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The New York Times posted its 100 Notable Books of 2024 back in November—you can find out more about how those are picked on the Book Riot podcast. They then followed that up with their top ten best books of 2024. But they’re not done with best books of the year lists! Today, they shared their readers’ picks for the best books of the year, including comments from readers about why they loved each one.
Several of the readers’ choices also show up in the top ten list, like All Fours by Miranda July and James by Percival Everett. Those are some of the biggest books of the year, both critically and in terms of sales, so it’s no surprise they would make an appearance on both the critics’ list and the audience’s.
You likely also could have predicted that the readers’ picks include romance novels like The Pairing by Casey McQuiston that have large readership but don’t typically get a lot of coverage at the New York Times. There are only two romance books included, though: the rest are either literary (or at least literary-adjacent) fiction or nonfiction.
Some of the novels included are well-known titles like Intermezzo by Sally Rooney as well as books like Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru, which haven’t necessarily dominated the bestseller list, but have gotten positive reviews from readers and critics.
The nonfiction choices are mostly bestsellers from respected authors, like Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari and The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson.
You can find all 14 of the readers’ picks at the New York Times, including readers’ comments about their choices.
Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.