Literary Hub’s Favorite Books of 2024

Beautyland

By: Marie-Helene Bertino
Narrated by: Andi Arndt
Length: 8 hours 56 minutes

“I've decided Beautyland is my favorite book of all time. It’s dripping in sincerity, vulnerability, and ironically(!) humanity. I laughed out loud and often, I made extreme outward noises of heartache, and I often had to pause reading just to shut the book and hug it. As soon as I was done, I read it again. Read more

James

A Novel

By: Percival Everett
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

“I love reading alternate versions of classic literature. I’ve read many Pride and Prejudice retellings. But this was different, it was so expansive and worked as a great collab between Mark Twain and Percival Everett. I could just tell how much knowledge and love(?) Mr. Everrett has for the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Read more

Set My Heart on Fire

A Novel

By: Izumi Suzuki
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
Length: 5 hours 18 minutes

The first novel from Izumi Suzuki to be published in English: a candid, intimate exploration of passion, music, and transgression



Hope I'm in for a good time, I thought. Even if it's just for tonight.



Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series... Read more

When the Clock Broke

Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s

By: John Ganz
Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
Length: 15 hours 17 minutes

"John Ganz is the most important young political writer of his generation—just the one our dark moment needs." —Rick Perlstein

"Lively and kaleidoscopic." —Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker

"John Ganz belongs to a species of public intellectual that is almost extinct . . . When the Clock Broke is the first of what I hope will be a shelf of books that... Read more

A Magical Girl Retires

A Novel

By: Park Seolyeon
Narrated by: Shannon Tyo
Length: 2 hours 55 minutes

“Did you grow up watching shows like Sailor Moon, wishing you too could be essentially a highly fashionable superhero, and now you find yourself constantly anxious about the environment and your credit card debt? This book is here for us. It's a fun and quick read that will re-awaken that sparkly, magical transformation-fueled wish for escapism,... Read more

Headshot

A Novel

By: Rita Bullwinkel
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
Length: 5 hours 24 minutes

“As the competition begins at this teenage girls' boxing tournament, we are introduced to each fighter's background story in such a unique and compelling way. Headshot is part sports novel, part coming-of-age novel and it doesn't hold back. I've found myself wishing more books took place during boxing tournaments. Read more

All Fours

A Novel

By: Miranda July
Narrated by: Miranda July
Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

“A semi-famous wife and mother embarks on a cross-country trip, but only makes it about 30 minutes from home. There she sets up camp in a motel and goes on a different type of journey. NY Times called it "the first great peri-menopausal novel" and that's dead on. Deals with issues of marriage, motherhood, sexuality, and desire. AND the audiobook... Read more

Rejection

Fiction

By: Tony Tulathimutte
Narrated by: Micky Shiloah, Allyson Ryan, Quincy Surasmith, Dan Bittner, André Santana, Marcha Kia, Eunice Wong & Madeleine Maby
Length: 8 hours 1 minute

“Bonkers! 🤯 A book that is intense - detailed and meticulously niche, it all gets out of hand real quick and you’re in it for the ride of discovering hidden desires, designed deliberately to cause a reaction one way or another, that will have you wondering if there is an endgame. If so, what then? Rejection is incredibly well written - dark,... Read more

The Book of Love

A Novel

By: Kelly Link
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 23 hours 30 minutes

“Laura, Daniel and Mo, three high school students from Lovesend, Massachusetts, go missing one night and leaving their family and friends confused and grieving. A year later they reappear in the classroom of their unremarkable music teacher Mr. Anabin, only to learn that they have been dead and now have a second chance at life. The catch? Only... Read more

Consent

A Memoir

By: Jill Ciment
Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
Length: 4 hours

“Excellent. Jill Ciment reflects on her marriage to a man 30 years older than her, whom she met when she was 16. She reconsiders their relationship through time and her changing perspective, and society’s changing lens. She reassesses the way she framed their relationship when she wrote her first memoir in her forties. An introspective and... Read more

