The Lit List – 2024 Retrospective

Top 10: Burton Book Club’s Best Books of the Year

In no particular order, here are our members’ favourite reads of this year. Some of our book club members also added a short review to their nomination. Whether you are looking for book recommendations for yourself, or you are still looking for the perfect Christmas present for the avid reader in your life, this is the list for you.

1. Fire by John Boyne. The third in a quartet of element-related novellas, each one focussing on a different moral question. Boyne leads the reader down a path to reveal our prejudices. With his writing, everything is there for a reason.
2. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey. A young girl sets out to find the Yorkshire Ripper. Meanwhile, racism, bigotry and sexism abound under her nose.
3. MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
4. Nothing but the Truth by Anna Politkovskaya
5. North Woods by Daniel Mason. The 400-year history of a house in the woods of New England, told through its many inhabitants. A greenfingered soldier, a lovelorn artist, a crime reporter, an elm bark beetle. The human and non-human cast of characters in North Woods show how we are interconnected with each other and with the Earth. Mason’s writing is full of humanity and wonder of nature. Inventive, mystical and beautifully written.
6. The Fury by Alex Michaelides.
7. The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard. In a valley bordered by identical valleys, populated by the same people but at 20-year intervals, there are few more influential positions than that of Conseil. The Conseil get to decide who can travel between valleys to their past or future. Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne, shy and dutiful to her mother’s ambition applies for this coveted position. But when she witnesses a mourning tour from the future come to view her friend Edme, a boy for whom she is developing stronger feelings, she is devastated to realise he will soon die.This striking philosophical debut explores regret, memory, love and ethics.While often bleak, it is beautifully written and well worth seeing through to the end.
8. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
9. Verdigris by Michele Mari. Language and memory. The stories well tell and those we withhold. A mash-up between Pan’s Labyrinth and Jean de Florette.
10. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. The importance of culture in our lives.

If you liked this literary list, see here for more Lit Lists and book reviews.

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