Best Books of 2024 Sampler

Best books of 2024 you may have missed, adult fiction and nonfiction

Showing 1 - 20 of 24  There are a total of 24 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The adversary"
Star rating for The adversary
Description:
"In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos. That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking...
Book cover for "Bear"
Star rating for Bear
Average Rating:
2.6 stars
Description:
Trapped on a remote Washington island with their dreams out of reach, two sisters clash when a mysterious bear arrives swimming in the channel, forcing them to confront their conflicting desires for escape and connection.
Book cover for "Behind you is the sea"
Star rating for Behind you is the sea
Description:
"... brings us into the homes and lives of three main families--the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars--Palestinian immigrants who've all found a different welcome in America. Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his...
Book cover for "By the fire we carry"
Star rating for By the fire we carry
Description:
A "work of reportage and American history in the vein of Caste and How the Word Is Passed that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation's earliest days, and a small-town murder in the '90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later"--
Book cover for "Challenger"
Star rating for Challenger
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the ... dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster based on ... new archival research and in-depth reporting--a riveting history that reads like a thriller"--
Book cover for "Coin"
Star rating for Coin
Description:
A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind.
Book cover for "Entitlement"
Star rating for Entitlement
Author:
Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
"Brooke Orr is on a mission to change her life and the world. Assisting an octogenarian billionaire in the quest to give away his vast fortune turns out to be deeply satisfying work, a noble life path. All you need to make the world a better place, it turns out, is the right ideals with the right amount of money. She and her billionaire make an uncommon pair: Brooke, 33, is a Black woman raised by a single mother in New York City; Asher Jaffee, 83,...
Book cover for "Everyone who is gone is here"
Star rating for Everyone who is gone is here
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A "history of the ... humanitarian crisis at the southern border that tells the story of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policy makers determining their fate"--
Book cover for "The familiar"
Star rating for The familiar
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
"In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when...
Book cover for "Feeding ghosts"
Star rating for Feeding ghosts
Description:
"Tessa Hulls delves into her own family history and the intergenerational trauma caused by mental illness and political strife"--
Book cover for "Fire exit"
Star rating for Fire exit
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine's Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth's life -- from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there's always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It's the secret that Elizabeth...
Book cover for "The fox wife"
Star rating for The fox wife
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A novel about dead bodies found in the snow, a mother seeking revenge, and old folk tales that may very well be true. New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection"--
Book cover for "Ghostroots"
Star rating for Ghostroots
Author:
Description:
"In this collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, 'Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before. In 'Manifest,' a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter's face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In 'Breastmilk,' a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable...
Book cover for "God bless you, Otis Spunkmeyer"
Star rating for God bless you, Otis Spunkmeyer
Description:
"After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory...
Book cover for "Greta & Valdin"
Star rating for Greta & Valdin
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"It's been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he's sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he's thrown back in his former lover's orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the...
Book cover for "Herscht 07769"
Star rating for Herscht 07769
Description:
"The gentle giant Florian Herscht has a problem: having faithfully attended Herr Köhler's adult education classes in physics, he is convinced that disaster is imminent. And so he embarks upon a one-sided correspondence with Chancellor Angela Merkel, to convince her of the danger of the complete destruction of all physical matter. Florian works for the Boss (the head of a local neo-Nazi gang), who has taken him under his wing and gotten him work...
Book cover for "John Lewis"
Star rating for John Lewis
Description:
"A comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, 'the conscience of the Congress,' drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents"--
Book cover for "The light eaters"
Star rating for The light eaters
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A book exploring the emerging science on plant intelligence, uncovering plants' complex and unimaginable capabilities and calling into question what we consider to be conscious agents in the natural world"--
Book cover for "The look of love"
Star rating for The look of love
Author:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"Born during a Christmas blizzard, Jane Williams receives a rare gift: the ability to see true love. Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her twenty-ninth birthday, a mysterious greeting card arrives from the midwife who delivered her, specifying that Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her thirtieth birthday, or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer...
Book cover for "Mina's matchbox"
Star rating for Mina's matchbox
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status. ... The family is just as beguiling as their mansion--Tomoko's dignified and devoted...