My Continued Apologies
The comment glitch on this blog continues. My hosting provider has been helpful in trying to track down the cause.
In the meantime, here’s a trick that has been working for me: If you type a comment and hit the “post comment” button, you’ll get the message “submitting comment,” followed by nothing. But, if you manually reload the page, the comment will magically appear.
Again, I apologize for this inconvenience. I do value your comments and look forward to restored unhampered communication.
I always enjoy putting together this list of lists at the end of the year because of the many different ways people find to focus (and thereby differentiate) their choices. I’ll follow up with a second list right before the new year.
Best Books of 2024
From Amazon.
Decay, Rot, and Plenty of Hauntings: The Best Gothic Novels of 2024
From the folks at CrimeReads.
The Best Crime Novels of 2024
I quote in its entirety the introduction to this list from Sarah Weinman, book critic for The New York Times, because I fully agree with it:
I’ve long believed that crime fiction runs along a spectrum between order and chaos, where the two seemingly disparate states are always intertwined, ever-changing, never settled. It makes sense that a genre offering a window into the way we really function in society and behave with one another would embrace constraints while also constantly subverting them. This year’s standout authors understood the assignment: to push boundaries, to reflect the world in its messy glory rather than in tidy narratives.
Best Audiobooks of the Year
From Audible.
The 10 best books of 2024
A nice, succinct list from The Washington Post: 5 novels, 5 works of nonfiction. Of course, you’ll also find links to more extensive, more focused lists as well.
The Best Fiction of 2024
From BookPage:
The greatest novels of 2024 were notably unafraid to rewrite the past, lacing shimmering, enriching new narratives through personal and cultural histories. Even better: Many of them made us laugh along the way.
The 10 best works of historical fiction in 2024
From The Washington Post.
Best Books of 2024
From BookRiot.
The Ten Best Books of 2024 Published by Independent Presses
This list from co-op bookseller Tertulia also contains links to other lists, such as Award-Winning Fiction and Award-Winning Nonfiction of 2024.
100 Notable Books of 2024
“Here is the standout fiction and nonfiction of the year, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.”
The 10 Best Books of 2024
If 100 books is too many for your brain to process (it certainly is for my brain), here’s a smaller sample. “The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s top fiction and nonfiction.” Here are five novels and five works of nonfiction that feature “the examining of lives that deepened what we thought we already knew.”
21 Best Books of 2024 to Read Right Now
Both fiction and nonfiction recommendations from Vanity Fair.
The Ten Best History Books of 2024
From Smithsonian Magazine: “Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and examine how the United States ended up where it is today.”
The 10 Best Books of 2024
From BookPage: “Across all categories and genres, these 10 books are standout selections from an excellent reading year.”
The Best Psychological Thrillers of 2024
Yes, my reading life centers around this genre:
This year’s best psychological thrillers are distinguished by their comedic edge, clever reversals, and exploration of everyday cruelties. They also show the merging of political and personal that has become a hallmark of the genre’s revival, as private concerns become ever-more publicly policed, while public goods have become privatized for profit. . . . We accept the darkness, the extremes, the suffering, the dissonance, for what they are: real.
The Best Books of 2024
The New Yorker’s list includes “a dozen essential reads in nonfiction and a dozen, too, in fiction and poetry.”
2024 Goodreads Choice Award Winners
I like to include this list each year because the winners are chosen by readers, not by critics or other writers.
The best books of 2024
This is the landing page for The Guardian’s lists of 2024’s best books in the following categories: fiction, children’s books, young adult books, crime & thrillers, science fiction & fantasy, translated fiction, romance, biography & memoir, science & nature, sport, ideas, poetry, graphic novel, music, food.
© 2024 by Mary Daniels Brown
I really dislike these lists, unless they’re by bloggers like you! I want YOUR best of 2024 list, not theirs!