The Must-Read Books of 2024 | Penguin Random House (2024)

James

by Percival Everett

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction and named the Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble, a Best and Must-Read Book for 2024 by The New York Times, Time, and Amazon Editors, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

All Fours

by Miranda July

Named one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year and a Time Must-Read Book of 2024. A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey. The New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious, and surprising novel about a woman upending her life.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voice of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. Named a Best and Must-Read of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times, Time, and Amazon Editors.

Paperback

$18.00

Preorder from:

Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

Named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by The New York Times and Barnes & Noble. From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: A story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both. In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

There’s Always This Year

by Hanif Abdurraqib

A “powerful” (The Guardian) reflection on basketball, life, and home — from the author of the National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble and Time.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Victim

by Andrew Boryga

There’s a fine line between bending the truth and telling bold-faced lies, and Javier Perez is willing to cross it. Named a BBC Best Book of 2024, Victim is a fearless satire about a hustler from the Bronx who sees through the veneer of diversity initiatives and decides to cash in on the odd currency of identity.

Hardcover

$27.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

All the Colors of the Dark: A Read with Jenna Pick

by Chris Whitaker

From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that “hits like a sledgehammer … an absolutely must-read novel” (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl). Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

by Amy Tan

Named the Barnes & Noble Gift Book of the Year. A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club. With a foreword by David Allen Sibley.

Hardcover

$35.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Hunter

by Tana French

It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. From the writer who is “in a class by herself” (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide. Named a New York Times’ Best Book of 2024 (So Far).

Paperback

$19.00

Preorder from:

Lies and Weddings

by Kevin Kwan

One of the Amazon Editors’ Best Books of the Year and a Must-Read by Time. From the iconic internationally bestselling author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy: A forbidden affair erupts volcanically amid a decadent tropical wedding in this outrageous comedy of manners.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Wandering Stars

by Tommy Orange

Longlisted for the Booker Prize as well as named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, and Time. The Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Demon of Unrest

by Erik Larson

Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year. The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

Hardcover

$35.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Coming Home

by Brittney Griner and Michelle Burford

From the nine-time women’s basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist — a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Soldiers and Kings

by Jason De León

Winner of the National Book Award for Nonficiton and named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of the Year for 2024 and a finalist for the National Book Award. An intense, intimate and first-of-its-kind look at the world of human smuggling in Latin America, by a MacArthur “genius” grant winner and anthropologist with unprecedented access.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Headshot

by Rita Bullwinkel

Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win. Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year by The New York Times and Time, and longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

A Fate Inked in Blood

by Danielle L. Jensen

A shield maiden blessed by the gods battles to unite a nation under a power-hungry king — while fighting her growing desire for his fiery son — in the first book of a Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology from the author of The Bridge Kingdom series. A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year.

Hardcover

$29.99

Buy from Other Retailers:

First Lie Wins: Reese’s Book Club

by Ashley Elston

In this Amazon Editors’ Best Books of the Year pick, Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: A doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Good Energy

by Casey Means, MD and Calley Means

Named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble, weaving together cutting-edge research and personal stories, as well as groundbreaking data from the health technology company Dr. Means founded, Good Energy offers a new, cutting-edge understanding of the true cause of illness that until now has remained hidden. It will help you optimize your ability to live well andstay wellat every age.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Book of Love

by Kelly Link

Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. In the long-awaited first novel from short story virtuoso and Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link, three teenagers become pawns in a supernatural power struggle.

Hardcover

$31.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Knife

by Salman Rushdie

From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring — and surviving — an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by The New York Times, Barnes & Noble, and Time.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Nuclear War

by Annie Jacobsen

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores the ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency. Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of Year.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Funny Story

by Emily Henry

This book, named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by Time Barnes & Noble, and Amazon Editors, is a shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common — from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here

by Jonathan Blitzer

An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer. A New York Times Best Book of 2024 (So Far) selection.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Memory Piece

by Lisa Ko

Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Table for Two

by Amor Towles

Named an Amazon Editors’ Best Book of the Year. From the bestselling author of Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Wide Wide Sea

by Hampton Sides

Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times, Amazon Editors, and Time. A “thrilling and superbly crafted” (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook’s death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.

Hardcover

$35.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Husbands: A Read with Jenna Pick

by Holly Gramazio

The Husbands delights in asking: How do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options? This “bottomless champagne flute of a novel” (The Washington Post) has also been named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by Barnes & Noble.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

My Friends

by Hisham Matar

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time. My Friends is a “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile. A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests — and frays — those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.

Paperback

$18.00

Preorder from:

Held

by Anne Michaels

A breathtaking and ineffable novel of love and loyalty across four generations, at once sweeping and intimate. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion.

Hardcover

$27.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Early morning, August 1975: A camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by Time and Amazon.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Beautiful Days

by Zach Williams

From New Yorker and Paris Review contributor Zach Williams comes a striking and savage debut story collection that confronts parenthood, mortality, and life’s broken promises. With exquisite prose and a lacerating wit, Beautiful Days holds a mirror to the many absurdities of being human and refuses to let us look away.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Framed

by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey

John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it’s his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system. Impeccably researched and told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of winning freedom when the battle already seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Anxious Generation

by Jonathan Haidt

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time and Amazon. The Anxious Generation is a must-read for all parents: The generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech — and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Barn

by Wright Thompson

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time, The Barn is a shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.

Hardcover

$35.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Be Ready When the Luck Happens

by Ina Garten

In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten — aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon — shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table. Named a Must-Read and Best Book of 2024 by Time and Amazon.

