Viget’s Favorite Books of 2024

Another year, another favorite books roundup! These aren’t necessarily books published in 2024 — just books that we read and enjoyed this year. Without further ado, our 2024 favorites:

The Naming Song

JEDEDIAH BERRY

I squeezed this book in at the very end of the year, and I'm so glad I did! Magical, odd, and a slight brain-workout, the Naming Song is one of the most imaginative stories I've encountered. In this world things that have lost their names are seen as dangerous, dreams can turn into real monsters and ghosts are normal. It was beautifully written and loaded with a bunch of little details I love, this might be an all-time favorite.

(Also, the comparatives say it's for fans of Hayao Miyazaki and Guillermo del Toro. Usually I don't listen to those but that combination is both accurate and PERFECT.)

Recommended by Jackie Yu

The Third Gilmore Girl

KELLY BISHOP

Kelly Bishop's memoir is an absolute treat. If you're a broadway buff, dance devotee, honorary Stars Hallow resident or just a fan of badass women you'll enjoy learning about this remarkable person in her candid memoir. Yes, she's a Tony award winner and played Baby's mom in Dirty Dancing but those are just tiny details in her big inspiring life. Nothing's off limits, you'll laugh and cry and you won't want to put it down. 

Recommended by Aubrey Lear

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

T. KINGFISHER

I read the Wizard's Guide on my own and then again with my kids and it was wonderful each time. The themes felt especially poignant at the close of 2024. I love that Mona shows us that making a difference is scary, but worthwhile. And that everyone—even if they're just a teenage bread wizard—can make a difference.

The great thing about the protagonists in all of Kingfisher's fantasy is that they'd all much rather be at home gardening / baking / reading rather than defeating evil. Alas, evil needs defeating. As much as I love epic fantasy, and swords being pulled from stones by chosen heroes, it's refreshing to encounter characters who are just trying to get on with life. 

Recommended by Jackson Fox

Northland

PORTER COX

In Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border, Porter Fox takes us along the often-overlooked U.S.-Canada border, offering a mix of travel, history, and personal reflection. As he travels from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Fox explores the people, landscapes, and stories that make up this vast region. He uncovers the challenges and complexities of the border, both past and present. If you're interested in travel, history, or simply want to learn more about a part of the country that's rarely in the spotlight, this book is worth picking up.

Recommended by Steven Hascher

Natural Beauty

LING LING HUANG

A young woman is on the cusp of a promising career as a musician when an accident turns her world upside down. Gone are the days spent in the conservatory. Instead, she finds herself working at an upscale beauty and wellness store in New York City. This new world is captivating — and seemingly perfect. So perfect that it feels almost too good to be true… This literary horror novel is a quick read that manages to be both frothy and thought-provoking. Are you curious about what might be lurking beneath all that beauty? Do you enjoy stories about women trying to find their way in the world? Are you okay with a bit of grotesqueness? If yes, you might want to give this one a try.

Recommended by Laura Sweltz

A Distant Mirror

BARBARA W. TUCHMAN

A book that epitomizes the phrase "the more things change, the more they stay the same," Tuchman's tome on 14th-century Europe reminds the reader that plague, war, and civil strife are constants in the human experience. Her masterful narrative, grounded in the lifespan of a single French aristocrat, helps even the densest chapters feel easy to read. If you like medieval history and aren't shy about the brutality of medieval life, Tuchman's A Distant Mirror is a must-read... and may surprise you with your own reflection.

Recommended by Tommy Ball

Cursed Princess Club

LAMBCAT

While princesses Maria and Lorena wake up to cute woodland creatures and flowers blooming around them, and prince Jamie's beauty is literally blinding, princess Gwendolyn is regularly confused as a witch and wakes up to a possum stuck to her head. If you like fun, feel-good stories that still contain deeper themes, Cursed Princess Club is for you! This is an incredibly heartwarming story that blends humor with themes of self-acceptance, friendship, and inner beauty.

Cursed Princess Club was originally produced as a scrolling-format comic on Webtoon and has since been adapted into a series of graphic novels. Three volumes are currently available in print (with the fourth on the way) and the entire story is available (for free!) on Webtoon.

Recommended by Megan Raden

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales

YŌKO OGAWA

Eleven interconnected stories, all strange and somewhat ethereal. I wouldn't say many of the stories feature "revenge" as I think of it, but there is a faint air of menace throughout. This one stuck with me for a long time after completion.

It reminded me of some of Murakami's work, like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, so if you enjoyed that you'll probably dig this.

Recommended by David Eisinger

The Thief of Always

CLIVE BARKER

An eerie short story that blends fairytale and horror. The story follows a kid who is incredibly bored — that is until a strange man flies into his window and invites him to the Holiday House, where you can have anything you want and it's Christmas every day. Barker's imagination is delightfully disturbing and wildly creative. This is a great pick for anyone who loves their horror creepy, but not terrifying. Its shorter length ensures it never overstays its welcome.

Recommended by Nathan Long

Here One Moment

LIANE MORIARTY

I listened to the audiobook, immersing myself in the narrator's Australian accent for 16 hours over two weeks while doing household chores. I'm not going to sugarcoat it – the very beginning of this book is tedious to endure, and there are a few storylines that were hard to get invested in. But, it was worth it overall.

The premise is that bunch of ordinary folks are told how and when they are going to die. We learn what they do with the information, while we subconsciously wonder what we would do ourselves if we knew our final fate. That's a good distraction to contemplate while scrubbing the floor and folding laundry!

As with all her books, Moriarty gradually weaves together the lives of a lot of people. The stories cover themes of family, careers, and aging, and include plenty of humor, mystical thinking, and mystery. The author has a knack for dropping tiny bombs of insight about life, pain, mothers, death and love. The book is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and it was the most memorable book I read this year. 

Recommended by Emily Bloom

How Infrastructure Works

DEB CHACHRA

Released in 2023, Deb Chachra’s How Infrastructure Works echoes Buckminster Fuller’s 1969 Utopia or Oblivion in spelling out a choice for humanity between spending our finite reserve of fossil fuels to create a renewable and sustainable energy economy (“utopia”) or destroying the planet without doing so (“oblivion”).

Written 50 years later, Chachra’s book dives deep into all types of infrastructure (think: water, energy, transportation telecommunications), the agency they afford each of us (by freeing us from the all-day expense of our finite time and energy to procure food and water and shelter and heat), and the cooperation they require to exist and persist.

By definition, these systems demand care and maintenance and provide more than they require, but most are in deep neglect. Brittle systems fail all at once after gradual decline as the buffers built into them are consumed in the name of efficiency.

The book transforms the reader into someone who sees infrastructure everywhere and might value it more highly, while calling attention to the uneven distribution of these systems both territorially and hierarchically and the ways their construction reflects power and culture.

Reading How Infrastructure Works slowly throughout 2024, the beginning felt in summer like a fun catalog of the wonders of the world and the slim chance we all have to work together to live on this planet in abundance and comfort. As the year draws to a close, oblivion again feels more likely than utopia, but if there is any hope at all it can be found in her plan for “rethinking the ultrastructure” and her call for a citizenship of care.

Recommended by Max Fenton

If you’re interested in purchasing one of these books, we encourage you to order it from an indie bookstore. If you don’t already have a go-to indie, you can check out some of our favorites here. Feel free to share your favorite books from 2024 in the comments. Happy reading!