1. “Our 51 Favorite Books of 2024.” “We respect readers’ varying tastes too much to anoint any books ‘the best’ of the year. But these are our favorites. We hope you love them as much as we did!”


2. Diane Kiesel’s review of Twisting in Air: The Sensational Rise of a Hollywood Falling Horse by Carol Bradley (Bison Books). “Carol Bradley’s delightful Twisting in Air is a gallop through Old Hollywood filled with fun anecdotes about cowboys and the horses who loved them, as well as a serious examination of animal cruelty — and the largely lame efforts to combat it — in the movie world.”


3. Chris Rutledge’s review of Born with a Tail: The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton Szandor LaVey, Founder of the Church of Satan by Doug Brod (Hachette Books). “Anton LaVey (1930-1997) was a complicated man. Yes, he launched the Church of Satan, but he was also a showman and a notorious conman, and his focus was on his finances far more than on any principled spiritual stance. Brod quotes historian Lawrence Wright, who said of sci-fi novelist and Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that while Hubbard ‘took his self-generated faith as gospel,’ LaVey never ‘crossed the line into believing his own bullshit.’”


4. Ira Shapiro’s review of The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party by Michael Tackett (Simon & Schuster). “In 2021, Senator Mitch McConnell learned that Michael Tackett, a respected veteran journalist and author, was planning to write his biography. McConnell, notoriously guarded, encouraged his staff and other close associates to speak with Tackett. He also gave Tackett access to his papers, including sensitive oral histories, and sat with him for 50 hours of interviews. McConnell’s decision to cooperate benefited both the author and him. Tackett’s The Price of Power is, thus far, the most comprehensive and fair-minded account of McConnell’s life and career.”


5. Elizabeth McGowan’s review of The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture by Barrett Klein (Timber Press). “Who among us hasn’t spontaneously slapped a stinging bee, swatted a blood-sucking mosquito, or squished an ant marching intrepidly across the kitchen counter — without giving the loss of those tiny lives a second thought? One likely candidate is entomologist Barrett Klein.”

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