As 2024 nears its close, we’d like to share with you the best things we’ve read this year—the third annual installment of a tradition we’ve come to love. The list spans new and old, fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose. Some books provided escape; others challenged us.

Here are a few of them:

Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship: The Correspondence of E.B. White and Edmund Ware Smith

“I’ve always wanted to hang out with E.B. White on his farm. That’s exactly what this book felt like.”

—Nate, managing partner

Martyr!, by Kaveh Akbar

“Funny, heartbreaking and a beautiful mix of poetry and prose that I can’t stop thinking about.”

—Lydia, writer

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

“This isn’t just a book—it’s a demonstration of how layers of narrative can be carefully excavated to reveal profound truths.”

—Lakeisha, project coordinator, proofreader and copy editor

There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland, by Steven Hyden

“This book renewed my appreciation for an overfamiliar classic, and it makes a convincing case for why the political climate of the ’80s allowed for such populist art to flourish.”

—Andrew, editor

The Year of the Hare, by Arto Paasilinna

“A fast-moving absurdist comic masterpiece about indulging the urge to say ‘screw it’ and live life firmly on one’s own terms.”

—Matt, senior editor

Peruse the full list of our favorite reads of 2024 here. If you read something recommendation-worthy this year, we’d love to hear about it.