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These are the Most Read Books of the 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge

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2024 isn’t over yet, but Goodreads has announced the 144 most read books of this year’s Goodreads Challenge. Nine million readers logged more than 350 million books for the challenge so far this year, and Goodreads has tabulated the titles that appeared the most often, sorted into genre.

The categories are Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thriller, Fantasy, Romantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Romance, Young Adult, Memoirs, History & Biography, and General Nonfiction. It’s a little surprising that Young Adult is just one category: in the Goodreads Choice Awards, there’s a separate YA Fantasy category.

A glance over the list shows just how long the tail is for these titles: most of the biggest books this year are not 2024 releases. For example, the second most read fiction title in 2024 was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which was the breakout book of 2022.

Here is just a selection of the 144 books marked as read the most often in 2024.

Fiction

cover of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

Historical Fiction

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters - book cover

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Fantasy

cover of Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree; illustration of fantasy characters behind the bar in a pub

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Read the full list of 144 books in 12 categories at Goodreads.

Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.