Dear BookBrowsers,
As we near the end of 2024, we feature the
Top 20 Books of the Year chosen by our subscribers, and announce our
Award Winners. Plus, our reviewers cover four books voted in by write-in nomination especially for this issue. We're grateful to everyone who participated for contributing to a fantastic annual roundup.
The winner of our
Top Debut award is Eve J. Chung's sweeping
Daughters of Shandong, which follows a mother and her daughters escaping from China to Taiwan during the Communist revolution. This book is on our list of
favorite First Impressions reads of the year, also in this issue.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, an intriguing fictionalized drama of the real-life midwife Martha Ballard, takes the
Top Fiction prize.
The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson's absorbing exploration of pre-Civil War tensions, comes out ahead of the pack for our
Top Nonfiction distinction.
And this year's
Top YA ranking goes to one of our write-in nominees,
Everything We Never Had, Randy Ribay's compact but moving tale of the complicated and shifting relationships between four generations of Filipino men.
Besides Ribay's novel, the newly reviewed books in this issue are Hisham Matar's Booker-longlisted and National Book Award finalist
My Friends, the expansive but quietly reflective story of a Libyan exile living in London; Marjan Kamali's compelling
The Lion Women of Tehran, centered on the friendship of two girls coming of age during a tumultuous period of contemporary Iranian history; and Lynda Cohen Loigman's
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, a cozy literary romance that may just offer the perfect winter escape. Other Top 20 books include Percival Everett's
James, winner of this year's National Book Award for Fiction; Elizabeth Strout's latest character-driven marvel
Tell Me Everything; and
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, a finalist for the
Kirkus Prize for Fiction.
Big Holiday Wordplay fans, you'll be pleased to know that this year's mammoth conundrum is bigger and better than ever. Solve as many of our whopping 15 (yes, 15) clues as you can and enter for a chance to win a free one-year membership.
Thank you again to everyone who voted, and thank you for subscribing to BookBrowse — we couldn't do this without your support!
Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher
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