I was going to wait until the beginning of 2025 to post about the supposed best books of 2024, but it seems that by then I will have missed some sort of train. So here we go. Hugs to all those books yet to emerge as a favorite, in the next four weeks or so. It was too little too late, I’m afraid.

Let’s start with something no one else will have: my best reads of 2024. Most of these books were not published in 2024 or even 2023, but they just happened to be read by me this year because of a thousand different things. There is no way that I can keep up with all the top-bound, new titles in a year, especially since I am a very cross-genre reader, so this list isn’t going to resemble the ones you’ll see below. They are in the order of when I read them.

• Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
• The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, Deb Perelman
• Prophet Song, Paul Lynch (2023)
• Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus (2023)
• Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell
• The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai
• Firekeeper’s Daughter, Angeline Boulley
• Stay with Me, Ayobami Adebayo
• The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. LeGuin
• Universal Love, Alexander Weinstein
• Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
• Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
• Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (2024!)
• The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
• North Woods, Daniel Mason (2024!)
• Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson
• How to Write a Mystery, Mystery Writers of America
• Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse

Have you ever seen a more eclectic book list? Moving on…

There are some titles that we just haven’t been able to escape this year. I have seen these everywhere and they have been much talked about. Whether they lived up to the hype is for you to decide, but these are quintessential 2024 bookstore front-and-centers. I know I’ve missed a few.

• James, Percival Everett
• Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips
• Intermezzo, Sally Rooney
• Funny Story, Emily Henry
• Be Ready When Luck Happens, Ina Garten
• Cher: The Memoir, Cher
• Taylor Swift Style, Sarah Chapelle
• Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
• The Familiar, Leigh Bardugo
• Bright Sword, Lev Grossman
• My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Emil Ferris
• Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Xochitl Gonzalez
• All Fours, Miranda July
• Good Material, Dolly Alderton
• Colored Television, Danzy Senna
• The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk
• The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny
• The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
• The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
• Wandering Stars, Tommy Orange (*)
• The Great Divide, Christina Henriquez
• The Reappearance of Rachel Price, Holly Jackson
• The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson
• The Age of Magical Thinking, Amanda Montell
• You Like It Darker, Stephen King
• Honey Witch, Sydney J. Shields
• The Midnight Feast, Lucy Foley
• I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, Glynnis MacNicol
• Cue the Sun!, Emily Nussbaum
• World Travel, Anthony Bourdain
• Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson
• The Briar Club, Kate Quinn
• The Grandest Game, Jennifer Lynne Barnes
• Bear, Julia Phillips
• Emily Wilde series, Heather Fawcett
• The House Keeper’s Secret, Iona Grey
• There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak
• The Truth According to Ember, Danica Nava
• ADHD Is Awesome, Kim and Penn Holderness
• The Life Impossible, Matt Haig
• Here One Moment, Liane Moriarty
• Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune
• Playground, Richard Powers
• North Woods, Daniel Mason ***
• Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (*)
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami
• Same Bed Different Dreams, Ed Park *
• Rental House, Weike Wang
• The Rivals, Jane Pek
• The Women, Kristin Hannah
• The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Mirror, Nora Roberts
• War, Bob Woodward
• The Boyfriend, Frieda McFadden
• From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley
• The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates

While the list above are 2024 books that were trending, here are some other books (written before 2024) that were trending (still or again) in 2024. Sometimes this was due to a movie release. Sometimes it was due to winning a 2023 award or being on the best-of-2023 lists. Sometimes it was other things.

• Tom Lake, Ann Patchett
• Murdle, Vol. 1, G. T. Karber
• A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series, Sarah J. Maas
• Fourth Wing series, Rebecca Yaros
• Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day, Kate Bowler
• The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen
• The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu
• Erasure, Percival Everett
• Shogun, James Clavell
• Dune, Frank Herbert
• Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann
• The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
• Hell Bent, Leigh Bardugo
• Weyward, Emilia Hart
• Scythe (Arc of a Scythe trilogy #1), Neal Shusterman
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
• The Heartstopper series, Alice Oseman
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride
• Chain-Gang Allstars, Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah
• Yellowface, R. F. Kuang
• Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
• Trust, Hernan Diaz *
• Babel, R. F. Kuang
• The Housemaid, Frieda McFadden
• Hillbilly Elegy, J. D. Vance
• The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van der Kolk
• It Ends with Us, Colleen Hoover
• Dog Man series, Dav Pilkey
• Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

There are books that experts have decided are the best books of the year. To figure that out, I went to the many best-ofs lists that have already popped up, including ones that I looked at earlier in the year. Thanks to The New York Times, Barnes and Noble, The New Yorker, Kirkus Reviews, and Vulture for weighing in for us. It seems clear to me that James is THE book of the year.

