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.
This is my last Attack of the Best Lists post of the year, although I will be revisiting all of this for my 2024 installment of Keeping Up with Books: Year in Review with Yaika Sabat for Novelist. It will be FREE and in February. Details soon, but here is the link describing the 2023 program so you get a sense of what to expect.
But back to day. Here is the list we all have been waiting for-- LitHub's aggregation of all the major best lists. From the landing page:
The Ultimate Best Books of 2024 List
Reading All the Lists So You Don’t Have To Since 2017
By Emily Temple
The end of the year is approaching, the universe is expanding, and the internet is updating—right now, it is mostly updating its Best Of lists. Therefore, per Literary Hub tradition, I now present to you the Ultimate List, otherwise known as the List of Lists—in which I read all the Best Of lists and count which books are recommended most.
In all the time I’ve done this, I’ve never seen a book run away with this list like Percival Everett’s James has this year: it was recommended a full dozen more times than the next most popular books. (It also won the National Book Award and the Kirkus Award, and was a finalist for the Booker—and with good reason.)
Overall, this year, I processed 69 lists from 39 outlets, which collectively recommended more than 1,200 individual books (RIP my spreadsheet). As always, these are probably not all the lists, but all universes have to end sometime. Anyway, 90 of those books made it onto 5 or more lists, and I have collated these for you here, in descending order of frequency.
This is the only single list you need to look at because Temple has done the most focused work of anyone out there. And the results, are RA gold for you. The post she has created seamlessly combines adult fiction, nonfiction, and GNs into one list. Further, she not only does the compiling for you, the sources are listed and linked (!) at the bottom of the page, so you can have DIRECT access to the 69 most influential publications' best lists, and the aggregation of which titles are on the most lists, with just this one click. It is crowdsourcing first, but also, a resource to dive deeper, all in one place.
But wait, there's more....
Multiple layer of backlist and indexing are happening here, meaning you can embrace "Best" across multiple years. Reminder, "Best" titles have a longer shelf life than the current year. Last year's best titles, even 5 years ago, are great suggestions for a wide swath of readers. Here's how LitHub makes it easy, all year long, with their clear, consistent, and accessible tags at the bottom of their posts:
- Click here for every Ultimate Best List going back to 2017. And not just end of the year Ultimate Lists
- Click here and here for all of LitHub's Best Books 2024 coverage, which look at everything from best books to biggest news stories (the top 50) to covers to genre reads, and more. They split the tags this year by mistake. Use both links.
- I really like this list-- the best old and new books the Lit Hub staff read in 2024.
- You can scroll to the bottom of any of the posts in the "Ultimate Best List" link and click on the page for that year's full Best Books Coverage. So, when you click on "The Ultimate Best Books of 2022 List" you can scroll to the bottom of that post and then click on the tag, "Best of 2022" for full coverage from that year. This can be repeated going back to 2017.
- Also, I wanted to remind people of the extremely useful Best of the Decade lists they made in 2019. Those are also a great "best" resource, one that truly embraces the treasure trove that is the backlist.
All of these tags pull up useful information in reverse chronological order, meaning you decide how far into the backlist you want to dig.
But wait, there is even more...
LitHub owns CrimeReads and they have their own Best of 2024 lists (but no useful tags to collection them all. Here are those best lists:
- Best Crime Novels of 2024
- Best True Crime Memoirs of 2024
- Best Debut Crime Novels of 2024
- Best Gothic Novels of 2024
- Best Espionage Fiction of 2024
- Best Speculative Crime Fiction of 2024
- Best Historical Fiction of 2024
- Best Horror Fiction of 2024
I AM NOT DONE YET. I told you I was saving the best for last.
LitHub also owns Book Marks a review aggregator. Full disclosure, they include Booklist and Library Journal so my reviews are part of this database. Here are their best reviewed fiction and nonfiction of 2024.
Okay, now that is the end. The final day of Attack of the Best Lists 2024. But please remember, you can use these lists all year long and the back lists as well. Click here for my Attack of the Best Lists consolidated coverage for 2023, 2022, and 2021. And note, each of those posts goes into the backlist for each list as well. going back to 2021 will take you back even further. There are literally hundred of titles here for you with one or 2 clicks that are sure to be on your shelves and satisfy a wide range of readers.
Back Monday and Tuesday with my most popular posts and my favorite reads of the year. Until then, stay safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment