As we do each year, we asked our staff to recommend the books, shows, podcasts, and other content they enjoyed this year and they did not disappoint.

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Senior Research Associate
I completely loved Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series about a small group of friends living in a retirement community who solve murders. Plenty of good plot twists, endearing characters, and humor with a beautiful exploration of friendship and aging. A librarian recommended Sarah J. Maas when I was in a reading rut, and I went all in on her books despite not really being much of a fantasy reader. I especially enjoyed the Throne of Glass series for its large cast of characters and storylines that intersect in interesting and sometimes emotionally devastating ways. And finally, I was delighted by the return of How to Do Everything, a funny, charming advice podcast from two of the guys behind Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! One of my favorite episodes has Henry Winkler explaining how to look cool while waiting for someone.

Jean Barrett, Financial Associate & Center Coordinator
I was gifted the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas and was expecting a captivating fantasy, but what I got was an immersive journey that pulled me into an enchanting, complex world where magic and danger intertwine seamlessly. The series is a masterful blend of high fantasy, romance, and emotional depth. The journey from book one to the series’ last pages is one of growth, both for the characters and for me as a reader. Maas crafts a world that’s easy to get lost in, inhabited by characters that feel real and enduring long after the last page is turned. Whether it’s the heart-pounding adventure or the quiet moments of character introspection, each book brings something invaluable to the series’ rich tapestry. The HumbleDollar newsletter was another of my favorite reads.

Kerry Donahue, Director of Communications
Among my favorite reads this year were three books of historical fiction: The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (an 18th century midwife in Maine investigates a murder in her small town), The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (the author reimagines the underground railroad as an actual railroad), and The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman (a teenaged mother in 1950s Quebec is separated from her daughter at birth). In non-fiction, I found Lessons from the Edge, the memoir of former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and The Other Dr. Gilmer by Benjamin Gilmer (a rural physician learns that the former doctor at his clinic committed a horrible crime) incredibly compelling. (I read the latter in one afternoon, wholly unable to put it down.) I also thoroughly enjoyed the German TV series The Empress (about the 19th century Empress Elisabeth of Austria) and the podcast If Books Could Kill (“the airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds”).

Riordan Frost, Senior Research Analyst
One piece of media that I found striking this year was the six-part podcast series from 99% Invisible, Not Built for This, which discussed the various ways in which American communities are not built for climate change and how they are trying to adapt. The episode about our unbalanced insurance system goes particularly well with our recent JCHS blog post on the burdens of the home insurance crisis by Steve Koller. On the escapist side of things, I’m in progress on several items that I’m thoroughly enjoying, including The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, a fantasy book with an uncommon protagonist who is both a legendary pirate and a mother, coming out of retirement to secure her daughter’s future. I’m also catching up on Silo, a captivating sci-fi television series with a fascinating dystopian setting, and I’m making my way through the epic RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, which is one of the best video games I’ve ever played. I also loved the new Marvel series Agatha All Along, with its stellar cast and excellent theme song.

Chris Herbert, Managing Director
My favorite pleasure read this year was James by Percival Everett—and I certainly was not alone as it won the National Book Award. Telling the Huck Finn story through the eyes of his enslaved travel companion Jim (as Huck refers to James) makes for both a gripping story and a tremendously potent depiction of the ever-present and horrible dangers of life in slavery. I was particularly struck by the power of the storytelling from James’ perspective, having read and enjoyed Geraldine Brooks’ Horse the year before, which tells the story of an enslaved horse trainer named Jarrett. While Horse does portray the precarity of Jarrett’s life, it does not fully illuminate the horror of slavery as James does. With regard to more professional reading, the book I enjoyed most was an older publication, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era by Gail Radford. Radford tells the story of the work of Catherine Bauer and other housing advocates in the early 20th century that ultimately led to the passage of the Wagner-Steagall Act in 1937, which established the public housing program. The parallels to the housing challenges we face today were eerie (not enough new housing being built, what was built was out of reach of low- and moderate-income households, sound familiar?). As they say, while history may not repeat it often rhymes, and so the story Radford shares from nearly a century ago about what went right and what went wrong in getting this seminal legislation passed holds valuable lessons for those working today to bring about a new form of social housing. Lastly, in the guilty pleasure category, I really enjoyed the series Shrinking on Apple TV about a trio of psychotherapists, which was often laugh-out-loud funny while also touching—I’m a sucker for that combination.

Alexander von Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow
It’s always hard to remember what I read in the previous year, but I can definitely state that in the recent past I went to the baseball section of my library to read, at last, Leigh Montville's The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, an excellent short biography of perhaps the first superstar sports celebrity, which illuminates America’s mass media culture. In contrast, a book that was published this year, The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region, by David Alff, is a fun and quirky history of the northeast region that contains many fascinating bits of information and walk-on characters, including Albert Einstein and Fidel Castro. A couple of other books that drew on history were journalist Thomas Frank’s The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism, an account of the sporadic conflicts between elites and various people’s movements, and law professor Jonathan Turley’s excellent investigation of the age-old struggle for free speech, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. Among its revelations are that one of the earliest condemnations of “fake news” was issued by the English Parliament in 1275! I also learned from Coleman Hughes’s The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, a careful and ultimately optimistic argument for a return to the ideals that inspired the American Civil Rights movement. Finally, I continue my quest to listen to all 112 episodes of the The History of Ancient Greece podcast. Among its revelations are that on election day in ancient Athens, the government draped a red-dyed rope around the entire polis to stain any citizens who had not voted and were therefore subject to fines. So that’s how democracy started?

