The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 1,593 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Same Bed Different Dreams

Katie Gee Salisbury ❤️ loved this book because...

Ed Park continues to be one of the most original writers of our time. This book is so many different things rolled into one that it's hard to encapsulate in just a few lines. As the publisher describes it, Same Bed Different Dreams "imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present," but it also explores what it means to be a writer and to keep the stories of those who came before us alive.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Ed Park,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Same Bed Different Dreams as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present—loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media

“Your view of twentieth-century history will be enlarged and altered. . . . A Gravity’s Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude

WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE

A BEST…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Play It as It Lays

Katie Gee Salisbury ❤️ loved this book because...

I read this by a pool while on vacation, which feels fitting, since that's what the book's protagonist often finds herself doing. Idling by the pool or the beach in the California sunshine. I've read a lot of Joan Didion's nonfiction, but this was my first time reading one of her novels. Like most of her writing, Play It as It Lays is a master class in how to tell a story with the most sparing yet evocative language.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Story/Plot
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Joan Didion,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Play It as It Lays as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A profoundly disturbing novel that ruthlessly dissects American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking.

Benny called for a round of Cuba Libres and I gave him some chips to play for me and went to the ladies' room and never came back.

Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, hollowed-out actress Maria Wyeth's life plays out in a numbing routine of perpetual freeway driving. In her early thirties, divorced from her husband, dislocated from friends, anesthetized to pain and please, Wheth is a woman who has run out of both desires…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Ornamentalism

Katie Gee Salisbury ❤️ loved this book because...

Ornamentalism is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the conditions of Asian American womanhood and the pervasiveness of the China doll stereotype. While this is a dense read, Anne Anlin Cheng's analysis is incredibly astute and the specific examples she delves into are quite fascinating.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Teach 🥈 Outlook
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Anne Anlin Cheng,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ornamentalism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Focusing on the cultural and philosophic conflation between the "oriental" and the "ornamental," Ornamentalism offers an original and sustained theory about Asiatic femininity in western culture. This study pushes our vocabulary about the woman of color past the usual platitudes about objectification and past the critique of Orientalism in order to formulate a fresher and sharper understanding of the representation, circulation, and ontology of Asiatic femininity. This book alters the foundational terms of racialized femininity by allowing us to conceptualize race and gender without being solely beholden to flesh or skin. Tracing a direct link between the making of Asiatic…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Not Your China Doll

By Katie Gee Salisbury,

Book cover of Not Your China Doll

What is my book about?

“Enlightening, nuanced, and honest.”—Lisa See

Set against the glittering backdrop of Los Angeles during the gin-soaked Jazz Age and the rise of Hollywood, this debut book celebrates Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, to bring an unsung heroine to light and reclaim her place in cinema history.

One of Entertainment Weekly‘s “Books We Are Excited to Read in 2024”

Before Constance Wu, Sandra Oh, Awkwafina, or Lucy Liu, there was Anna May Wong. In her time, she was a legendary beauty, witty conversationalist, and fashion icon. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, Anna May Wong rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’s blockbuster The Thief of Bagdad. Fans and the press clamored to see more of this unlikely actress, but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest.

Anna May starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris, and London. She dazzled royalty and heads of state across several nations, leaving trails of suitors in her wake. She returned to challenge Hollywood at its own game by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism. She used her new stature to move away from her typecasting as the China doll or dragon lady, and worked to reshape Asian American representation in film.

Filled with stories of capricious directors and admiring costars, glamorous parties and far-flung love affairs, Not Your China Doll showcases the vibrant, radical life of a groundbreaking artist.

Book cover of Same Bed Different Dreams
Book cover of Play It as It Lays
Book cover of Ornamentalism

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