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Another year, another Best Books list. We\u2019ve spent the last 12 months speaking with authors, from pop star-turned-poet Marina Diamandis<\/strong><\/a>, to novelist R.O. Kwon<\/strong><\/a>. We have dissected the memoirs of former first wives (Hillary Clinton<\/strong><\/a>, Melania Trump<\/strong><\/a>), and chronicled the literary dramas that set group chats and Slack channels aflame. (See: Honor Levy<\/strong><\/a>, Blake Butler<\/strong><\/a>.) We have excerpted brilliant books, including those penned by VF<\/em> editors, contributors, and friends: Griffin Dunne<\/strong>\u2019s The Friday Afternoon Club<\/em><\/a>, Lili Anolik<\/strong>\u2019s Didion and Babitz<\/em><\/a>, and Molly Jong-Fast<\/strong>\u2019s new introduction<\/a> to David Friend<\/strong>\u2019s The Naughty 90s<\/em><\/a> among them. In short, we have read, and read, and, read. And in addition to all of those, we just must add a few more. Here, the can\u2019t-miss books of 2024.<\/p>\n \u2018Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV\u2019 by Emily Nussbaum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Before all of America was unwittingly trapped in a hellacious, never-ending episode of The Surreal Life<\/em>, reality TV occupied an unusual place in the cultural landscape. It was a bold new medium built on formats as old as the radio broadcast, a curiosity and a boogeyman and a tantalizingly modern experimental entertainment all at once. New Yorker<\/em> writer<\/a> and Pulitzer winner Emily Nussbaum<\/strong> explores every facet of the genre in her scrupulously researched and reported book, which traces the contemporary reality show from its midcentury origins in fabulously popular but morally dubious programs like Candid Camera<\/em> and Queen for a Day<\/em> to the seismic premieres of An American Family<\/em>, The Real World<\/em>, Survivor,<\/em> and beyond\u2014ending, where else, with the first season of The Apprentice<\/em>. Much like a Bachelor<\/em> hopeful clutching a single red rose, I couldn\u2019t put it down. (Random House) \u2014Hillary Busis, senior editor<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The Bright Sword\u2019 by Lev Grossman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Lev Grossman<\/strong>\u2019s latest novel begins where most Arthurian fantasies end: with the death of the storied king who gave his name to the era, and a motley crew of surviving Round Table members who have no idea what to do next. They\u2019re spurred into action by Collum, a young wannabe knight with humble origins and a preternatural talent for sword fighting. Just as he did in the Magicians<\/em> trilogy, Grossman creates a fully absorbing and believable world populated by intriguing spins on well-established fantasy archetypes. The novel feels both classic and contemporary, and progressive in a refreshingly low-key way. A TV adaptation is already in the works; maybe it\u2019ll be the Game of Thrones<\/em> followup we deserve. (Sorry, House of the Dragon.<\/em>) (Viking) \u2014HB<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Rejection\u2019 by Tony Tulathimutte<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Not many books will actually make you laugh out loud. Even fewer are capable of stirring the full gamut of reactions stoked by this profane collection of linked stories, focused on a parade of losers so disgusting, pathetic, and\/or misanthropic that they don\u2019t even like each other. The terminally online Tony Tulathimutte<\/strong> has an eye for detail\u2014I\u2019m still impressed that a male author would describe a woman as being so depressed that she \u201cdoesn\u2019t bother to move her tampon string out of the way when she pees, so she just walks around all day with a damp string\u201d\u2014and a talent for creative perversion; the book\u2019s climax, as it were, is a story called \u201cAhegao, or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,\u201d in which a sad virgin lays out an excruciatingly comprehensive and ridiculous sexual fantasy. But don\u2019t take my word for it. Try this text from my brother (who, full disclosure, went to school with Tulathimutte): \u201cI almost shit my pants laughing.\u201d (Morrow) \u2014HB<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Martyr!\u2019 by Kaveh Akbar<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One of those rare fiction debuts that introduces a voice both thrillingly original and fully formed, Martyr!<\/em> feels like a new classic of angsty, reflective millennial literature. Kaveh Akbar<\/strong>\u2019s semi-autobiographical novel dances around place and time and between perspectives, in the construction of an intimate family saga anchored by massive existential questions. With as much richness found in the hero\u2019s journey of sobriety as his mother\u2019s mysterious fate, as much dark comedy found in a medical actor\u2019s rebellion as the bittersweet dynamic between father and son, the book feels both generous and pointed, finding its way toward sharply political conclusions with an urgency that never turns didactic, but resonates as piercingly personal. (Knopf) \u2014David Canfield, Hollywood correspondent<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir\u2019 by Ina Garten<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWriting the memoir was really a revelation for me, because I had always thought I was just lucky,\u201d Ina Garten<\/strong> told my colleague Keziah Weir<\/strong><\/a> of Be Ready When the Luck Happens<\/em>, Garten\u2019s long-awaited account of her fascinating life published in October. \u201cIn the process of going back\u2014and I mean, literally physically going back\u2014to Washington and spending time there, I realized that while I was working in the White House, I was teaching myself how to cook. I was buying old houses and renovating them and learning how to do construction and bank loans and things like that. I was also, at night, going to business school. And I think to myself, now, how exactly did I do all that? But I did it because I thought it was fun.