Now that 2025 has arrived, it’s time to look back at the highly-lauded books of 2024, which defined the year through memorable and exceptional storytelling.
Just because 2025 has started, doesn’t mean we should forget the incredible and diverse literature that came out in the past year. In fact, if you’ve been meaning to update your to-be-read lists or just want to catch up on the most highly-lauded books of 2024, now is the time.
While this is by no means a definitive list, it does gather the titles that have frequently appeared on the year-end wrap up lists of various publications and literary groups, namely The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vulture, and Publishers Weekly. We’ve whittled it down to five favorite books that all these sources have cited, so you have just the right amount of new additions to add to what’s presumably a growing list. Happy New Year, and happy reading!
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All Fours by Miranda July
Miranda July’s All Fours consistently made it to the top of must-read lists from every aforementioned publication. Described as funny, sensuous, and oftentimes weird (but in the best way), All Fours chronicles the journey of a middle-aged mother and artist who enters an illicit affair during a solo road trip to New York. The events that ensue are contemplations on life and death, as well as an exploration of desire, marriage, and what it means to age.
James by Percival Everett
James by Percival Everett is yet another title that’s consistently made it to every list from various publications. Putting a fresh spin on Mark Twain’s classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the book is a much-needed iteration that rivals the original, instead focusing on Huck’s companion Jim (referred to as James), who works to evade capture as an escaped slave and aims to liberate his own family. Everett weaves a rich tapestry of James’ personal experiences, managing to blend history and humor in a powerful story that honors its source material while remaining utterly unique in its own right.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Irish writer Sally Rooney is no stranger to being a part of many must-read lists within the literary community, having written the beloved novel Normal People (which was already adapted into a Hulu mini series) and Beautiful World, Where Are You. In 2024, Rooney returned with the sprawling Intermezzo, which follows two brothers in the aftermath of their father’s death, both coping with their grief in different ways as they navigate relationships with the women in their lives. The novel, in typical Rooney fashion, peels away the intricate layers surrounding the inner lives of its characters, focusing on the gravity and complexities of human interaction.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Martyr! is writer Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel, which makes the immense praise surrounding it all the more impressive. In it, poet and newly sober Cyrus Sham develops an intense fascination with death amid his depression and the grief surrounding his parents’ own passing. Yet as Cyrus pays a visit to a Brooklyn museum on impulse to view the exhibition of a terminally-ill artist, he begins to ponder more deeply on what it means to live, and die, with meaning. Akbar’s novel takes captivating, oftentimes strange, twists and turns with exquisite prose that will keep readers turning the pages until the very end.
Knife by Salman Rushdie
Moving onto highly-praised nonfiction from the lists, Knife by award-winning British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie has received recognition from numerous publications for its incisive candor. In the book, Rushdie recounts his near-assassination in August 2022, after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established a fatwa to kill him for his novel The Satanic Verses, which Khomeini considered blasphemous.
The attack left Rushdie with four wounds on the stomach, three on his neck, and one on his right eye that has caused irreparable damage. Knife is, as he described in a subtitle, filled with “meditations after an attempted murder” — here, he details how his life has transformed since the incident, and the beauty and perils of being a survivor to such an ordeal, one that ultimately serves as an inspiring story about healing.
Books featured in banner photos from the Amazon website: All Fours, James, Intermezzo, Martyr!, Knife.