• James, Percival Everett
• All Fours, Miranda July
• The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich
• Good Material, Dolly Alderton
• Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar **
• Swift River, Essie Chambers
• Knife, Salman Rushdie
• Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Ackner
• Colored Television, Danzy Senna
• You Dreamed of Empires, Alvaro Enrigue
• Cold Crematorium, Jozsef Debreczeni
• Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, Jonathan Blitzer
• I Heard Her Call My Name, Lucy Sante
• Madness, Antonia Hylton
• Challenger, Adam Higgenbotham
• Reagan, Max Boot
• The Coin, Yasmin Zaher
• Say Hello to My Little Friend, Jannine Capo Crucet
• Phantasma, Kaylie Smith
• Entitlement, Rumaan Alam
• Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson
• The Empusium, Olga Tokarczuk
• The Wide Wide Sea, Hampton Sides
• Modern Poetry, Dianne Suess
• An Image of My Name Enters America, Lucy Ives
• There’s Always This Year, Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Book of Love, Kelly Link
• The Freaks Came Out to Write, Tricia Romano
• Intermezzo, Sally Rooney
• All the Colors of the Dark, Chris Whitaker
• LatinoLand, Marie Arana
• The Light Eaters, Zoe Schlanger
• The Grey Wolf, Louise Penny
• Forest of Noise, Mosab Abu Toha
• The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst
• Graveyard Shift, M. L. Rio
• The Burning Earth, Sunil Amrith
• On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle
• Health and Safety, Emily Witt
• We Used to Live Here, Marcus Kliewer
• The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore, Laurie Gilmore
• The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, Ally Carter
• Funny Story, Emily Henry
• The Antrhopologists, Aysegul Savas
• Henry V, Dan Jones
• The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson
• The Barn, Wright Thompson
• Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
• The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan
• Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
• Be Ready When Luck Happens, Ina Garten
• Knight Owl and Early Bird, Christopher Denise
• The Most Boring Book Ever, Sanderson and Kibuishi
• Skyshade, Alex Aster
• Games Untold, Jennifer Lynn Barnes
• Nothing Like the Movies, Lynn Painter
• The Achilles Trap, Steve Coll
• Entitlement, Rumaan Alam
• How to End a Love Story, Yulin Kuang
• Moonbound, Robin Sloan
• A Novel Love Story, Ashley Poston

And now for the award winners!

• James, Percival Everett (National Book Award)
• Orbital, Samantha Harvey (Mann Booker Prize)
• Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips (Pulitzer)
• Han Kang (The Vegetarian, etc.) (Nobel Prize)
• The Eyes & the Impossible, Dave Eggers (Newbery)
• Big, Vashti Harrison (Caldecott)
• I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore (Book Critics Circle)
• Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (Hugo)
• Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher (Hugo novella)
• To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (Hugo YA)
• Imperial Radch, Ann Leckie (Hugo series)
• The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (Nebula)

And lastly I’ll list the Goodreads Choice Awards, which are more of a popularity contest than an official judging of content. Which is kinda nice. Because sometimes those “real” awards can be way off the mark, frankly. So this is what the Goodreads plebes chose based on what they had actually read. (I read Ministry of Time, so far, and I can’t imagine this was the best sci fi available this year. But people really glommed on to it. So it goes.):

• The Wedding People, Allison Espach (Goodreads Choice)
• The Women, Kristin Hannah (Goodreads Choice Historical Fiction)
• The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (Goodreads Choice Mystery/Thriller)
• Funny Story, Emily Henry (Goodreads Choice Romance)
• House of Flame and Shadow, Sarah J. Maas (Goodreads Choice Romantasy)
• Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Goodreads Choice Fantasy)
• Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Goodreads Choice Science Fiction) (*)
• You Like It Darker, Stephen King (Goodreads Choice Horror)
• How to End a Love Story, Yulin Kuang (Goodreads Choice Debut)
• Ruthless Vows, Rebecca Ross (Goodreads Choice YA Spec Fic)
• Heartstopper, Vol. 5, Alice Oseman (Goodreads Choice YA)
• The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt (Goodreads Choice Nonfiction)
• The Third Gilmore Girl, Kelly Bishop (Goodreads Choice Memoir)
• The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss (Goodreads Choice History)