Another reading year is in the books, and what a year it’s been. I’ve read so many completely fabulous books, and at the same time my reading year was highly unusual and very strange. This was a bumpy and emotional year for me personally, and whatever’s happening in the rest of my life impacts the books I reach for and how I respond to them. (I know I’m not the only one.)
As of the moment I’m hitting “publish” on this wrap-up in mid-December, I’ve read 185 books in 2024. Looking at the books I currently have in progress (one with just 8 pages to go!), I expect to end the year with just under 200 titles read. This is fewer than I’ve read the past several years, where I’ve read between 230 and 300(!!). (200–225 feels about right for my personal preferences and professional obligations; 300 is an indicator that something’s amiss.)
I knew that my reading rhythms were uneven this year, but it was nevertheless interesting to review my 2024 reading journal and see that I read 11 books in my lightest reading month (June) and 25 in my heaviest (March). I track my titles in the My Reading Life book journal, and put a simple star by especially noteworthy titles.
Let me tell you what you’re looking at here: every year, going back more than a decade now, I gather my “favorite” books, which aren’t necessarily the “best” ones, and either way those assessments are personal and subjective. When I call a book a favorite, I mean that it delivered a memorable, enjoyable reading experience. I’m drawn to books with emotional resonance, I like discussion-starters, I appreciate craft. I’m also inclined to value a book that meets the moment: when I read the right book at the right time, it’s likely to end up here. On the flip side, I read many very good books that might have deserved a place on a “best of” list, but not on my list of personal favorites. (The House of Doors and Absolution spring immediately to mind.)
I was surprised to see how many brand-new books appear on my favorites list; typically backlist features more prominently (although you’ll see more backlist on my coming favorite audiobooks list). I believe this is because 2024 was a superb year for new fiction, especially for someone who adores wistful, emotionally resonant literary fiction, as I do. I don’t typically include so many titles from the Summer Reading Guide, Spring Book Preview, and Fall Book Preview in my “best of” list but because those books were so exceptional in my mind, it felt like the only possible choice.
I’ll publish my favorite audiobooks of 2024 in the coming days. As in years past, the only thing differentiating today’s list of favorite print books from the coming list of audiobooks is the format; there’s no hierarchy between the two lists. Is sharing two separate lists a sneaky way of squeezing in more favorites? Definitely YES! And, just like in recent years, I have more tricks up my sleeve: I get to share more favorites in our upcoming Team’s Best Books of the Year event for MMD Book Clubbers and WSIRN patreon members, and we’ll start the new year over on What Should I Read Next? with our Anne’s Best Books of 2024 episode on January 7.
Another important note: three of my very favorite 2024 reads aren’t actually coming out until next year, and do not appear below—but I look forward to shouting them from the rooftops in 2025!
I hope you enjoy perusing my roundup, and I would love to hear your favorite books of the year in the comments section.
All books featured here were chosen because I loooove them. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. More info here.
My reading journal tells me that I finished this book on January 17 and added it immediately to my Best of the Year list (and shortly thereafter to the 2024 Minimalist Summer Reading Guide); I’m in the right season of life for this pitch-perfect midlife reckoning tale to resonate deeply. For what may be the last time, fifty-something Rocky and her husband cram into a tiny Cape Cod beach house for one glorious week, along with their two kids, one girlfriend, and Rocky’s aging parents. Emotions run high as Rocky, nostalgic and menopausal, wants to relish every moment with her adult children and increasingly fragile parents. Their time together is precious, and also turbulent, as it is revealed that various family members have been hiding shattering truths for decades—out of love, yes, but hiding them all the same. I loved this and it made me weep. More info →
I’ve loved Moore’s work in the past, and her July 2024 release surpassed my deservedly high expectations and landed a spot in the 2024 MMD Minimalist Summer Reading Guide. It’s a family saga, missing persons tale, and 1970s summer camp story rolled into one. One August morning in 1975, a camper vanishes without a trace. But not just any camper: she’s the daughter of the wealthy family who owns this camp, and fourteen years before, her older brother similarly disappeared. As the family, the campers themselves, and the neighboring blue-collar town residents gather to search for the girl, everyone suspects the two missing children must be linked, but how? The mystery is a driving force, but Moore’s story is complex and carefully layered, with a large cast of believably drawn characters who add texture and nuance. I’m a sucker for character-driven, compulsively readable literary mysteries, and this one hit all those notes. More info →
Basketball isn’t really my thing, or so I thought—but in Abdurraqib’s hands, I couldn’t get enough of Columbus, the Cavaliers, and LeBron James. I read this in early spring and have been recommending it nonstop ever since—including in the the 2024 MMD Minimalist Summer Reading Guide. In this inventive, far-reaching work, the poet and music critic shares riveting anecdotes and fascinating details about the game itself. He also uses the ball as a jumping off point to explore a wide (wide!) variety of topics, including heroes and role models, the passage of time, the fragility of life, and the joy of rooting for the underdog. I can’t begin to capture his stupendous storytelling skills. This was my first read from the author and I loved this one so much I dove immediately into his backlist. More info →
Monica Wood is on my informal auto-read list; here she returns with another poignant Maine novel centering three lonely people, two of whom are in their 60s, all connected by a terrible tragedy. Violet was just nineteen when, drunk and high, she caused the death of a beloved local teacher and was sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison. Harriet runs the book group at the women’s prison, where the inmates spend one precious hour a month finding comfort in tearing apart the classics. And Frank is the victim’s widower, who fills his time by volunteering his handyman services at the local bookstore. This 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection is a deeply moving tale of redemption, second chances, and the power of books. More info →
