The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 2,415 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Last Kingdom

❤️ loved this book because...

This applies to the Saxon Chronicles series as a whole, not just the first book. I am someone who has an interest in Viking Age Britain on a scholastic and entertainment level.

I read the entire series back to back and found it quick, easy, enjoyable and sometimes hard-hitting. Uhtred isn't a perfect person, he often gets in his own way and has his bad qualities but deep down he is a good man, even if he can be viewed as more morally grey than perhaps the other major characters in the plot.

There's plenty of bloody action and drama but you also see characters evolve as they grow older and the world dramatically changes around them during this very pivotal time in British history.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Bernard Cornwell ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Last Kingdom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The first book in the epic and bestselling series that has gripped millions.

A hero will be forged from this broken land.

As seen on Netflix and BBC around the world.

In a land torn apart by conflict, an orphan boy has come of age. Raised by the Vikings, deadly enemies of his own Saxon people, Uhtred is a fierce and skilled warrior who kneels to no-one.

Alfred - Saxon, king, man of god - fights to hold the throne of the only land still resisting the pagan northerners.

Uhtred and Alfred's fates are tangled, soaked in blood and blackened…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Les Miserables

❤️ loved this book because...

It took me a very long time to finally read this book, although I don't think it took me a terribly long time to actually finish it.

I elected for the unabridged edition which adds a lot of slightly unrelated, mostly political/historical fluff (like all the chapters about Waterloo) but I did feel like it gave me a better view both of a historical period I enjoyed and of Hugo's personal views on things.

Obviously the characters and the hard hitting emotional highs and lows are the driving force in this book. Even knowing the outcome didn't stop me from being swept along through this tenuous period of French history.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Emotions
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐌 It was slow at times

By Victor Hugo , Jillian Tamaki (illustrator) , Christine Donougher (translator)

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Les Miserables as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is a brilliant new translation by Christine Donougher of Victor Hugo's thrilling masterpiece, with an introduction by Robert Tombs. The Wretched ( Les Miserables) is the basis for both the longest running musical on the West End and the highly-acclaimed recent film starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, and by the relentless investigations of…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Empire of Silence

❤️ loved this book because...

This applies to the entire series of main books excluding book 6, which I have not yet read as I am in the process of re-reading the series so I'm fresh and caught-up.

I like fantasy more than I like sci-fi. I'm particular about my sci-fi and I do prefer space operas. This particular space opera is like Star Wars crossed with fantasy crossed with the Roman Empire and I absolutely adore it.

The books are long but I find them to be fairly easy to get through. The tech is described in a way as to allow understanding without overwhelming the reader (which is part of my problem with some sci-fi). The world is unimaginably large and full of the familiar and strange. The characters are painfully human, the story is full of twists and turns and emotional hits. Every single person I've seen looking for fantasy/sci-fi recs I've told them to read this series.

Do it.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Christopher Ruocchio ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Empire of Silence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

It was not his war.

On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives--even the…


Book cover of The Last Kingdom
Book cover of Les Miserables
Book cover of Empire of Silence

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