Looking back on 2024, the year’s reading feels marked by weight and wonder. Some books demanded long attention and moral reckoning; others sparked imagination and joy. These are the works that rose to the top for me.
Best Fiction
A dazzling work of speculative fiction. Tchaikovsky continues to press at the boundaries of consciousness, communication, and identity, all while spinning a world as rich and strange as any I’ve encountered. It’s the kind of book that lingers, not only for its story, but for the questions it leaves echoing.
Best Non-Fiction
No other book struck me as forcefully this year. To read The Gulag Archipelago is to confront the abyss of cruelty and yet also the stubborn survival of truth. It’s not light reading, nor should it be—it’s testimony, a call to remember, and a challenge to conscience.
Honorable Mentions
For sheer fun, world-building exuberance, and delight. A reminder that books can be light and joyous without being shallow.
A classic revisited, still potent, still unsettling. The moral wrestling at its heart has not dimmed with time.
A monumental history, panoramic in scope and granular in detail. Wilson’s account makes clear how this war reshaped the very idea of Europe, and why its devastation still matters.
2024, then, was a year of extremes: the heavy and the joyful, the imagined and the remembered. If I had to carry only two forward, they would be Children of Memory and The Gulag Archipelago. But I’m glad the others walked alongside me too.