I read a record number of books in 2024, but only about 30% were nonfiction, which makes for an easier list (and no honorable mentions this year).
You can also check out my top 10 fiction and my reading stats.
- The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose – Hands down my favorite book of the year, another one that has been on my list for over a decade. A flaming liberal went undercover at Liberty University and it’s not a complete flaying of conservative Christianity. Shots fired for sure, but it’s much more nuanced.
- Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson – My quick review described this as “the most phenomenal book making sense of race I’ve ever read.” It’s long and it’s depressing, but it’s engaging and eye-opening.
- How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key – A brutally funny memoir about a guy who should have divorced his cheating wife but didn’t.
- Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal by Ben Sasse – This book was pitched as a bipartian political healing book, but it’s not. It’s more about our place in the world and how we relate, with an emphasis on the loss of community and the harm of our devices (related? yeah, probably!). I didn’t always agree with the author (a former Republican Senator), but I appreciated his arguments.
- Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Martin & George Floyd by Tamice Spencer-Helms – I called this the “powerful memoir I needed” at the time, but honestly, I read it almost a year ago and I barely remember any of it. It makes the top five based on what I think I remember, but that’s not very encouraging is it?
- We Need to Talk by Celeste Headlee – This was an audiobook that I remember thinking I needed to read in print so I could underline and take more away from it. If you’ve ever been in an awkward conversation, this book could diagnose why. Too bad I don’t remember enough to actually be helpful.
- Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran – I don’t know if this memoir lived up to the hype, but it read like a great coming-of-age story.
- Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez – If The Unlikely Disciple above didn’t flay conservative Christianity, this work does. It’s just a nonstop diatribe of the patriarchy baked into American Christianity.
- Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History by Kurt Anderson – This is probably longer than it needed to be, but it’s still a fascinating history of the fake in America from Puritan hypocrites to Disneyland.
- A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek by Ari Kelman – I’m not sure if the story of how the Sand Creek Massacre site become a National Historic Site will be as engaging for anyone else, but I enjoyed it. I visited the site a few years ago, and wanted to go a little deeper on the history so I picked up this tome, knowing I’d never get around to reading it. Well, I did. Fascinating how hard it is to reconclie our history.
Reading Trends
Memoirs dominated this list last year. I was on a memoir kick last year, so that’s no surprise. Though I thought it would spill over more to this year. I think I just wasn’t finding as many engaging memoirs. A few good ones, including the top spot, but it just wasn’t the same dominant trend.
More Reading
If you want to read more, check out my booklet 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading Again.
And how about previous top non-fiction lists: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012.
