The 50 Best Books of 2024

Today I am sticking my neck out and exclaiming that I have discovered the top 50 books of 2024 by examining 39 end-of-year-best books lists. The sources used for this list came from a variety of places -- newspapers (ex: The NY Times), book review sites (ex: Kirkus Reviews), magazines (ex: Atlantic), book award sites (ex: National Book Award), public libraries (ex: Chicago Public Library), and a few commercial sites (Barnes and Noble). Some of the lists were short -- "Five best books of the year." [Five Books] While others were long -- "NPR --350+ books we love from 2024!" Both the too short and way too long weren't as helpful to me as lists of 50 to 100 books. Those lists seemed true. They had a variety of genres, fiction/nonfiction, and reflected different interests.

My methodology: Starting the first of December I searched sites which had created end-of-the-year-best-books lists in previous years. My first stop was Publisher's Weekly. This is a good place to start since the website is attractively organized and is user friendly, not requiring a lot of reading. I opened a spreadsheet and started typing. All adult fiction books got their own line at this stage of the game, later if a new book showed up on a list and I'd never seen it on any other list I would debate adding it or not, but in the beginning of the process I added all fiction books listed and some of the nonfiction. Even though I tried really hard to figure out which books I should add or not my spreadsheet still had over 60 titles listed from one source only and my whole list had over 200 titles on it. I admit my process was flawed because I wasn't willing to type out every book I saw on every list, call it laziness, but I am sure at least my top eleven titles are right on. These books showed up on so many lists, over and over.

A few more points I'd like to make before the big reveal--

There are only four nonfiction books on the list. I was much more haphazard about searching for and marking down nonfiction titles than I was fiction. If the publication segregated out the nonfiction into a separate list, often I wouldn't even look at it. The four nonfiction book titles are italicized. These four percolated to the top of my list but I speak with less authority about their place on the list than for the fiction titles. I am not really sure if they are the best of the best nonfiction of 2024.
*Orbital, Good Material, and Held showed up on several lists even though they were published in November or December 2023. I kept them on the list because they kept showing up on others' lists. I don't know the rules about what qualifies. Is it standard practice to include books published so late in the previous year? I don't know.
Lastly, looking over the list I find myself racing to add at least ten of the 50 books to my TBR but I know from past experience, just because a book is listed here doesn't mean it is going to be a good fit for me. I still need to do my homework before I decide if it is a book which will work for me and my reading preferences. I've only read four books out of the 50 listed. I am not making personal recommendations here, with one exception: JAMES. It was by far the book most likely to end up on a Best Books of 2024 list. It is astonishing how many times it was listed. Only eight publications didn't name it and it made me wonder about those publications. "What is wrong with them," I thought. The book is THAT good.

Title	Author	Total BB-2024 Lists
James	Percival Everett	31
Martyr!	Kaveh Akbar	23
All Fours	Miranda July	21
Creation Lake	Rachel Kushner	18
The God of the Woods	Liz Moore	18
Intermezzo	Sally Rooney	16
The Ministry of Time	Kaliane Bradley	15
Colored Television	Danzy Senna	13
Long Island Compromise	Taffy Brodesser-Akner	13
My Friends	Hisham Matar	12
Playground	Richard Powers	12
Rejection	Tony Tulathimutte	11
The Safekeep	Yael van der Wouden	11
Small Rain	Garth Greenwell	11
Wandering Stars	Tommy Orange	11
Orbital*	Samantha Harvey	10
The Familiar	Leigh Bardugo	10
The Book of Love	Kelly Link	9
The Bright Sword	Lev Grossman	9
The Coin	Yasmin Zaher	9
Headshot	Rita Bullwinkel	9
Knife!: Meditations After an Attempted Murder	Salman Rushdie	9
You Dreamed of Empires	Alvaro Enrigue	9
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space	Adam Higginbotham	8
Glorious Exploits	Ferdia Lennon	8
Good Material*	Dolly Alderton	8
Held*	Anne Michaels	8
Long Island	Colm Tóibín	8
The Mighty Red	Louise Erdrich	8
Our Evenings	Alan Hollinghurst	8
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension	Hanif Abdurraqib	8
Be Ready When the Luck Happens: a Memoir	Ina Garten	7
The City and It's Uncertain Wall	Haruki Murakami	7
Clear	Carys Davies	7
Enlightenment	Sarah Perry	7
Funny Story	Emily Henry	7
Great Expectations	Vinson Cunningham	7
The Hunter	Tana French	7
Tell Me Everything	Elizabeth Strout	7
This Strange Eventful History	Claire Messud	7
Wedding People	Alison Espach	7
Anita de Monte Laughs Last	Xochitl Gonzales	6
Entitlement	Rumaan Alam	6
Fire Exit	Morgan Talty	6
The Husbands	Holly Gramazio	6
The Hypocrite	Jo Hamya	6
Sandwich	Catherine Newman	6
Someone Like Us	Dinaw Mengistu	6
A Sunny Place for Shady People	Mariana Enriquez	6
Wild Houses	Colin Barrett	6