Steve Koller, Postdoctoral Fellow
I finished a PhD this year, so admittedly did not do as much discretionary reading as I would have liked. That said, I finally got to Richard Powers’ The Overstory and it lived up to the hype. Also, Daniel Yergin’s The Prize (a multi-year effort for me) provided a scrupulous accounting of the rise of oil in the 20th century, calling to mind possible parallels with the current renewable energy boom. When it comes to research-related reading, Dr. Carolyn Kousky’s Understanding Disaster Insurance was an accessible and highly informative primer that helped me better understand the residential insurance system in the US. For podcasts, the first season of Last Seen got me up to speed on local fine art intrigue while Shift Key provided timely updates about climate and clean energy policy. When working on topics related to climate (e.g., sea level rise), I often listened to Ludovico Einaudi's album Underwater on my headphones. This year I also had the great pleasure of singing in the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus’s fall concert, and a favorite piece from that was also water-themed: Placido e il mar (translation: “Calm is the sea”).

David Luberoff, Director of Fellowships and Events
Like many other people, this year I re-read The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s classic book about Robert Moses, first published 50 years ago. (I also listened to 99 Percent Invisible’s excellent monthly podcasts about the book.) The book is still hauntingly powerful, especially its heartbreaking accounts of how Moses-led urban renewal and highway projects damaged and sometimes destroyed many vibrant, low-income neighborhoods. I also read three excellent novels that focused on the larger forces that can threaten marginalized communities and how residents resist those forces. Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead is a powerful, often devastating, and sometimes uplifting account of life in the mountains of southern Appalachia during the opioid crisis. Two novels by James McBride—Deacon King Kong and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store—are vivid, sometimes fantastical, and often hilarious tales about two other changing and threatened communities: the Black and Latino residents of a public housing project in Brooklyn in 1969 and the Jewish and Black residents of Chicken Hill, a changing neighborhood in Pottstown, PA, during the 1920s and 1930s.

Samara Scheckler, Senior Research Associate
In a year of sensational political headlines, I appreciated books that brought me back to policy, including Holding it Together (Jessica Calarco), which describes the many ways women bear the brunt of supports that are missing from the US social safety net; Paved Paradise (Henry Grabar), which demonstrates the hidden and overt ways our cities and communities revolve around car parking infrastructure; and How to Hide an Empire (Daniel Immerwahr), which pieces together the history of the US as a colonial power from prerevolution to modern day. I also dove into graphic memoirs this year, especially generation-spanning stories of family cultural inheritance, including Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz (Ari Richter—my little brother!), Artificial (Amy Kurzweil), and Heavyweight (Solomon Brager). And this year led me to some incredible fiction. Two favorites were The Maniac (Benjamin Labatut), which imagines the experiences of the very real polymath John von Neumann, following him across 20th century advancements in math and physics into modern computing and AI; and Ours (Phillip B. Williams), which wraps myth and magic in gorgeous prose to explore Black freedom in America through the lens of a conjurer who emancipates enslaved people in the 1830s and brings them into a haven of her own design.

Susanne Schindler, Research Fellow
Since I only seem to be able to read long form on long-haul flights, it’s short form that I rely on to keep me updated on the issues that matter to me. Here are two keen observers of the built environment whose at-least-one-a-week writing I look forward to most. The first: Diana Lind’s Substack The New Urban Order. The Philadelphia-based writer dissects the politics of life in cities in easily accessible, non-jargony language. She often homes in on how narratives are constructed and policies become operable (or not). Most delightful: the wide range of issues she covers, from waste to transit to culture wars to playgrounds. I never know what Lind will surprise me with next. The second: Michael Eliason’s posts on LinkedIn. If Lind looks broadly, the Seattle-based architect and advocate has a singular focus: to effect building-code reform. Eliason displays unusual persistence and humor in documenting (and explaining!) what is wrong with how the US builds housing and cities. A key exhibit that stuck with me this year: the floor plan of a newly built, market-rate apartment in Seattle. None of the three bedrooms has a window. How could this possibly be legal?

Sophia Wedeen, Senior Research Analyst
I probably spent most of my reading time this year on the new translation of the Iliad by Emily Wilson. Having been mildly obsessed with classics since high school, I found Wilson’s translation accessible and very moving. This prompted a deep dive into the limited information on the origins of Homeric poems. I also enjoyed Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by geneticist and anthropologist Jennifer Raff. Dr. Raff examines how new genetic evidence has refuted and reshaped many longstanding scientific theories about the migration of indigenous peoples through the Americas. My favorite read of the year was Philippe Squarzoni’s graphic novel Homicide, an adaptation of the 1991 nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon that follows the activities of the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit in the late 1980s. The artwork and storytelling capture the exhaustion, dark humor, and messiness of the work of these detectives. These events became the inspiration for The Wire and I highly recommend this graphic novel to any fan of the TV series.