The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2024

"Sexually frank and laced with the novelist’s loopy humor, the book ends up posing that most universal question: What would you risk to change your life?"

"Everett’s novel is a literary hat trick — a book that highlights the horrors in American history and complicates an American classic, all while also emerging as a work of exquisite originality in its own right."

"As Akbar nudges Cyrus closer to uncovering a secret in his family’s past, he turns his protagonist’s quest for meaning — involving a road trip to New York and a revelatory encounter in the Brooklyn Museum — into an indelible affirmation of life, rife with inventive beauty, vivid characters and surprising twists of plot."

"History has long been Enrigue’s playground, and his latest novel takes readers to 16th-century Tenochtitlan, or what is now Mexico City... The carnage here is devilishly brazen, the humor ample and bone-dry."

"Not only does Alderton cement herself as a latter-day Nora Ephron, she also puts her own mark on the classic romantic comedy form."

"First published in 1950, 'Cold Crematorium' is a masterpiece of clinical, mordant observation... This is more than gallows humor; it’s a stubborn fight to stay human and place the unimaginable in the context of the known."

"A timely analysis of the situation at America’s southern border... Blitzer handles his vast topic with assurance and grace, never losing sight of the human element behind the global crisis."

"Sante fearlessly documents a transformation both internal and external, one that is also a kind of homecoming."

"The book is a landmark work that shows how Reagan emerged from his New Deal roots to become a practiced Red baiter and racist dog whistler before settling into the role of the optimistic all-American elder statesman."

"In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers as well as the oral traditions of Indigenous Pacific islanders."