The Best Books of 2024 (According to SAL Staff & Board)
December 11, 2024
As we head into the holiday season, we asked our staff and board the real question: what’s the best book you read in 2024? If you’re looking for which to books to cozy up with this winter, look no further than this list!
Alison Stagner, Director of Events & Outreach
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
The New York Times called this book a “beautiful bummer,” and I guess that’s just my vibe because I fell hard for this book and couldn’t put it down. It’s about many things, despite being a quick read: it’s about an insidious romance between a nineteen-year-old and a man thirty years her senior; it’s about East and West Germany and the heartbeat between the two countries; it’s about the cultural, political, and artistic histories of a nation that has made horrifying mistakes, and the people unable to let go of their old ideals, all enlived by Erpenbeck’s gorgeous prose.
Susan Long-Walsh, Board Member
Legacy by Uche Blackstock, MD
In Legacy, Dr. Uché Blackstock writes about losing her pioneering physician mother and the pervasive health woes of Black Americans. Reading this story about Dr. Blackstock’s ongoing work to make real progress through health equity is a profound personal reminder of my passion for fighting for equity in the workplace. It takes a village!
Kelli Martin, Board Member
The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg
I love this book because it reveals a woman’s becoming over and over again. We don’t ever stop becoming, do we. Plus, it has one of the most gorgeous lines of promise I’ve ever read ~ “I want to love differently this go-round — to not throw anybody, not even myself, away.”
Rebecca Hoogs, Executive Director
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
I’m a sucker for time-travel books, and this one combines time travel with polar exploration and a contemporary critique of colonialism. Throw in a good dose of romance and I was hooked! A gripping plot and delightful writing on the sentence level kept me staying up past my bedtime to read this one!
Inez Maubane Jones, Grants & Sponsorships Manager
The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
You can’t go wrong with historical fiction! This is another worthwhile read set at a time that seems removed from present day challenges with its rich story of two young Black women, their families and their love stories. It doesn’t end there… it’s an immersive, captivating read that highlights two characters that seem very different but have a common thread. You’ll have to read it to find out what that is…
Grace Rajendran, Marketing Manager
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
This is a gorgeous love story to birds, nature, and the power of slowing down. Tan’s charming illustrations and witty observations are lovely, delightful, and may just inspire you to lose yourself in the natural beauty of your own backyard!
Haines Whitacre, Stewardship Manager
Poems For the Dying Time by J Turner Masland
What are the queer farmers doing to keep us fed and stay buoyant in climate collapse and the rise of fascism? These tender, rage-ful poems, that is what they are doing, and we could all glean some love from them.
Avery Alexander, Youth Programs Administrative Coordinator
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
I first experienced this story when I watched the anime movie adaptation. After that, I knew I needed to read the novel. It did not disappoint. This novel is almost indescribable as it manages to blend slice-of-life with surreal fantasy. It explores mental health and trauma in such a sensitive, beautiful way. I cried for hours reading this, and I love a book that makes me cry.
Jenne Lobsenz, Youth Programs Director
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Tracing the travels of a mother and daughter, Cold Enough for Snow is a fiercely quiet, deeply interrogative story that turns its lens towards relationships, place, and memory. With precise, dancing language, this short novel beckons the reader into an intimate world of detail, discovery, and philosophical thoughtfulness.
Indira Dahlstrom, Youth Programs Associate
Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe
Through these punk essays, LaPointe adds her voice to the legacy of her grandmother, Vi Hilbert, who commissioned the Seattle Symphony to perform music inspired by Coast Salish songs in 2006 to “bring healing to a sick world.” Thunder Songs should be required reading for anyone who has lived in, worked in, or visited Upper Skagit and Nooksack land.
Emmy Newman, Public Programs Associate
Any Person is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert
These essays are for all the adults who used to be kids wanted to grow up and find a job where all you did was read. These essays are not just love letters to reading, they are correspondence with literature, reckoning with how the self changes as one reads, admiration for beauty and always the sense of wonder, always more questions, always searching as every reader always does.