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Best of 2024 Lists, Awards & Book News

NYT chooses the best book covers of 2024.

CrimeReads selects the best espionage fiction of 2024.

CBC names the best Canadian nonfiction of 2024.

The Bookseller analyzes over 900 titles named in the media’s best books lists this year and finds that Percival Everett’s James (Doubleday; an LJ Best Book) features most prominently.

The longlists for the Porchlight Business Book Awards are revealed.

Sourcebooks launches an in-house audiobook program (in partnership with PRH) that will put out more than 40 titles next year, Publishers Weekly reports.

Page to Screen

December 13

Kraven the Hunter, based on associated Marvel titles. Sony. Reviews | Trailer

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, based associated J.R.R. Tolkien titles. Warner Bros. Reviews | Trailer

Nickel Boys, based on the novel by Colson Whitehead. MGM. Reviews | Trailer

Young Werther, based on the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Lionsgate. Reviews | Trailer

Reviews

Washington Post reviews a reissue of In Thrall by Jane DeLynn (Semiotext(e)): “In Thrall is a bit horrifying and a bit titillating, and always lovingly real. One thing is for sure: It is not a tragedy”; and The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.: A Biography by Peter Ames Carlin (Doubleday): “Carlin, whose previous books include biographies of Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, is a pro at gathering and unspooling the facts, but if any act transcends the facts, it’s R.E.M. Carlin, despite an irksome habit of juxtaposing lyrics to real-life events, clearly loves the songs and is smart about not just the most popular of them.”

NYT reviews three books that “explore the fraught relationships between tech companies and the U.S. government through close looks at Jeff Bezos’s Amazon and Elon Musk’s X”: The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest To Own the World and Remake Corporate Power by Dana Mattioli (Little, Brown), Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac (Penguin Pr.), and The Tech Coup: How To Save Democracy From Silicon Valley by Marietje Schaake (Princeton Univ.).

Briefly Noted

NYT has “6 New Books We Recommend This Week.”

Kirkus gathers “5 Nonfiction Books That Explore the Animal Kingdom.”

NPR recommends “10 biographies and memoirs for the nonfiction reader in your life.”

NYT book critics discuss their year in reading.

The Millions’ “A Year in Reading” series adds recommendations from Deborah Ghim and Emily Witt.

People features Karim Dimechkie’s upcoming novel, The Uproar, due out in June 2025 from Little, Brown.

Washington Post explores the impact of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir Prozac Nation, 30 years after it was published.

Authors on Air

Today, NPR’s Science Friday will talk to Sunil Amrith, author of The Burning Earth: A History (Norton).

NPR’s Fresh Air interviews Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert, authors of Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves (Celadon).

Patrick Radden Keefe appeares on Late Night with Seth Meyers to discuss his book Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, which was recently adapted into a Disney+ series; Kirkus has a summary.

Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference podcast has an interview with Kristin Hannah, author of The Women (St. Martin’s).

Austin Butler will play Patrick Bateman in a new film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho, Variety reports.

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