The Best Books I Read in 2024

but first, some kudos

Before we get to the list, I want to quickly shout out my husband, who has been tirelessly making and installing giant spheres of light in our trees for the past few weeks. That’s right- MAKING- out of chicken wire- and hanging, via slingshot, these decorations. Already two guys have approached him to find out more about these well-hung Christmas Balls.

Well Hung Christmas Balls, unless you can think of a better name

So, cheers to you, Graham! Also, this is my clever way to find out whether you actually read my newsletter. Okay, on to my favorite reads.

In 2024, I felt so much gratitude for books. For offering an escape from personal difficulties and global catastrophes. For articulating emotions that I feel but don’t name. For making me guffaw and making me weep. For inspiring my awe at the beauty of sentences. For allowing me to step into the world of a person very similar to me, or completely different.

On back and forth trips to visit my ailing mom, I laughed out loud at David Sedaris’s A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020. Running training miles around Bruges, I blushed and chuckled at Miranda July’s All Fours. After the election, I reread Foster and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and felt restored.

So, here’s to the power of literature, and here’s to getting through 2024. Without further ado, these are the top 10 books that I read over the past year.

10. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Moore’s previous novel, Long Bright River, made my best reads of 2020. This time, Moore stages a mystery at a summer camp in the Adirondacks, on grounds owned by a wealthy, secretive family. One of the family’s children goes missing at camp, the second time this has happened. This fantastic book was both a commercial success and, in my opinion, a literary achievement.

9. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan. Similar to one of my favorite reads of 2023, Pachinko, this book introduced me to a historical time period and country that I knew little about. In Chan’s book, the country is Malaysia, the time period is the 1930’s-40’s, and the story is told by a mother and her three children. This is not light reading- some sad and terrible stuff happens- but it may have been my favorite tearjerker of the past year.

8. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. I suspect this is a book people will either love or hate. I’m in the former camp, with one caveat (to come). This hefty novel (650 pages), set in a small town in Ireland, follows one family’s unravelling during the 2008 financial crisis. The book is told in alternating POVs of each family member, father, mother, son, daughter. Each family member has big secrets and big drama going on, and the author masterfully develops a distinct voice for each. My caveat is that I struggled with the mother’s POV section (which occupies about 100 pages). But if you can get past that (or perhaps, you’ll enjoy it), the payoff is fantastic, especially the last 20%, in which Murray dials up the tension so tight that I kept finding new ways and excuses to read: on the Peloton, while stretching after Peloton, while cooking my post-Peloton eggs… you get the picture.

7. Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey. The only memoir to make my list this year (in part because, due to my focus on fiction for my MFA, I read far fewer memoirs this year). The perfect blend of beautiful storytelling and a compelling story. Trethewey unpacks her mother’s murder by her stepfather, interweaving memories from her childhood with stories from her mother’s life. You feel like you’re sifting through the evidence with her, piecing the elements together. For writers, this is a fantastic model for how to build tension even when the outcome is known/announced early.

6. Safe as Houses by Marie-Helene Bertino. I’ve become a huge Bertino fan. Parakeet made my “Best Reads of 2022” list, and two Bertino books made this year’s top 10. Safe as Houses is her only published story collection, and I adored it. Bertino puts an element of “the uncanny,” what some might call surrealism or magical realism, into each of her stories and novels. I’m not normally a fan of that style, but in Bertino’s hands it works, especially because she uses the uncanny elements to explore (realistic) human relationships.

5. The Girls from Corona del Mar by Rufi Thorpe. One of my new favorite novelists! I read three of her books this year, and across them, Thorpe demonstrates a talent for creating characters and plots I’ve never before seen in literature. Here, she turns the classic best-friendship tale on its head in a smart, voicey, funny, and original novel. When I started this book, I texted my sister almost immediately to tell her to read it, and when I finished, I turned to my husband and said, “I loved that book!” This is the kind of book you can think of eight people to whom you want to recommend it, right away.

4. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. This wins the award for “book I least would have predicted to appear on my top 10 list.” If you’re hungry for an epic, a western that’s much more about friendship than it is about gunslinging or cattle-roping (my best guess as to what other westerns are about), go no further. This one grew on me slowly (put another way, the first 150 pages are, um, languidly paced), but soon I was hooked, and by the end, I was said to say goodbye to these characters. McMurtry utilizes the currently out-of-favor omniscient voice to great effect.

3. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. This surprising and funny novel is like no other. A girl growing up in Philadelphia in the 90’s discovers she’s an alien, sent from afar to spy on earthlings and report back to her alien minders, which she does via fax machine. As with other Bertino works, the premise sounds odd, but the writing is lush and original, and the emotions are human and real. In this case Bertino explores feelings of otherness, loneliness, and unmet expectations. This was easily a contender for my favorite book of the year.

2. Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell. Those who have been reading these posts for a while know about my O’Farrell obsession. Hamnet probably wins my nod for best historical fiction ever (certainly top 5). I Am, I Am, I Am ranks among my all-time favorite memoirs. Both made my best books of 2021. Now I’m diving into O’Farrell’s backlist, and Instructions for a Heatwave was a treasure. The writing is so rich, so glorious. I underlined so many passages. While very little happens in this novel— it’s not a fit for those who love fast-paced, plot-driven books— the characters evolve in satisfying ways. Ostensibly, the book is about a mother and her three children coming together during a British heatwave in 1979, after the father goes missing. For writers, this book offers an ideal study in two techniques, how to incorporate backstory without slowing down the pace, and how to differentiate among four different POV voices. For non-writers: read it anyway!

   And my top book of 2024 was….

1. Foster by Claire Keegan. Confession: I first read this book in 2023, but I’m still naming it as my top book of 2024, since I reread it and liked it even more the second (and third) times. A deceptively simple story about a young girl (late elementary school, I’d guess) who goes to live with some distant relatives for the summer, and ends up changed. It feels like a book that could have been written a hundred years ago, because it seems like a classic. It isn’t fancy; it doesn’t put on airs; and yet, there is so much beauty within.

   Here’s why you need to go out and read this, as well as Small Things Like These (which made last year’s top 10 list), if you haven’t already.

   1. Keegan packs so much into a sentence. She conveys a lot with very little.

   2. These books will bring you joy.

   3. They are short and can be read in one sitting of 2 hours or less. So you have no excuse not to read them!

   4. Once you read Small Things Like These, you can delight in the utter awkwardness of the Starbucks/Oprah/Claire Keegan mashup in this book club interview. I promise, the Oprah/Keegan dynamic is better than any scripted series, Keegan’s bafflement at some of Oprah’s questions, Oprah’s bewilderment at some of Keegan’s answers. Priceless.

So now it’s your turn. What was the best book you read in 2024? Leave a comment to let me and your fellow readers know.

Happy holidays, and I’ll see you in the new year!