Our 10 Favorite Reads of 2024, So Far
Featuring both backlist and frontlist titles
Many of you are aware by now that we at ad astra are huge advocates for conscious consumerism, especially when it comes to reading and our support of the publishing ecosystem. Conscious consumerism not only encourages readers to put money into stories and authors of backgrounds that have been systemically and historically excluded from publishing, but also challenges us to question what we really want to read and crave in a book. As we begin to understand what our tastes truly are, our reading grows more impactful and enjoyable.
We dive more into the power of reading intentionally here, as well as in the below Instagram post.
And as our tastes and needs are always evolving, it’s not surprising if the books or genres we gravitate toward do as well. Every season, we make a list of our top 12 anticipated releases (you can see Summer 2024’s list here), but we rarely get around to reading all of the books we share because it truly depends on what we are craving and when. In fact, some of our most highly anticipated reads this year, based largely on books we’ve enjoyed in the past, have ended up being our least favorites so far. And books we might never have thought we’d enjoy or pick up have skyrocketed their way to the top.
Instead of zooming in on one specific book this month, we want to zoom out and take a look at our 10 favorite reads from this year so far, especially as these books don’t always make their way into our bi-monthly newsletters. Some of them are new releases, others are backlist (as both are important to support). Our hope is that some of these books are new to you, or perhaps that we finally convince you to pick them up.
A friendly reminder that this list—or any list like it—is purely subjective. This week, The New York Times Book Review released a list featuring the “best” 100 books of the 21st century. And despite sharing a bit about their methodology and who they asked to vote/contribute selections, it’s still not anywhere near clear how exactly the list and rankings came to be. We dive more into this in a recent video we shared on social media (here), but the main takeaway: take any list like this with a grain of salt, and keep amplifying/supporting BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ authors, content creators, literary outlets, and other components of the publishing ecosystem.
Our 10 favorite reads of 2024, so far
In no particular order…
Enter Ghost
What’s it about?
From the publisher: After years away from her family's homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. This is her first trip back since the second intifada and the deaths of their grandparents: while Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new. At Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank…along with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
What we liked:
The connections—and discussions around lack of connections—between Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the characters’ experiences in Palestine are ones that any Shakespeare-focused course should include. Plus, the book has arguably the best last ~50 pages of any book we have ever read.
Read more on Enter Ghost here.
Greta & Valdin
What’s it about?
From the publisher: It's been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he's sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he's thrown back in his former lover's orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he's been trying to ignore—and the future he wants. Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master's thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won't stop intruding: her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.
What we liked:
Although not typically drawn to comedic books, Greta & Valdin has become the book I (Olivia) recommend to everyone this year. Its comedy, exploration of queerness and identity, love stories, and critiques of colonialism blend together to create a story that had me laughing out loud and crying within a span of a few pages.
Doppelganger
What’s it about?
From the publisher: Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises.
What we liked:
The nonfiction book we are recommending to everyone and that will make you want to take a class with Naomi Klein. Her insights will make you reconsider so much of the world, and the timeliness of the story and its commentary on the Israeli government’s inhumane and ongoing treatment of Palestinians will only further your understanding of the need for Palestinian liberation.
Read more on Doppelganger here.
James
What’s it about?
From the publisher: When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
What we liked:
Perhaps you haven’t picked up one of the most popular books of 2024 yet because you’re afraid it’s overhyped; I, too, was fearful of this…but on a whim I decided to grab a copy and for the next ~24 hours I couldn’t put it down, coming up with any excuse to read. People talk about “beach reads” as if they can’t be literary fiction; but this story and its exploration of language as power is perfect for any trip if you’re craving a bingeable read.
All Friends Are Necessary
What’s it about?
From the publisher: Efren "Chino" Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, [after] a stunning loss upended his life. Now he's working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world. But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account. As Chino begins to date more men and women—and to open himself up again to love—his bonds with those around him grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.
What we liked:
This story balances beautiful writing with meaningful relationships—both romantic and platonic. There’s a power in focusing on the platonic, and this story shows just how important friendships are, and all the different ways those friendships can exist.
