The 20 best books of the year, ranked
Our chief books critic Martin Chilton chooses his very best reads of the year, from state-of-the-nation novels to surprising memoirs
It was a year of trailblazing memoirs, groundbreaking history books, and dazzling novels. While it is always hard to whittle down a whole year’s releases to just 20 books, every title on this list stood out because they stirred, enlightened and entertained – some all at the same time.
20. ‘The Vulnerables’ by Sigrid Nunez
Sigrid Nunez, who won the National Book Award at the age of 67, is still blazing a trail in her seventies and The Vulnerables, narrated by an ageing New York professor of writing, is set in the early bewildering days of the pandemic. It features a college drop-out and an eccentric parrot called Eureka, and the meandering, almost essay-like prose, allows Nunez to explore her characters and the fears of living in a stricken world with all its systems collapsing. Oddly, it all becomes an enriching read. (Virago)
19. ‘The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It’ by Daisy Dunn
Historian Daisy Dunn’s barnstorming book explores the stories of dozens of women, including the poet Sappho, the fighters Telesilla and Artemisia, the only female commander in the Greco-Persian wars (499-449 BC). As well as being a well-researched and elegantly written counterpoint to the way men have dominated the histories of antiquity, Dunn has an eye for the quirky, revealing detail. Her book not only puts overlooked women at the core of the narrative, but it also reminds us that the past, particularly with sexism and misogyny, has vital lessons for the 21st-century present. (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
18. ‘You Are Here’ by David Nicholls
In You Are Here, David Nicholls’ will-they-won’t-they protagonists are the (almost) middle-aged Marnie, a freelance copy editor recovering from a messy divorce, and Michael, a geography teacher recovering from a trauma. Set during a group walk in the Lakes, the novel is a thoroughly enjoyable read, full of clever, droll jokes about teaching, relatives, walking, friendship, pubs and motels. (Sceptre)
17. ‘Reading Lessons: The Books We Read at School, the Conversations They Spark and Why They Matter’ by Carol Atherton
Carol Atherton, Head of English at a secondary school in Lincolnshire, must be an inspiring teacher if her marvellous book Reading Lessons is anything to go by. The book is part memoir, part love letter to teaching (such an essential and difficult job) and also a profound and empathetic guide to the literature studied in our classrooms, full of shrewd asides and gritty asides from a sensitive reader. (Fig Tree)
16. ‘The Body in the Library’ by Graham Caveney
Graham Caveney’s latest memoir, a moving and humorous account of having cancer of the oesophagus, made me grimace and laugh. He details his diagnosis and treatment and explores his anxiety and his anger at the Tory government’s destruction of the NHS, something he sums up smartly as “incremental vandalism”. He also has a gift for terrific one-liners and his gnarly, funny book, which also deals with alcoholism and sexual abuse, is a bumpy, brilliant read. (Peninsula Press)
15. ‘My Family and Other Rock Stars’ by Tiffany Murray
There were several fine music autobiographies in 2024 – including those by Mike Batt and Alan Edwards – but the one I found the most enchanting was Tiffany Murray’s highly engaging memoir of a rock’n’roll childhood. Murray’s mum Joan, who was the chef at the famous Rockfield recording studios in Wales, cooked for some of the biggest music stars of the 1970s. The account is personal and warm and full of revealing small details about music superstars. (Fleet)
14. ‘Pity’ by Andrew McMillan
Pity, poet Andrew McMillan’s debut novel, is set in Barnsley across three generations of a South Yorkshire family, including Brian and his namesake son. Marginal lives, masculinity and sexuality are just three of the themes of a novel that is broken up into multiple perspectives and shining with humour. A sad, wise and empathetic read. (Canongate)
13. ‘The Catchers’ by Xan Brooks
The Catchers is set in 1927 and in part deals with the exploitation of Deep South black musicians by white-owned record companies, at a time when a hit single earned small fortunes. Xan Brooks’ novel is hugely atmospheric, neatly capturing an era when it feels like “everything is accelerating”, and it brings to life a world of hustlers looking for the gold rush of a hit song in captivating style. The story is full of vivid, shocking characters and the pulsating plot races along to a fine climax. (Salt)
12. ‘James’ by Percival Everett
Percival Everett’s novel James puts the escaped slave Jim from Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn at the centre of a droll, wise and enlightening novel of reimagining. Everett, whose acclaimed 2001 novel Erasure was turned into the Oscar-nominated 2023 film American Fiction, is a modern literary star and James is another lacerating, smart novel. (Mantle)
11. ‘The Story of a Heart’ by Rachel Clarke
Dr Rachel Clarke, the author of the superb Dear Life and the coruscating Covid exposé Breathtaking, is the right person to tell the extraordinary story of how one family’s grief was transformed into a lifesaving act of generosity. The tale of nine-year-old Max, who was given the heart of Keira, a girl of the same age who suffered catastrophic injuries in a car crash, is tender and inspiring and displays all of Clarke’s usual compassion for humanity. (Abacus)
