The best books of 2024

This list is part of the best books of 2024.

Join 1,502 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Ronnie Blair ❤️ loved this book because...

The author, an oncologist, takes the readers on a journey into the history of cancer, from centuries ago when the earliest physicians barely knew what they were dealing with, to modern times when heavily researched science determines treatment and cures. I enjoy books about science (at least when they are written in terms a non-scientist can understand) and I also enjoy books about history. This book combines those topics, making for a fascinating read, although because of the subject, parts of it also make for a depressing read.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Teach 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Siddhartha Mukherjee,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Emperor of All Maladies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2011

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction 2011

Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize 2011

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize

In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee, doctor, researcher and award-winning science writer, examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with - and perished from - for more than five thousand years.

The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience and perseverance, but also…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

Ronnie Blair ❤️ loved this book because...

"The Wager" is a fascinating book about a shipwreck and about some of the less inspiring traits of human nature as the crew does not take a "one for all and all for one" attitude as they struggle to overcome their fate. In some ways this is a real-life "Lord of the Flies," only with adults instead of boys. Grann brings the tale to life with rich details from his research of the shipwreck itself, the world at the time, and some of the individuals involved, including John Byron, the grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, who was a midshipman.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Immersion 🥈 Teach
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By David Grann,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

'The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail... one of the finest nonfiction books I've ever read' Guardian

'The greatest sea story ever told' Spectator

'A cracking yarn... Grann's taste for desperate predicaments finds its fullest expression here' Observer

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER

From the international bestselling author of KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE LOST CITY OF Z, a mesmerising story of shipwreck, mutiny and murder, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.

On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the…


My 3rd favorite read in 2024

Book cover of The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Ronnie Blair ❤️ loved this book because...

The Civil War is something every American studied in school, so most of us know at least some general details. But "The Demon of Unrest" explores in great detail the war's beginning and the events that led to the first cannons fired at Fort Sumter, along with the personalities involved who were determining America's future. The book brings reminders of how a small change in just one or two events can alter history in extraordinary ways. For anyone who enjoys history, Erik Larson lays out a riveting tale stocked with many more details than your high school history teacher could have ever hoped to cover in the short time they had you in class.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Teach 🥈 Writing
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Erik Larson,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Demon of Unrest as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV

By Ronnie Blair,

Book cover of Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV

What is my book about?

This memoir of growing up in a Kentucky coal-mining community from the late 1950s to the early 1970s weaves history, popular culture, and geography into a nostalgic journey interspersed with tales of coal-strike tensions and humorous family adventures. Eisenhower Babies is a celebration of the eccentricities of 1960s small-town life, where a police officer might promise to give a four-year-old his gun once the officer ran out of bullets, a neighbor could return from a Florida vacation with a live baby alligator as a new pet, and the children of World War II veterans waged imaginary battles against Hitler’s treachery in their hillside backyards.

Book cover of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Book cover of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
Book cover of The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

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