The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 627 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

Mark Doherty ❤️ loved this book because...

This is probably the best nonfiction "story" I've ever read. It kept me on the edge of suspense while constantly teaching me all sorts of amazing history about water, dams, and rivers in the West. Some of that history was truly eyebrow raising information that I could never have gained were it not for Fedarko's level of investment and research into this wild and wonderful story.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Story/Plot 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Kevin Fedarko,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Emerald Mile as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From one of Outside magazine’s “Literary All-Stars” comes the thrilling true tale of the fastest boat ride ever, down the entire length of the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, during the legendary flood of 1983.

In the spring of 1983, massive flooding along the length of the Colorado River confronted a team of engineers at the Glen Canyon Dam with an unprecedented emergency that may have resulted in the most catastrophic dam failure in history. In the midst of this crisis, the decision to launch a small wooden dory named “The Emerald Mile” at the head of the…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Mark Doherty ❤️ loved this book because...

James Brown's The Boys in the Boat creates such an in-depth, detailed, and emotion filled true story about one of the most remarkable Olympic Sports gold medal wins in American sports history. But this classic work of nonfiction set in the late 1930's in Washington State weaves together such a beautiful tapestry of emotion, determination, skill and prowess that it often brought me to tears while reading. Beyond that, I learned an immense amount about the classic building of rowing skulls as well as much of the early history of people's lives in the early American Pacific Northwest.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Daniel James Brown,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked The Boys in the Boat as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany-from the author of Facing the Mountain.

Soon to be a major motion picture directed by George Clooney

For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times-the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of True North: A Journey Into Unexplored Wilderness

Mark Doherty ❤️ loved this book because...

Elliott Merrick's True North literally transported me to the true wilderness of Labrador and allowed me to feel the wonder, the challenges, the beauty, and the pain of those early trappers and First People inhabitants who survived one of the harshest environments on earth. The prose verged often on poetry, and the description was truly transcendent.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Elliott Merrick,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked True North as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The enthralling memoir of a 1930s couple whose passion for nature led them on a winter’s-long hunting trek through one of the most remote regions of Canada
 
While many people dream of abandoning civilization and heading into the wilderness, few manage to actually do it. One exception was twenty-four-year-old Elliott Merrick, who in 1929 left his advertising job in New Jersey and moved to Labrador, one of Canada’s most remote regions.
 
True North tells the captivating story of one of the high points of Merrick’s years there: a hunting trip he and his wife, Kay, made with trapper John Michelin…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Walking Natural Pathways

By Mark Doherty,

Book cover of Walking Natural Pathways

What is my book about?

Walking Natural Pathways is an eclectic journey through poetry which uses thematic chapters to present a wide range of poetic styles. All of these poems focus on the beauty, inspiration, and even the challenges that exist in that ever-changing man-to-nature interface. The final chapter of the book features Doherty's lyrical songs for the natural world.