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The Most Popular Books of 2024 (so far)

Your new favorite read is right this way.

There’s nothing quite like picking up a new book and getting lost in its pages for an afternoon — or into the early hours of the morning.

For avid readers, 2024 is already shaping up to be a brilliant year for new releases. Whether you’re looking for gripping novels, heartwarming romances, or thought-provoking non-fiction, this year’s literary offerings promise something for everyone. Here are the most popular books of 2024 (so far).

1. Funny Story by Emily Henry

Romance novels are all about the main character’s journey to find true love, but what happens to all the potential love interests who don’t make the cut?

In her latest, genre titan Emily Henry answers this question by turning the spotlight on Daphne — the woman who got kicked to the curb when her ex-fiancé Peter left to pursue his “happily ever after” with childhood friend Petra. When Daphne unexpectedly starts sharing an apartment with Petra’s own ex-fiancée, Miles, the two hatch up a plan to fake a relationship on Instagram, in full view of their exes. What could go wrong? Miles and Daphne couldn’t possibly wind up falling in love with each other, right?

2. The Women by Kristin Hannah

Beloved bestseller Kristin Hannah (The Nightingale, The Four Winds) turns her lens on the Vietnam War era in The Women. It’s 1966, and Frankie McGrath is a mild-mannered nursing student from a wealthy California family who’s always done what’s expected of her. When the brother she idolizes is deployed with the Navy, she impulsively decides to follow his example and joins the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. The gripping, powerful story that unfolds pays tribute to the women whose courage and sacrifice during one of America’s longest wars remain largely overlooked.

3. All Fours by Miranda July

After nearly a decade, bestselling author, director, screenwriter, and actor Miranda July returns with the novel All Fours. The sharply funny book tells the story of a 45-year-old woman who in a bit of midlife mania embarks on a solo road trip from LA to NYC, leaving her husband and young daughter behind. Just thirty minutes into her journey, she pulls into a motel and finds herself drawn to the young man working at a nearby rental car counter and his girlfriend, too.

In typical July form, All Fours focuses on the boundary lines of human connection and sexuality, in this case, while exploring the desires and creative instincts of a woman in the transitional time of middle age. July enters this territory with humor and heart, leaving readers with plenty to chew on.

4. Bride by Ali Hazelwood

While we might be familiar with Ali Hazelwood’s cute-as-a-button steamy STEM romances, her new book is set to be a big change. Bride is instead a paranormal romance, following a vampire outcast, Misery Lark, who forges an alliance with werewolf Lowe Moreland. It’s giving an even hotter version of Twilight (if Bella ended up choosing Jacob).

5. Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare

Celine Saintclare’s debut novel, Sugar, Baby, depicts the glittering world of the young women who make a kind of living by showing up at clubs and restaurants to burnish their associations with youth and beauty. Are these women being taken advantage of — or are they on the ride of their lives?

This personable novel, which charts the somewhat inadvertent trajectory of a girl who finds herself enmeshed among a group of more knowing models, to its credit, doesn’t come down on one side of the equation. Instead, it shows the grit alongside the glamor and crafts a very believable story that feels like a document of the moment, where image is a valuable and fleeting currency.

6. James by Percival Everett

It takes real guts to reimagine a book as iconic as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but Pulitzer Prize finalist Percival Everett has done it with James, telling the tale from the point of view of the enslaved Jim (who, in this version, prefers his formal name). The story follows his and Huck’s journey down the Mississippi River, this time revealing him to be an erudite man with immense heart and wit who just wants to be reunited with his family. No matter how much you loved Mark Twain’s original, you’ll devour this blazingly funny and thought-provoking update.

7. Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

On June 27, 2019, Sloane Crosley came home to her apartment to discover that somebody had crawled through her bedroom window and stolen all her jewelry. Exactly one month later, the former book publicist and author of Cult Classic and I Was Told There’d Be Cake lost her closest friend to suicide. In Grief Is for People, she examines how she confronted both events. Raw, deeply moving, and laced with her trademark wit, it’s a profound take on loss and how we make our way through it.

8. You Are Here by David Nicholls

David Nicholls (One Day) is famous for writing novels full of British humor that sneak-attack with an emotional punch. And he’s done it again. In You Are Here, Michael, 42, and Marnie, 38, are nursing their wounds after failed relationships. Michael avoids being home, where there are too many reminders of his ex. Marnie, meanwhile, hardly ever leaves her apartment. A friend pushes them together for a multiday group hike, the last thing either of them wants to do. Their journey, and what they learn walking side by side, leads to a ridiculously satisfying book about hope and second chances.

9. The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

The acclaimed YA author of the Grishaverse series made her adult debut with 2019’s Ninth House, whose sequel Hell Bent came out in 2023. Now, Bardugo tackles another first: The Familiar, an adult historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age, is the author’s first-ever standalone novel in any genre.

10. The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

Long-time writing partners Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings — or Christina Lauren — return in 2024 with their new book, The Paradise Problem. This time, their new romance will focus on the heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirit artist ex in a stunning fake-dating scenario. The perfect accompaniment for a European summer, or tucking yourself into bed, wishing it was summer.

