Mercantile Librarians' favorite books of 2024

Every year, we ask our Librarians to give us their favorite reads of the year. And every year, they grumble. When you read stacks and stacks of great books, it's hard to whittle the list to Top 5.

But for the sake of your TBR lists, they did the work and offer up these recommendations from a year of reading:

JOHN

• Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
• The Sisters Brothers, Patrick Dewitt
• London Rules, Mick Herron
• The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
• James, Percival Everett -- The idea of this was remarkable. The book was better.

AL

• Orbital, Samantha Harvey
• Why We Love Baseball, Joe Posnanski
• Clear, Carys Davies
• The Fox Wife, Yangsze Choo
• A Walk in the Park, Kevin Fedarko — A surprisingly funny, touching adventure in the Grand Canyon.

CHRIS

• The Heart in Winter, Kevin Barry
• Bowie in Berlin: A New Career In A New Town, Thomas Jerome Seabrook
• The Hours, Michael Cunningham
• The Order of Time, Carlo Rovelli
• Lou Reed: The King of New York, Will Hermes - Perfect for anyone interested in Reed's music or the NYC underground of the 60s and 70s.

KARA

• James, Percival Everett
• Witness, Jamal Brinkley
• Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward
• The Fire This Time, Jesmyn Ward
• Leslie F*cking Jones, Leslie Jones: Raw, unfiltered, and comedic storytelling made this memoir my favorite read of 2024. Her journey had me laughing, crying, and then laughing all over again—a powerful and inspiring story of resilience that isn't too heavy.

HILLARY

• Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe
• There’s Always This Year, Hanif Abdurraqib
• Say Hello To My Little Friend, Jennine Capo Crucet
• Bite By Bite, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• Marytr!, Kaveh Akbar — Absurd, poetic & touching, I was always excited to pick this book up, to see where it would go next.

MICHAEL

• There's Always This Year, Hanif Abdurraqib
• Rebel Girl, Kathleen Hanna
• In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown, Amy Gary AND The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown, Mac Barnett
• Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, Patrick Radden Keefe
• James, Percival Everett – This is my favorite book this year, and the one that has stayed with me the longest. Absolute genius.

AMY

• Glad to the Brink of Fear: A Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Marcus
• Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue, Sonia Purnell
• Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe
• Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham
• The Known World, Edward P. Jones — I read it right after reading James, which made it all the more impactful.

CEDRIC

• Impossible Creatures, Katherine Rundell
• The Anthropologists, Ayşegül Savaş
• Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake
• Good Things Happen Slowly, Fred Hersch
• Psychedelic Outlaws, Joanna Kempner