2024’s book list
Books worth reading, with a few notes
It’s been a wild year.
It’s also been a really good year for books.
While I haven’t done a great job of keeping this ’stack updated, I have read a whole boatload of books, and I’ve tried my hand—er, ears—somewhat begrudgingly at audio books. I’d rather read, but as Parkinson’s disease progresses, it’s become more difficult to hold books (or even an e-reader), and my eyes have been acting up. So, time to learn new things.
Because this list is pretty massive, I’m going to divvy things up. First, categories: I’m reading literary fiction, poetry, general nonfiction, history, memoir and genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy and horror).
First, the 2024 books in each category I recommend most highly. Then, the ones I liked (or that disturbed me or that I think are necessary) in each category.
Please feel free to jump in and give me some suggestions, too—though I’m already starting in on the stack of 2025 books.
READ this book. I don’t know what it is.
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen (Dutton). Is it journalism? A novel? I don’t know, but it scared the bejesus out of me, mostly because it’s so damned rooted in reality. If you’re paying attention, you know we’re in a slow apocalypse that might speed up at any moment: the “cold” world war might go hot and there’s no shortage of nukes out there; climate change is killing us faster than we’ll admit; and another pandemic is on the horizon. Jacobsen takes the nuclear capabilities of our deeply unstable planet and writes a plausible scenario.
Who needs Stephen King? I do, because I can usually sleep after I finish one of his books.
My top books in each categories this year:
James: ANovel by Percival Everett (Doubleday). This is on everyone’s list for a very good reason: It deserves to be.
The Selected Shepherd: Poems, by Reginald Shepherd, edited by Jericho Brown (University of Pittsburgh Press). Ditto.
The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy by Jessica Pishko (Dutton). This was under my radar until Leah Sottile wrote about it—and then, I was amazed that more people aren’t talking about it. Like the move to take over those elected positions that run elections, sheriff’s offices in the U.S. have been targeted by the far-right authoritarians. There are a lot of good books on the topic of threats to democracy this year (see list below!), but this one was an eye-opener for me. The only positive is that it’s a weakness we can address, as many sheriff’s races are decided by just a few votes. Also, getting law enforcement out of the hands of white supremacists/Christian nationalists/fascists of all stripes ought to be job one.
Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History, by Anthony E. Kaye and Gregory P. Downs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). We’ve long suspected that Thomas R. Gray’s “Confessions of Nat Turner” was nearly as great a fiction as William Styron’s, but what are we to do? This book offers context: Read and understand Nat Turner as existing within the religious tradition of his time. It’s fresh, it’s eye-opening—and, given that Kaye died before completing his book and Downs did the writing from his colleague’s research, it’s a miracle.
The Right Kind of White: A Memoir by Garrett Bucks (Simon and Schuster). What
does it mean to be a “good” white person? Well, back in the dark ages when I was an undergrad, there was this journal called “Race Traitor” that tried to give us well-meaning white people the tools to figure that out. I’d put Garrett Bucks’ memoir squarely in that category, though maybe a little less self-aware. He’s in the space between the I-don’t-know-better of Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility and the bubbling, frothy resentment of Carol Anderson’s book White Rage. It’s awkward, but it’s honest. That makes it a really good place to start.
The Book of Love: A Novel by Kelly Link (Random House). Magical realism, fantasy, I really don’t know, but three dead kids who must figure out how to manage magic in order to learn what happened to them and change one of their futures makes for some compelling reading. Link’s short stories are satisfying; this first novel is, too.
Poetry
I didn’t read nearly as much poetry this year as I have in years past. The ones that caught my attention:
Horns by Tiffany Midge (Two Sylvias Press).
The Goner School by Jessica Laser (University of Iowa Press).
Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Literary fiction
The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawas Hussein (Restless Books).
Slaveroad by John Edgar Wideman (Scribner).
Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny: A Novel by Mark Cecil (Pantheon).
Your Presence Is Mandatory: A Novel by Sasha Vasilyuk (Bloomsbury).
You Dreamed of Empires: A Novel by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer (Riverhead Books).
Ours: A Novel by Phillip B. Williams (Viking).
Poor Deer: A Novel by Claire Oshetsky (Ecco).
Great Expectations: A Novel by Vinson Cunningham (Hogarth).
Martyr!:A Novel by Kaveh Akbar (Knopf).
The Rich People Have Gone Away: A Novel by Regina Porter (Hogarth).
Wolf at the Table: A Novel by Adam Rapp (Little, Brown and Company).
The American Daughters: A Novel by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (One World).
Long Island Compromise: A Novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Random House).
Nonfiction:
Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me by Edith Hall (Yale University Press).
The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook (Crown),
A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria by Caroline Crampton (Ecco).
On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America by Abraham Lustgarten (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (Avid Reader Press/Simon and Schuster).
The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor (Broadleaf Books).
Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America by Talia Lavin (Legacy Lit).
Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley (Atria/One Signal).
The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains by Clayton Page Alden (Dutton).
The New India: Modi, Nationalism, and the Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy by Rahul Bhatia (Public Affairs).
Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind by Annalee Newitz (W.W. Norton).
On Freedom by Timothy Snyder (Crown).
Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs by Benjamin Herold (Penguin Press).
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer (Penguin Press).
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday).
Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Lrgest Meatpacking Company by Alice Driver (Atria/One Signal),
Rat City: Overcrowding and Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B. Calhoun by Jon Adams and Edmund Ramsden (Melville House).
V13: Chronicle of a Trial by Emmanuel Carrère, translation by John Lambert (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
The Rage of Replacement: Far Right Politics and Demographic Fear by Michael Feola (University of Minnesota Press).
From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire by Sarah Jaffe (Bold Type Books).
Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans by Bill Schmitt (Algonquin Books).
Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeeper, and Girlboss by Kim Hong Nguyen (University of Illinois Press).
Hate Speech and Political Violence: Far-Right Rhetoric from the Tea Party to the Insurrection by Brigitte L. Nachos, Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, and Robert Y. Shapiro (Columbia University Press).
Food Waste, Food Insecurity, and the Globalization of Food Banks by Daniel N. Warshawsky (University of Iowa Press).
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy by Dominic Erdozain (Crown).
History:
White Robes and Broken Badges: Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us by Joe Moore (Harper).
The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson (Penguin Press).
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen Duval (Random House).
Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History by Kim A. Wagner (Public Affairs).
The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding by William Hogeland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Loves of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Memoir:
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (Random House).
A Survivor’s Education: Women, Violence, and the Stories We Don’t Tell by Jo Neumeyer (Public Affairs).
This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz (Crown).
Postmortem: What Survives the John Wayne Gacy Murders by Courtney Lund O’Neil (Citadel Press).
Genre Fiction (SF/F/H):
Lost Ark Dreaming by Sufi Davies Okungbowa (SF, Tordotcom).
Absolution by Jeff Vandermeer (SF, MCD).
In Universes: A Novel by Emet North (SF, Harper).
To Turn the Tide by S.M. Stirling (SF, Baen Books).
Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado (SF, Tordotcom).
Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror (A Women in Horror Anthology) edited by Lindy Ryan (H, Black Spot Books).
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (F, Tordotcom).
Model Home: A Novel by Rivers Solomon (H, MCD).
Remember You Will Die: A Novel by Eden Robins (SF, Sourcebooks Landmark).
The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (SF, Tordotcom).
There were also two books I read this year that I couldn’t put down. That doesn’t mean they were good, but I’m hoping to be able to articulate why in my planned post tomorrow—as well as the books my friends published this year.