11. Swift River by Essie Chambers

It’s the summer of 1987 and 16-year-old Diamond Newberry is an outcast in her small New England town, and the only Black person living there since her dad disappeared seven years ago. She begins receiving letters from a relative on her father’s side that unearth her family history. As she learns about the people who came before her, she discovers who she truly is — and who she wants to be. Essie Chambers’s Swift River is a deeply moving portrayal of a girl you will absolutely fall for and cheer on through every scene of this remarkable debut.

12. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

In his celebrated poems, Iranian-American writer Kaveh Akbar examines deeply personal topics — addiction, the feeling of displacement, and identity. With his touching debut novel, Martyr!, Akbar explores these themes further through his protagonist Cyrus — a newly sober, orphaned Iranian immigrant. Obsessed with the concept of martyrdom, Cyrus searches for a family secret that leads him to unexpected places physically, spiritually, and regarding his complicated lineage.

13. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

In a shabby gym in Reno, Nevada, teenage girls face off in a youth boxing tournament under a shifting ray of daylight that “fills the whole space with a dull, dusty brightness” and surrounded by a sparse crowd of mostly uninterested coaches and parents.

The novel enters deep into the girls’ minds as they assess one another’s weaknesses and coax themselves through the rounds, which are described in brutal, bloody detail. Each fighter has her own source of competitive energy, but they’re all realistically ambivalent, too — unsure about why, exactly, they’re drawn to a sport that gives them so little for their trouble.

Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel is as tense and disciplined as its characters, and she has a gift for capturing the way their minds wander far from the ring and back again: One girl counts off the digits of pi, while another obsesses over a death she witnessed as a lifeguard. There’s a mesmerizing sense of limitlessness to the narrative, which roams far into the future of these fighters even as they’re absorbing hits in the ring.

14. The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr

When Clayton Stumper was just a baby, he was left on the steps of an English commune where a group of professional enigmatologists (i.e., puzzle makers) invented new games and riddles. Now in his 20s, Clayton is a quirky young man mourning the death of the woman who discovered and raised him. But she’s left him with one final mystery to solve: Where did he really come from, and what’s next? Samuel Burr’s The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers takes readers along on Clayton’s quest to discover his roots, treating us to a literary mood boost about friendship and found family.

15. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

In Long Island Compromise, the latest from Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Fleishman Is in Trouble), the Fletchers’ cushy lives are rocked when Carl, the patriarch, is kidnapped, then returned after a week for a major ransom. Almost 40 years later, the parents and three children reunite in their hometown after Carl’s mother’s death. When they discover that their family fortune doesn’t exist, they’re forced to confront how dysfunctional they’ve all felt since the kidnapping. The result is a delicious, Succession-esque saga about the complex impact of wealth.

16. The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

Drag icon and TV mogul RuPaul takes readers behind the makeup, wigs, and six-inch heels with his first memoir, recounting his life story from growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego to finding his identity as an artist in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York. Filled with witty Ruisms and reflections on life — including his hard-earned journey to sobriety and self-love (If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else? as his famous tagline goes) — The House of Hidden Meanings is a moving memoir and a peek inside the entertainment industry over several decades of profound change.

17. Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler

Judith Butler is no stranger to publishing groundbreaking works. The American philosopher’s iconic 1990 book, Gender Trouble, became a mainstay on university syllabuses, radically shifting how many think about traditional gender roles and sexuality, after all. Now, Butler’s latest work explores how fear and discomfort around these very topics is fueling a global rise in reactionary politics — and offers solutions to combat the growing intolerance of individual differences.

18. Did I Ever Tell You? by Genevieve Kingston

Writer Genevieve Kingston was just 11 when her mother died from breast cancer. During her illness, her mother put together two chests for Kingston and her brother, each filled with boxes and letters to mark every milestone they might hit before they turned 30. Incorporating pictures and stories, Did I Ever Tell You? details how this gift has guided Kingston throughout her life. Her recounting is both a beautiful tribute to her mother and a portrait of unconditional love, providing catharsis for anyone who has ever lost a loved one.

19. The Divorcées by Rowan Beaird

Reno, Nevada, was famous in the mid-20th century for its “divorce ranches,” where married women from around the U.S. could establish six-week residencies to take advantage of the state’s lenient divorce laws. Rowan Beaird’s debut novel centers on Lois Saunders, a self-doubting 1950s housewife who’s left her stifling marriage in Illinois to live at the Golden Yarrow, one of the city’s most reputable ranches. Her father, who’s funding her stay, expects she’ll move back in with him once she’s single, but she has a secret wish for something more. Moody, sexy, and mysterious, The Divorcées offers a fascinating look at female desire.

20. The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

The Cemetery of Untold Stories, the latest by literary legend Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies), centers on Alma, a writer living in Vermont who inherits a small plot in the Dominican Republic, her family’s homeland. Everyone is curious what she’ll do with it — well, imagine the reaction when she turns it into a graveyard for the manuscripts she hasn’t finished. Her characters aren’t done telling their stories, though, and as they refuse to let their voices be buried, this imaginative book will make you think about legacies and how they live on.

21. You Get What You Pay For: Essays by Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker’s poetic sensibility is at the forefront in You Get What You Pay For, her debut collection of essays. The award-winning author of poetry collections like 2017’s There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé and 2019’s Magical Negro, Parker draws on both her personal experiences — with writing, therapy, beauty culture, and relationships, for instance — as well as bigger cultural phenomena, like the complex legacy of Serena Williams and Bill Cosby’s fall from grace, to reflect on Black women’s experiences throughout American history.