Hardcover

$34.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Bookshop

by Evan Friss

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, The Bookshop is an affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times and Time. The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians Trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium.

Hardcover

$35.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Catalina

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time and longlisted for the National Book Award.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick)

by Danzy Senna

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of Caucasia.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Consent

by Jill Ciment

From the acclaimed novelist (“A virtuoso” —Donna Seaman, Booklist), a deft, shocking memoir that asks whether we can judge past behavior by today’s moral codes, as the author reevaluates her decades-long marriage to the forty-seven-year-old man she met when she was seventeen, revisiting a singular passion in the 21st-century aftermath of #MeToo. Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time.

Hardcover

$27.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Friday Afternoon Club

by Griffin Dunne

Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances. Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Get the Picture

by Bianca Bosker

Named a Must-Read Book for 2024 by Time. The New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork takes readers on another fascinating, hilarious, and revelatory journey — this time burrowing deep inside the secretive world of art and artists. Probing everything from cave paintings to Instagram, and from the science of sight to the importance of beauty as it examines art’s role in our culture, our economy, and our hearts, Get the Picture is a rollicking adventure that will change the way you see forever.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Health and Safety

by Emily Witt

Named a Best and Must-Read Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review and Time. From the New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed author of Future Sex comes a memoir about drugs, techno, and New York City. Affectionate yet never sentimental, Health and Safety is a lament for a broken relationship, for a changed nightlife scene, and for New York City just before the fall. Sparing no one — least of all herself — Witt offers her life as a lens onto an era of American delirium and dissolution.

Hardcover

$27.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Hypocrite

by Jo Hamya

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice. Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by Time.

Hardcover

$26.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself

by Glynnis MacNicol

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are only promised that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie? In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette … if she’d had access to dating apps), I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Long Island Compromise

by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, Time, and Kirkus Reviews. An exhilarating novel about one American family and the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Lucky Ones

by Zara Chowdhary

Named a Must-Read Book of the Year for 2024 by Time. A moving memoir by a survivor of anti-Muslim violence in contemporary India that delicately weaves political and family histories in a tribute to her country’s unique Islamic heritage — “a must-read in our warring world today” (NPR).

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Mina’s Matchbox

by Yoko Ogawa

Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Time Best Book of the Year. From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Private Equity

by Carrie Sun

A gripping memoir of one woman’s self-discovery inside a top Wall Street firm, and an urgent indictment of privilege, extreme wealth, and work culture. Private Equity is a universal tale of self-invention from a dazzling new voice, daring to ask what we’re willing to sacrifice to get to the top — and what it might take to break free and leave it all behind. Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Rich People Have Gone Away

by Regina Porter

Named a Must-Read and Best Book of the Year for 2024 by Time and Kirkus Reviews. A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman — in this electric novel of secrets, connection, and community. Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times — while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Someone Like Us

by Dinaw Mengestu

The son of Ethiopian immigrants seeks to understand a hidden family history and uncovers a past colored by unexpected loss, addiction, and the enduring emotional pull toward home. Named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Must-Read Book of the Year by Time.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

A Sunny Place for Shady People

by Mariana Enriquez

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, named a Best Book of the Year by Time and Publishers Weekly, and named one of Best Horror Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review and Vulture. A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “Buenos Aires’s sorceress of horror” (Samanta Schweblin, The New York Times).

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Tell Me Everything: Oprah’s Book Club

by Elizabeth Strout

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a “stunner” (People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world. A Time Must-Read Book of 2024.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Undue Burden

by Shefali Luthra

Named one of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. An urgent investigation into the experience of seeking an abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade, and the life-threatening consequences of being denied reproductive freedom. “Indispensable … Whatever your gender, race, religious background, or political preferences, Luthra’s Undue Burden should be on your required reading list” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Hardcover

$29.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

We Were the Universe

by Kimberly King Parsons

A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in this darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light. A Time Must-Read Book of the Year.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

Whoever You Are, Honey

by Olivia Gatwood

What happens when what was once considered dystopia is now reality? This darkly brilliant debut novel explores how women shape themselves beneath the gaze of love, friendship, and the algorithm — “a fever dream for the AI age” (People). A Time Must-Read Book of 2024.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Boys of Riverside

by Thomas Fuller

Amazon’s #1 Best Book of the Year. The incredible story of an all-deaf high school football team’s triumphant climb from underdog to undefeated, their inspirational brotherhood, a fascinating portrait of deafness in America, and the indefatigable head coach who spearheaded the team, by New York Times reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief, Thomas Fuller.

Hardcover

$28.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

The Small and the Mighty

by Sharon McMahon

From America’s favorite government teacher, a “fascinating and fun” (Adam Grant) portrait of twelve ordinary Americans whose courage formed the character of our country. In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time. Named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.

Hardcover

$32.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

We Solve Murders

by Richard Osman

Named one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year. From the #1 bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club series comes a brand new mystery, an iconic new detective duo, and a thrilling new murder to solve. This time, solving murders is a family business.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers:

When the World Tips Over

by Jandy Nelson

The explosive new novel that brims with love, secrets, and enchantment by Jandy Nelson, Printz Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of I’ll Give You the Sun. One of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year.

Hardcover

$21.99

Buy from Other Retailers:

There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon. From the Booker Prize finalist, author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two great rivers, all connected by a single drop of water.

Hardcover

$30.00

Buy from Other Retailers: