The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 1,106 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Dog Day Afternoon

Lori Mortensen ❤️ loved this book because...

I love David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter series. Dog Day Afternoon is the latest release.

I love everything about it--the main character's confident, humorous voice, the fun dog connection, and how, no matter what happens, we know that Andy Carpenter is going to come out on top somehow.

I recommend this book and all of the other Andy Carpenter books in the series.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Writing 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By David Rosenfelt,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Paterson, New Jersey's favorite reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter returns in Dog Day Afternoon, the next mystery in this fan favorite series from National Bestselling Author David Rosenfelt.

Retired lawyer Andy Carpenter has run the Tara Foundation-the dog rescue organization named after his beloved golden retriever-for years. It's always been his calling, even as Andy's pulled into representing clients in court. His investigator, Marcus Clark, has been at Andy's side for a long time. Even though they've known each other for years, Marcus keeps his personal life a mystery.

So it's a shock when Marcus arrives at the Tara Foundation with…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist

Lori Mortensen ❤️ loved this book because...

I love reading about people and their lives.

In this book, Jane Rosenberg opens a window to a world most people know nothing about--capturing important, telling, and emotional moments that unfold in some of the biggest courtrooms in the country.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Teach
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Jane Rosenberg,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From America’s top courtroom sketch artist, a penetrating, compulsively readable memoir about her dramatic four-decade career

“A mesmerizing look at this rarest of professions…”–Bookpage STARRED review
"Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED review
"Rosenberg’s fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades."—Library Journal STARRED review
"Perceptive, compassionate, and endlessly fascinated by how the human condition is revealed in the courtroom, Rosenberg tells riveting and resonant tales in image and word."—Booklist STARRED review

For over forty years, Jane Rosenberg has been at the heart of…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Death of a Spy

Lori Mortensen ❤️ loved this book because...

I love Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series as well as her Agatha Raisin series. Both feature fun, original characters that I love spending time with as they tackle their problems and solve their mysteries.

M. C. Beaton passed away a few years ago, but before she passed she collaborated with and mentored R. W. Green who has taken over both series. He's done a great job. Whenever I run out of new reads, I often go back and reread some books in those series. Great reads, all of them.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Story/Plot
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By M.C. Beaton, R.W. Green,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From a New York Times bestselling author, Sergeant Hamish Macbeth faces a string of mysterious robberies that are only the beginning of an international threat to his sleepy Scottish village of Lochdubh.

Sergeant Hamish Macbeth is worried about how the folks will react to his new assistant officer; the enigmatic American James Bland, whose true mission is to track down the members of a Russian spy network. In the meantime, he and Bland deal with it the usual crop of traffic incidents, lost wallets, lost dogs, and lost people, but a spate of burglaries committed by a man dubbed “Spiderman”…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey

By Lori Mortensen, Chloe Bristol (illustrator),

Book cover of Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey

What is my book about?

Nonsense! is about one of literature’s most creepily creative authors and illustrators who was the inspiration behind a generation of creators, including Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.

Instead of following the crowd, Gorey did things his own way, writing strange stories with peculiar titles like The Abandoned Sock, The Galoshes of Remorse, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies. When other publishers rejected his work, he published them himself—curious stories that mingled sweetness and innocence, danger and darkness, all mixed with his own brand of silliness. Edward Gorey—mysterious, brilliant, a one-of-a-kind original. Will the curious stories of Edward Gorey ever end? Nonsense.