Recommend the best books you read 2024

[Dazrin]

It's time! What were your favorite books of 2024?

It sounds like the 2024 TBR reduction challenge was great success, so maybe you'd like to see some highlights from others for your own entry in the 2025 TBR Reduction Challenge or your personal 2025 Reading Challenge. Let's give each other some ideas.

So, review (and update) your 2024 Challenge List, your GoodReads Year in Books, your StoryGraph library, or any other book diary you keep. Then let us know what books we should add to our 2025 reading plans and decide what threads to lurk in at the Deals forum.

What are your favorite books that you read in 2024?

What books do you recommend that were published in 2024?

What books are you looking forward to in 2025?

And if you have time, please mention why you enjoyed each of these books so we can decide if they would be a good fit for us. A one or two sentence mini-review or impression is very helpful. Or let us know if you have a review somewhere else, like the "action" thread, Goodreads, or a personal blog.

If you find it hard to remember what books you really enjoyed this year, issybird suggested making a "best of <year>" category at Goodreads (or wherever you track your reading) so you have it for next year.

Past "best of" threads:
2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012

[Dazrin]

Here are some prompt questions from previous years if you want more ideas on what to include:

What are your favorite books that you read in 2024?

• Is there a book that you have been thinking about since March?
• A book you couldn't put down or have re-read three times just this year?
• What books have you added to your "I'm going to re-read this" list?
• Did your favorite author finally release that long awaited book? (Stormlight Archive fans, keep it spoiler free, but how was book 5?!)
• What books did you tell your friends "you have to read this"?
• Did you have a favorite book club selection?

What books do you recommend that were published in 2024?

• Are there any contenders for your favorite literary/genre/other award?
• What would you have in a hypothetical MR slate for the Hugos?
• What debut author is now on your must buy list?

What books are you looking forward to in 2025?

• Are any of your favorite authors publishing something new next year that we should look for?

---

On a side note, if anyone can give me a generic link to a StoryGraph library that would be great. The only URL I have found is specific for each user, not a generic "whoever is logged in right now" link like I have for GR.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books-read/<user>

And to filter down to 2022 books it looks like they replace "user" with some sort of hash which isn't very useful.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books-read/<hash>?year=2022

[pdurrant]

Some books I liked a lot, and were quick reads:

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer. Regency romance

Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Contemporary humorous SF

Penric and the Bandit by Lois McMaster Bujold. Other universe fantasy

Odds Against by Dick Francis. Contemporary (in 1964) thriller

The Phantom of the Temple by Robert Van Gulik. Semi-historical mysteries

Lent: A Novel of Many Returns by Jo Walton. Historical religious fantasy

Disobedient by Elizabeth Freemantle. Historical fiction.

A Girl Called Justice by Elly Griffiths. YA mystery

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. Far future SF

[Dazrin]

I don't have quite as diverse of a list this year, I've done some re-reading and a lot of catching up on the Stormlight Archives, with books 1, 2, 2.5, 3, and 3.5. I'm still working on 4 then 5.

• The Confederation (Valor) series by Tanya Huff - This is just fun military sci-fi following Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr. I've read the first four books of the series this year which was a good stopping point as the series appears to take a turn after book 4.
• Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon - This is a very non-typical science fiction book following an aging space colonist. Her colony is being relocated and she decides she'd rather stay on the planet she's called home for 40 years.
• The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - As I put in the halloween thread, it's not horror but it is horror adjacent. Time travel, fantasy, dark gods, werewolves. Not quite like anything I've read before and I enjoyed it a lot.
• Devolution by Max Brooks - This was an audio book and I think was better for it. It was local to me and was an interesting take on the bigfoot legend. I remember when Mount St Helens blew up and can see it from my office window (when I go to the office). The damage it caused is minimal compared to what would happen if Mount Rainier or Mount Hood erupted.

I don't currently have anything on my TBR list that officially has a publication date in 2025. There's still a chance for a Dresden book, I guess.

And apparently Lois McMaster Bujold has been dropping Penric novellas with little to no announcement. Thanks for mentioning Penric and the Bandit @pdurrant! That's 100% going on my list, possibly for this year still. I don't need to catch up with the Stormlight Archive that quickly. Demon Daughter, published in January, was the best book I've read from 2024, so getting a second from her in the same year is fantastic.

[Karellen]

My recommendations. I have removed some re-reads, mainly Asimov and Clarke.

What are your favorite books that you read in 2024?

• Hunted by Christine Kersey (Rated 4/5)
• The Other Morgan by Christine Kersey (Rated 4/5)
• The Micronauts by Gordon Williams (Rated 4/5)
• Micronaut World by Gordon Williams (Rated 4/5)
• Revolt of the Micronauts by Gordon Williams (Rated 4/5)
• The Jester by James Patterson & Andrew Gross (Rated 4/5)
• The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (Rated 4/5)
• Carpathians by Paul Dixon (Rated 4/5)
• 2nd Chance by James Patterson & Andrew Gross (Rated 4/5)
• The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (Rated 4/5)
• Changeling by Stephen Leigh (Rated 4/5)
• Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Rated 4/5)
• Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Rated 4/5)
• Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (Rated 4/5)
• Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (Rated 4/5)
• Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (Rated 4/5)
• The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (Rated 4/5)
• The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Rated 4/5)
• The Litigators by John Grisham (Rated 4/5)

What books do you recommend that were published in 2024?

• The End of Foundation by Jeffery Owen Brown (Rated 3/5)
• The Object by Joshua T. Calvert (Rated 3/5)
• Antarctica Station by A.G. Riddle (Rated 3/5)

What books are you looking forward to in 2025?

• Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
• The Ripper’s Son by Richard Phillips link
• The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith
  

[issybird]

I'm going to take this is two parts, the easiest first.

