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 Shelter in Place

Serena Burdick ❤️ loved this book because...

I read a short story by Alexander Maksik and fell in love with his writing. When I sought out this earlier novel by him, I read pages repeatedly. His use of language and his ability to capture an emotional life from the beginning of youth to the age when we are looking back on what we loved and lost, drew me in and kept me longing for more.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Emotions
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Alexander Maksik ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shelter in Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A troubled young man’s bright future takes a strange turn when his mother commits murder in this “riveting and disturbing novel” of 1990s Washington State (The Guardian).

A Guardian and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016. Joseph March, a twenty-one-year-old working-class kid from Seattle, is on top of the world. He has just graduated college and his limitless future beckons. But Joe’s life suddenly implodes when he starts to suffer from the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Then, not long after, his mother kills a man she’s never met with a hammer. Joe moves to White Pine, Washington, where his…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of North Woods

Serena Burdick ❤️ loved this book because...

This was one of the more unique and intelligent books I'd read in a long time. The writing is undeniably well crafted, and the plot unusual enough to keep you endlessly wondering what was coming next. I will say, toward the end, it dragged for me. I was ready for it to wrap up about fifty pages before it did. Regardless, it was one of my top favorites as I haven't read anything like it before.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐌 It was slow at times

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…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of None of This is True

Serena Burdick ❤️ loved this book because...

This was like eating candy, something I rarely do. Sometimes, you have to dive into a book for it's sheer plot driven action. It's not a book that will, necessarily, stretch your intellectual mind, but I was hooked. The end of each chapter put me on the edge of my seat in an utterly fun way. I haven't been consumed with a book like this in a long time.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Lisa Jewell ,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked None of This is True as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Buy now and prepare to be hooked from the Number One bestselling thriller author . . .

* AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER *
* OVER 6,000 FIVE STAR REVIEWS *
* AUDIBLE NO.1 SIX WEEKS IN A ROW *

'Gloriously dark' Lucy Foley
'A moody, slippery novel' Gillian McAllister
'One hundred percent brilliant' Clare Mackintosh
'Shocking and creepy and glorious' Nicola Walker
'Utterly addictive' Claire Douglas
___________

Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th.

A few days later, they bump…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

A Promise to Arlette

By Serena Burdick ,

Book cover of A Promise to Arlette

What is my book about?

With the scope of a saga and the heart of a thriller, this is an evocative historical novel following a married couple whose idyllic 1950s suburban life is threatened by the promises they made during World War II.

Sidney and Ida Whipple are living the suburban 1950s American dream, complete with two children and a white picket fence, which didn’t seem possible when they first met at the height of WWII in France. Reveling in the present, they can almost convince themselves that their past is behind them. But when their neighbors show off a newly purchased Man Ray photograph, Ida comes face-to-face with the person she loved and lost in the war: Arlette.

Only Ida knows the truth about the photograph, and why it can’t possibly be authentic. In an attempt to right past wrongs, she travels to California vowing to confront Man Ray. Sidney wakes to find his wife is missing, the photograph in question stolen, and all the secrets they’ve tried to bury come rushing back. With his daughters in tow, he travels after Ida, hoping to forge a new path together. Instead, their sojourn leads to a shocking discovery that could pull their family apart in this sweeping, unforgettable story about love and friendship, trust and betrayal, and how promises made, broken, and ultimately renewed, can determine our fate.

Book cover of Shelter in Place
Book cover of North Woods
Book cover of None of This is True

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