The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 1,187 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of My Brilliant Friend

Nicholas Ponticello ❤️ loved this book because...

Growing up in a small rural community where education wasn't much valued amongst the working class population, I related to the main character in this book. She defies expectations and pursues an elite education (like I did) and then struggles the rest of her life stuck between the world she was born into and the world she now inhabits as an educated person.

This is a story about two friends who take wildly different paths in life. Both have brilliant minds. But one chooses to pursue an education while the other chooses marriage and work in the neighborhood of Naples where she grew up.

As their lives become more divergent, the ties that bind them grow even stronger. An incredible story.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Character(s) 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked My Brilliant Friend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE

OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN THE UK

OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY

58 WEEKS ON THE BOOKSELLER'S TOP 20 ORIGINAL FICTION BESTSELLERS LIST

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015

43 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS DEALS

Now in B-format Paperback

From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of A Clash of Kings

Nicholas Ponticello ❤️ loved this book because...

This fantasy series is about humanity. You follow several characters through a war-torn world, each one fighting desperately to stay alive. The story puts the characters in very trying situations and gives them a choice: kill or be killed. Ultimately, we come to understand that a life of honor can be tarnished in an instant and only luck decides who will be blameless in the end.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Story/Plot
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By George R. R. Martin,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Clash of Kings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE BOOK BEHIND THE SECOND SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES, AN ORIGINAL SERIES NOW ON HBO.

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE: BOOK TWO
 
In this thrilling sequel to A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination. A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare unlike any we have ever experienced.
 
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Old God's Time

Nicholas Ponticello 👍 liked this book because...

Old God's Time got off to a meandering start. I struggled to understand what I was supposed to focus on. But as the story unfolds, I realized that I was dealing with a very unreliable narrator, and the whole story took a dark turn. It was an excellent reflection on the persistence of memory and the tragedy of loss as life unfolds.

Very good book. Glad I kept reading.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Emotions 🥈 Thoughts
  • Writing style

    👍 Liked it
  • Pace

    🐌 It was slow at times

By Sebastian Barry,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Old God's Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
TWICE WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A masterpiece' Sunday Times
'Stunning' LIZ NUGENT
'Extraordinary' Irish Times

Tom Kettle, a retired policeman, and widower, is settling into the quiet of his new home in Dalkey, overlooking the sea.

His solitude is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask about a traumatic, decades-old case. A case that Tom never quite came to terms with. And his peace is further disturbed when his new neighbour, a mysterious young mother, asks for his help.

A beautiful, haunting novel, in which…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Do Not Resuscitate: The Monkey Parade

By Nicholas Ponticello,

Book cover of Do Not Resuscitate: The Monkey Parade

What is my book about?

Jim Frost thinks that when you're dead, you're dead. Gone. Finished. Kaput. But on the eve of his seventy-third birthday, his daughter suggests he have his brain downloaded to a microchip for safe-keeping, and Jim is forced to consider what it really means to die, and what it might mean to live forever.

Winner in the 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards and semifinalist in the 2015 Kindle Book Awards, Do Not Resuscitate is the firsthand account of Jim Frost, an aging misanthropist who witnessed the rise and fall of the United States as a world power, the digitalization of the planet, the advent of the water wars, and the near collapse of the global economy. Yet he remains impervious to it all. Concerned more with his plasma TV, high-speed Internet, and continual supply of hash, twentysomething Jim takes an under-the-table job off Craigslist delivering mysterious red coolers to strangers in cafés in an effort to pay the bills. But when Jim's enigmatic employer asks him to fly to North Korea for a delivery, Jim starts to wonder what he's gotten himself into.

Book cover of My Brilliant Friend
Book cover of A Clash of Kings
Book cover of Old God's Time

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