They’re Going to Love You
What’s it about?
From the publisher: Throughout her childhood, Carlisle Martin got to see her father, Robert, for only a few precious weeks a year when she visited the brownstone apartment in Greenwich Village he shared with his partner, James. Seduced by the heady pull of James’s mentorship and hoping to follow in the footsteps of her mother—a former Balanchine ballerina—Carlisle's aspiration to become a professional ballet dancer bloomed. But above all else, she longed to be asked to stay at the house on Bank Street, to be a part of Robert and James's sophisticated world, even as the AIDS crisis brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair created a rift between the family, with shattering consequences that reverberated for decades to come. Nineteen years later, when Carlisle receives a phone call that unravels the events of that fateful summer, she sees with new eyes how her younger self has informed the woman she's become.
What we liked:
The writing—especially pertaining to dance—is stunning in this book. Standing in a bookstore, I was drawn to the spine at random, and after reading the opening page, I knew I would fall in love. This novel looks at the importance of family, however we define that word, and kicked off the need to read other stories centering dance, which led to…
Little Rabbit
What’s it about?
From the publisher: When the unnamed narrator of Little Rabbit first meets the choreographer at an artists' residency in Maine, it's not a match. She finds him loud, conceited, domineering. But when he reappears in her life in Boston and invites her to his dance company's performance, their interaction at the show sets off a summer of expanding her own body's boundaries. Her body learns to obediently follow his, and his desires quickly become inextricable from her pleasure. This must be happiness, right? But what does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?
What we liked:
Depending on your expectations of those questions posed by the publisher, you might expect the story to turn out one way…and be completely surprised when it goes in another direction. This novel really challenges how we conventionally define safety and support, and what it looks like when what we think should be safe ends up not being so…and when what we think shouldn’t be safe, ends up being the thing that helps us grow even more into ourselves.
The Ministry of Time
What’s it about?
From the publisher: In the near future, a civil servant [begins working for a] recently established government ministry gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a "bridge" living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry's project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.
What we liked:
This book is wholly original, humorous, complex, and tackles important conversations of race, colonialism, gender, sexuality, and more. This is one of those books that will truly have you asking how the author was able to come up with this plot, let alone tackle it so wonderfully.
Women! In! Peril!
What’s it about?
From the publisher: In this brash and unputdownable collection, we meet a sex bot trying to outlast her return policy, a skeptical lesbian grappling with her wife's mysterious pregnancy, and a post-Earth colonist struggling to maintain her faith in humanity as she travels to "Planet B." Whether they exist in the grounded realism of a college dance studio or the speculative world of Deep Space, these women push against social norms and family expectations to reclaim their power, understand their mistakes, and find a better future. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and defiantly optimistic, the twelve stories in Women! In! Peril! balance humor and gravitas to explore the complexities of queerness, toxic relationships, parenting and divorce, Asian and Asian American identity, and so much more.
What we liked:
Not typically a reader of story collections (I always want more), I was drawn to Women! In! Peril! from its blurbs (particularly those from Deesha Philyaw and Megan Kamalei Kakimoto). This story collection is fun, chaotic, and explores essential conversations around women and our bodies.
A Novel Love Story
What’s it about?
From the publisher: Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don't leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. But when her car unexpectedly breaks down, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it's right out of a novel...Because it is. It's perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author's last unfinished story. Elsy is sure that's why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending. Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can't place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.
What we liked:
Ashley Poston is an auto-read author after The Seven Year Slip, and her newest novel holds just as much charm and humor as her earlier stories. You’ll find so much love and light within these pages, but always balanced with considerate and impactful reflections on the tragedies that shape us into who we are.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve read any of these, or if we’ve convinced you to add them to your (already long, we’re sure) TBR lists.
And, as always, thanks so much for taking the time to read! If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share with friends, and consider subscribing if you have not yet already.
We’ll be back in just a few weeks with our end-of-month issue to break down current topics in the publishing world.
Xx,
ad astra