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Monday, December 2, 2024

Attack of the Best Lists 2024: Library Journal

 This post is part of my year end "Attack of the Best Lists" coverage. To see every post in my "Attack of the Best Lists 2024" coverage [and more backlist best of the year options] you can click here.

Since I took last week off, there are MANY best book lists to catch up on this week. Today we will begin with one that released this morning! And it is one I played a small part in-- Library Journal's Best Books 2024!


FIND GREAT BOOKS EVERYWHERE

Reading is a resource. It creates community and connections; fuels joy, revelation, and immersion; is company for a quiet afternoon or a quick break; and underpins a life of endless discovery, imagination, learning, and illumination. We celebrate the wondrous activity of reading with this list of 144 titles, books that delighted LJ reviewers, columnists, and editors. These works made us put them down and think—and pick them up again at any free moment. The books on this list drove conversations at work, with friends, with the barista, the dog walker, and the dentist. They are the books that make us happy to be readers. We hope you find these great reads on your library shelves and in your communities, and we hope you find more great reads every day in the year to come.

Illustration by Susanna Harrison

I am very happy to have been part of the team who looked at the year that was and prioritized the reading experience of these titles as we weighed their status as best. It is a refreshing way to look at the "best" tag. As I went through the Horror selection experience over a couple of meetings with my editor and list mate, Melissa DeWild, the conversations we had about all of the titles we considered was enlightening. 

Please note, this is the LJ Best Horror list. It it is similar to, but not exactly, my personal Horror Best List for 2024. As we look at the genre, only titles that got a star in the Horror category in LJ can be considered. 

The experience of working on this list is very fulfilling. Plus, I had the pleasure of writing all the annotations for the Horror list.

But back to the entire Best Books 2024 portal, I hope you all take away more from these lists than merely which titles are included and which excluded, and rather use them as a jumping off point to consider your own "bests"- both yours and your patrons. Prioritizing the reading experience is such a helpful way to think about which books rise to the top. 

Below are the categories, linked to the lists. Each category is offered as a web page  that you can post and share with your patrons more easily. And there is a bonus category of "Captivating Covers" this year again as well.  [Reminder, we can judge books by their covers]

But first, here are the links to the 2023202220212020and 2019 lists

Again, here is the portal page link, but you can also use the category links below.

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