These are the Most Read Books of the 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge
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
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 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
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.
More breaking news here
- The Most Anticipated 2025 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books, According to Goodreads
- The Bestselling Books of the Week, According to All the Lists
- The Most Popular Book Riot Posts of 2024
- The Most Read Books on Goodreads in 2024
- The Bestselling Books of the Week, According to All the Lists
- The New York Times Readers’ Picks for the Best Books of 2024
- The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week
- Here are Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2024
- The National Book Critics Circle Awards’ First Longlist for Poetry
- New York City’s Most Popular Library Checkouts of 2024