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Books of 2024!
This spring, as you step out to your local weekend farmers market, closest beach or favorite hiking trail, you may want to take a moment to reflect on the living world around you. At BookBrowse, our Nature and the Environment category of Beyond the Book articles covers the ways humans are intimately tied to and dependent upon the plants and animals we share the planet with, the responsibility we have towards them in turn, and additional topics involving environmental politics, biodiversity, natural wonders and much more. Below is a small sampling of freely available articles for you to enjoy.
Every "beyond the book" article we write accompanies a book we review and focuses on a cultural, historical or contextual topic related to that book. These pieces are a great way to discover new titles and learn about all kinds of subjects! BookBrowse members get full access to thousands of Beyond the Book articles across nine categories, including Nature and the Environment.
The Pulitzer Prize (pronounced PULL-it-sir) is awarded annually for outstanding public service and achievement in American journalism, literature, and music. Presented each year since 1917, it’s considered the country’s most prestigious award in these fields.
Historical fiction is often a well-loved genre for book clubs. It allows members to learn more about a particular time and place at their leisure while enjoying the twists and turns of a good story and sharing it with others.
We've already published the results of our most recent annual survey showing the Top 10 book club books of 2023, but how did historical novels fare? Below are the works of fiction set in past eras that book club members took the most pleasure in discussing.
| Book | % of Respondents | |
| 1 | Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) | 18.6% |
| 2 | Horse by Geraldine Brooks (2022) | 12.9% |
| 3 | The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (2023) | 7.8% |
| 4 | West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge (2021) | 5.5% |
| 5 | The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (2023) | 5.1% |
| 6 | Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See (2023) | 3.4% |
| 7 | The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (2021) | 3.0% |
| 8 | The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (2021) | 3.0% |
| 9 | Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022) | 2.0% |
| 10 | The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell (2022) | 1.4% |
The above information is based on a February 2024 survey of BookBrowse email subscribers. Only subscribers were eligible to take part so as to prevent the ratings being skewed by enthusiastic fan bases. Respondents were asked to name up to three favorites that they discussed in a book group setting in 2023; 3268 votes were cast.
The popularity of historical fiction is already evident by its presence in our general Top 10. Six of the ten, led by Lessons in Chemistry from Bonnie Garmus and Horse from Geraldine Brooks, are historical novels, leaving room for four more favorites. Filling the 7th and 8th place spots in a tie are Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's The Personal Librarian, the story of Belle da Costa Greene, who hid her identity as a Black woman while working as J.P. Morgan's librarian in the early 20th century, and Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway, which follows a spontaneous series of road trip adventures undertaken by a pair of brothers in the 1950s. These two titles also made our overall Top 10 of 2022, taking the #4 and #2 spots respectively.
Trust by Hernan Diaz, coming in at #9, is a metafictional feast of a novel featuring four accounts of a wealthy couple living in 1920s New York. Along with The Personal Librarian and Towles' novel, this work gives readers a unique glimpse into American history, and provides food for thought on the nature of truth and perspective.
Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait, sliding in at #10, sweeps us away in another direction entirely. Set in 16th-century Italy, it relates a high-tension, alternate version of the story of the real Lucrezia de' Medici, daughter of a Grand Duke of Tuscany, in which she attempts to foil her husband's plans to murder her.
What were the most popular book club books in 2023? The results are in! Read on to see the titles our subscribers enjoyed discussing most with their book groups over the past year.
| Book | % of Respondents | |
| 1 | Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) | 18.6% |
| 2 | Horse by Geraldine Brooks (2022) | 12.9% |
| 3 | Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) | 11.2% |
| 4 | Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (2022) | 8.6% |
| 5 | The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (2023) | 7.8% |
| 6 | West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge (2021) | 5.5% |
| 7 | The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (2023) | 5.1% |
| 8 | Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (2023) | 4.6% |
| 9 | Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (2023) | 3.7% |
| 10 | Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See (2023) | 3.4% |
The above information is based on a February 2024 survey of BookBrowse email subscribers. Only subscribers were eligible to take part so as to prevent the ratings being skewed by enthusiastic fan bases. Respondents were asked to name up to three favorites that they discussed in a book group setting in 2023; 3268 votes were cast.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus not only retains its #1 spot on the list from the previous year but claims an even larger percentage of the votes (up to 18.6% from 13.9%). That's not especially surprising, as this debut novel, a humorous and charming but substantial story exploring aspects of 1960s misogyny, was voted a BookBrowse Best Book of the Year in 2022 and is well established as a book club and reader favorite.
Interestingly, the two other books in our Top 10 of 2022 that have kept a place in the rankings are both historical novels featuring animals. Horse by Geraldine Brooks, centered on 19th-century thoroughbred racing, climbs up a spot (from #3 to #2), while West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge, based on the true story of two famous giraffes during the Depression era, holds steady at #6. Horse was our 2022 Award Winner in the Fiction category, and West With Giraffes was the subject of a 2023 BookBrowse Book Club discussion.
Also of note: 9 out of the Top 10 books were only available in hardcover last year, (the other was a dual release of paperback and hardcover), proving that book clubs aren't waiting to discuss books in paperback.
What debut authors will you discover in 2024? You may be excited about the latest work from writers you already adore, but this could very well be the year you find a new slew of first-time favorites. The march of excellent debut books has already begun, and there are many soon-to-be-established literary stars worth watching, both those who have been published recently and those with releases in the coming months. Keep an eye on who’s emerging and who’s waiting in the wings with our list of some of the most promising, intriguing, provocative debut authors working today.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus has been a big hit. This 2022 debut, following chemist Elizabeth Zott in the 1960s as she finds herself hosting a TV cooking show, has sold more than six million copies worldwide and has been translated into 42 languages. Praised for its wry, infectious humor and feminist voice, the novel is the recipient of a Goodreads Choice Award, was voted a BookBrowse Best Book of the Year by our subscribers and remains a popular book club pick beloved by readers. It's even been adapted into a TV series starring Brie Larson. But if you've already read it and loved it, where do you go from here? What are some books like Lessons in Chemistry, with a similar atmosphere or story? Below, we share our read-alikes for Garmus's novel, which we think would be perfect for you if you're a fan. We hope you enjoy them!
You can also check out other BookBrowse read-alikes (picked by our team, never by algorithm) available for more than 4,500 contemporary books and 3,500 authors. Head over now to easily find relevant recommendations based on the last great book you devoured, or a favorite writer.
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