10. ‘Munichs’ by David Peace
David Peace, author of The Damned Utd, returns to football with Munichs, a fact-based novel about one of the worst tragedies in British sport: the freezing afternoon of 6 February 1958 when Manchester United’s team of masterful young players were in a plane disaster after stopping at Munich to refuel after United’s trip home from a European Cup fixture in Belgrade. Munichs is, at times, a sentimental novel but it’s a deeply moving one and stirringly told. (Faber)
9. ‘England: A Major Natural History in 12 Habitats’ by John Lewis-Stempel
John Lewis-Stempel, a highly respected nature writer, meanders around England in his erudite and highly informative England: A Major Natural History in 12 Habitats. The 12 chapters, which include journeys through Richmond, Mount Caburn, Burnham Beeches and Portreath, Cornwall, are packed with humorous, startling details. (Doubleday)
8. ‘Long Island’ by Colm Tóibín
Colm Tóibín – the present Laureate for Irish Fiction – returns to the story of Eilis Fiorello (Lacey) in Long Island, the sequel to his magnificent 2009 novel Brooklyn. Tóibín guides everything with a master’s hand, in what becomes a tale of denial, secrecy, hidden resentments and disappointments. Eilis is again superbly drawn, as Tóibín offers a mesmerising and understated picture of Ireland in the mid-1970s and also of late 20th-century America. (Picador)
7. ‘Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops’ by Tim Robey
I was very taken by Daniel De Visé’s account of a comedy classic with The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, The Rise of Improv and the Making of an American Classic (White Rabbit), but the standout cinema book of the year was Tim Robey’s Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops. The 26 film chapters, covering films from 1916’s Intolerance to 2019’s Cats, are brimming with bizarreness and full of juicy details. Robey’s book is shocking and funny. (Faber)
6. ‘Sandwich’ by Catherine Newman
Catherine Newman’s Sandwich, about a family holiday to a beach rental in Cape Cod, is set over seven days (with brief “prologue” and “after” chapters) and centres around mother Rocky, her husband Nick, their children, their partners and two grandparents, who all travel to a holiday rental that has been a feature of their lives for two decades. Sandwich is shrewd and funny, heart-warming and sorrowful (often in the same paragraph) and she deftly captures how you can be simultaneously enraptured and overwhelmed by parenthood. (Doubleday)
5. ‘The Land in Winter’ by Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter is a delicate and devastating novel set in the West Country, around the bitterly harsh winter of 1962-1963. The main drama centres around two pregnant neighbours: the volatile and damaged Rita Simmons, who is married to a failing farmer called Bill, and Irene, who is wed to the local doctor Eric Parry. Both marriages are facing a crisis. The novel captures in beautiful, thought-provoking style a vivid moment in England’s past. (Hodder & Stoughton)
4. ‘The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading’ by Sam Leith
Over 500 or so pages, Sam Leith covers a vast amount of territory, from Aesop’s fables to Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon. The book’s descriptions and analysis are full of context, humour and enthusiasm, as Leith celebrates the magic of endearing stories. The Haunted Wood is a feast of a book. (Oneworld)
3. ‘The Heart in Winter’ by Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry’s stunning The Heart in Winter starts in Butte, Montana, in 1891, a mining town “of whores and chest infections”, where Tom Rourke, a dope fiend poet and balladeer, has to flee the town with his lover. Three rancid “Cornish guns” are hired to track him down. Barry keeps a tight rein on the tension in what is partly a haunting misfit love story as well as a tale of venal, black-hearted men. The ending is sure-footed and sorrowful and fittingly realistic for a brilliantly twisty novel. (Canongate)
2. ‘Didion & Babitz’ by Lili Anolik
Lili Anolik explores the complicated relationship between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, who first met in June 1967, in this riveting account of two complex, elusive and humorous writers. Didion & Babitz is a stimulating, provoking read (even the chapter titles, such as “Female Male Chauvinist Pigs”, hold your attention) by an author who conducted more than a hundred interviews with Babitz before the writer’s death in 2021. The book is gossipy and a meditation on writing and celebrity, all blended into a fascinating slice of history. (Atlantic Books)
1. ‘Caledonian Road’ by Andrew O’Hagan
Andrew O’Hagan’s majestic new state-of-the-nation novel Caledonian Road is set over one explosive year and divided into five sections – spring, summer, autumn, winter and realisation – and involves a huge, sweeping cast of interesting characters, from north London gangsters to Dukes and Duchesses. Although Caledonian Road is long – 656 pages – it gives space for O’Hagan to triumph in the incredibly difficult task of entering our deranged times, writing about them with powerful insight and humour and never settling for easy answers. The plot remains gripping to the end and the author ties everything together with a sly, brilliantly fitting ending that is bang on the money. (Faber)
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