Reads of 2024
Items in this hypelist
Books
Good Material: A novel
Dolly Alderton • 2024
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK • From the New York Times best-selling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both<br/><br/>“Like Nora Ephron, with a British twist….Delivers the most delightful aspects of classic romantic comedy—snappy dialogue, realistic relationship dynamics, humorous meet-cutes and misunderstandings—and leaves behind the clichéd gender roles and traditional marriage plot.”<br/>—The New York Times<br/><br/>Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.<br/><br/>Now he is. . .<br/><br/>Without a home<br/><br/>Waiting for his stand-up career to take off<br/><br/>Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking<br/><br/>Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…<br/><br/>In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.
Weyward: A Novel
Emilia Hart • 2023
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER<br/>WINNER OF TWO GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS (Best Debut Novel & Best Historical Fiction)<br/><br/>An Indie Next March 2023 Pick • A LibraryReads March 2023 Pick • An Amazon "Best Books of the Year So Far" 2023 Pick<br/><br/>"A brave and original debut, Weyward is a spellbinding story about what may transpire when the natural world collides with a legacy of witchcraft." ––Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The London Séance Society<br/><br/>I am a Weyward, and wild inside.<br/><br/>2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great-aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she suspects that her great-aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.<br/><br/>1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. When Altha was a girl, her mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence of witchcraft is laid out against Altha, she knows it will take all her powers to maintain her freedom.<br/><br/>1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.<br/><br/>Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an astonishing debut, and an enthralling novel of female resilience.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
R. F. Kuang • 2022
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War “Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Blue Sisters: A Novel
Coco Mellors • 2024
Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister’s death in this unforgettable story of grief, hope, and the complexities of family, from the acclaimed author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein.<br/><br/>“Sparkling with wit, shot through with longing, Blue Sisters is a beautiful novel, both dazzlingly joyful and achingly sad.”—Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street<br/><br/>The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.<br/><br/>But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they’ve been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.<br/><br/>Imbued with Coco Mellors’s signature combination of humor and heart, Blue Sisters is a story of what it takes to keep living after loss—and, ultimately, to fall in love with life again.
Hello Beautiful
Ann Napolitano • 2023
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides • 2019
Verity
Colleen Hoover • 2021
Welcome to Your Life
Katrina Marie • 2017
Notes on an Execution
Danya Kukafka • 2022
Manifest
Roxie Nafousi • 2022
The Switch
Beth O'Leary • 2020
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman • 2022
Ugly Love
Colleen Hoover • 2014
Why We Sleep
Matthew Walker • 2017
The Light We Lost
Jill Santopolo • 2017
Talking at Night
Claire Daverley • 2024
Natives
Akala • 2018
Bright Young Women
Jessica Knoll • 2023
Alone with You in the Ether
Olivie Blake • 2024
The Flatshare
Beth O'Leary • 2019
The Mothers
Brit Bennett • 2016
All About Love
bell hooks • 2018
Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking
Marianne Eloise • 2022
The Zone of Interest
Martin Amis • 2014
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin • 2024
Good Girl, Bad Blood
Holly Jackson • 2022
As Good as Dead
Holly Jackson • 2021
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Holly Jackson • 2020
<b>THE MUST-READ MULTIMILLION BESTSELLING MYSTERY SERIES<b>—</b>NOW ON NETFLIX! This is the story about an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you'll never expect. </b><br><br>Everyone in Fairview knows the story. <br><br>Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.<br><br>But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?<br><br>Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.<br><br><br><b>And don't miss the sequel, </b><i><b>Good Girl, Bad Blood!</b> </i><br><br><b>"The perfect nail-biting mystery." —Natasha Preston, #1 <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author</b>
Yellowface
R. F. Kuang • 2023
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara • 2016
<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (<i>NPR</i>) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.<br></b><br><b><b><b><b><b><b><b>NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST <b><b><b>•</b></b></b></b> MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST <b>• <b><b><b><b><b> WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE</b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b><br><br><i>A Little Life</i> follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
How to Kill Your Family
Bella Mackie • 2022
