The Best Books I Read in 2024
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Need a good book to read over the holidays?
If you’re like me, that quiet period between Christmas and New Year’s Day is the best time of the year to get lost in a great book. Our parties are wrapping up, everyone’s busy planning resolutions and figuring out how to take the turkey and eggnog weight off.
It’s the perfect time to cozy up. Put the kettle on and grab a blanket.
These are the best books I read this year.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
This is the best thing I read in 2024.
I was excited to learn it was becoming a movie starring Cillian Murphy but the reviews have been tame so, I might just re-read it instead. Or one of her other books that I devoured this year, most notably Foster which was also terrific.
Small Things Like These almost feels like a new Christmas-time classic, think a darker It’s a Wonderful Life without the angels or altered timelines, but all of the great lessons.
It’s about taking action, and why sometimes, the things that are closest to us are the hardest to see.
I love this book.
Claire Keegan has quickly become one of my favourite authors. She’ll make you fall in love with her characters in the first 40 pages.
American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
Another of my favourite authors but in a completely different genre — no one writes a narrative non-fiction quite like Nick Bilton.
This is a fast-paced thrill ride from start to finish.
If you’ve never heard of the Silk Road website, get ready. In 2011, Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market website on the Dark Web, where people could purchase practically anything.
The media got wind of the site, politicians shined an even brighter light on it, the feds launched a manhunt, and the race to catch the founder of the Silk Road was on.
What a page turner.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This was the first book I’ve read by Gabrielle Zevin, and it didn’t disappoint. She wrote my favourite character of the year in Marx Watanabe, I won’t add any spoilers but I hope you love him as much as I did.
The book follows two game developers over the course of 30 years, from Cambridge to Venice Beach, examining the nature of identity, disability, redemption, and the choice we all have to love our circumstances — whatever they may be.
A few lines in this book will stick with me forever. I didn’t want it to end.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
A fascinating book by Pulitzer Price-winning author, Lawrence Wright. The Looming Tower is a sweeping narrative history of the events leading up to the most infamous day in American history.
Wright tells the story through the lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal.
This is the second time I’ve read this book and it was better this go around. There are so many names, dates, and events that I felt I was better able to get lost in the narrative, which is excellent.
A haunting book that reveals too many failures to count.
My re-read here was inspired by another book I read in 2024, The Only Plane in the Sky. The book is an oral history of 9/11, maybe an even tougher read than the Looming Tower, but if you can stomach the horror of the day, it’s powerful.
The stories of heroism are incredible.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
This was the NYT’s Reader’s Pick for top book of the 21st century, which was enough to get me to pick it up. I also forced it into my book club, which at 560 pages, took a bit of persuading.
It ended up being well worth it. The book is a modern re-telling of David Copperfield, set in the mountains of southern Appalachia. I was hooked from the first page. From the first sentence, really.
The story follows Damon, nicknamed Demon Copperhead, as he navigates way too many challenges to list here. The story holds a mirror up to society, tackling questions of generational poverty and the systems that uphold it.
“If you’re standing on a small pile of shit, fighting for your one place to stand, God almighty how you fight.”
Honourable mentions (some noted above):
Foster by Claire Keegan
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis (if you can get past the author’s clear fondness for SBF)
The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M.Graff
From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
Stay True by Hua Hsu