Nicholls’s quiet and unconventional post-pandemic tale about two lonely middle-aged people falling in love as they trek through the English countryside hit exactly right and satisfied my emotionally resonant fiction-loving soul. Geography teacher Michael and copyeditor Marnie, both still hurting in the aftermath of unhappy marriages that ended, meet for a group walk across the moors arranged by a bossy mutual friend. No one thinks they have anything in common—and yet when thrown together on the trail, they discover the sort of companionship they never dreamed they’d find again. As a grammar nerd and Anglophile I found a special pleasure in a bittersweet novel that made me laugh so hard I shook the whole couch. (Cue my kids: WHAT are you READING, Mom?!) A 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection. More info →
I love a novel with a wistful tone, and this year I loved so many such books that specifically featured a midlife reckoning. (In fact, this book appeared in a brand-new Summer Reading Guide category devoted to Tales of Coming of Age and Midlife Reckonings, because it was a huge theme in my reading life!) Lombardo’s sophomore novel opens with a chance grocery store encounter that prompts our fifty-something protagonist to wrestle with her past and present choices regarding friendship, marriage, and motherhood. Helen had once been Julia’s lifeline, the older and wiser mentor who’d befriended her in the bewildering days of early motherhood. But then things took a turn, and Julia now remembers Helen for another reason: she is intimately tied to the single most shameful event of Julia’s past, which almost destroyed her family. Now, decades later, Julia finds herself facing another hinge point, in the middle of a long marriage, with a teenage daughter about to leave home and a twenty-something son about to become a parent himself. Beautifully written, emotionally resonant, with a gorgeous and fitting ending (that made me bawl my eyes out). More info →
I’ve been a Maylis de Kerangal superfan ever since I read Painting Time for the 2021 Summer Reading Guide. Canoes was published in France in 2021, but the English translation—beautifully executed by Jessica Moore—was just published in the the U.S. in October and was featured in our Fall Book Preview. In this collection of seven interconnected short stories plus a novella, two works stood out. The first is the novella, called Mustang, in which a French woman makes a disorienting move to a Denver exurb. This work read as both familiar and strange, and contained more than a thimble full of weird. The story “A Light Bird” is a family tale about a wife and mother who’s been dead for five years yet it’s still her voice on the outgoing message of the family’s answering machine. I’ve read it half a dozen times: it packs a big punch in just a few pages, with a perfect last line. More info →
This was a 2024 Fall Book Preview spotlight selection. I’m a sucker for a Jane Austen adaptation, but even so the Wahala author’s decolonial reimagining of Mansfield Park surpassed all my (high) expectations. May’s update spans two decades from the late 1970s to the late 1990s and moves between Lagos and the U.K. (with an important scene set at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics). This emotional tale is by turns humorous and gutting: I read it with my heart in my throat. There’s so much to appreciate here: a coming of age story, a scathing social critique, and a love story of sorts about a life-defining first cousin relationship. You need not have read Austen to enjoy this retelling, but a skim through the plot summary wouldn’t hurt. My enjoyment of the book was definitely enriched by my conversation with Nikki May on What Should I Read Next. If you’re thinking of reading this book, I recommend listening to that conversation before you start! More info →
I read this slim British novel so early in January that I shared it at our Team Best Books of 2023 event for MMD Book Clubbers and WSIRN Patreon members, which took place on January 9. Back then I said I was sure to share it in my 2024 best-of-the-year roundup—and here it is! In this first-person family drama, we meet a grandmother who raises her granddaughter from infancy because her daughter, who’s been struggling with addiction for nearly a decade, is unable to do so. The story is brutal and tender, gorgeously written, and surprisingly funny for a book that required half a box of Kleenex. I appreciated that the prose, while never plodding or needlessly complex, did invite a close reading: I am inclined to be a fast reader, but I consciously slowed down so I didn’t miss anything. While the story is set roughly in the present day—just before the dawn of the iPhone—it has an old-fashioned feel to it; if I didn’t know better I might have guessed it was a Persephone title. Heads up for multiple content warnings: some are evident from the plot description but some took me by surprise. (Psst—our Team Best Books of 2024 event is coming up on December 19.) More info →
I read Frankel’s latest nearly a full year ago and still find myself thinking about it and recommending it all the time to wildly disparate readers: appreciators of humor and wit, family novel devotees, theater kids. The story begins with an actress named India, who finds herself at the center of a media firestorm for criticizing her new movie in the press. Her precocious ten-year-old twins, recognizing their mother is living a PR nightmare, take it upon themselves to seek help from a person uniquely positioned to do so: a family member their mother doesn’t know they know about, and whom they’ve never met. Alternating between the present day media fracas and India’s early days as an actress, and moving between LA, Seattle, and NYC, Frankel firmly roots her tale in the world of theater and film, exploring the many forms family can take and the limits of love. This was a 2024 Spring Book Preview spotlight selection, thanks in no small part to its unforgettable scenes, bold plot choices, Shakespeare and musical theater references, and at least one gasp-out-loud moment. More info →
This is Lamott’s twentieth book, published in February 2024 on the day before her 70th birthday. This turned out to be the right book at the right time for me; I appreciated the specific ways she fleshed out her oft-repeated themes: the mixed bag of joy and pain that life contains, the myriad lessons she’s learned and continues to learn in recovery, the impossibility of the circumstances we sometimes face, and the persistent drumbeat of hope in the face of it all. This was one of those books that I preferred to read a few page at a time instead of in long sittings. More info →
