Some of the best books of 2024 as chosen by the people.

BooksDecember 17, 2024

The best books of 2024: The people’s choice

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Some of the best books of 2024 as chosen by the people.

The results of our reader survey of the best books of the year.

Over 300 Spinoff members responded to our call out to discover what people enjoyed reading locally and internationally this year. The results show a healthy crossover with The Spinoff’s best New Zealand books of 2024, with some welcome additions and a few surprises.

A major finding was the number of readers (more than a third) who didn’t put anything down for international nonfiction. Participants also read less New Zealand nonfiction than they did fiction. Does this mean that more of us are turning to escapism in these troubled times? Do we need emotional journeys and character connections more than ever?

Another note: many, many entries were disqualified due to the chosen book actually being published in 2023 or earlier (the survey asked for books published in 2024 only, except for the very final question, see below).

To make it onto any of the lists below a book had to have three or more votes. All lists are in order of most votes on down, with a minimal approach to commentary for the sake of brevity.

Fiction (New Zealand)

Sorry to all the people who selected The Bone Tree by Airana Ngawera, Bird Life by Anna Smaill, Lioness by Emily Perkins and Pet by Catherine Chidgey, none of which were published in 2024 (if we were in 2023 you’d be grand). Of 304 responses, 51 people did not put an entry in for New Zealand Fiction, which tells me some of you need to make more determined use of the New Zealand Fiction tables in your local bookshop (if they have one).

Amma by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press)

Winner of the The Spinoff’s People’s Choice for New Zealand Fiction 2024 (by a healthy margin) is the debut novel by Saraid de Silva. “AMMA is a tribute to the ways in which women persist, and the way they can help each other,” wrote Brannavan Gnanalingam in The Spinoff.

All that we know by Shilo Kino (Moa Press)

Great year for Moa Press (see above) and for Shilo Kino’s superb second novel, reviewed by Natasha Lampard o n The Spinoff.

Ash by Louise Wallace (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Short, powerful, funny-dark. “I realised I had been waiting for this: a revolutionary text in conversation with universal themes that are treated with a poet’s precision and a poet’s slant.” Read the full review here.

The Mires by Tina Makereti (Ultimo Press)

“The Mires is truly magic from beginning to end,” wrote HJ Kilkelly in The Spinoff.

Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Heart-breaking yet warming coming of old age. Read The Spinoff’s conversational review, here.

Kataraina by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

The sequel to Auē. Read Jenna Todd’s beautiful thoughts on it here.

Return to Blood by Michael Bennett

Welcome, crime genre! Fantastic to have you here, Mr Bennett.

The Grimmelings by Rachael King (Allen & Unwin)

It’s encouraging to see so many participants considered children’s fiction right alongside adult fiction for this survey (we strongly advise turning to children’s fiction when you’re in a reading slump or need have your will to live refreshed). The Grimmelings is “a book to savour,” wrote Courtney Johnston in The Spinoff.

The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Louise Ward and Gareth Ward (Penguin NZ)

The perfect cosy crime summer read from superstar booksellers of Wardini Books.

The Raven’s Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey (Allen & Unwin)

Another children’s novel! Read Hera Lindsay Bird’s brilliant review on The Spinoff.

At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin NZ)

A story of recovery after cancer, and the healing powers of nature and strangers (and sporter of one of the best covers of the year).

Nine Girls by Stacy Gregg (Penguin NZ)

This fantastic novel set in Ngāruawāhia won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at this year’s Children’s Book Awards 2024. Please also read this related and award-winning essay by Gregg.

The Space Between by Lauren Keenan (Penguin NZ)

Huge year for Keenan who published this historical fiction novel as well as the second in her time-travel series for children. Here’s a fascinating look at the objects that inspired The Space Between.

Home Truths by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin)

Sam Brooks’ review on The Spinoff is an excellent overview of this superb crime novel.

Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin)

Hawkins is a master of her craft. Funny, warm, clever. Also features in The Spinoff’s Best New Zealand Books of 2024.

