and ego. She examines the ways in which systems of power corrupt with painstaking clarity. Circle of Hope is perfect for fans of ‘The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill’, and those interested in the future of the Church.
They Can’t Take Your Name by Robert Justice
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Overview:
They Can’t Take Your Name is a novel set in the late 1990s, in Denver’s very own Five Points. The story follows Langston Brown’s wrongful conviction after the story's gruesome mother’s day massacre. Brown’s daughter, Liza, is suddenly faced with the threat of her father’s execution, prompting her to leave a prestigious law school to clear her father’s name. She is placed against a race of time as Brown’s trial on death row creeps closer and closer. Nestled within Denver’s Black community, They Can’t Take Your Name is gripping, grounding, and transforming. It is deeply sobering and haunting, but still is told with a respectful air of humour, light, and hope. Robert Justice gives readers a story with characters whose dreams, loves, resistances, and oppressions ring deep and linger within each word.
I felt fundamentally changed after reading this story despite the unlikely circumstances of my discovery of it. The locations, characters, and histories found within They Can’t Take Your Name are deeply recognizable. It is a novel that stands achingly close to home.
Rapture’s Road by Seán Hewitt
Genre: Poetry
Overview:
Rapture’s Road is Seán Hewitt’s second collection of poetry, released at the beginning of 2024. It brings the reader on a journey across a mystical dream-space set in the backdrop of the natural world. Within the stanzas, Hewitt depicts how nature becomes a reflection of the cycles of death, decay, and rebirth present in life. His descriptions of this landscape (both interior and exterior) are soaked in a sort of otherworldly beauty. The stories he tells are lush and tainted with grief. They are haunting, mesmerizing, and deeply urgent. I would consider this book one of the most extraordinary collections of poetry I’ve had the privilege to read. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ocean Vuong, and Seamus Heaney, but it also has a strong voice of its own. It is an intricate, careful, and tender masterpiece of language.
TINY by Mairead Case
Genre: Fiction
Overview:
TINY is a retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone, written by local Denver author, Mairead Case. Set in a dreamy, translucent Pacific Northwest, the narrative follows Tiny, a teenage girl ravaged by the grief of her dead brother. It serves as an exploration of identity, fluidity, pain, and hope. Case’s writing is strikingly different and deeply poetic. It reminds me of water in the way it moves: free-flowing, steady, and open. I happened to pick this book up while browsing the library's shelves, and after realizing the title was indeed ‘tiny’ not ‘tinny,’ I was stunned by what a beautiful story it told. I cannot quite express just how unique and spectacular of a book this is. It is unlike anything I’ve ever read. TINY is a retelling that manages to embody the sharp edges of grief, youth, light, and living. It is wonderfully wrenching; a story that feels fully embodied and fully human.