Spies, adventurers, rule-breakers and freedom fighters
What I read and watched in 2024
In the world of media, the year ends a month early.
The “best books of 2024” and “best movies of 2024” lists are already out, with calendar pages still turned to November, as of this writing. It makes some sense to jump the gun — the lists come in handy when shopping for gifts and spending time during the holidays.
At a recent stand-up performance in Manhattan, Jerry Seinfeld spoofed the urge we feel to recommend our favorite streaming shows to friends. He doesn’t care what you like to watch — and especially doesn’t want a recommendation of a show where you have to endure the lousy first four seasons to get to the good parts.
Still, it seems like a good time to take stock of what bits of our overstuffed culture made an impression on me this year. (Much of what I list below was published before this year, but 2024 was when I caught up with them.)
Here are some things I’ll remember.
Movers and shakers
Revolver, by Jim Rasenberger: A suspenseful biography, published in 2021, of Samuel Colt, who started out by staging explosions underwater and invented the Colt revolver, a technological breakthrough that changed America forever, in disturbing ways. Here was a 19th century inventor and entrepreneur who broke rules, dabbled in politics and foreign affairs and created a template that disruptive business titans still follow today. You can visit his armory in the Connecticut River valley: Coltsville is topped by the blue onion dome he built after a fateful trip to Russia.
The Fund, by Rob Copeland: A portrait of hedge fund founder Ray Dalio and the all-controlling workplace he created. “This is a terrific dagger of a book packed with cringey detail, just long enough to efficiently disembowel its subject,” wrote Mark Gimein in the New York Times.
Apprentice in Wonderland, by Ramin Setoodeh: The first Trump term let loose such a flood of books about the 45th president that there seems little more to learn, even as he prepares to take the oath of office as the 47th. But for those curious about the TV show that manufactured the image of the commanding leader, winning the heart of MAGA, Ramin Setoodeh’s recent book is a thoroughly researched chronicle.
Standing in judgment
Two books published last year delve deeply into the moral dilemmas of political leaders in wartime and the excruciating efforts to hold them to account when peace finally arrives.
Julian Jackson’s France on Trial tells the compelling story of how France’s World War One hero, Marshall Philippe Pétain, became the leader of the Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime during World War II and was put on trial for treason afterward.
Judgment at Tokyo, by Gary Bass is an even more detailed study, in 912 pages, of the Tokyo war crimes trial that, unlike its sister effort in Nuremberg, went seriously off the rails.
Adventurers
In Sailing Alone, Robert J. King is an expert guide to the mechanics of sailing solo around the world, along with the motivations of the hundreds of people who’ve done it, the emotions they experienced, the wildlife they encountered, the disasters they’ve mostly overcome and much more. A good book to read when you’re sitting in a warm room, protected from the winter winds but ready to let your imagination take you into the stormy seas around Cape Horn.
In a similar vein, The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides tells the story of Captain James Cook’s final voyage to New Zealand, Hawaii, Alaska and back to Hawaii, deftly describing how the explorer famous for his self-control gradually lost it.
As good as these books are, they can’t quite prepare you for the mother of all sea adventures (at least since Moby Dick and the Odyssey) — Endurance, the nail-biting account, published in 1959, by Alfred Lansing, of Ernest Shackleton’s doomed effort to reach the South Pole.
(David Grann’s The Wager is another expertly told sea story.)
Spies
Mick Herron’s Slough House series of spy novels are so much fun to read that they entertain even those readers who have seen Slow Horses, the hit Apple TV series they spawned. Herron has a knack for writing lines that end with a vicious or hilarious recoil.
In Dead Lions, Herron describes his protagonist seeking information from reluctant workers at the Oxford railway station: “Good to know, thought Jackson Lamb, that if terrorists descended on this particular transport hub, they’d meet an impregnable line of defence. Unless they waved banknotes.”
In contrast to the ruthless efficiency of James Bond, Herron’s equally imaginary set of spies are so hapless that they are exiled to paperwork duties at a dilapidated outpost of MI5 called Slough House, ruled over by the bilious, flatulent and often cruel Lamb. Still, they bumble into hostage situations, shootouts, bombings and more and, against all odds, wind up doing some good.
Unlike Herron, David McCloskey did time in the spy business. The former CIA analyst followed up his thriller Damascus Station with a 2023 sequel, Moscow X. His cast of spies may or may not be true-to-life but they stand out as unique characters who interact in revealing ways.
For more on the CIA, Bob Woodward’s 1987 book, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 is a remarkable feat of reporting that helped set the template for the Washington Post journalist’s continuing series of real-life political thrillers. Whatever you think of his sometimes disputed reporting methods, Woodward cracked the code of Washington insiders to reveal the activities of an out-of-control spy agency under director William J. Casey.
History and fiction
British author Robert Harris wrote the novel that resulted in the superb Vatican-centered film Conclave. (Kudos to director Edward Berger for skillful film-making. When the new pope is finally chosen by an epically cursed conclave of cardinals, Berger resists the urge to show the telltale white smoke emerging from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney. Instead you see the ballots burning in the stove and only hear the cheers from the crowds in St. Peter’s Square.)
I recommend every one of Harris’ books — but especially An Officer and a Spy on the Dreyfus affair, Fatherland which imagined a different outcome to World War II and his trilogy on the life of Cicero. Harris’ new book, Precipice, is of more limited appeal, perhaps best suited for fans of British political history. It combines newly available real-life letters with some invented details about the affair at the outset of World War One between British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Venetia Stanley, a 26-year-old aristocrat less than half his age.
Art escapades
In Get the Picture, Bianca Bosker plumbs the idiosyncrasies of the art world. As an earnest newcomer, she learns how artists, gallery owners, collectors, donors and museum directors are like any other fraternity — they collaborate and conspire in a universe mostly closed to the people who consume art.
The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel is the astonishing true story of a young French art enthusiast who stole more than a billion dollar’s worth of pieces from scores of museums in Europe. Only some of those works were recovered.
The fight against slavery
A trio of books illuminated the role of slavery as the central theme of the Civil War years. Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest describes in cinematic fashion the chain of events that led to the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of the war that killed more Americans than any other.
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo explores how William and Ellen Craft ingeniously escaped slavery and became internationally known advocates for those who were left behind.
While doing research for a Now It’s History post, I read that the CIA has a statue of Harriet Tubman on its campus. So I turned to Catherine Clinton’s 2004 biography for the story of her remarkable life. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom details her escape from slavery, her missions to free the enslaved and her intelligence work for Union forces during the Civil War.
Streamers
Even if Hollywood is dialing down the number of new productions as the era of “Prestige Television” comes to an end, there was a lot to watch.
The retelling of Shōgun outdid the 1980 original.
The Sympathizer cast new light on the Vietnam War from the point of view of an ambivalent Vietnamese man who spied for the Americans, played skillfully by Hoa Xuande. Robert Downey Jr.’s four different characters, facets of the exploitative US wartime apparatus, made for an acting tour de force. The show was based on a novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
The Bear drilled down into merciless realities of the high-end restaurant business, but with a humanity anyone can appreciate. Hacks and The Diplomat rewarded viewers with crisp writing and memorable characters. Bad Monkey is just silly, but as with all of the products of Carl Hiassen’s brain, also a lot of fun. So is The Franchise, created by Jon Brown, with Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes. (I’m rooting for a second season.)
You don’t have to watch four dreary seasons of any of these shows before you get to the good parts.
What did you read and watch?
"The Bear," terrific. "Sympathizer" on list. Appreciate tips. Happy Thanksgiving. (One for you: "Sherwood," Britbox.)