When I Open the Shop by Romesh Dissanayake (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

“On every level – character, form, language – dissanayake manages to offer something both innovative and complex in when I open the shop. I loved this bold and beautiful book.” Read more from Maddie Ballard’s review in The Spinoff.

Pātea Boys by Airana Ngawera (Moa Press)

A bi-lingual collection of short stories from the author of The Bone Tree (which many participants did vote for but unfortunately missed the note about books having to be published in 2024.)

Fiction (International)

All Fours by Miranda July (Cannongate)

This year of 2024 will go down as the year of menopause novel: what with the roaring, ongoing success of Emily Perkins’ Lioness, and this heady short story by Lauren Groff in the New Yorker; but the menopause/midlife narrative to rule them all is this horny, radical autofiction masterpiece by polymath, July.

James by Percival Everett (Mantle)

Booker-Prize shortlisted retelling of Huckleberry Finn.

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)

Olive Kitteridge meets Lucy Barton.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber)

“Sally Rooney is known as the quintessential millennial writer, but many descriptions feel like they’re from a much earlier time. Sex is always described as “going to bed”, or “making love”.” Read more from Rebecca K Reilly’s review, here.

The Women by Kristin Hannah (St Martin’s Press)

Việt Nam war story by stonkingly popular historical fiction writer.

There are rivers in the sky by Elif Shafak (Viking Press)

Three characters, two rivers, one enchanting story.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan (Faber)

A fall from grace tale. O’Hagan is also host The Belgrano Diary, one of the best podcasts of the year.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)

The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.

Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

Literary crime with Agatha Christie vibes.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

The sequel to Brooklyn.

My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes

Queen Marian’s latest.

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (Orion)

Crime and romance. Cromance?

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors (Harper Collins)

Sister drama.

Earth by John Boyne (Transworld)

Gripping crime/courtroom drama.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (Pan Macmillan)

“If you knew when you were going to die, what would you do differently?”

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (Penguin)

Retired detectives can’t stop detecting.

Nonfiction (New Zealand)

Sorry to everyone who put The Observologist by Giselle Clarkson, and Ultrawild by Stephen Mushin, both superb books (see more here), but published in 2023. Of 304 entries, 68 people didn’t put an entry in for NZ Nonfiction. Curious.

Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Winner of the The Spinoff’s People’s Choice Award for New Zealand Nonfiction 2024. “These are fiercely multivalent pieces, unafraid of uncertainty or complication. Bad Archive touches on everything from tapestry weaving to a bender in Croatia to historical baby photography – but perhaps the question humming beneath every essay is really ‘what does it mean to change your perspective?'” wrote Maddie Ballard.

Otherhood edited by Alie Benge, Lil O’Brien and Kathryn van Beek (Massey University Press)

Fantastic and diverse collection of essays “on being childless, childfree and child-adjacent”. Have a read of Lily Duval’s sensational essay from this collection, here.

The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin)

Gripping, astonishing spy memoir.

Whaea Blue by Talia Marshall (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

A memoir from one of the most distinctive Aotearoa voices writing today. Read an excerpt, here.

Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngahuia te Awekotuku (HarperCollins)

A memoir from one of the most extraordinary scholars and activists in Aotearoa today. Read Matariki Williams’ review, here.

The Fight for Fresh Water by Mike Joy (BWB)

A memoir from tireless environmental activist and scientist. See an excerpt, here.

The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press)

How to look into your past to make sense of the present and future. Read an excerpt, here.

Make It Make Sense by Lucy Blakiston and Bel Hawkins (Moa Press)

Life advice, essays and poetry from self-starters / writers / brains behind Shit You Should Care About.

A Life Less Punishing: 13 Ways to Love the Life You’ve Got by Matt Heath (Allen & Unwin)

Life advice from actor, producer, radio host, columnist and musician.

Feijoa by Kate Evans (Moa Press)

The history of Aotearoa’s favourite/most divisive fruit. Read all about how Evan’s fell in love with the tangy green orbs, here.

