My Best of 'Best of' Lists

Plus, Chaz Ebert is back on Death, Sex & Money..and it's deep.

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This week on Death, Sex & Money

Chaz Ebert is back on Death, Sex & Money this week.

We talked a decade ago, a year after the death of her husband Roger, the heart-forward movie critic. When Chaz was on the show in 2014, the beautiful documentary about Roger’s life and death, called Life Itself, had just come out. She told me, haltingly and with more than a little skittishness, about how she felt in touch with him. They were still in conversation. She heard his voice.

Ten years later, Chaz and I talk again. She told me how her relationship with Roger has changed. The ongoing conversations are over — there was a farewell at one point, and she felt them separating. Now, she’s dating again and keeping up three lively group chats with women from different parts of her life.

In the feed this week, you’ll hear our first conversation and what’s happened since.

Listen here.

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The Best of the Best

This is the week when I am busy queueing up my watching, listening, and reading for the weeks around the holidays. I am not going to offer my own top picks for the year past — the world has enough lists! — but I will share my curated list of the Best of Best of lists. Because a little guidance never hurts.

Best *Podcasts* of 2024

This list from The New Yorker’s Sarah Larson earned my trust by including series that wowed and surprised me (“Not All Propaganda Is Art,” “Elon’s Spies,” and “Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the N.Y.P.D.”). I will use the rest of the list to guide my holiday road trip deep listening. 

Best *Books* of 2024

Thank you to my Slate colleague Laura Miller, Slate’s book critic, for this best-of list that mixes novels and nonfiction books to track down. The central position of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! in the piece’s lead graphic sold me here. That’s my top novel of 2024 — thanks to a recommendation on a summer walk in Wyoming from my friend Carol (and Death, Sex & Money listeners have a coming episode with Akbar to look forward to in early 2025).

Best *TV* of 2024

Number One on this list from Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall is “Somebody Somewhere”, which makes it the winning list for me. It also includes Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which I loved because of the performances by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine that felt very fresh and unexpected.

Best *Songs* of 2024

NPR Music compiled the best 124 songs (!) of 2024, but they also help us avoid getting overwhelmed. You can filter for your particular tastes in music, but I’m letting go and letting God by streaming their playlist of all 124 on shuffle. Let’s discover some new tunes! 

Best *Movies* of 2024

In honor of this week’s episode with Chaz Ebert, I turned to rogerebert.com for this Best of 2024 list. I admittedly haven’t seen a single one of the top 10 (!), but reading these descriptions, I felt called back into regular theater-going after the last few years of streaming the first 30 minutes of movies at home before I fall asleep. 

Best News Reporting About Rural Communities You Might’ve Missed

This isn’t technically a “Best of” list, and it includes some projects from before 2024, but I felt inspired and activated reading through this list of rural reporting projects funded by the Center for Rural Strategies and Grist. Scroll through and resolve to take in more U.S. news beyond what the social algorithms and the NYTimes app serve up.

Best Online Shopping Discoveries by Miranda July

This is technically Miranda July’s “gift guide,” but wow, it is also a wild ride worth just taking in. I’d never considered before that we each need some baby blue lace lingerie, and you know what? Why not! (Hear our conversation together from earlier this year here.)

Best Overall Cultural Artifacts of 2024

Listen in as I join up with two of my Slate colleagues — Art Department designer Derreck Johnson and Death, Sex & Money’s Senior Supervising Producer Daisy Rosario as we simulate a media holiday party swap of recommendations. Derreck tells us about what documentary shouldn’t miss — and the de la Soul song we’ll want to listen to after watching. Daisy sells me on a comic book series, which is a very tough sell! And I celebrate my favorite arena concert of the year — it rocked so hard! Join Slate Plus and listen here.

Until next week,

Anna

p.s. Don’t sleep on our new tote bags! Look at these beauties, screenprinted just for you!

These are made by Kin Ship Goods, a design and apparel shop in Charleston, West Virginia, my hometown. Order yours here.

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Listen to our latest Death, Sex & Money episodes

12/17 Chaz Ebert on Loss, Intuition and Her ‘Cougar’ Group Chat (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

12/17 Plus: Our Favorite Cultural Artifacts of 2024 (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

12/10 Betting on America: Two Gamblers, One Presidential Election (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

12/4 From Social Work to Improv to the Best Show on HBO (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

12/4 Plus: Heather Havrilesky on The Transcendent Power of Low-Stakes Art (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

11/26 Why I Chose Estrangement (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

11/19 How a Betrayed Spouse Became an Infidelity Expert (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

11/19 Plus: Divorce is Illegal in My Country. Here’s How I Escaped My Marriage. (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

11/12 Will He Still Love Me When I’m Off Ozempic? (Apple|Spotify|Slate)

11/12 Plus: A Body Positive Educator Contends with Her Eating Disorder (Apple|Spotify|Slate)