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Books We Love

Great reads, thoughtfully curated by npr.

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What is this thing?

Books We Love is NPR’s interactive reading guide. Mix and match tags such as Book Club Ideas , Biography & Memoir or Eye-Opening Reads to filter results and find the book that’s perfect for you or someone you love.

How are the books selected?

We reached out to our staffers and trusted critics and asked them to nominate their favorite books published in 2024. They responded with hundreds of titles. Then, the editors and producers at NPR Books sat down with a huge spreadsheet of responses; we resolved duplications, noted omissions, considered the overall mix and balance of books recommended and then made assignments.

Why isn’t this just a list?

Back in 2013, the NPR Books staff was suffering from an acute case of list fatigue. So we teamed up with our friends at NPR News Apps and started to think about a site that would be more Venn diagram-y than list-y – a site that could help you seek out the best biographies that were also love stories, or the best mysteries that were also set in the past. We wholeheartedly believe that human beings are capable of absorbing new information in formats that are 1) not sequentially ordered and 2) wait … dammit! and 3) never mind.

But no, really, I just want to see a list of books

We got you. To view these books as a list of titles rather than as an array of covers, you are welcome to select the “List” option in the upper right-hand corner of the site.

So what’s the deal with these tags?

At NPR Books, we’re all about discovery: helping you find your next great read – the mystery you can’t put down, the memoir you recommend to all your friends. In 2013, we hashed out a basic taxonomy that was both functional (e.g., Biography & Memoir or Kids’ Books ) and fun (e.g., It’s All Geek To Me and Let’s Talk About Sex ). Over the years, we’ve refined our filters and added new tags, like The States We’re In and No Biz Like Show Biz .

The names are cute, but what do they mean?

The States We’re In is for stories of the American experience both true and fictional. It’s All Geek To Me is for deep dives on particular topics – trees, personality tests, tiny houses, you name it. In The Dark Side , you’ll find dystopias, serial killers, true crime and people behaving badly in general. Eye-Opening Reads will give you a new perspective on the topic at hand, whether it’s the state of philanthropy or a new pair of shoes.

How do the books get tagged?

Our critics and staffers make suggestions, but to ensure we are applying tags consistently, the producers and editors at NPR Books consider and discuss every tag on every book.

That must take a very long time

Can i look under the hood.

If you want to know more about how Books We Love was designed and coded, you can read about the process here . And if you’re curious to see the code and adapt it for your own project, you can check it out here .

If I click on the links and purchase one of the books, does that purchase help NPR?

Yes. And you can read more about how that works here .

How can I stay up to date on reviews and recommendations from NPR Books?

Sign up for our newsletter ! Every week we will send interviews, stories and reviews right to your inbox.

Subscribe to our podcast ! NPR’s Book of the Day brings you today’s great reads in 15 minutes or less.

Have fun exploring Books We Love! We hope you find something wonderful to read today.

The 2024 Books We Love team: Andrew Limbong , Beth Novey , Dhanika Pineda and Meghan Collins   Sullivan

Project Credits

This edition of Books We Love was published on Nov. 25, 2024.

• Produced and edited by Beth Novey, Meghan Collins Sullivan, Dhanika Pineda and Bridget Bentz
• Design and development by Brent Jones and Alyson Hurt
• Copy edited by Preeti Aroon and Pam Webster
• Branding work by Luke Medina and Alexander Reade

Previous editions of Books We Love: Annette Elizabeth Allen, Preeti Aroon, Jeremy Bowers, Tayla Burney, Nicole Cohen, Patricia Cole, Danny DeBelius, Camila Domonoske, Beth Donovan, David Eads, Juan Elosua, Jess Eng, Natalie Escobar, Rose Friedman, Alice Goldfarb, Christopher Groskopf, Geoff Hing, Clinton King, Becky Lettenberger, Megan Lim, Wes Lindamood, Petra Mayer, Amy Morgan, Koko Nakajima, Duy Nguyen, Beth Novey, Maureen Pao, Katie Park, Ashley Pointer, Christina Rees, Arielle Retting, Ellen Silva, Meghan Collins Sullivan, Ruth Talbot, Shelly Tan, Pam Webster, Glen Weldon, Thomas Wilburn, Matthew Zhang

