The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 1,098 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Babel

Robin Kirk ❤️ loved this book because...

Wow, what an achievement. A truly fresh story with lots of undercurrents, so smartly written without being too pedantic. I think the only other book that comes close in terms of great story+deep thoughtfulness is Philip Pullman's “His Dark Materials” series.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By R. F. Kuang,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Babel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER

'One for Philip Pullman fans'
THE TIMES

'An ingenious fantasy about empire'
GUARDIAN

'Fans of THE SECRET HISTORY, this one is an automatic buy'
GLAMOUR

'Ambitious, sweeping and epic'
EVENING STANDARD

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

Oxford, 1836.

The city of dreaming spires.

It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.

And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.

Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Hunter

Robin Kirk ❤️ loved this book because...

Absorbing, funny, deep and an excellent mystery. I marked many stunning passages. French is a master at dialogue and description.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Character(s)
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Tana French,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Hunter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.

Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of Fred Korematsu Speaks Up

Robin Kirk ❤️ loved this book because...

Wonderful, wonderful book. I dedicated a newsletter to an interview with the authors here: https://robinkirk.substack.com/p/fred....

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Outlook 🥈 Originality
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Laura Atkins, Stan Yogi, Yutaka Houlette (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fred Korematsu Speaks Up as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Winner, Carter G. Woodson Book Award

Winner, New-York Historical Society Children's Book Prize

Winner, Social Justice Literature Award

Honor Title, Jane Addams Children's Book Award

Finalist, 2017 Cybils Awards

Nominee, Georgia Children's Book Award

Nominee, Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award

Nominee, South Carolina Junior Book Award

A Kirkus Best Book of the Year

An Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California Outstanding Title

Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends-just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Book cover of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

What is my book about?

Whenever we envision a world without war, prisons, or capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time.

Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change.

These visionary tales span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be.