As the year wraps up and we hope that our gifts for loved ones will arrive on time, I am continuing the tradition started several years ago to share my top books for 2024. I hope you find something new or see that one of your favorites made my list! As in the past, I love to hear from all of our subscribers about their favorite books of the year and will publish a selection with my January column. Please email me or comment on social media with the books you loved this year. I always love to talk about books.

Fiction

James by Percival Everett 

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Nonfiction

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham

Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León

Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Jackson Taffa

Poetry

Wrong Norma by Anne Carson

Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss

Water, Water: Poems by Billy Collins

Theophanies by Sarah Ghazal Ali

Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space: Poems by Catherine Barnett

Backlist

Information Desk: An Epic by Robyn Schiff

Aetherial Worlds: Stories by Tatyana Tolstaya translated by Anya Migdal

Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young

Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan

Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser

Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

Featured in the December 14, 2024 issue of The Independent