Creation Lake

A Novel

By: Rachel Kushner
Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
Length: 11 hours 27 minutes

“Creation Lake is compelling and darkly funny, with a slow burn twistiness that kept me on edge as the story came to a boil. Kushner's prose is as lovely as our narrator "Sadie" is nihilistic - so, very - and her narration draws the reader into the gritty world of industrial espionage and its bleak, unglamorous realities. Read more

The Extinction of Irena Rey

By: Jennifer Croft
Narrated by: Lanessa Tremblett
Length: 12 hours

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY WALL STREET JOURNAL, ELLE, TOWN & COUNTRY, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, CRIMEREADS, DOCUMENT JOURNAL, AND WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS * NAMED A MUST READ BY NPR, PEOPLE, VANITY FAIR, NYLON, ALTA JOURNAL, AND DEBUTIFUL

“Oh my mushrooms, The Extinction of Irena Rey is incredibly strange,... Read more

The Most

By: Jessica Anthony
Narrated by: Abigail Reno
Length: 3 hours 37 minutes

“A hauntingly beautiful story about marriage, first love, and unfulfilled dreams. Kathleen is a 1950s housewife who one day feels unwell and decides to stay home from church. Her husband Virgil returns home later to find her in their pool and refuses to get out. The Most takes place over a day, switching between the past and present to show... Read more

The God of the Woods

A Novel

By: Liz Moore
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
Length: 14 hours 34 minutes

“The God of the Woods has easily become one of my favorite reads this year, a thrilling camp drama set in the Adirondack’s in the ‘70s takes us on a twisting, face-paced, and addictive journey through a summer camp in which Barbara goes missing fourteen years after her brother at the same camp their family owns. I had so many theories and in some... Read more

The Heart in Winter

A Novel

By: Kevin Barry
Narrated by: Kevin Barry
Length: 5 hours 54 minutes

“The moment Tom Rourke, an Irish immigrant living in Montana in the 1890s, peers through the camera lens at Polly Gillespie in her wedding dress, he unknowingly sets them both on a path of murder, mayhem, and (most dangerous of all) love. What follows is a story that's both achingly real and like an otherworldly fever dream, perfectly... Read more

The Bright Sword

A Novel of King Arthur

By: Lev Grossman
Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith & Lev Grossman
Length: 23 hours 9 minutes

“You know a book’s good when it starts with a quote from Monty Python. I utterly loved it from the first page to the last. Witty, serious, magical, and with an amazing cast of characters, this is everything an Arthurian epic should be. Read more

Liars

A Novel

By: Sarah Manguso
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

“Searing exploration of a marriage unraveling under the weight of ambition, neglect, and self-deception. The novel follows Jane, an aspiring writer whose marriage to filmmaker John Bridges devolves into a toxic cycle of emotional labor and unfulfilled promises. Read more

The Morningside

A Novel

By: Téa Obreht 
Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

“There is so much to unpack in The Morningside and all coming at you through the eyes of an 11-year-old. Do you remember being 11? Having fantastical adventures solving all the "mysterious" happenings going on around you. Being rebellious and knowing you understand all the things that your Mom can't possibly understand? Obreht precisely uncovers... Read more

Victim

A Novel

By: Andrew Boryga
Narrated by: Anthony Rey Perez
Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

“Victim is like watching something incredibly uncomfortable through the spaces between your fingers covering your face. You know you should look away, but you have to see how it ends. Our narrator, Javi, isn't hurting anyone by embellishing his backstory. He's only writing about what people actually want to hear - whether it's the truth or not.... Read more

All Things Are Too Small

Essays in Praise of Excess

By: Becca Rothfeld
Narrated by: Ruth Crawford
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

A glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from such topics as decluttering, mindfulness, David Cronenberg, sadomasochism, and women who wait. All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession,... Read more