My 10 favorite reads of 2024

If there's a thread that connects these reads, it's the idea of power and how characters contend with it

Image: Andrew Liptak

2024 has been an interesting year: lots of good things, some bad, some meh, but always accompanied by books. They make good companions, and it's one of those activities that I really enjoy: sinking into adventures and new worlds to learn and to escape.

My goal every year is to hit 52 books. I'm going to miss it this year (I'm currently at 42 books, which still isn't bad). Inevitably, there are some books that I enjoyed more than others, and from that pile, I've rounded up the books that I liked the most.

This isn't a "best of the year" list: I don't know that I've read widely enough to really put something like that together – I have a big stack of books from this year in my office that I'd very much like to get to, and just haven't had the time yet to dig into them.

Looking over this list, it's a little different than ones that I've had in years past: it's dominated by male authors, which surprised me a little – I'm always trying to expand my reading tastes a bit. That's not to say that I didn't read books by women, trans authors, and authors of color, but the ones that I gravitated toward just happened to be this makeup this year. We'll see what 2025 brings – and if any of the books that I end up reading in the coming months from 2024 might have ended up on this list had I gotten to them earlier.

If there was one theme that I could extract from this stack of books, it's that most of them are about power, whether that's superpowers or political / interpersonal powers. They're predominantly about characters slamming into larger institutions or figures, and trying to find a way to survive or cope with the environment that surrounds them. In some cases, that's an alien invasion or a coup. In others, it's the political power structures around an organization or government, or in some cases, around individuals who hold the fate of characters in their hands. These aren't hard-and-fast boundaries that apply evenly across these books, but it does seem to be a thread that stretches across these various works in some form or another.

I missed rounding up my favorite reads of 2023, but here are the lists for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. As always, you can find more books listed out on the Book List tag.

Here are my 10 favorite books that I read this year:

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

There's a phrase attributed to General William Tecumseh Sherman that best describes warfare: "war is hell." That thought is at the center of Katherine Arden's latest novel, The Warm Hands of Ghosts, about a soldier trapped on the front lines of World War I by a horrifying presence, and his sister, who's doing everything in her power to try and find him. This is an engrossing, emotional read, one that not only delves into the supernatural, but pokes at the horrifying nature of warfare and its impact on those who wage it.

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi's latest novel is a far cry from his novels about the effects of climate change: it's a fantasy set in a world inspired by the Italian Renaissance. Like those other books, it's a novel about power and the lengths that people go to hold onto it. It's a slow, rewarding burn of a novel, one that carefully sets up its characters and pushes them to their breaking points.

A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown

I've long been a fan of Christopher Brown's newsletter, Field Notes (and his novels!) and was thrilled to see it used as the basis for a longer work. This is an astonishing read: one that blends memoir and observations about the state of the world and our place in it. Part urban exploration, part self-discovery, and part call to action, it's a book about a world in flux, our hand in the destruction, and a meditation on the beauty of the natural world that surrounds us.

The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey

With the Expanse novels, James S.A. Corey plotted an epic story of humanity taking our first steps into the cosmos, and trying to not fuck it up too badly. Their latest, The Mercy of Gods is the start to a new series, The Captives War, which follows humanity after it's attacked by the Carryx, an alien empire that's devoted itself to conquering other worlds. Their characters have to figure out how to survive under this new regime, compromising their values before they lose who they really are.

Fight Me by Austin Grossman

One of my favorite books of all time is Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible, a superhero novel ahead of the curve when it came to portraying superpowers in a realistic setting. Years later, Grossman has produced an excellent addition to that world, following a quartet of young super-powered heroes who've been reunited after a tragedy – a reunion that could tear them apart once again. It's a fantastic meditation on power and the responsibility that comes with it.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy hit me at just the right time when they first came out: each fantastic deconstructions of some durable fantasy tropes. His latest is an astonishing book: a retelling of the legend of King Arthur, set during the aftermath of his demise. Grossman follows a knight named Collum as he and the rest of the Round Table try and figure out a path forward in a ruined England, touching on themes of transition, transformation, and temptation. It's one of those books where you sense that an author has really leveled up.

Challenger by Adam Higginbotham

I was too young to remember the Challenger disaster, but it's one of those incidents that's shaped the scientific and space communities in the decades since. Adam Higginbotham – who also wrote the excellent Midnight in Chernobyl – explores the complicated story of how the space shuttle met its demise, and examines the underlying factors that made disaster inevitable.

Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Chris Kempshall

Is there a book that was better tailored for my interests, military history and Star Wars? I don't think so: Chris Kempshall's book is a fascinating look at the story of the franchise through the eyes of an in-universe historian who's trying to convey how the galaxy fell into totalitarianism and a devastating civil war. This is a book that takes all of the disparate stories across film, television, print, and games and explores the nature of the story with a wide lens, driving home the underlying themes of fascism, corruption, and compliance – themes that feel all too relevant here on Earth.

Moonbound by Robin Sloan

The second Arthurian-inspired book that I picked up this year, Robin Sloan's Moonbound is an kaleidoscope of optimism. We follow a boy as he embarks on a quest to escape from his tiny rural village and the malevolent wizard that rules it, and enters a vivid world that's been transformed by climate change and advanced technologies, all while exploring the nature of intelligence and the stories that shape our lives.

Pilgrim Machines by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

What do we hope to find when we journey out into the cosmos? Treasure, in the form of raw materials? Real estate for an expanding population? Adventure and thrills? In Yudhanjaya Wijeratne's sublime novel Pilgrim Machines, we're taken on a journey into the depths of space as we follow a starship seeking all of those things, but which ends up on a path of enlightenment for itself and for humanity.

Thanks for reading. Which of these did you read, and thinking back on your own year of reading, what were the books that resonated with you the most?