Notable Books of the Year: 2024

As we approach the end of 2024, now is the perfect time to showcase a few of the books that made a splash this year. If you’re looking for a book to curl up with this holiday season or searching for something different to kick off your 2025 reading challenge, then check out the list below for a few recommendations. These books have received prestigious awards, made it onto popular year end book lists, and have sparked buzz among literary circles. Shop our list and see why these books have received so much praise and have managed to stand out among the crowd.

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In this reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim's determination to escape slavery and reunite with his family takes center stage as he and Huck embark on their perilous journey down the Mississippi River, confronting dangers, scams, and the fragile promise of freedom.

 

Winner of the National Book Awards for Fiction
Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2024
Time Magazine Top 10 Fiction Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
The New Yorker Best Books of 2024

                                                                                                   

 

A darkly comedic and boundary-pushing tale of a 45-year-old artist who abandons her planned cross-country trip to embark on an unexpected journey of self-discovery, freedom, and reinvention, blending absurdity with tender explorations of intimacy and identity.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
Finalist for the National Book Awards for Fiction
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2024
Time Magazine Top 10 Fiction Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
The New Yorker Best Books of 2024

 

Spanning four generations, Held follows John, a WWI veteran haunted by the past, as his story intertwines with moments of love, loss, and longing across history, exploring the endurance of desire, connection, and the search for meaning.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
Winner of the Giller Prize
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction Books of 2024

 

 

In Argus, North Dakota, the lives of a desperate groom, a lapsed Goth bride, her gentle admirer, and her mother collide around a fraught wedding, set against the backdrop of personal struggles, economic turmoil, and the vast, changing landscape of the Red River Valley of the North.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
The New Yorker Best Books of 2024

 

 

In the wake of their father’s death, two grieving brothers—Peter, a successful but unraveling lawyer, and Ivan, a socially awkward chess player—navigate tangled relationships and unexpected connections, discovering how much love, loss, and longing a single life can endure.

 

Notable Lists:
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
The New Yorker Best Books of 2024

 

 

 

After her fiancé leaves her for his childhood best friend, practical Daphne finds herself starting over as a children’s librarian in picturesque Waning Bay, Michigan, where she becomes unlikely roommates with the ex of her ex's new fiancée, the scruffy and chaotic Miles. Teaming up for a fake summer romance, they end up forging a connection that threatens to turn their charade into something real.

 

Notable Lists:
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
Goodreads Choice Awards for Romance

 

 

 

Thirteen years after a tragic accident bound their lives, bestselling author Helen Zhang and screenwriter Grant Shepard are forced to confront their shared past—and the possibility of a future together—when they unexpectedly reunite to work on the TV adaptation of Helen’s novels.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024
Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Novel

                                                                                                        

 

 

In a near-future world where time travel is being tested, a civil servant assigned to monitor and live with a resurrected 19th-century Arctic explorer unexpectedly falls in love, forcing her to confront the Ministry's true motives and the potential consequences of altering the future.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction

 

 

 

Three teens, mysteriously resurrected a year after their presumed deaths, must navigate magical tasks, supernatural threats, and the unraveling mystery of their demise to avert a looming disaster.

 

Notable Lists:
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024
Time Magazine Top 10 Fiction Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024

 

 

 

In 1965, inspired by the idea that women can be heroes, nursing student Frankie McGrath joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows her brother to Vietnam, where she faces the chaos of war, forges deep bonds, and later grapples with the challenges of returning home to a changed and divided America.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
NPR Staff/Critics Picks of 2024
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024
Goodreads Choice Awards for Historical Fiction

 

  

 

Each summer on Prince Edward Island, Lucy tries to resist the undeniable pull toward Felix—her best friend’s younger brother and her secret fling. But when a crisis brings her back to the island, she’s forced to confront their unshakable connection.

 

Notable Lists:
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
CBC’s Best Canadian Fiction Books of 2024

 

 

 

In 1976, Eilis Lacey is an Irish immigrant living a quiet life on Long Island with her husband Tony and their teenage children. When she is confronted by a shocking revelation about Tony's infidelity, she is forced to make life-altering choices that rekindles bonds that she thought she had lost.

 

Notable Lists:
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024

                                                                                                  

 

 

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay, lifelong friends torn between faith and the desire to explore the world beyond their small town, are driven apart by romance and reunited over twenty years as they uncover the mystery of a vanished astronomer, confronting love, fate, and the possibility of rekindling their bond.

 

Notable Awards and Lists:
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024
Longlisted for the Booker Prize
The New Yorker Best Books of 2024

 

 

As summer wanes on the East End of Long Island, Alex, dismissed by her host after a misstep, navigates the exclusive world of gated driveways and hedged lanes with desperation and moral ambiguity, leaving a trail of chaos in her wake.

 

Notable Award:
Longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

                                                                                                           

  

 

Lyla, stuck in a rut and hoping for a fresh start, joins her boyfriend Nico on a reality TV show in a tropical paradise. Soon after arriving, a storm strands them on the remote island where escalating tensions reveal a murderer among the contestants.

 

Notable List:
The Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024

                                                                                                          

 

Detective Chelsey Calhoun, still haunted by the disappearance of her sister twenty years ago, investigates the return of a missing teenager, Ellie Black, whose silence and mysterious behavior may hold the key to uncovering a dark truth—and preventing the next abduction.

 

Notable List:
Globe and Mail Best Books of 2024

 

 

 

Washed-up former child star David Crader sees a chance to reboot both his career and his life when his ex-wife proposes a revival of their hit teen drama. However, he soon discovers that the show's return could ignite chaos in a world already on the brink.

 

Notable List:
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024

                                                                                                   

 

 

In a future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called 'hums', May undergoes an experimental transformation to alter her face in order to escape surveillance. After retreating to a rare green refuge, her children come under threat and she must rely on a hum of uncertain motives to save her family.

 

Notable Lists:
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024

                                                                                                          

 

 

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Duke of Greshambury, must navigate a wedding filled with wealthy elites to save his family's crumbling legacy. However, multiple disasters and a long-buried secret threaten to destroy everything.

 

Notable Lists:
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024

 

  

In a gentrified Santa Cruz neighborhood, a friendship between Mitty, an eccentric holdout from the town's free-spirited past, and Lena, the enigmatic girlfriend of a controlling tech mogul, forces both women to confront their pasts and life-changing truths.

 

Notable List:
Time Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2024

 

                                                                                                            

  

From the legendary storyteller and master of short fiction comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories.

 

Notable Award:
Goodreads Choice Awards for Horror