\u201d From Garten\u2019s difficult childhood to meeting Jeffrey<\/strong>, her husband and steadfast champion of more than half a century, to honing her business acumen and coming into her own, in the Hamptons, Paris and wherever else she set foot, Garten\u2019s story is a masterclass on confidence, perseverance and the power of having someone in your corner. In these pages, Garten beautifully reflects on all she has created: an empire built on self-belief. (Crown) \u2014Maggie Coughlan, editor, style and culture<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Black Meme\u2019 by Legacy Russell<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With Black Meme<\/em>, Legacy Russell<\/strong>, chief curator of New York-based experimental art institution the Kitchen, continues her meditations on technology and Blackness. Given the topic of \u201cmeme,\u201d readers might anticipate this work to focus its scope on the advent of the Internet through the present. But as its subtitle nods to\u2014A History of the Images that Make Us<\/em>\u2014Russell expands the aperture to begin this journey through images with Lime Kiln Field Day,<\/em> a 1913 silent film and the oldest surviving feature with an all-Black cast. In predating the actual Internet with a reference like this Russell seamlessly reminds readers that the questions posed by the meme and greater contemporary digital language are long-standing points of discussion. Black Meme<\/em> makes clear we are an image based world and the foundational force shaping our understanding of this is Blackness. That acknowledgement naturally then brings forward questions of agency and authorship. Russell expertly explores and guides readers through the many quandaries therein allowing us to arrive on the other side, eyes wide and taking in the many, many sights (screens) almost as if for the first time tasked with better queries for our AI-powered-hyper-visible world but still with familiar demand: Reparations now! Free the Black meme!<\/em> (Verso) \u2014Arimeta Diop, editorial assistant<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The Last Kilo\u2019 by T.J. English<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n You loved Scarface? Narcos? Cocaine Cowboys? Cartel Land<\/em>? This is the latest literary-non-fiction installment in that arcane cocaine genre\u2013told by the desperadoes themselves. T.J. English<\/strong>, best known for his magnum opus, Havana Nocturne<\/em>, digs into the lives and crimes of the 1980s coke kingpins of Miami, who somehow managed to clean up the trafficking biz and turn it into yet another Great American Market. Throughout this deeply reported, multi-layered book, the swank mixes with the dank. In the end, as Bob Dylan<\/strong> named one of his \u201880s songs: \u201cEverything Is Broken.\u201d (Morrow) \u2014David Friend, editor of creative development<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The Message\u2019 by Ta-Nehisi Coates<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This slender, powerful study of freedom and morality by Ta-Nehisi Coates<\/strong>, author of Between the World and Me<\/em><\/a> has been one of the most controversial books of the year, but it is duly important. Coates puts a personal lens on the Black diaspora by traveling it, from Dakar to the mid East to the American South; his writing from and on Palestine nearly broke the so-called discourse. But the section on censorship and book banning in South Carolina (which Vanity Fair<\/em> excerpted<\/a>) underscores the narrative\u2019s necessity: \u201cThe cradle of material change is in our imagination and ideas. And whereas white supremacy, like any other status quo, can default to the clich\u00e9d claims and excuses for the world as it is\u2014bad cops are rotten apples, America is guardian of the free world\u2014we have the burden of crafting new language and stories that allow people to imagine that new policies are possible.\u201d (One World) \u2014Claire Howorth, executive editor<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018The Barn\u2019 by Wright Thompson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve already written about why I felt The Barn<\/em><\/a> was essential reading in the immediate aftermath<\/a> of the 2024 election\u2014the narrative is both an investigation into the horrifying murder of Emmet Till and a cultural examination of white power, white supremacy, in the 20th and 21st century south, from the perspective of a white Mississippian trying to come to terms with his own lineage. I\u2019ve since recently read the Erik Larson<\/strong> bestseller, In the Garden of Beasts<\/em><\/a>, about 1930s Berlin\u2014which Larson published in 2011, before the rise of Trump\u2014and I strongly believe that the more all-too-recent history we read, the better we may fare as humankind. There is a direct line here. (Penguin Press) \u2014CH<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Another Word for Love\u2019 by Carvell Wallace<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Another Word for Love<\/em> contains a page-length sentence. That is, Carvell Wallace<\/strong>‘s memoir is overflowing with lyrical language and blunt truths and questions left unanswered. The writer\u2019s short chapters offer vignettes of his childhood with a single mother, his lessons in masculinity as a queer, Black man, and his attempt to identify love, in all of its forms. This book is for anyone (all of us?) searching for the same. (MCD) \u2014Audrey Fromson, research manager<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018James\u2019 by Percival Everett<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I recommended<\/a> Percival Everett<\/strong>‘s James<\/em> to VF<\/em> readers in May. Six months later, my opinion has not changed\u2014and what’s more, the judges of the National Book Awards agree! Everett’s novel won the top prize for fiction at the annual ceremony on November 20. Everyone I’ve spoken to who has read this book has also loved it. It’s rare to find such critical consensus around a work of contemporary fiction, but then it’s rare, in my experience, to come across such a polished gem as James<\/em>. (Doubleday) \u2014Radhika Jones, editor in chief<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018All Fours\u2019 by Miranda July<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Once All Fours<\/em> began to dominate group chats around New York, I picked up the book and prepared to roll my eyes. Too much hype! But instead it was chaotic, joyous, and terrifying in all of the best ways. A totally refreshing take on what everyone seems to ask of women\u2014and what we dare ask of ourselves. (Riverhead) \u2014Alyssa Karas, global director of audience development<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Street-Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence\u2019 by Will Hodgkinson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n