Becoming Aotearoa by Michael Belgrave (Massey University Press)

Enormous and excellent new history of Aotearoa.

Becoming Tangata Tiriti: Working with Māori, Honouring the Treaty by Avril Bell (Auckland University Press)

Could not be more relevant to political events this year.

The Beautiful Afternoon by Airini Beautrais (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

A collection of essays by award-winning writer. Read an excerpt on The Spinoff, here.

Six-Legged Ghosts: The Insects of Aotearoa by Lily Duval (Canterbury University Press)

A beautiful but alarming book about the insect apocalypse in Aotearoa and why we need to do everything we can to stop it from taking away some of our most fascinating inhabitants.

Swirly World Lost at Sea by Andrew Fagan

Adventures of a solo sailor.

More from a Quiet Kitchen by Nici Wickes (Bateman)

How cooking simply can soothe stress.

This is the F#$%ing News by Paddy Gower (Allen & Unwin)

Gower’s memoir. Read an excerpt, here.

Nonfiction (International)

The answers to this questions were littered with books published in 2023, and a whopping 120 people of 304 left this answer blank. Here’s also where answers were stretched across far more books than any of the above, with many getting one or two votes, and far fewer getting the requisite three or more to make the list.

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing (Pan Macmillan)

This memoir of gardening and history of gardens was ahead by a lot. Those who enjoy Laing’s superb work would do well to try Megan Dunn’s The Mermaid Chronicles which made it onto The Spinoff’s Best Books of 2024 (there are mermaids but really it’s a memoir about making art, motherhood, trying to live a life that is both solvent and creatively satisfying).

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison (Granta)

Suspect that Jamison’s appearance at Auckland Writers Festival earlier this year (in a brilliant conversation with Noelle McCarthy) had something to do with this. Splinters is magnificent: Jamison is the master of writing intimate, detailed accounts of her life which somehow means it is about all life.

Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh (Ebury Publishing)

Delicious recipes.

Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna (HarperCollins)

Memoir from the OG Riot Grrrl, leader of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre.

Notable mentions (two votes each): Heresy: Jesus Christ & the Other Sons of God by Catherine Nixey; Kingmaker by Sonia Purcell; Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman; Nexus by Yuval Hurari; Sociopath by Patric Gagne; and What does Israel fear from Palestine? by Raja Shehadeh.

Bonus question: best book of 2024 regardless of where or when published

The top three books in this list mirrored what participants had also chosen as either their top NZ fiction, NZ nonfiction or international fiction. The rest of the list is weighted towards major international titles but with several local books there, too. Notably, there is only one nonfiction book on this list which further consolidates the theory that fiction ruled our reading habits this year.

Amma by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press)

Which makes this debut novel Supreme Winner (New Zealand) of The Spinoff’s People’s Choice Award for Best Book of 2024.

All Fours by Miranda July (Cannongate)

Which makes this novel Supreme Winner (International) of The Spinoff’s People’s Choice Award for Best Book of 2024.

Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Which makes this debut novel Supreme Winner (Nonfiction) of The Spinoff’s People’s Choice Award for Best Book of 2024.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber)

Kingsolver’s David Copperfield retelling was a huge hit of 2023 and people are still catching up.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Transworld)

Huge hit of 2023 and the people are still catching up.

Kataraina by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press)

Manawatu’s powerful sequel to Auē.

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber)

Brothers drama.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Penguin)

Sprawling, compelling, Irish novel.

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Penguin)

Kitterridge x Barton = magic.

Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton (HarperCollins)

Dalton’s survival tale about Lola who is on the run from the life she badly wants to leave behind.

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Oneworld)

Booker Prize winner 2023.

Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro (Allen & Unwin)

Magnificent novel of survival and competitive running from one of Aotearoa’s most promising new novelists.

Ash by Louise Wallace (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Thoroughly deserved spot among the best of the best.

Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Ditto.

And that concludes the trifecta of best-of lists for 2024. Thanks for reading! All the books above can be found at Unity Books.

