The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

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My favorite read in 2024

Orbital

By Samantha Harvey ,

Book cover of Orbital

Cathryn Shea ❤️ loved this book because...

Harvey's writing is poetic and lucid. I loved learning about space and what it's like to be floating in zero gravity. More than that, I was amazed at how the book transitioned between characters and their lives on earth and the their observations of our planet from space connected to all human civilization and nature.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Thoughts

  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it

  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace
Orbital

By Samantha Harvey ,

Why should I read it?

15 authors picked Orbital as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024

Winner of the 2024 Hawthornden Prize
Shortlisted for the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

A singular new novel from Betty Trask Prize-winner Samantha Harvey, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in 24 hours

"Ravishingly beautiful." — Joshua Ferris, New York Times

A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of…

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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

James

By Percival Everett ,

Book cover of James

Cathryn Shea ❤️ loved this book because...

I love how erudite the character James is and how he created a persona and language to disguise his intelligence. I love James' philosophical observations and heart-wrenching struggles. Everett is brilliant at tackling difficult themes without becoming didactic.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Immersion

  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it

  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down
James

By Percival Everett ,

Why should I read it?

102 authors picked James as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024


'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' - Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

James by Percival Everett is a profound and ferociously funny meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. From the author of The Trees, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Erasure, adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction.

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new…

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My 3rd favorite read in 2024

North Woods

By Daniel Mason ,

Book cover of North Woods

Cathryn Shea ❤️ loved this book because...

I found North Woods to be such a unique experience where the lives of its characters living in different historic eras of American history were woven together around this house in the woods. I could feel, taste, and smell the interior and surrounding of this house that connected all these stories over centuries.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Writing

  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it

  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down
North Woods

By Daniel Mason ,

Why should I read it?

34 authors picked North Woods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

“With the expansiveness and immersive feeling of two-time Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell’s fiction (Cloud Atlas), the wicked creepiness of Edgar Allan Poe, and Mason’s bone-deep knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world that’s on par with that of Thoreau, North Woods fires on all cylinders.”—San Francisco Chronicle

New York…

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Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Ghost Matinee

By Cathryn Shea ,

Book cover of Ghost Matinee

What is my book about?

In Ghost Matinee, Cathryn Shea’s second full-length poetry collection, she delves into the haunting influence of memories that shape both the present and the future. Her poems weave together the personal, political, and global, revealing the hidden and overlooked amid the ordinary. With a keen eye on the fleeting beauty of our world, Shea offers a profound meditation on time—where "the past is a frontier" of uncharted memories, and "the future is a sanctuary" of hope and refuge. Rather than yearning for "the good old days," these poems look forward, even as the ghosts of the past cast shadows over the matinees of our lives. Ghost Matinee presents a deeply reflective exploration of how we carry the past while seeking solace and possibility in what lies ahead.

Poem from Ghost Matinee:

Please Give Me Your Ars

Sun daubed on a bloody sky,
gauze bandages of clouds.
Season of fires again.
Predictable each year now
and on schedule,
part of a new narration for autumn.
Bad air fitted with particulate matter
seeps into my lungs for the long haul.
The sunset is grim
with evacuations out on the coast
and claret-red inland where wineries sear,
vineyards with grapes burned at the stake.
I lapse into a dead language,
a wounded soliloquy
reaching out like arms of a nebula.
Salva nos, something far away repeats
like an irksome tune
when all I want to behold is art, beauty.
Tomorrows parade around my kitchen table
with its legion of empty chairs
and stacks of newsprint
where food should be served.
But we eat in front of the TV,
our minds flickering, snowy and lacy.
I witness world events that require a dictionary
vaster than my galaxy. No wonder
what I hold feels obscure and I despair
of convincing anyone these warnings are dire.

Book cover of Orbital
Book cover of James
Book cover of North Woods

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