Unlike my worst books of the year, I don’t see coherent themes in this list, nor is there a clear standout. None of these are perfect; they all annoyed me, just a little, in some way. In whittling the list down to ten, I tried to keep only the books where the annoyance is more about me than the book. In the order I read them:

• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. They don’t write them like this anymore. Sprawling historical love story based on The Odyssey. Bonus: gave us a great movie adaptation starring Jude Law at peak hotness.
• The Book of Evidence by John Banville. This actually could be a standout. Pitch perfect, creepy as hell, and based on a true story, but this book does so much more than recount or sensationalize. 
• Big Mall by Kate Black. If you want to read about the intersection between resource extraction, colonialism, animal cruelty, violence, tourism, architecture, and your local shopping mall, this is probably your best (and only) bet. My review and interview here.
• Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park. This reminded me of Infinite Jest (complimentary) not only in content – sports, alternate history, Canadian subplot that I didn’t see coming- but in how it blew my fucking mind.
• Poor Things by Alasdair Gray. Yes, it was a book first. Yes, the book is “better,” in that, there’s more there, and more of Bella Baxter in particular. 

• Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, tr. Sam Bett and David Boyd. I stayed away from this one for too long because I had the impression that it was one of those very on-the-nose feminist “message” novels, but it’s not. It’s brilliant.
• Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer. A rare case of an author’s social media presence selling me on a book. He vindicated my pickiness about Oxford commas and insistence on the proper use of “begs the question.” It’s the perfect book to read while falling asleep (complimentary.)
• Any Person is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert. This is what I was looking for in the handful of millennial woman writer/critic essay collections I read this year. Humour, literary criticism, and, notably lacking in the others I read this year, humility.
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. If I reread WH in a given year, it will appear on my best books list. 
• Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell. A near-future climate disaster novel in which things start going downhill rapidly in 2025 might be a bit much right now, so I’m glad I read it in 2024.

I don’t need to ask for your best books, we’re all posting them. Keep them coming!