The Best Books of 2024... So Far (2024)

Cyrus Shams is in my ways shaped by the history of his family—which has been difficult, strange, and at times tragic. But what if he doesn't know his own story as well as he thinks? In this smart, charming, and exceedingly clever novel, Cyrus is forced to grapple with the events that have shaped who he is today, and uncover the truth about who he might become.

Ed Zwick has had a long, storied career on screen, directing and producing iconic projects including thirtysomething, Legends of the Fall, About Last Night, and Shakespeare in Love. Now, he's sharing one of the most remarkable stories of all, his own, on the page. This funny, insightful, and deliciously dishy memoir covers the highs and lows of life in Hollywood, recalls the superstars and psychopaths who've crossed Zwick's path, and shares the all-too-rare truth about what really happens behind the scenes of one of the world's most glamorous industries.

The art world is hard to understand on purpose. The people who buy, the prices they pay, and the places they go are all designed to be mysterious enough to both intrigue and befuddle everyone who isn't on the inside. That's exactly why Bianca Bosker decided to go inside and write this dispatch that covers everything from working as a museum guard to crashing an art party packed with billionaires. Through her funny and fascinating experiences, she does the seemingly impossible: sheds light on a strange world of beautiful things and the sometimes-ugly business around them.

The debut novel of Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link is full of magic. The story begins when three teenagers—Laura, Daniel, and Mo—find themselves in their high school classroom, nearly a year after they disappeared from their small seaside Massachusetts town. How are they back? Why are they back? Why can't they remember what happened to them? They soon learn that they have to compete magical tasks—and only two of the three of them will get to stay alive. Link takes her readers on a wild, compelling ride, full of fantastical twists and turns.

What does screen time really do to our kids? You might not want to know—but you need to. In this book, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores how the way kids are growing up today impacts their development and mental health, and is creating major problems for society at large. Beyond just identifying the problem, however, Haidt offers solutions to help turn the tide.

You Dreamed of Empires is history like you've never read it before. In this mesmerizing, almost hallucinogenic novel, Álvaro Enrigue (with expert translation by Natasha Wimmer) brings to life the day conquistador Hernán Cortés arrives in the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1519. Enrigue vividly imagines the drama at Moctezuma's court, and how the colonizers would've experienced the great city.

Vinson Cunningham's debut novel may share a title with the work by Charles Dickens, but the coming-of-age story is rooted in a very different time period: on the campaign trail in 2008. Narrated by college dropout David, Cunningham's novel follows him as he works fundraising for a candidate who evokes Barack Obama (but is only referred to as "the Senator" and then "the Candidate"). It's a quiet, reflective novel that expertly captures a distinct moment in American history.

Leigh Bardugo, the author the bestselling Grishaverse books, turns her talents to a historical fantasy set in the Spanish Golden Age, and it's a revelation. The story follows Luzia, a maid who uses bits of magic to make her days easier. When her mistress notices, she demands Luzia perform magic tricks to entertain guests—and soon, Luzia catches the attention of a scheming nobleman. Bardugo is a demonstrated expert at fantasy (see: Shadow and Bone, or Ninth House), but proves here her skill in historical fiction: The Familiar beautifully interweaves the history of conversos, Sephardi Jews forced to convert during the Inquisition.

Author Lev Grossman, best known for his Magicians trilogy, gave the King Arthur, Camelot, and the knights of the Round Table legends an update for 2024—and it's spectacular. "The classic Arthur story is so much about his death and the ending of that world, and then the rest is darkness after that," Grossman . "There was something very appealing for me about writing about the people who had to live on in the world after Arthur." It's inventive, deeply absorbing, and a King Arthur retelling we'll be thinking about for a long, long time.

Time travel fiction is a well-established genre, yet Kaliane Bradley still manages to completely reinvent it in her debut novel, The Ministry of Time. It's a speculative fiction novel, where a secretive department in the UK department created to see if it works. A civil servant is enlisted to serve as a "bridge," or a live-in assistant, to a historical person pulled of his timeline: Commander Graham Gore, who supposedly died on Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition to the Arctic. It's romantic and thrilling—and really, really fun.

At the start of The Extinction of Irena Rey, eight translators arrive at writer Irena Rey's house in the Polish forest, ready to translate her newest novel. But she soon disappears, and the translators must deal with the existential crisis of who they are without her. What results is a wild, twisty literary adventure reflecting on the art of translation and the power of language.