Your best reads of 2024
As recommended by the Verse community
Welcome, finally, to December. It has felt a long time coming, what with all the Black Friday mania and the fact that I have been playing Christmas music for about a week already. Weird Christmas, below, is my current playlist of choice. It’s by author Samantha Irby who also has a nice reading playlist and writes very funny books. My Christmas tree has been up for a week. Yes, perhaps this is all too early, but this is the joy of being an adult: you get to make your own decisions.
The Verse app, is, excitingly, officially in testing. We have a small group of beta users who have been generous with their time and support to help us ground out the core functionality. Based on their feedback, we’ve added a few new features and now the work moves to debugging and improving the user experience. If you are interested in being part of our early beta group then you can join our feedback channel in our Verse whatsapp community. We’ll be looking to grow our testing group soon! There’s also a book recs channel that you will enjoy too.
The NYT finally released their most notable books of the year this week and it’s great, but it was missing some of my stand outs of the year. I was surprised to see Piglet and Good Material’s inclusion over something like Blue Sisters, and I was even more surprised to not see Booker Prize winner Orbital or the long-listed Playground. I loved to see Emily Henry in there (fun, light, great romcom beach read) and I’ve not seen enough jokes about Sally Rooney being labelled as ‘sad irish millennial fiction’ but I’m sure they’re coming. The ones I’m sad weren’t included: All the Colours of the Dark and Caledonian Road.
In other news the Waterstones book of the year is Butter and their children’s pick is I Am Rebel (which looks amazing and has gone straight on my to read list 🥹).
Now on to this week’s round ups… the best of 2024, as recommended by the Verse community.
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Your best reads of 2024
We asked some of our Verse community for their best reads of 2024. Here’s their top picks:
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. We really loved this book too and could not put it down. The pace at which it churns through plot lines is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and if it gets adapted (which I think it will) you could get a good few series out of it.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey. This years Booker Prize winner which is fascinating, not what you’d expect and feels more like the best non-fiction you’ll read. It follows 6 astronauts orbiting the globe over the course of 1 day (or whatever counts as a day when you see 16 sunrises and sunsets in 24 hours), and yet is more reflective on the view back down towards earth and humankind than it is about it those orbiting it.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. A multi-generational epic following a family as it navigates love and loss. It grips you early on and does not let you go easily. If you like Coco Mellors (Blue Sisters, Cleopatra and Frankenstein) you’re going to like this.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors. A brilliant, fast paced, witty, sad, fun look at the powerful bond of sisters. One of my best of the year too.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Oh how I love TJR. I think she delivers every time and if I had a new book of hers to take on every holiday I would be delighted and know that I was in for a very good time. This is probably my favourite of hers so far. Her new one comes out next year and is focused on two astronauts in the 1980s.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. A great and heartbreaking read. A truly epic book - if you liked A Little Life, Christodora or The Great Believers then this is for you. This was recommended multiple times by our community.
Fire by John Boyne. A double entry for John Boyne! Yet to read this but I am excited. ‘Short and snappy and unexpected’ was the recommendation I was given.
Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal. Described to me as ‘a reading experience that is like taking a great holiday’. Sold.
Moderate Becoming Good Later by Toby and Katie Carr. ‘I was in admiration of this man’s fortitude, resilience and determination whilst living with a life limiting illness.’ This has awesome reviews and I’m looking forward to reading it.
There you go, a full fiction line up! Thanks to our community members for their recommendations.
Here’s the full list.
This post follows on from our previous round ups:
Part 1: Our fave reads of 2019-2021. Read here
Part 2: Our fave reads of 2022-2023. Read here.
Part 3: Our fave fiction of 2024. Read here.
Part 4: Our fave non-fiction of 2024. Read here.
Part 5: Your fave reads of 2024, as recommended by the Verse community. This post.
Say goodbye to bad recommendations and hello to a better reading experience 👇