Barnes & Noble is leading the charge into “Best Books of the Year” season, putting out their list before we’ve even hit Halloween. There are still two more months of 2024 left! Regardless, these lists are always an interesting look at the biggest and buzziest titles of the year, and B&N has made sure their picks are out well before the height of holiday shopping.
As usual, they have an array of lists of best books of the year by genre and age category, including best fiction, history, fantasy, romance, cookbooks, young adult books, “smart thinking” books, and more.
They’ve also selected a winner for their Discover Prize, which celebrates the best debut novel of the year. 2024’s winner is Swift River by Essie Chambers. A Barnes & Noble bookseller says, “Essie Chambers weaves a tapestry of family, race, and the secrets of a small town. At the center of it all is Diamond, one of the most unforgettable characters I’ve read all year.”
Between just Barnes & Noble’s Best Fiction Books of 2024 and their Best Mystery & Thriller Books of 2024, they name 44 must-read titles of the year. Here, I’ve pulled out some of their picks that Book Riot shares, quoting a recommendation from one of our writers for each, but you can click through at the end to see all the B&N picks.
Best Fiction Books of 2024, According to Barnes & Noble
James by Percival Everett
From the author of Erasure—what the new movie American Fiction was based on—comes a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but from Jim’s point of view. Jim is an enslaved man who learns he’s about to be sold to a white man in New Orleans, and so hides out until he can think of something that’ll keep him from being separated from his family. Then he meets Huck Finn—running from his own problems—and the two embark on their familiar story, this time with Jim’s full humanity on display. —Erica Ezeifedi
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh Akbar is just as brilliant a poet as he is a novelist, and Martyr! is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Cyrus Shams, his friend Zee, Cyrus’ parents, and his uncle each get their own distinct point-of-view chapters and feel so real. Cyrus also provides excerpts of his own work in progress, The Book of Martyrs. The idea of a meaningful death is deeply personal to Cyrus, an Iranian American writer whose mom’s plane was shot down by the US government. Martyr! directly challenges popular literary opinions, such as the idea that dream sequences don’t belong in literary fiction or that performance art is uniquely “pretentious.” I already can’t wait to reread this book and notice the character, plot, and structure details I missed. —Grace Lapointe
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
Award-winning author Danzy Senna is back with a biting story of ambition, middle age, and identity. Jane is an author desperate to finish her second novel while she is on sabbatical with her family in Los Angeles. Instead, she falls for the siren’s call of Hollywood and finds herself working with a hotshot producer on a comedy, what he assures her will be a huge hit. Jane has high hopes that the show will impart important views on race while delivering laughs. But nothing turns out how she expects it to go. Senna delivers a darkly funny novel about the Hollywood machine rolling over another writer who dared to stand in front of it with their dreams. (Related: today I learned that Senna is married to author Percival Everett. That is a lot of talent under one roof!) —Liberty Hardy
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam
For Brooke, a 33-year-old Black woman fed up with her Bronx teaching job, working in the proximity of wealth proves to be life-altering. When she takes on a new job working for an 80-something-year-old billionaire, it starts to inspire new ideas in her. Mainly, that maybe she should have some of the money he’s trying to give away. She wants it for herself, yes, a little—who wouldn’t want designer clothes and bougie meals?—but she also has helping others in mind. Except that her decision-making starts to go a little off the rails. Roxane Gay said, “The way I read the last two thirds of this novel through my fingers, cringing!!!!” I love a good, messy tale of an unraveling woman. —Erica Ezeifedi
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
When Barbara, the 13-year-old daughter of the prominent Van Laars goes missing from their family-owned summer camp in eerily similar circumstances to another disappearance in the family years before, chaos breaks loose as the counselors, police officers, and those close to the family converge on the scene. Told through multiple female perspectives, the investigation and history reveal the way the roles of women in families and in society as a whole add another layer of interiority and tenderness to the mystery of Barbara’s disappearance. —Addison Rizer
The Best Mystery & Thriller Books of 2024, According to Barnes & Noble
Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose
This starts off how a few tales of dysfunctional families reunited start off: with a parent passing away, and the siblings coming back together at last. Except, when these three estranged siblings—Beth, Nicole, and Michael—reunite, they discover something they never could have predicted. One of the VHS tapes they bust out and watch to relive the good times shows their father covered in blood with a dead body, and their mother vowing with him to get rid of it. Now, they’ll have to determine if they want this secret to be buried with their mother, or if they want to fully unearth it. —Erica Ezeifedi
The Hunter by Tana French
The Queen of Irish detective fiction is back with another Cal Hooper entry, but as with a lot of other detective fiction, I don’t think you necessarily have to have read the first in the series to enjoy this one. Here, Cal retires from the Chicago PD early and moves to the Irish countryside to find quiet. He gets the peace he’s looking for and more — he, local woman Lena, and Lena’s troubled teen daughter Trey start to form what feels like a supportive family. But then Trey’s trifling biological father, Johnny, shows up with a scheme to get rich, and everything goes south. The delicate, newly formed connections of Cal’s family are threatened by a search for gold that turns into a search for a killer. —Erica Ezeifedi
Exposure by Ramona Emerson
Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer who is being forced by the department to see a psychiatrist, while most of her colleagues refuse to work with her. While she could really use some mental health help—she’s away from her grandmother who lives on the Navajo reservation, she’s massively overworked, and recently went through a trauma—the ghosts that follow her are not imagined, and when they’re angry they demand that Rita listen. On top of all her struggles, there is now a killer in Gallup, New Mexico, who thinks he’s performing mercy killings and is leaving murders that are difficult to solve around the city. You can start here and not feel lost, but if you’d like to start at the beginning of this great series, pick up Shutter. —Jamie Canaves
To see all of Barnes & Noble’s best books of the year, click through to their website.
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