Keep going!

BooksDecember 14, 2024

A love letter to my five friends

Venetia Sherson

Contributing writer

After nearly 50 years of friendship, Venetia Sherson thanks her inner circle.

Over a decade ago, when British anthropologist Robin Dunbar deduced humans typically have 150 friends, of whom just five are intimate, I did a head count. My inner circle aced the test. I have five close women friends with whom I laugh, vent and share my angst on growing old (“please tell me if I have a hair sprouting from my chin”). We have been friends for nearly 50 years, initially bonding over toddler toilet training. Now we share helpful tips for joint pain. I can’t imagine life without them.

But beyond the inner circle, I fell well short of Dunbar’s number. To reach 150, I would have had to include the drycleaner who greets me warmly by name, people who mistakenly call me Vanessa but still seem pleased to see me, and colleagues whom I haven’t seen for yonks. Even then I would be stretched. Dunbar defines friends as people you would not be embarrassed to approach at 3am in an airport transit lounge and share a drink with (that cuts out the drycleaner who doesn’t drink). If push came to shove, he says, they would also lend you five quid ($NZ10.69) if you asked.

I’m not especially bothered by the numbers. Quality over quantity has always been my yardstick. I gave up on Facebook because the friend requests were overwhelming, often from people I barely knew. But a new book edited by Rachael Cooke, The Virago Book of Friendship, made me think about what truly makes a friend and why some friendships flourish over time and others fade away. Cooke says her book (just released in New Zealand) brings together thoughts about friendship by 100 mostly women writers, covering school friendships to last goodbyes, and “from fallings-out to longed for reunions”. It is, she says, the result of her determination to uncover female friendships that have been largely neglected in storytelling.

My best friend at school was Colleen. The texting term BFF hadn’t been devised in those days, but I believed we would be friends forever. We went to the same school and shared a love of horses; she had cousins (dozens); I had none. Weekends at her family farm were full of adventure and risk. We swam our ponies in the swift-flowing Waihou River, clinging to their manes as they splashed to shore. When we were 15, and waiting for our School Certificate results (we passed), we dyed our hair the same colour (Napro Red). I was brunette and Colleen was blonde. My hair stayed frustratingly brown with warmish lights; hers turned a tarty shade of orange.

We phoned each other almost every night and talked mainly about boys and horses. There was gossip, too. Was the flamboyant French teacher queer, whose parents had split up and which girls were already doing “it” with their boyfriends. But we had to take care. Her phone was a party line (two short rings, one long) shared by three others. Mine was in our hallway within earshot of my older sisters.

At 19, against the counsel of our mothers, we abandoned our first jobs and left to travel overseas. On the six-week boat trip we got drunk on cherry brandy and coke and flirted with the deckhands. Colleen was more sexually advanced than me (my mother’s cautionary tales had a chilling effect) and as we hitchhiked throughout Europe she would often disappear for nights. Two years into our travels, she fell for a US serviceman in Spain. Some weeks later, on a train to Paris, she told me she was pregnant. She knew she couldn’t tell her family. Instead, I phoned my godfather in England, a kind and liberal-minded man, who discretely arranged and paid for a procedure by a doctor friend in Harley Street. Eighteen months later, I came home alone.

When we met again, I was married with a toddler. Colleen was living in another city and had come out as gay. We hugged when we said goodbye, but the bond was not the same. We never spoke again.

The person who had filled the void, I shall call D. Not because she wants to remain anonymous. But because I know she has 150 friends and many of them would claim she is as dear to them as she is to me. It seems selfish to claim her as my bestie.

We met at the newspaper where we were cadet reporters. We both had wardrobes filled with home-made clothes. D had married at 19. I was living “in sin” with my boyfriend. When I became pregnant eight years later (“unmarried mother”), she listened without judgement as I mulled my choices. At my registry office wedding some months later she and her husband were the only guests. I wore one of her beautiful Laura Ashley print dresses to hide my pregnant belly.

