The Must-Read Books of 2024

Named one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year, a Time Must-Read Book of 2024, and one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey. An irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious, and surprising novel about a woman upending her life.

A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voice of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. Named a Best and Must-Read of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times, Time, and Amazon Editors.

Named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble, and one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: A story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both. In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.

A “powerful” (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home — from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble and Time.

There’s a fine line between bending the truth and telling bold-faced lies, and Javier Perez is willing to cross it. Named a BBC Best Book of 2024, Victim is a fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity.

From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that “hits like a sledgehammer … an absolutely must-read novel” (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl). Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year.

Named the Barnes & Noble Gift Book of the Year. A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club. With a foreword by David Allen Sibley.

Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today’s Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures. You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Álvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.

It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. From the writer who is “in a class by herself” (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide. Named a Notable and Best Book of 2024 by The New York Times and NPR.

One of the Amazon Editors’ Best Books of the Year and a Must-Read by Time. From the iconic internationally bestselling author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy: A forbidden affair erupts volcanically amid a decadent tropical wedding in this outrageous comedy of manners.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize as well as named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, and Time. The Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year. The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

From the nine-time women’s basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist — a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time.

Winner of the National Book Award for Nonficiton and named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of the Year for 2024 and a finalist for the National Book Award. An intense, intimate and first-of-its-kind look at the world of human smuggling in Latin America, by a MacArthur “genius” grant winner and anthropologist with unprecedented access.

Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win. Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year by The New York Times and Time, and longlisted for the Booker Prize.

A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king — while fighting her growing desire for his fiery son — in the first book of a Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology from the author of The Bridge Kingdom series. A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year.

In this Amazon Editors’ Best Books of the Year pick, Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: A doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

Named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble, weaving together cutting-edge research and personal stories, as well as groundbreaking data from the health technology company Dr. Means founded, Good Energy offers a new, cutting-edge understanding of the true cause of illness that until now has remained hidden.  It will help you optimize your ability to live well and stay well at every age.

Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. In the long-awaited first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle.

From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring — and surviving — an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, and Time.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores the ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency. Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of Year.

This book, named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by Time Barnes & Noble, and Amazon Editors, is a shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common — from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer.

Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year. From the bestselling author of Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters.

Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by Amazon Editors and Time, and one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.

The Husbands delights in asking: How do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options? This “bottomless champagne flute of a novel” (The Washington Post) has also been named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble.

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. My Friends is a “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile. A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests — and frays — those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.

A breathtaking and ineffable novel of love and loyalty across four generations, at once sweeping and intimate. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion.

Early morning, August 1975: A camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by Time and Amazon.

From New Yorker and Paris Review contributor Zach Williams comes a striking and savage debut story collection that confronts parenthood, mortality, and life’s broken promises. With exquisite prose and a lacerating wit, Beautiful Days holds a mirror to the many absurdities of being human and refuses to let us look away.

John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it’s his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system. Impeccably researched and told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of winning freedom when the battle already seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time and Amazon. The Anxious Generation is a must-read for all parents: The generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech — and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time, The Barn is a shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.

In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten — aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon — shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by Time and Amazon.

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, The Bookshop is an affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations.

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times and Time. The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians Trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium.

Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review. Sante’s memoir braids together two threads of personal narrative: the arc of her life, and her recent step-by-step transition to a place of inner and outer alignment. Sante brings a loving irony to her account of her unsteady first steps; there was much she found she still needed to learn about being a woman after some sixty years cloaked in a man’s identity, in a man’s world. A marvel of grace and empathy, I Heard Her Call My Name parses with great sensitivity many issues that touch our lives deeply, of gender identity and far beyond.

A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time and longlisted for the National Book Award.

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of Caucasia.

From the acclaimed novelist (“A virtuoso” —Donna Seaman, Booklist), a deft, shocking memoir that asks whether we can judge past behavior by today’s moral codes, as the author reevaluates her decades-long marriage to the forty-seven-year-old man she met when she was seventeen, revisiting a singular passion in the 21st-century aftermath of #MeToo. Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time.

Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances. Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024.

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time. The New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork takes readers on another fascinating, hilarious, and revelatory journey — this time burrowing deep inside the secretive world of art and artists. Probing everything from cave paintings to Instagram, and from the science of sight to the importance of beauty as it examines art’s role in our culture, our economy, and our hearts, Get the Picture is a rollicking adventure that will change the way you see forever.

Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review and Time. From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comes a memoir about drugs, techno, and New York City. Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one — least of all herself — Witt offers her life as a lens onto an era of American delirium and dissolution.

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time.

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie? In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette … if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, Time, and Kirkus Reviews. An exhilarating novel about one American family and the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble.

Named a Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by Time. A moving memoir by a survivor of anti-Muslim violence in contemporary India that delicately weaves political and family histories in a tribute to her country’s unique Islamic heritage — “a must-read in our warring world today” (NPR).

Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Time Best Book of the Year. From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.

A gripping memoir of one woman’s self-discovery inside a top Wall Street firm, and an urgent indictment of privilege, extreme wealth, and work culture. Private Equity is a universal tale of self-invention from a dazzling new voice, daring to ask what we’re willing to sacrifice to get to the top — and what it might take to break free and leave it all behind. Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024.

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by Time and Kirkus Reviews. A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman — in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community. Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times — while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.

The son of Ethiopian immigrants seeks to understand a hidden family history and uncovers a past colored by unexpected loss, addiction, and the enduring emotional pull toward home. Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Must-Read Book of the Year by Time.