It’s Big Book Season again, and you know what that means: lists. (Yes, there are also lists during all the other seasons. Lists are (chaotic?) good.) It also means that it’s time again for Literary Hub’s Ultimate Fall Reading List, in which I valiantly endeavor to read all the seasonal literary recommendation/anticipation/best of lists I can find on the internet, and then report.
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This season, I processed a total of 27 lists, which collectively recommended a total of 464 books (there were much fewer lists, and therefore books, than last year at this time, alas—support your media!). I then collated the results to find the 78 books that were recommended three times or more, which I present here for you in descending order of popularity, beginning with the winner, which will shock absolutely no one:
20 lists:
Sally Rooney, Intermezzo
16 lists:
Louise Erdrich, The Mighty Red
Haruki Murakami, tr. Philip Gabriel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls
14 lists:
Rumaan Alam, Entitlement
13 lists:
Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
12 lists:
Richard Osman, We Solve Murders
Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything
11 lists:
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message
Richard Powers, Playground
Danzy Senna, Colored Television
Jeff VanderMeer, Absolution
10 lists:
Connie Chung, Connie: A Memoir
9 lists:
Cher, Cher: The Memoir, Part One
Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Empusium
8 lists:
Lili Anolik, Didion and Babitz
Matt Haig, The Life Impossible
7 lists:
Ina Garten, Be Ready When the Luck Happens
Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point
Garth Greenwell, Small Rain
Paula Hawkins, The Blue Hour
Robin Wall Kimmerer, ill. John Burgoyne, The Serviceberry
Sabaa Tahir, Heir
6 lists:
Kay Chronister, The Bog Wife
John Grisham and Jim McCloskey, Framed
Alan Hollinghurst, Our Evenings
Ketanji Brown Jackson, Lovely One
Liane Moriarty, Here One Moment
Al Pacino, Sonny Boy
5 lists:
Chelsea Bieker, Madwoman
Max Boot, Reagan: His Life and Legend
Stephen Colbert & Evie McGee Colbert, Does This Taste Funny?
Mariana Enriquez, tr. Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People
Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus
TJ Klune, Somewhere Beyond the Sea
Coco Mellors, Blue Sisters
Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, From Here to the Great Unknown
Richard Price, Lazarus Man
Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection
4 lists:
Pedro Almodovar, tr. Frank Wynne, The Last Dream
Louis Bayard, The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts
Paulina Bren, She-Wolves: The Untold History of Women on Wall Street
Virginie Despentes, tr. Frank Wynne, Dear Dickhead
Attica Locke, Guide Me Home
Alan Moore, The Great When
Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry
Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf
Rivers Solomon, Model Home
3 lists:
Charles Bock, I Will Do Better
Craig Brown, Q: A Voyage Around the Queen
Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals
Sophie Cousens, Is She Really Going Out with Him?
Edwidge Danticat, We’re Alone: Essays
Laura Dave, The Night We Lost Him
Tigest Girma, Immortal Dark
Chloe Gong, Vilest Things
David Greenberg, John Lewis: A Life
Nick Harkaway, Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel
Rachel Harrison, So Thirsty
Alexis Henderson, An Academy for Liars
Yuri Herrera, tr. Lisa Dillman, Season of the Swamp
Isabel Ibañez, Where the Library Hides
Karl Ove Knausgaard, tr. Martin Aitken, The Third Realm
Daniel M. Lavery, Women’s Hotel
C.J. Leede, American Rapture
Betsy Lerner, Shred Sisters
Muriel Leung, How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster
Ann Liang, A Song to Drown Rivers
Nora Nguyen, Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour
Keke Palmer, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative
Dolly Parton, Good Lookin’ Cookin’
Oliver Radclyffe, Frighten the Horses
Del Sandeen, This Cursed House
Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez, Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon
Sarah Smarsh, Bone of the Bone
Dava Sobel, The Elements of Marie Curie
Nicholas Sparks, Counting Miracles
Wright Thompson, The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
Mary L. Trump, Who Could Ever Love You
Jerald Walker, Magically Black and Other Essays
The List of Lists Surveyed:
Kirkus’s 150 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall • The New York Times’s 24 Works of Fiction and Poetry to Read This Fall and 22 Nonfiction Books to Read This Fall • TIME’s The 32 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024 • Vulture’s 27 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Fall • The Washington Post’s 41 new books to read this fall • NPR’s Here are the new books we’re looking forward to this fall • People’s Must-Read Books of Fall 2024 • Oprah Daily’s The 28 Best Books of Fall • The Guardian’s The best new novels for autumn 2024 • BookPage’s Our most anticipated books of fall 2024 • The Los Angeles Times’s 30 books to read this fall • Publishers Weekly’s Adult Books for Fall 2024 (top 10 lists) • Town & Country’s The 60 Must-Read Books of Fall 2024 • Goodreads’s Readers’ Most Anticipated Books of Fall • The Walrus’s Best Books of Fall 2024 • Bustle’s The Best New Books of Fall 2024 • Parade’s The 43 Best New Book Releases: Fall 2024 • E!’s You’ll Want to Add These 2024 Fall Book Releases to Your TBR Pile • AARP’s Fall 2024 Books Preview • LibbyLife’s Fall 2024 Book Preview • Polygon’s The 26 must-read books of fall 2024 • Chatelaine’s Our Favourite Fall 2024 Books • The Everygirl’s The Most Anticipated New Books of Fall 2024 • Bookshop’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024 • and of course, Lit Hub’s 17 Novels You Need to Read This Fall.
