The 30 Best Books I Read in 2024

Books! Books! Books!

I read somewhere north of 300 books this year, because I am an obsessive weirdo. (I keep count, because did I mention the obsessive weirdo part?)

I don’t necessarily focus on new releases (though some slip in there if I’m not careful.) So this is just a list of my favorites of what I read this year. I’ve ranked them from best to bester than that; I’ve also included links to essays or reviews where I’ve written ones. Hopefully you’ll find some of your own favorites here, and/or something that sparks your interest. Enjoy!

30. Charlotte Gordon—Mary Shelley: A Very Short Introduction

29. Dale Tracy—Gnomics

28. petro c.k. – mouthouthoughts (essay)

27. Claudia Koonz—Mothers in the Fatherland

26. Steph Cha—Your House Will Pay

25. Chelsea Foxwell and Bradley M. Bailey—Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan

24. Vaughan Rasberry—Race and the Totalitarian Century (essay)

23. Mat Johnson—Pym

22. Lucille Clifton—Collected Poems

21. Leonard Cohen—The Book of Longing

20. Maurice Samuels—Alfred Dreyfuss: The Man at the Center of the Affair (essay)

19. Chester Himes—A Rage In Harlem

18. Louise Niedecker—The Granite Pail

17. Robert Creeley—Selected Poems, 1945-2005 (essay)

16. Nnedi Okarofor—Binti

15. Charles Mills—The Racial Contract (essay)

14. Jeff Vandermeer—Absolution (essay)

13. Noura Erakat—Justice for Some

12 Rizvana Bradley—Antaesthetics (essay)

11 D.M. Thomas—Hunters in the Snow

10. Octavia Butler—Bloodchild

9 Vajra Chandrasekera —Saint of Bright Doors

8 Faubion Bowers, ed—The Classic Tradition of Haiku

7. Kate Manne—Unshrinking (essay)

6. James Hogg—Confessions of a Justified Sinner

5. John Ashbery—Flow Chart

4. Various Authors—Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poetry (essay)

3. Langston Hughes—The Ways of White Folks

2. Saidiya Hartman—Lose Your Mother (essay)

1.Tobin Siebers —Disability Aesthetics (essay)

That’s it for this year! Now what’s my first book of the new year going to be…