It’s our year-end wrap-up, where we highlight some of our favorite books that we read in 2024. We started out saying “each of us picks our top 5” — but that’s way too rule-oriented for us. We each picked more, and each of us used a different format for our picks. Listen to the episode HERE.
(We’re not doing purchasing links in this post since there are so many books, but you can find most of them in the 3 Book Girls shop at Bookshop.org [and support your favorite local indie bookstore at the same time], or of course Mr. Bezos has them as well.)
VONI chose to highlight some of her favorite authors, having read multiple books by most of them. She recommends:
- Paul Cleave, whose books include A Killer Harvest and Trust No One.
- Kristin Hannah, especially for her book The Women.
- TJ Klune, who wrote The House in the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and Under the Whispering Door.
- Christina Henry, author of The Mermaid, Near the Bone, Alice, and The Girl in Red.
- Matthew Norman, whose Last Couple Standing is a rom-com that’s more com than rom.
- And in the non-fiction realm, she especially likes The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston and The Day the World Came to Town by Jim Defete.
PAT went with a ranked list, and of course, a couple of extras:
- 5th place tie: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and These Women by Ivy Pochoda.
- 4th place: James by Percival Everett.
- 3rd place: Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo.
- 2nd place: Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips.
- 1st place: The Overstory by Richard Powers.
- Honorable mention, just because it’s so freakin’ funny: Big Trouble by Dave Barry.
- And a sidebar for 3 celebrity memoirs:
- Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench — recommended for theatre-lovers, especially fans of the Bard.
- Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me by Whoopi Goldberg — makes a celebrity seem very approachable and real, and a wonderful tribute to her mother.
- Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty by Hillary Rodham Clinton — an important person talking about important ideas.
MARTHA picked her 5 favorites in no particular order, and a bonus 5 that she couldn’t pass up:
- Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino.
- Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe.
- The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman.
- The Mercy of the Gods by James S. A. Corey
- Family Family by Laurie Frankel
- And the others she couldn’t bear to leave out:
- Any Man by Amber Tamblyn
- Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen
- My Darkest Prayer by S. A. Cosby
- Big Swiss by Jan Beagin
- Smothermoss by Alisa Alering