I've read 11 books published in 2024, abandoned two, and have two in process. My favorites were Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde, the long-awaited sequel to Shades of Grey, and A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko, an account of a trip the length of the Grand Canyon, woefully unprepared going into it.

Two books that made the best lists all over I thought overrated were James by Percival Everett and I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante. I've liked other books by both authors much more.

I'll give honorable mention to the oddly interesting Once a King, a "memoir" by Edward VIII, cobbled out of his interviews with his biographer -- the stuff that didn't make the book. Probably my biggest disappointment was Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth by Natalie Haynes. Neither rigorous enough nor insightful enough, the reality is that Haynes is hit-or-miss with me.

In process, and since both are short I hope to be done by year's end, there's the Booker-winning Orbital by Samantha Harvey. I had a false start last night with the audiobook as I found the narrator irritating; I'll read it instead. So I switched to listening to The Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronivitch. To be clear, I'm not a fan of his Rivers of London series, but when I read this was a Jeeves and Wooster pastiche I thought it worth a go, and so far, spot on! Wonderful narration to boot.

[JSWolf]

Some of the books I've read and quite liked were (in no order)...

Liarmouth by John Waters
The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club #4) by Richard Osman
Doctor Who: At Childhood's End by Sophie Aldred
No Time Like the Past (Chronicles of St Mary's #5) by Jodi Taylor
The Sins of the Father (Clifton Chronicles #2) by Jeffrey Archer
The Lincoln Lawyer (Mickey Haller #1) by Michael Connelly

[drofgnal]

The best books I read this year were both Kristin Hannah books, The Four Winds and Women.

What I'm looking forward to is a new Ken Follet book, Circle of Days, a historical fiction account of the building of Stonehenge. It'll be interesting to see how it compares the the building of Stonehenge in Sarum.

[issybird]

Usually for my top ten list I like to split it evenly between fiction and nonfiction, or at least 6/4. This year it's 8/2; can't be helped. I'm including the stuff after the colon in the titles to give a sense of what the books are about.

• Browned Off and Bloody-Minded: The British Soldier Goes to War 1939-1945 by Alan Allport
• Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 by Gordon S. Wood
• Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson
• Veritas: a Harvard professor, a con man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife by Ariel Sabar
• Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World by Honor Cargill-Martin
• Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
• Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
• Six Tragedies by Seneca (Emily Wilson trans.)
• Flashman and the Redskins: A classic historical western novel set in the untamed American frontier by George MacDonald Fraser
• A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor

For me, what's most striking about this list is that six of the eight nonfiction books were part of my 2024 challenges and that the remaining two were about WWII. Moreover, one of the novels was set during a challenge period and the other was set in the immediate postwar period. Obviously I like what I like...

My challenges for next year are already set but I'd like to keep this in mind for 2026 and have at least one breakout category!

[SteveEisenberg]

The best:

Sociopath: A Memoir

Also recommended:

The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky

Everyone will benefit from:

Tell Me When It's Over: An Insider's Guide to Deciphering Covid Myths and Navigating Our Post-Pandemic World

I'm uncertain how hard I should push this nightmare:

Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario

[astrangerhere]

These were my only five star reads that were not re-reads:

Novel-length:

1. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff
2. Upstream: Essays by Mary Oliver
3. The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang
4. Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
5. Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Dame Judy Dench

Poetry:

• "Burning the Old Year" by Naomi Shahib Nye
• "What rage or madness drives you?" by Jay Hulme
• "If Night You Were a City" by Adam Wiedewitch
• "Justice Denied in Massachusetts" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
• "We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky
• "Obligations 2" by Layli Lang Solidier
• "Eurydice" by Linda Gregg
• "Nostos" by Louis Gluck
• "The Sick Wife" by Jane Kenyon
• "Planetarium" by Adrienne Rich
• "One Letter" Liu Xiaobo
• "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

[Uncle Robin]

I held off replying to this thread in case I got another late entry, but that seems unlikely now, so here in the order of when I finished them are the 11 books I've tagged "My top reads of 2024", with links to my review/reaction at TSG


January 26 Writely or Wrongly - Joanne Anderson

February 9 The Bangalore Detectives Club - Harini Nagendra

March 25 The Book Forger - Joseph Hone

August 3 The Annotated Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

August 22 Cabaret Macabre - Tom Mead

September 6 An Unholy Drought - Madhulika Liddle

September 8 Black Arsenal - Clive Chijoke Nwonka, Matthew Harle

September 10 How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World - Deb Chachra

September 17 Hemlock Bay - Martin Edwards

December 9 Information Received - E. R. Punshon

December 13 Bloody Instructions - Sara Woods

[gmw]

I haven't been here on MR much this year, and I haven't read as much as I usually manage, and I didn't find anything I wanted to give 5 stars that was not a re-read, but there were a few books that I found quite memorable:

• The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft by Tom Griffiths. The best non-fiction book I read this year; a very good introduction to many (mostly Australian) historians and their work, and an insight into the study of history.
  
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This was so much better than I was expecting, although I still couldn't quite stretch to 5 stars for it.
  
• A Darkness of Dragons, A Vanishing of Griffins and A Thunder of Monsters by S.A. Patrick. A fantasy trilogy intended for younger readers; I had fun despite being far outside the intended demographic.
  
• Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. While I had a few problems with this, I very much liked how the story developed; it left an impression.
  
• The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton. The only book in this short list published in 2024. The interesting setting and characters made this one stick in my mind.
  

[HLS]

The Stormlight Archive by brandon sanderson. All the books

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HLS

The Stormlight Archive by brandon sanderson. All the books

Including Wind and Truth?