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/heres-a-dozen-books-from-2023-you-should-read-critics-say

Here’s a dozen books from 2023 you should read, critics say

As the year comes to a close, we’re sitting down with book critics to discuss some of the best books released in 2023. NPR’s Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan and New York Times books editor Gilbert Cruz share their favorite fiction and nonfiction picks with Jeffrey Brown.

”Absolution” by Alice McDermott

– Maureen Corrigan

“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride

“The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray

– Gilbert Cruz

“North Woods” by Daniel Mason

“The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder” by David Grann

“How to Say Babylon” by Safiya Sinclair

“Master Slave Husband Wife” by Ilyon Woo

“Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World” by John Vaillant

“Beware the Woman” by Megan Abbott

And more personal favorites…

Maureen Corrigan recommended “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett and Gilbert Cruz suggested “Fourth Wing” and “Iron Flame” by Rebecca Yarros.

In his more than 30-year career with the News Hour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the News Hour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Producer of CANVAS at PBS News Hour.

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Title: Meet The Voice Behind NPR Fresh Air’s Book Reviews

In “Behind the CV,” we explore professors’ deepest passions, what makes them tick and how they got to where they are in academia.

Maureen Corrigan grew up loving all sorts of books. After earning her undergraduate English degree and on her way to her Ph.D., she applied for a job as a book critic at what would become one of the most popular radio shows in America.

She was rejected for being “too academic.” But that didn’t hold her back from trying again.

Thirty-five years later, Corrigan is one of the most recognizable radio and podcast voices as the book reviewer for Fresh Air , one of the most popular programs on public radio and a hit NPR podcast. 

On top of reading countless books every year for Fresh Air , she also teaches in the College of Arts & Sciences as the Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism. She is also a prolific writer and has authored two books while regularly writing for the Wall Street Journal , Washington Post and other major media outlets

“I still feel like I’ve got the greatest combination of jobs in the world,” Corrigan said. “I get to go back and read classics like The Great Gatsby every year with my students, and then I get to read the latest books that are coming down the pike.”

Discover how Corrigan found her love of books and became one of the country’s most popular book critics.

Behind the CV: Maureen Corrigan on NPR, Book Reviews, and What Makes a Great Read

My love of reading came: early from my dad, who was a refrigeration mechanic and loved to read. He would come home from work installing refrigeration systems on buildings all over New York City and he would always crack open a paperback, usually an adventure story about World War II since he had been in the war, but also detective novels and some canonical novels. I remember one day when he saw me reading A Tale of Two Cities for school and he said, “That’s a good one.” So that kind of encouragement to read really took root.

The first book that made me upset: was Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch because my mother was set on giving it to a younger cousin and I wanted to keep that book. I was probably around six and I really loved that book because it was about a woman with a lot of children. As an only child I was fascinated by big families.

The summer of 1975 was magical because: One of my wonderful English professors at Fordham, Mary Fitzgerald, took six of us rabid English majors to the Yeats International Summer School. She knew Seamus Heaney, who later won the Nobel Prize, and we kept running into him all throughout that trip in Dublin and Sligo. My memory of that summer is of a time that was enchanted. I met a lot of writers and poets and saw that they were living a life immersed in literature, and I felt that somehow such a life might be possible.

Why I hated my Ph.D program: I went to Fordham University for college and had the greatest professors of my life there, and they inspired me to go ahead for my Ph.D.  I was fortunate to be awarded a fellowship to the University of Pennsylvania, but hated the Ph.D program — although I stuck it out because I wanted to be a professor. I was at Penn during the period when deconstruction and continental critical theory ruled, and I found those ways of talking about books deadening and, now I would say, elitist, too. 

