Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are top stories from the last week.
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The Books New York Times Readers Loved in 2024
The NYT continues to slice and dice best-of coverage in 2024, from all-century selection all the way today to reader choices for favorite books of 2024. I always wonder if slight difference in adjectival choice would yield noticeably different results or not? Do readers clock favorites all that differently than best? What about fun? Recommendable? Memorable? Dare I say notable? The selections here are not weighted or tallied, but rather anecdata and pull-quote. Which is honestly fine. Hearing directly why pretty serious readers liked the books they like from 2024 is a welcome break from another list.
The Most Borrowed Books in New York City Libraries in 2024
It is one of the greater strangeness of New York City that it’s libraries are more a confederation that an an integrated system, but one interesting effect is that because of this, data is collected by borough, which shows how the different parts of the city do seem to read differently:
Chief Librarian Brian Bannon said he noticed a number of differences in genre preference by borough while scanning NYPL’s list.
“The Bronx is more like thriller, memoir, historical fiction. Manhattan — literary fiction, social contemporary, relationship driven. Queens, I saw fantasy, thriller, diverse voices, and then Staten Island — thriller, family drama, comfort reads.”
The top book overall was Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, though in Queens it was The Women and in The Bronx it was The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
More Bold Than Cozy: Drama In The Coloring Book Community—What It Is and Why It Matters
I generally don’t pick a Book Riot piece for one of the three main stories of the day (does anybody notice that I pick three stories with a BR piece kicker most days?), but Kelly Jensen’s deep dive into drama in the world of coloring booksreally is worth spotlighting today and would be even if we didn’t publish it. Admittedly, it is less of a “book” story that I generally am interested in, but it is about inspiration, modern retailing, virality, modes of production, and globalization. Good stuff.
2024 NBCC Awards Longlist: Fiction
With the PEN Award, the NBCC often has the most unexpected end of year finalists, but this year’s list is probably as a consensus of a lists from them as I can recall. Only two here stand out as unusual: Sister Deborah and Us Fools, though this might be the highest profile list out this year that does not include All Fours.