In the 1970s, our friendship flourished against the backdrop of the women’s movement. We read the same feminist literature, subscribed to Broadsheet magazine and attended United Women’s Conventions. We joined smaller workshops to learn more about our bodies, holding mirrors to our own vaginas.

The changing social climate gave us courage to speak out about reproductive rights, childcare, equal pay and who should clean the toilet in a marriage. We felt empowered and bullet-proof against the changing social landscape. But when my first son was born in 1978, I dissolved into a quivering wreck, thwarted by the competing stress of work and motherhood and breasts that would not feed my hungry baby on demand. The women who now form my inner circle were safe havens to vent, share survival tips and laugh. “New mothers make natural allies,” writes Rachael Cooke. “The swapping of secrets, a shared bottle of wine [engenders] the fortifying embrace of unity.”

How does friendship develop and endure? Research by the University of Kansas deduced it takes around 50 hours of socialising to move from acquaintance to casual friend and 200 hours to cement a “close” friendship. Proximity is an advantage. Friends are often co-workers or people who share the same pastimes. The more often you see someone, the more likeable you find them. But close friendship is much more than weekly coffees and walks in the park. Bonding is based on shared intimacies, values and respect.

My inner circle is united in our political views (I’m not sure how things would go if one of us supported Trump), a love of good food, books and despair over misplaced apostrophes. But more than that we share what one psychologist describes as “a depth and breadth of self-disclosure”. That means a willingness to reveal the things that sadden as well as gladden us. The ability to support one another during tough times is crucial to a friendship.

Over our lifetimes, each of us has suffered grief, trauma and major disappointment. In 1984, D’s parents died prematurely within weeks of each other, leaving her bereft and mourning the gaping loss of grandparents for her two young sons. We held each other in my kitchen. When one of my sons was diagnosed with cancer, she was the person I turned to. When her husband went into care with a cruel and debilitating illness I saw her navigate each change with unfailing love and dignity. “It must be a relief,” some said when he died. Her friends knew it was the cruellest thing to say.

There is much speculation about whether women’s friendships are different to men’s. Some studies have shown women have high expectations of their relationships, especially in terms of reciprocity (mutual support) and intimacy. Men less so. A study by the University of Oxford concluded male friendships are more likely to flourish around a shared activity while women prefer close, one-to-one interactions. But to suggest men only open up after a few pints at the pub is a sweeping generalisation, especially among younger men today.

And yet, in my view, there is nothing to compare with the glorious solid structure of female friendship that holds you close in times of trouble, lifts you up when you are flat and laughs with you until your belly hurts at silly anecdotes. Over the years, my women friends have become my family.

In her book, Rachel Cooke traces the growing acknowledgment of the power of female friendships through history. Victorian women, she writes, wore jewellery made from the hair of their female friends and lived together in marriage-like partnerships that were accepted, even exalted by family, wider society and the church. The feminist movement also created bonds between women frustrated by a system built on misogyny and exploitation. She laments the modern trend of “ghosting and frenemies” in which friends can be dropped unceremoniously from social media and mobile phones.

But my daughter-in-law, just turned 40, has the same type of close network of women friends as me. She calls them her “universe of trust – a place, where we can be ourselves, share our anger and insecurities, knowing we will not be judged by our friends in the cold light of day.”

The value of friendship is undisputed. The alternative – loneliness – is known to adversely affect mental and physical health and welfare and is now considered as bad for your health as smoking. But close friendship is also good for the soul. “An hour with a friend is pure oxygen, the relief of being seen and known and seeing and knowing in return”, wrote Guardian columnist Emma Beddington.

My five women friends are the kindest, wisest and wittiest women I know. Among them are two former teachers, a counsellor, a lawyer and two journalists. We are all now in our 70s. Some of us have retired and become artists, potters and volunteers. We are all active grandmothers. Over coffee or wine, we forcefully debate the issues of the day, set the world to rights and compare and share the books we love. I may not have 150 people I would class as friends, but I will happily settle for the gifts of love and understanding my inner circle offers every time we meet.