The Best of 2024: Our Favorite Songs, Books, Poems, Articles, Shows, and Movies

by the Rabbit Room Editor and Contributors

We polled Rabbit Room friends and contributors and sourced a slew of recs for our annual “best-of” post. Here are the songs, shows, books, articles, poems, and movies that kept us turning pages late into the night, fired our imaginations, and took our breath away this year.

Poetry

Let’s start with poetry. If you subscribe to the Rabbit Room poetry Substack, you’re familiar with these poems already. These are some of the most-read and best-loved poetic gems we’ve shared this year:

• Anna A. Friedrich’s series of poems inspired by the lives of Elijah and Elisha

• Tania Runyan’s Advent poetry series

• Mischa Willett’s “Dream At Bethel”

• Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s poem “Flannery’s Writing Advice”

• Anna A. Friedrich’s “The Matrix of Tea Is Water”

If you want even more poetry, Mischa Willet has more than enough poetry recommendations to fill your reading list for 2025, too. (Or anthologies, if you prefer.)

Books

• I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

• Why Everything That Doesn't Matter Matters So Much by Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock

• The Word Made Fresh by Abram Van Engen

• Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix

• Lightfall: The Dark Times by Tim Probert

It was a banner year for our very own Rabbit Room Press with Jonathan Roger’s 20-anniversary re-release of the Wilderking Series, Randall Goodgame’s Scripture Hymnal, Lanier Ivester’s Glad and Golden Hours, Every Moment Holy Vol. 3 pocket edition, and A. S. Peterson’s A Christmas Carol and The Hiding Place theatre scripts.

Articles

We had the honor of publishing the work of scores of writers and thinkers this year. Here are a few of our top posts from 2024.

• “Is Zeus Dead Yet: A Guide to Having Better Conversations” by Kate Gaston

• “On Caregiving and Creativity” by Heather Cadenhead

• “The Age of the Slash: How One Band Learned to Have Fun Wearing Lots of Hats” by Chris and Jenna Badeker

• “Lessons In Repurposing Trauma from The Bear, Season Three” by Daniel Jung

• “Poetry’s Mad Instead” by Abram Van Engen

• “The Three Layers of Conflict In Community” by Andy Patton`

• “‘What Was I Made For?’—Billie Eilish as Gen Z Icon” by Liz Snell

• “A Fellowship of Burning Stars: The Hidden Beauty of Creative Community” by Amy Baik Lee

• “A Conversation With Poet Scott Cairns” by Ben Palpant

• “The Consoling Alchemy of the Humble Winter Soup” by Lanier Ivester

Songs

Feast on these beautiful and profound songs from some of our favorite musicians.

• Hope Newman Kemp, “Keep on Going”

• Taylor Leonhardt, “Belly of a Whale”

• Zane Vickery, “Hydrangea”

• Wild Harbors, “Break My Heart”

• The Porter’s Gate, Jon Guerra, and Sandra McCracken, “The Kingdom of Jesus”

• Charlie Peacock, “Get Yourself Some”

• Kacey Musgraves, “The Architect”

• Skye Peterson, “God is in no hurry”

• Addison Agen, “What Would’ve Changed”

• Jon Foreman and Joy Oladokun, “In Bloom”

• Vampire Weekend, “Hope”

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “As the Waters Cover the Sea”

• The Scripture Hymnal, “Those Who Trust In The Lord”

• Leon, “Ain’t Got Nothing On You”

• Jess Ray, “Deserve”

Listen to these songs and the rest of the list on our “Best of 2024 Playlist.”

Shows

The people we asked mentioned a handful of great shows, but these three kept coming up in the responses time and time again.

• The Bear season 3 (read Daniel Jung’s article on trauma in season 3)

• Rings of Power season 2

• All Creatures Great and Small season 5

Movies

And last but not least, here are three blockbusters and one relatively unsung gem of a Flannery O’Conner bio-pic:

• Wildcat

• Inside Out 2

• The Wild Robot

• Wicked part 1