My 5 Favorites Books from 2024

Another year is nearly behind us—which is both a shock and a relief. The last few weeks of December are always a restless, busy time, but also it’s a time for reflection. There is so much I’m proud of from 2024—our annual conference in Cincinnati was filled with inspiring author advice and community building; I was lucky enough to interview New York Times bestselling author Steven Rowley for our July/August 2024 issue; we spoke with authors, editors, influencers, and readers on the “Writer’s Digest Presents” podcast; and so much more.

(Writing Groups 101: 5 Things to Know When Writing With Friends)

One of my favorite things to look back on is my year of reading. Here are five of my favorite books I read this year (some frontlist, some backlist) and why I think every writer should add them to their home libraries.

James by Percival Everett

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Synopsis: When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Why You Should Read It: James is a masterclass in tackling a reimagining of a classic text and making it your own. Amy Jones and I were lucky enough to see Percival Everett speak about this book, and his work at large, and he spoke at length about his admiration for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn while also wanting to tell the story that Mark Twain was ill-equipped to tell himself. It’s brimming with electric energy, humor, wit, heartbreak, and satire. Nobody’s doing it like Percival Everett.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

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Synopsis: England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Why You Should Read It: For years I’ve been saying literary fiction is my favorite. genre when asked, but historical fiction is giving lit fic a run for its money, and Hamnet is simply one of the very best books I’ve ever read. For those looking to write about historical moments, look no further than Hamnet to help teach you the way. One of my favorite things about this book is while we know it’s a story about Shakespeare and how he came to write Hamlet, Shakespeare’s name is never once mentioned outright. It’s a clever and curious decision on the O’Farrell’s part to do so, among other decisions she makes about real-life people who permeate this story.

The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley

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Synopsis: In 2021’s The Guncle, we meet semi-retired television actor Patrick O’Hara who has temporary custody of his niece Maisie and nephew Grant while his brother, Greg, deals with a health crisis after the death of his wife and Patrick’s best friend, Sara. It’s a summer spent helping the children explore their grief through witticisms, wisdom, and warmth. For Patrick, not only do the children help him navigate his own immense loss, but they also instill in him that reinvention is not a faraway hope. In The Guncle Abroad, we follow Patrick five years later across Europe, niece and nephew in tow, while he tries to persuade them through experiences that their father remarrying doesn’t have to be the nightmare they’re anticipating. It’s a natural continuation of one of Rowley’s most beloved characters, and a profound study on the difference between moving on and moving forward.

Why You Should Read It: Not every book needs a sequel; not every story should be continued. But the end of The Guncle leaves open a door through which The Guncle Abroad gracefully walks. Something I loved about what separates these stories is not just the time that has passed between them, but the needs of the characters have shifted, forcing the central plot to take a new shape. Steven Rowley is a master at crafting sentences that leave you crying then cackling.

(Read the WD interview with Steven Rowley here.)

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

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Synopsis: Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as 10-year-olds through their school years and adolescence.

Why You Should Read It: The New York Times Book Review named My Brilliant Friend as the best book of the 21st century so far, stating “reading this uncompromising, unforgettable novel is like riding a bike on gravel: It’s gritty and slippery and nerve-racking, all at the same time.” My Brilliant Friend captures adolescence and the complicated emotions of shifting friendship dynamics with visceral emotion and such detailed prose that you can’t help but feel transported. It’s a book worthy of its many accolades.

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

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Synopsis: The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.

Why You Should Read It: The Vulnerables is one of my favorite novels about COVID to come out of the pandemic (this, Day by Michael Cunningham, and Companion Piece by Ali Smith) and it captures the nuance of the “new normal” we all experienced in 2020. As writers, Sigrid Nunez is able to show us how you can say very little directly and the reader can surmise precisely what she’s trying to convey.