Best, schmest. Says who? But of the many incredible books there are to choose from that emerged from the minds, hearts, and souls of PNW writers this year, here are ten I couldn’t sleep at night and not put on this list. But please don’t miss the honorable mentions at the bottom—you’d have an equally incredible reading list from those! These ten are in no particular order, and I recommend them based on what you need most. To learn which is for what, please read on. There’s so much underrated talent rampant in this region. Go get it! by Katie Lee Ellison Best, schmest. Says who? But of the many incredible books there are to choose from that emerged from the minds, hearts, and souls of PNW writers this year, here are ten I couldn’t sleep at night and not put on this list. But please don’t miss the honorable mentions at the bottom—you’d have an equally incredible reading list from those!  These ten are in no particular order, and I recommend them based on what you need most. To learn which is for what, please read on. There’s so much underrated talent rampant in this region. Go get it! Arctic Play by Mita Mahato   If you’ve long needed an adult update to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, this will give you so much more than you’ve dreamed of. These pages will rearrange your mind, and force you to reconsider how sentences, words, and letters work. This collage of story will reveal the nature of rocks and snails, rivers and things, as if you hadn’t previously considered them. Pairings: Philip Glass feels right for this one. A spicy, bright beverage and nuts. You’ll need light outside, by sun or snow, to reflect these playful, thoughtful pages. Sit on the floor, by the oven, reading while local meats and vegetables roast.  It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marken   To quote Anne de Marken directly from a reading at Nonfiction for No Reason this summer, “Nobody would publish a memoir that featured a zombie protagonist with a crow in her chest, but that’s how I wrote it.” You’re welcome for this secret: this award-winning novel was written as a memoir. Hence, buy it, read it as a novel. Then, start this powerful shortie again (123 pages), and read it as a memoir. Get twice your money’s worth, support a brilliant writer, everyone wins. Pairings: You will definitely need an altar. Read it at twilight, when all the crows in Seattle fly south. Drink blood or wine or something that stains. Eat blackberries.  Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls Over 350 incredible pages of illustrated family ghosts, cowboy living, ancestral excavation and archiving, utterly devastating days and endings make Tessa Hulls’s memoir. Not enough? How about in-depth research on the history of China, the nuances of trauma and mental illness, and an unearthing of this brilliant writer’s attempts to set herself free. You can’t get this one at the library because there are a bazillion more holds than copies. Purchase this one for a reckoning, to be gripped by story, and for caring threads of humor and heart throughout. Bless Tessa for this one. Pairings: Just sit down and read it.  Thunder Song by Sasha LaPointe   The breakneck speed at which Sasha LaPointe has begun to produce books astonishes, particularly because every one of them serves up so much. This latest is personal, historical, ancestral, deeply regional, politically global, a punk indigenous firestorm lesson in what we call America and all that it’s cost. Do I need go on? Stop wasting time. Read the book before the next one comes out in 2025?? She’s been posting about another manuscript, so who knows?! Look out! Pairings: Tulips and a blazing fire to balance the rage and use what’s been brought to the PNW (read the book for context). Your favorite punk album if you can read and have that on at once. Crashing Pacific as background out the window and/or long drives to the coast.  Resurrection Appearances by Jay Aquinas Thompson   Come for the references. Come to get a little horny. Come if you know loss as a constant state. Come if you’re a queer, radical, wild poet kind of parent. Come if you love/hate/grapple with religion, especially Christianities, but still participate in it or wonder if you still want to. This hot, quick shot of a nonfiction chapbook is time with a unique and beautiful spirit that will leave you feeling like you had a revealing, funny, and sweet conversation with a dear friend. Pairings: A rosary, some jasmine if you can find it, dating app open, materials for protest signs, and the strongest alcoholic spirit you can enjoy, but make sure it burns. Lace shirts welcome. Puzzles and playing in the mud afterward, especially with a kid you love, would make perfect sense.  The Unquiet Country by Patrick Milian   If you’ve ever been near death of your own or someone else’s. If you love film to a degree that satisfying conversation can only be had with others that love it as much as you do. OR: If you love a queer period piece but hunger from all the questions unasked by the ones made. If you have a hankering for early 20th century French composition, Natalie Portman, and the drag queen’s facade. If you need poems written as the queer script of your dreams. If you’ve ever felt too tender and strange for this world. If you’ve ever felt too much that you exist as two or more opposing forces at once. Read sweet, brilliant Patrick Milian, and keep company with the best of us. Pairings: Put this on while you read. It was created with this book and is composed in part by the author. Someplace Generous: An Inclusive Romance Anthology by Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame  This book is so hot. It’ll make you horny, it’ll make you feel sexy, it’ll give you romance ideas. Some of the writers are Temim Fruchter, Corinne Manning, and Max Delsohn: all living legends. These are queer, trans, Black, AAPI, Latinx, Jewish, disabled, and neurodivergent romance/sex tales: what more do you need in the holiday season? Pairings: Drink what makes you feel sexy. Eat what makes you feel sexy. Listen to what makes you feel sexy. If you need help with this: try on some pleather. Buy some undies that feel hott. Or read it nakey!  Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist by Reagan Jackson  I’m a new white resident in Rainier Beach, and Reagan Jackson went ahead and wrote essential essays for my reading pleasure. But tbh, this book is for any and all white people in Seattle: those who participated in the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 up to present, and those who had their various reasons to not post the little black box on Instagram that week. These essays break down the essential ingredients of being Black in Seattle and beyond, and the many questions you may ask so that you don’t have to ask them again. Plus, she’s a charming and engaging writer. Essential reading, as they say.  Pairings: A glass of water. Protein-packed snacks. Quiet and concentration, please and thank you.  Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha If it’s not enough that this book won the National Book Award for Poetry this year, I don’t know what else you need. Lena is a local Palestinian writer with national recognition. Could Seattle be luckier to have her? Author Adrian Matejka said it better than I could, “Her poems interweave Palestine's historic suffering, the challenges of living in this world full of violence and ill will, and the gentle delights we embrace to survive that violence.” Pairings: More books about Palestine. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha has curated a year of monthly book mail from Palestinian authors and/or about Palestine via subscription at Open Books. You can also take writing workshops where proceeds go to Gazans. But most of all, buy her book so that some of the profits go toward HEAL Palestine, a humanitarian organization chosen by Lena. Queer Power Couples: On Love and Possibility by Hannah Murphy Winter and Billie Winter I secreted this pick in here for obvious reasons (the writer and photographer of this book are also the Editor-in-Chief and Photo Director at The Stranger). But when I tell you, as a gay, that I read this book to feel better. I read it for comfort. I read it for a mirror, for hope, for examples, for play. The conversations are personal and with queer legends and icons. The photos are intimate and unlike any you’ll see elsewhere of these same people. This is a major do not miss. So don’t! Plus, it’s not banned in Washington, so get ‘em while they’re hot and salable cause who knows what 2025 will bring!  Pairings: Hard pink candy to suck on. Fresh veggie mezze plater. Glass of wine/ N/A wine of your choosing. Couch recommended as seating. Get comfy cozy.  Best Books of 2024 in another life:  The Roots of Ticasuk by Ticasuk (Emily Ivanoff Brown) Dear Memphis by Rachel Edelman What Blooms in the Dark by Emily Mundy Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere by Anastasia Renee The Manicurists Daughter by Susan Lieu We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women by Maggie Mertens Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker  Greenhouse by Sophie Hall Permission to Settle by Holly Flauto