NPR’s Top Book Recommendations for Summer 2024

Need a book to curl up with on the beach or to pack in your carry-on for a long flight this summer? The staff at NPR has selected some of the best books released so far in 2024.

Andrew Limbong, host of NPR’s Book of the Day, analyzes the long list and offers some selected favorites.

NPR’s Best Books of 2024

fiction

“It’s this really funny exploration of lying, but also kind of a funny parody of what’s encouraged in the writing industry,” Limbong says. “For a debut author, I think that makes a really strong first impression.”

“It’s about a recently divorced woman named Celeste who meets an experienced birder named John,” says Limbong. “And by the virtue of the romantic comedy gods, Celeste has to be John’s birding partner.”

“It’s about two Indian-Americans whose parents are pressuring them to get married and pushing them into this arranged marriage, and they decide, ‘You know what? Let’s just make her happy,'” Limbong says. “You have to make your parents happy.”

“It’s an interesting and funny look at aging and desire,” says Limbong. “It’s kind of about that transitional time in life.”

• “James“” by Percival Everett

“It’s a retelling of the ‘Huck Finn’ story from James’ point of view,” Limbong says. “This is Huck’s friend who escapes slavery, and the book plays with history and language in a really fun way.”

Non-fiction

“A few years ago, when the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Dobbs case that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett opined that adoption could relieve a person of their parental duties and responsibilities just as abortion could,” Limbong says. “The book takes a very close look at what it really means for a woman to be pregnant, have the baby and then put it up for adoption.”

“It’s about his time as a boy in the 1970s, when he experienced a really unbelievable amount of abuse and cruelty,” says Limbong. “I think ultimately it’s a book about taking control of your own story.”

“It’s about a train fire in India in 2002,” says presenter Deepa Fernandes. “These are the memories of a Muslim teenager who experienced the terror.”

This segment aired on July 5, 2024.