10 notable books of 2024, from Sarah J. Maas to Melania Trump
NEW YORK– Even after a year of non-stop news about elections, climate change, protests and the price of eggs, there was still time read books.
U.S. sales have remained steady according to Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market, with many choosing the romantic, fantasy side. and romance. Some picked up The Taylor Swift Bound Book to his blockbuster tour, while others sought literary fiction, celebrity memoirs, political expositions and a painful, close look at a generation addicted to smartphones.
Here are 10 notable books published in 2024, in no particular order.
Asking about the most popular reads of the year would essentially yield a list of the greatest hits in romance, the blend of fantasy and romance that proved so irresistible that fans snapped up expensive “special editions” with decorative covers and sprayed edges. Among the 25 best sellers of 2024, compiled by Circana, six came from Romance favorite Sarah J. Maas including “House of Flame and Shadow,” the third in his “Crescent City” series. Millions of people have read his latest installment about Bryce Quinlan and Hunter Athalar and traced the ever-expanding connections of “Maasverse,” the overlapping worlds of “Crescent City” and his other series, “Throne of Glass” and “ A Court of Thorns and Roses. »
If romance is a means of escape, other books demand that we confront ourselves. In his best-selling book “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt examines studies revealing that young people’s mental health began to deteriorate in the 2010s, after decades of progress. According to Haidt, the main culprit is right in front of us: digital screens that kept children away from “game-based” childhood to “phone-based” childhood. Although some critics disputed his findings, “The Anxious Generation” became a talking point and catchphrase. Admirers ranged from Oprah Winfrey to Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee, who, in a letter to state lawmakers, advocated “common-sense recommendations” from the book, such as banning phones in schools and keeping children away from social networks until the age of 16.
Books by Bob Woodward have been an electoral tradition for decades. “War”, the latest from his privileged accounts in Washington, made news with his allegations that Donald Trump had been in frequent contact with Russian leader Vladimir Putin even when he was out of power and, while president, had sent Putin sophisticated COVID-19 testing machines. Among Woodward’s other scoops: Putin seriously considered using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and President Joe Biden blamed some of the problems with Russia on former President Barack Obama, under whom he been vice-president. “Barack never took Putin seriously,” Woodward quoted Biden as saying.
Former (and future) first lady Melania Trump, who gives few interviews and rarely talks about his private life, unexpectedly announced that she was publishing a memoir: “Melania.” The publisher was unlikely for a former first lady — not one of New York’s big houses, but Skyhorse, where authors include such controversial public figures as Woody Allen and Trump cabinet nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. . And its success was at least minor. surprise. Melania Trump did little publicity for the book and offered few revelations beyond post a video expressing support for abortion rights — a break from one of the cornerstones of GOP politics. But “Melania” still sold hundreds of thousands of copies, particularly in the days following her husband’s election.
Taylor Swift was more than a music story in 2024. Like “Melania,” the news regarding Taylor Swift’s self-released hookup with his world tour it’s not so much the book itself, but the fact that it exists. And how well it sold. As she did for the concert film “Eras,” Swift bypassed the established industry and worked directly with a distributor: Target offered “The Eras Tour Book” exclusively. According to Circana, the book “Eras” sold more than 800,000 copies in its opening week alone, an astonishing figure for a publication unavailable on Amazon.com and other traditional retailers. No new book in 2024 has had a better debut.
Midnight book nights are supposed to be about “Harry Potter” and other fantasy series, but this fall, more than 100 stores stayed open late to host one of the literary events of the year: “Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney. The Irish author’s fourth novel centers on two brothers, their grief following the death of their father, their very different career paths and their very unstable love lives. “Intermezzo” was also a book about chess: “You have to read a lot of opening theory – it’s the beginning of a game, the first moves,” explains one of the brothers. “And what are you learning all this for? Just to get a good position in the middle of the game and try to play some decent chess. Which I can’t do most of the time anyway.
Lisa Marie Presley was working on a memoir at the time of his deathin 2023, and his daughter Riley Keough had agreed to help him finish it. “From here to the great unknown” is Lisa Marie’s account of her father, Elvis Presley, and the sagas of his adult life, including his marriage to Michael Jackson and the death of son Benjamin Keough. To the end, she was haunted by the loss of Elvis, just 42 years old when he collapsed and died at his Graceland home while young Lisa Marie slept. “She would listen to his music alone, if she was drunk, and cry,” Keough, during an interview with Winfrey, said of his mother.
Meanwhile, Cher released the first of two planned memoirs titled “Dear” – no further introduction necessary. Covering her life from birth to the late 1970s, it focuses on her unhappy marriage to Sonny Bono, remembering him as a gifted artist and businessman who helped her believe in herself while revealing himself to be unfaithful, erratic, controlling, etc. greedy that he kept all the couple’s earnings for himself. Unsure whether to leave or stay, she consulted a very famous divorcee, Lucille Ball, who reportedly encouraged her: “F— him, you’re the one with the talent.”
A trend in recent years is to take famous novels from the past and remove words or passages that might offend modern readers; an edition of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” removes racist language from Mark Twain’s original text. In the most famous literary work of 2024, Percival Everett found a different way to approach Twain’s classic: writing it from the point of view of Jim, the slave. “James”, winner of the National Book Award, is an overhaul in many ways. Everett suggests to us that the real Jim was nothing like the deferential figure known to millions of readers, but a wise and educated man who hid his intelligence from the whites around him, and even from Twain himself.
Salman Rushdie’s first National Book Award nomination was for a memoir he wished he had no reason to write. In “Knife” he details the horrific attempt on his life in 2022, when an attendee rushed on stage at a literary event in Western New York and stabbed him repeatedly, leaving him with one eye blinded and with lasting nerve damage, but with a surprisingly intact mind. .
“If you had told me this was going to happen and how I was going to deal with it, I wouldn’t have been very optimistic about my chances,” he told the Associated Press last spring. “I’m always myself, you know, and I don’t feel like myself. But there is a little iron in the soul, I think.
