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 Bird of Paradise

Clifford Garstang ❤️ loved this book because...

I wrote the book. It came out in February 2024 and I'm very proud of it.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Clifford Garstang ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Last Bird of Paradise as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Aislinn Givens leaves a settled life in Manhattan for an unsettled life in Singapore. That painting radiates mystery and longing. So does Clifford Garstang's vivid and simmering novel, The Last Bird of Paradise." –John Dalton, author of Heaven Lake and The Inverted Forest

Two women, nearly a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives when they reluctantly leave their homelands. Arriving in Singapore, they find romance in a tropical paradise, but also find they haven't left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.

In the aftermath of 9/11 and haunted by the specter of terrorism, Aislinn Givens leaves her…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Kairos

Clifford Garstang ❤️ loved this book because...

It covers the period of the reunification of East and West Germany, which is a fascinating time in German and World History

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Jenny Erpenbeck , Michael Hofmann (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck's new novel Kairos-an unforgettably compelling masterpiece-tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the upheavals wrought by its dissolution in 1989 and then what comes after. In her unmistakable style and with enormous sweep, Erpenbeck describes the…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Happiness Falls

Clifford Garstang ❤️ loved this book because...

The voice of the main character was compelling. Annoying at times, but that was part of her character.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Angie Kim ,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Happiness Falls as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • When a father goes missing, his family’s desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another in this thrilling page-turner, a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.

Belletrist Book Club Pick • Finalist for the New American Voices Award • “This is a story with so many twists and turns I was riveted through the last page.”—Jodi Picoult

One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Season: The New York Times • Los Angeles…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Oliver's Travels

By Clifford Garstang ,

Book cover of Oliver's Travels

What is my book about?

Ollie Tucker, a recent college graduate and student of philosophy, is obsessed with truth and the source of knowledge, questioning the validity of everything he hears from his parents, his girlfriend, and even the voices inside his head. In pursuit of the truth and life's deeper meaning, he invents an alter ego, Oliver, who lives the adventurous and exotic existence Ollie cannot. But Ollie has another problem--a repressed memory of his uncle Scotty that threatens to derail his life, his relationships, and his sexuality. But the memory is a blur. And what he thinks he remembers, he knows is unreliable. The uncertainty is paralyzing. What is the truth? What has his subconscious fabricated? When he learns that his uncle, long-presumed dead, is in fact alive and well, Ollie realizes that to move on with his life and find peace, he must confront his uncle.

Book cover of The Last Bird of Paradise
Book cover of Kairos
Book cover of Happiness Falls

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