I love to teach because: It’s a lot like opening up a fresh book. You walk into the classroom the first day of the semester, and you don’t know who you’re going to be with for the next few months and what your shared experience is going to be. When a class gels, you really feel, as a professor, that you and your students are all together on a freshly illuminating and, sometimes, unpredictable journey through the material.

I got into reviewing books when: a friend of mine in graduate school asked if I would help her with a take-home editing test for a job she was applying to at the Village Voice , which was back then the greatest alternative newspaper in America. The Village Voice is the newspaper that the Georgetown Voice is named after. I helped her, and as a way of thanking me, she asked if I wanted to try to write a book review for the literary supplement. Writing that review felt like the magic antidote to what I so disliked about academic writing. It was as if somebody gave me a life support system to get through the rest of graduate school. In my reviews I could write about books with enthusiasm and humor and, I hope, intelligence, rather than putting my voice through what I considered to be the “deflavorizing machine” of academic critical theory.

“Writing that review felt like the magic antidote to what I so disliked about academic writing. It was as if somebody gave me a life support system to get through the rest of graduate school.” Maureen Corrigan

I landed my job at NPR’s Fresh Air because: I had a gig during two summers during graduate school grading AP English exams. I always compare the speed with which we had to grade those essays to the classic scene of Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory. The conveyor belt would get faster, and you, as a grader, had to read faster. The system was nuts and immoral. I did an exposé for the Village Voice about that escapade. A producer from Fresh Air called me and asked me to do a much shorter on-air version for the show, and the folks at Fresh Air liked it and asked me if I would like to join as a secondary book critic. John Leonard was the book critic at the time and had a reputation for being very generous to younger writers, and when he eventually left the show, I became the book critic — a position I’ve held for some 35 years and counting. 

Reading books every day never gets old: because, while the books I’m considering as a critic may not always be great, they’re always new. Every year there are some books by writers I haven’t read before who are amazing; every year there are books by familiar writers I love who surprise me by going off in new directions. You just never know what you’re going to encounter when you open up a book.

I choose what books to review by: making a master list of what’s coming out at least a season ahead. I probably get at least 25 emails a day from publicists and publishers. I also talk to independent booksellers I know and trust to learn what forthcoming books they are excited about. My current review list changes from week to week. If I feel like I’m getting in a rut or I’m doing a lot of literary fiction, I’ll make a special effort to find some promising non-fiction or genre fiction. If I’m doing a lot of books from major publishing houses written by big-name authors, I’ll try to make a special effort to change up my review list and find an academic or independent press book or something else that’s a little off-road. 

What makes a great book is: if it’s fresh, authentic, conceived out of the author’s soul or imagination; in short, a subject hasn’t been done 5,000 times before or not quite in that same style or voice or form before.

A book I keep coming back to: The Great Gatsby . I’ve read Gatsby well over a hundred times. I learn something new every time I reread it:  that’s one of the marks of a great work of art. Gatsby, as F. Scott Fitzgerald himself said, is about aspiration. It’s about reaching with the knowledge that one’s efforts are always going to fall short. And Fitzgerald’s language is so gorgeous. It’s almost unearthly. As other people have said, the last seven and a half pages of The Great Gatsby are the best writing that anybody has ever produced about the promise of America.

In my free time, I gravitate toward: hard-boiled detective fiction. At its best, it’s a form that investigates the underside of American life and society. Detective fiction is also the only literary genre where the act of thinking is at the center of the narrative.  Edgar Allan Poe, the inventor of the detective story, called his strange new creation “tales of ratiocination” — tales of thinking. How do you make thinking itself engrossing, suspenseful, even sexy? That’s the challenge for detective fiction writers. 

If you asked me how many books I read this year: I couldn’t possibly tell you. 

Behind the CV

Do Men Really Think About the Roman Empire Every Day? This Roman History Professor Sure Does

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