The Most Popular Stories of the Week
Welcome to this weekend edition of The Best of Book Riot. Here’s a look at the week’s most popular pieces.
The New York Times Announces its Best Books of 2024
Last week, The New York Times shared their list of the 100 notable books of 2024, and now they have announced their picks for the 10 best books of 2024. The list includes five fiction and five nonfiction titles. As for how these titles got chosen, the introduction says, “Ultimately, we aim to pick the books that made lasting impressions: the stories that imprinted on our hearts and psyches, the examining of lives that deepened what we thought we already knew.”
My Favorite Books for the 2024 Read Harder Challenge
While I wait for the results of the Read Harder Wrap-Up Survey (you have until the end of the day to submit your answers!), I thought it would be fun to share my answers to the questions with you. First off, I definitely plan to finish the challenge by the end of the year: I only have one task to go!
My favorite task to do this year was #16: Read a book based solely on the title. I usually have so many books I “should” be reading that I don’t often allow myself to pick up books so casually. Even though the one I read wasn’t a new favorite, it was still fun to peruse the shelves looking solely for a title to catch my eye.
These Are the Most Read Books of the 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge
2024 isn’t over yet, but Goodreads has announced the 144 most-read books of this year’s Goodreads Challenge. Nine million readers logged more than 350 million books for the challenge so far this year, and Goodreads has tabulated the titles that appeared the most often, sorted into genre.
The Best Bookish Gifts Under $30
Several years ago, I found myself scrolling through the annual deluge of gift posts that make their way across websites this time of year and was struck by “stocking stuffer” guides, including items that cost upwards of $20, $30, $100 a pop. I don’t know what tax bracket those writers were in, but it was not mine—the GIFTS cost that much, not the stocking stuffers. It inspired me to pull together what has become an annual guide to the best gifts for readers under $30. There are a wide variety of options, some of which will make for fun stocking stuffers—looking at you, stickers!—and many of which make for a solid gift-gift.
The Best Books Coming Out in December
The last few weeks have been interesting for new book releases. Fall is a big season in the book world, and the last few Tuesdays have had some very buzzy books come out by bestselling, award-winning authors, as well as some highly anticipated debut authors. As for the rest of December’s notable releases, there’s a comic book world mystery, a romantasy from a bestselling thriller writer, a Korean girl in 1930s Japan, and lots more.
