Top 20 Books I Read in 2024

it's by far the most ambitious book on this list it has the historical scope of Hillary mantel's Wolf Hall novels and some of the linguistic playfulness and daring of Thomas pinch's Mason and Dixon

it approaches these and other questions in a way that's very intelligent balanced well argued well researched it was an amazing book and I highly recommend it

a surprise Rising an enigmatic novel about a young Scholar's eventful trip to the US a novel that's both rich in plot and Mysteries as we get to slowly reconstruct the murky history of the protagonist's recent traumas

another sweeping family Saga focusing on a Sou Dynasty in the US full of surprises and twists of Fates and unexpected changes as some characters in this doomed family evolve from spoiled children to determined and wise adults whereas others of them become carnivorous amphibian monsters

another book that is at once clear right ruthless and even cruel but also rather sentimental it's the story of an unconventional family moving along very unconventional lines that is going to subvert your expectations of what a family drama can or should be

very simple but extremely compelling novel about two siblings a teenager and his kid brother living alone in Milan after the death of their parents this is a beautiful and insightful book about what it means to be a teenager

a mesmerizing Enigma of a novel a book centered on a compelling unique narrator this is a philosophical inquiry with murder

a collection of related interconnected short stories about the Neurosis disappointments and midlife crisis of a broadcast of middle class characters living in Paris its humor is as acid as it is Unforgettable

an amazing novel satini big box story in the US a novel about working class American life that explores this world in ways that are eye openening insightful and never condescending

by far the scariest book I've read in 2024 the premise is very simple we have a narrator who's living alone and is going through some kind of midlife crisis and who starts reading a book about this fictitious race of Owlman

a story of a self-made man rising from humble beginnings to a place of immense wealth in the New York of the turn of the 20th century and he does this by following his dream which is building buildings of he more grandiose scale castles towering above the street and snaking underground to through countless buried layers

Dixon by the way I actually reread this summer and it's just as great as always

an encyclopedic overview of the postpunk dark wave synth pop movement between the end of the 70s and the early 80s I thought I was knowledgeable about that genre but I found I discovered a new band in every page of that book which is very well written very well researched

an amazing fictional treatment of the Year 1789 and the outbreak of the Revolution especially in Paris and Versa it's a sweeping Epic book that moves between various characters facing these Earth shattering events

sabat shampan is a testimony of a life spent within books sure with friends why not but also spent for significant stretches of time alone in front of a television

a book about the Summers of your teenage years times of great boundless freedoms that often lead to little more than just a TV dinner and a monster movie but occasionally take you to beautiful and unexpected places

a beautiful book that is at once a memoir and something else entirely not just because of its ambiguous fictional status this is very much the age of Auto fiction that we're living through

an engrossing and unsentimental book about a few a handful of really Unforgettable characters but it's also a novel that asks some truly important and huge questions

I've been a fan of peanuts since I was eight they've been so important in my life they resonate with me really deeply and this was really a great way of rediscovering that childhood feeling of Wonder Amusement sadness at The Adventures of Charlie Brown Snoopy and co

this book deals with several contemporary cultural and political issues in a way that is at times rather humf fisted its attitude toward the first Trump election waivers between the whiny and the simplistic and it's it feels very much like a liberal run that said it still stands as a valuable Testament to a certain type of liberal shock that rippled through the world in 2016

a beautiful story of community set in the 1950s in an Indian reservation in the midwest at a crucial time for Native Americans a time where the American government was considering terminating certain Native American tribes

expect dire poverty expect scheming Bourgeois expect a beautiful sharp insight into the mechanisms of society there is one scene lating to this book set in the Sellar underneath which is as hellish as anything you're going to find in germinal and it's been haunting me all year really

the story of a lifelong friendship against the star backdrop of an Alpine Village in Northern Italy even more than the friendship between the two protagonists what stayed with me from this book is the pro the narrator's relationship with his father one of the most interesting and Elusive characters I've encountered this year

the unfolding is actually a very astute and sharp political novel as insightful as the golden hous is cartoonish there's a murky fascist plot going on in the course of this book but there's also a very warm desperate family drama unfolding at its heart

a Gothic mystery set in rural Lombardy a story about literature and language and everything in between with an unreliable and impressionable narrator and a lovable monster