What Brits are reading: the 10 most buzzed-about books of 2024

Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

Every book by Sally Rooney has been a bestseller, each exploring human relationships in the setting of late capitalism. This theme, plus her fondness for geometry (this time a love quadrangle), continues in this new novel. Ivan, a promising young chess player, meets Margaret, a woman ten years older. Ivan’s older brother Peter, a lawyer, is trying to sort out his feelings for Naomi, a student. Both are in crisis over the death of their father and trying to find a way to live differently. “Sincere, sentimental, uninhibited, the most intellectual but not the most perfect,” is how critics have written about Intermezzo, comparing it to Rooney’s other books.

Stephen Fry, Odyssey

The transposition of myths, legends and generally great texts is a popular genre today. It is all the more interesting when Stephen Fry himself takes up the task. Odysseus in his arrangement is an eternal figure, which means that the action covers a longer period of time, flowing into our days and becoming more than relevant. Homer’s poem receives not only a new – ironic and modern – tone, but also a context: do not doubt that the cleverest English author, as usual, shines with erudition and unobtrusively explains everything you wanted to know about ancient Greece, but were afraid to ask.

Richard Osman The Last Devil to Die

Detectives, too, are having a moment of stardom: in the Sunday Times rankings, every second bestseller has a crime element. This year’s absolute favorite is Richard Osman with his Thursday Murder Club series. The next installment, The Last Devil to Die, begins with the murder of the owner of an antique shop, so the reader will be immersed in a fascinating world of art: intrigue, fake paintings, mysterious parcels. Ah, yes! The main characters, aka amateur sleuths – four pensioners, Osman fans love them like their own grandparents. Funny, touching, elegant – what is needed for a modern detective.

Salman Rushdie, Knife

In August 2022, Salman Rushdie was attacked during a lecture: he was stabbed 15 times and blinded in one eye. Like a true writer, Rushdie turned this event into a text: “I had to write this book, it’s a way of coming to terms with what happened and responding to the violence with art.” The statement was not so much political (the attackers were Islamic radicals), but personal and philosophical. The question is repeated: “Why didn’t I answer, why did I let it happen?”, Rushdie scrolls through an imaginary dialog with his killer and searches for the reasons. The result is a heartfelt text about freedom, love and the will that wins.

Laurie Gilmore, The Cinnamon Bun Book Store.

Remember the popular Chicken Broth for the Soul series? It seems people have missed the heartwarming genre once again. From the title of Laurie Gilmore’s books (in addition to The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore, she wrote Pumpkin Spice Cafe and The House of Strawberry Pancakes), it’s clear what to expect. Hazel works in a bookstore and loves her cozy fictional world. One day, someone leaves signs and notes for her, hinting that it’s time for Hazel to let adventure into her life. To solve the mystery she is helped by the too gorgeous young man Noah. The action unfolds in the summer: romantic, sweet and predictable – as the genre demands.

Jennie Godfrey, The List of Suspicious Things.

1979, best friends Sharon and Miv are trying to solve the case of the Yorkshire Ripper. However, both are twelve, so under suspicion are: a nasty gym teacher, a local shopkeeper, a rude driver … It turns out the same list from the title of the book. This is not a detective, but rather a novel of growing up; not a portrait of an era, but a chamber story in a curious historical setting. Expect a light and relaxing reading, however, should not be: the issues that the novel raises – not at all childish, and the denouement will shock many.

Claire Douglas, The Wrong Sister.

A family thriller about the horrors of sisterly love. Alice is a brilliant career woman. Tasha leads a quiet life in the suburbs with her husband (aka high school sweetheart) and feels she falls short of her sister. Somehow, Alice and Tasha swap houses for a weekend – and it’s during that weekend that someone breaks into the suburban cabin, kills Alice’s husband and injures herself. To top it off, there’s a note in the mailbox that says, “It should have been you.” Which of the sisters was really the target? The action unfolds quickly, the descriptions are realistic and scathing, and Claire Douglas is also a master at taking the focus away from the mystery – the perfect book to tickle your nerves and test your deduction.

Holly Gramazio, The Husbands.

Lauren returns home one evening where her husband meets her. The problem is that Lauren isn’t married. While she’s figuring out what, exactly, happened, her newly married husband goes off to change a light bulb in the attic – and another one comes back instead. It’s a fun page-turner with a touch of magical realism: while Lauren continues to send her husband up to the attic and through the attic, together with the author we get to understand what marriage is and what we really want from our other half. By the way, Holly Gramazio is a game designer, so her book is like a puzzle with clever algorithms.

Andrew O’Hagan, Caledonian Road.

A panorama of London life from a Scottish author. O’Hagan has been compared to Dickens – but whereas Dickens’s heroes were orphans and blessed beggars, here we are talking about the intelligent, cynical and privileged. Campbell Flynn is an art critic, an expert on Vermeer’s work. He is eaten up by his own ego and the contradiction between his own public image and his unsightly private life. However, there is so much more to the novel – Russian oligarchs, Polish smugglers, seductive female students – that Flynn’s story takes a back seat. In addition, Hagan writes a novel from all sides serious and touches on the topics of Brexit, clandestine immigration, the economic gap between segments of society. According to critics, the text turned out to be interesting, but oversaturated – however, it seems that the idea of the panorama and suggests such a breadth.

Coco Mellor, Blue Sisters

Another book about sisters – only now there are four of them: a lawyer, a boxer, a model and the perfect Annie, who dies before the action even starts. A year after her death, the sisters gather at their parents’ house to really go through all the stages of grief. The story is told in three voices from different points and perspectives – which is why the dead Annie becomes implausibly marvelous, but also why the sisters’ pain is felt almost physically. The novel has been compared to books by Othessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney: some say they are tired of stories “about depressed beauty models,” while others note how well Coco Mellor “did her homework” and conveyed the emotions of a person who has lost a loved one.