Best books of 2024 Archives

Loved and Missed

by Susie Boyt

This slim British novel packs a big punch and is sure to be on my best-of-the-year list. In this first-person family drama, we meet a grandmother who raises her granddaughter from infancy because her daughter, who's been struggling with addiction for nearly a decade, is unable to do so. The story is brutal and tender, gorgeously written, and surprisingly funny for a book that required multiple tissues. I appreciated that the prose, while never plodding or needlessly complex, did invite a close reading: I am inclined to be a fast reader, but I consciously slowed down so I didn't miss anything. While the story is set roughly in the present day—just before the dawn of the iPhone—it has an old-fashioned feel to it; if I didn't know better I might have guessed it was a Persephone title. Heads up for multiple content warnings: some are evident from the plot description but some took me by surprise.

This Motherless Land

by Nikki May

I’m a sucker for a Jane Austen adaptation, but even so the Wahala author’s decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park surpassed all my expectations. May’s update spans two decades from the late 1970s to the late 1990s and moves between Lagos and the U.K. (with an important scene set at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics). There’s much to appreciate: a coming of age story, a scathing social critique, a time capsule, and a story about the bond between first cousins. This emotional tale is by turns humorous and gutting: I read it with my heart in my throat. You need not have read Austen to enjoy this retelling, but a skim through the plot summary wouldn’t hurt—and don’t be surprised if you want to read Mansfield next!

Family Family

by Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel seems to write as a form of wish fulfillment: she writes the world as she wants it to be, and hopes it can become. Her new novel about adoption is easy to read and hard to describe; thank goodness we can talk about it more at our Spring Book Preview event! The story begins with an actress named India, who finds herself at the center of a media firestorm for criticizing her new movie in the press. Her precocious ten-year-old twins, recognizing their mother is living a PR nightmare, take it upon themselves to seek help from a person uniquely positioned to do so: a family member their mother doesn’t know they know about, and whom they’ve never met. Alternating between the present day media fracas and India’s early days as an actress, and moving between LA, Seattle, and NYC, Frankel firmly roots her tale in the world of theater and film, exploring the many forms family can take and the limits of love. With its unforgettable scenes, bold plot choices, Shakespeare and musical theater references, and at least one gasp-out-loud moment, this is a book I’m still thinking about months after turning the final page. I can't wait to talk about it with everyone I know—especially because this is a book that begs to be discussed!

Somehow: Thoughts on Love

by Anne Lamott

This is Lamott's twentieth book, published in February 2024 on the day before her 70th birthday. If you're new to her nonfiction, this is a hospitable place to hop in; if you're familiar with her work you'll recognize repeating themes: the mixed bag of joy and pain that life contains, the myriad lessons she's learned in recovery, the impossibility of the circumstances we sometimes face, and the persistent drumbeat of hope in the face of it all.

Sandwich

by Catherine Newman

I am at the exact stage of life for this pitch-perfect midlife tale to resonate deeply. For what may be the last time, fifty-something Rocky and her husband cram into a tiny Cape Cod beach house for one glorious week, along with their two kids, one girlfriend, and Rocky’s aging parents. Emotions are running high, as Rocky, nostalgic and menopausal, wants to relish every moment with her adult children and increasingly fragile parents. Their time together is precious, and also turbulent, as it is revealed that various family members have been hiding shattering truths for decades—out of love, yes, but hiding them all the same. I read it in two days and put it straight on my Best of the Year list.

The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Moore’s latest is a family saga, missing persons tale, and 1970s summer camp story rolled into one. One August morning in 1975, a camper vanishes without a trace. But not just any camper: she’s the daughter of the wealthy family who owns this camp, and fourteen years before, her older brother similarly disappeared. As the family, the campers themselves, and the neighboring blue-collar town residents gather to search for the girl, everyone suspects the two missing children must be linked, but how? The mystery is a driving force, but Moore’s story is complex and carefully layered, with a large cast of believably drawn characters who add texture and nuance. A character-driven, compulsively readable literary mystery that I've recommended for my teenage daughters, my mother's seventy-something-year-old friends, and dozens of readers in between.

The Wedding People

by Alison Espach

I almost put this down in the early chapters when the dark premise was revealed, but this tragicomedy turned out to be profound, compassionate, and deeply life-affirming. When Phoebe checks into her swanky Newport, Rhode Island inn, she finds out that she’s the only guest who’s not there for the weeklong wedding. Phoebe is hitting bottom; she doesn’t care about a wedding. But to her surprise, she finds herself absorbed by the drama unfolding around her and pulled into the action. And—because she has nothing left to lose—she finds herself telling the truth for the first time in ages, to herself and to others. Though grim in parts, this story is bursting with insight, sharp humor, and a pervasive humanity. I can’t wait to read what Espach writes next.

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

by Hanif Abdurraqib

Basketball isn't really my thing, or so I thought—but in Abdurraqib’s hands, I couldn’t get enough of Columbus, the Cavaliers, and LeBron James. Who knew? In this inventive, far-reaching work, the poet and music critic shares riveting anecdotes and fascinating details about the game itself. He also uses the ball as a jumping off point to explore a wide (wide!) variety of topics, including heroes and role models, the passage of time, the fragility of life, and the joy of rooting for the underdog. I can’t begin to capture his stupendous storytelling skills, but know this: this is my first read from the author and I’m hooked. Now I can’t wait to explore his backlist this summer.

How to Read a Book

by Monica Wood

Wood returns with another poignant Maine novel centering three lonely people, two of whom are in their 60s, who are connected by a terrible tragedy. Violet was just nineteen when, drunk and high, she caused the death of a beloved local teacher and was sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison. Harriet runs the book group at the women’s prison, where the inmates spend one precious hour a month finding comfort in tearing apart the classics. And Frank is the victim’s widower, who fills his time by volunteering his handyman services at the local bookstore. This 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection is a deeply moving tale of redemption, second chances, and the power of books.

One Day author Nicholls delivers a quiet and unconventional post-pandemic tale in this 2024 Summer Reading Guide selection about two lonely middle-aged people falling in love as they trek through the English countryside. Geography teacher Michael and copyeditor Marnie, both still hurting in the aftermath of unhappy marriages that ended, meet for a group walk across the moors arranged by a bossy mutual friend. No one thinks they have anything in common—and yet when thrown together on the trail, they discover the sort of companionship they never dreamed they’d find again. Grammar nerds and Anglophiles will find a special pleasure in this bittersweet work of contemporary fiction that made me laugh so hard I shook the whole couch.

Same As It Ever Was

by Claire Lombardo

From the publisher: "Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things. She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge."

Canoes

by Maylis de Kerangal

From the publisher: "Ricocheting off of the book’s exhilarating central novella and 7 short stories, the women we meet in Canoes are by turns indelibly witty, insightful, intimate, bracing, and profoundly interconnected. 'When did I start placing myself in the fable?' a young Parisian wonders as she tells her son the legend of Buffalo Bill, a spectral presence atop the mountain in their small Colorado town. She has just moved to the United States and everything disorients her – suburbs stretching along reptilian highways, a new house rigged like a studio set, but most of all, the sound of her husband's voice. Sam speaks with a different tone in English, not the soft and swift timbre of his native French. From a voice made new, Maylis de Kerangal opens up a torrent of curiosities, hauntings, and questions about place and language. The women of these stories are mad about: stones, molds of human jaws, voicemail recordings, sonic waves, UFOs, and always how the texture of human voice entwines with their obsessions. With cosmic harmonics, vivid imagery, and a revelatory composition, Canoes will leave readers forever altered."

Best books of 2024

Buckle Up!

summer reading starts May 16th