Yahoo Lifestyle Want a Peek at Goodreads’ Best Books of November 2024?
Want a peek at Goodreads’ Best Books of November 2024? Parade gets an exclusive look at some of the lucky books named the most anticipated by the Goodreads community. They’ve got more than 150 million folks worldwide sharing lists of their favorite books, reviews on new releases and TBR (to be read) lists of all the books they want to read.
Does your personal library contain mostly books you’ve read or mostly books you plan to read? (I’m firmly of the opinion that owning a book gets you halfway there.) Is your to-do list in general ever lengthening? Or are you one of those people who manages to start from scratch almost every single day by crossing off every single item on your list. (If so, I hate you. Not really, but you know what I mean.) Me, I look at a pile of books I want to read and feel happy; it’s the same way other people enjoy canning preserves or stockpiling wood for the winter or buying Christmas gifts in March. You just feel…prepared.
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So on to the Goodreads selection of the books coming out in November they love or just can’t wait to read. I’ve chosen five titles from the super secret list they shared with Parade. Four of them are bonus titles that you won’t find on my list (coming out soon). With thousands if not tens of thousands of titles out in November, it’s just impossible to include everything that looks cool or is getting great buzz. Plus, they found some stuff that wasn’t on my radar yet. Consider them bonus picks. And I finish with a book they love and which I’m wild about as well. I’ll link to the Goodreads list when it goes live on November 1st and hope to get my list out into the world any day now. So let’s get reading. At the head of the Parade are…
A Sneak Peek at Goodreads’ Best Books of November 2024
Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This is the fifth book in a Japanese cozy series about a magical cafe. People who visit get a chance to revisit the past…but only for the time it takes the coffee to cool down. (The first book in the series was titled Before The Coffee Gets Cold.) A major hit in Japan and around the world, each book typically contains four or five people who want to revisit a moment in time to fix the past, get closure and so on. Heartwarming, though that doesn’t extend to the coffee, which does in fact get cold. This time around, among the time travelers are a father who wouldn’t let his daughter get married and a woman who lost the chance to give Valentine’s Day chocolates to her loved one.
One Goodreads member given a chance to read an advance copy is “claire 🍉” who joked, “I CAN’T STOP CRYING I HATE THIS BOOK.” Explore more reader comments at Goodreads.
Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi ($21.99; Hanover Square Press) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley
Jamie Wesley’s new romance pushes all sorts of buttons. It’s a foodie lover’s story and involves one of the genre’s naughtiest tropes–falling hard for your best friend’s sister. In this case, the two potential lovers are a football player (who goes viral for championing women bakers and saying that guys can make cupcakes without compromising their masculinity) and a social media guru who agrees to revamp his cupcake company’s online presence. Sparks fly. And more importantly, cupcakes are consumed.
Goodreads member Lorena is looking forward to this one, saying, “‘A cupcake baking football player’...say no more *adds to tbr*” Explore more reader comments at Goodreads.
A Legend in the Baking by Jamie Wesley ($$18; St. Martin’s Griffin) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim
Author Juhea Kim’s debut was the historical novel set in Korea called Beasts of a Little Land. Kim’s new book travels to contemporary Russia where a once-famed ballerina in St. Petersburg wonders if she can trust the two male dancers–one the love of her life and the other a mercurial genius–to put her back on top. After all, they’re the reason for a disastrous accident that derailed her career in the first place.
Juhea Kim herself stopped by at Goodreads to comment, telling readers, “Like my first novel—which was about my heritage—City of Night Birds comes from a really personal place as a lifelong dancer and a balletomane. I wrote it through some of the happiest and most challenging times of my life, and I'm very proud of it. I hope you love it too.” Explore reader comments at Goodreads.
City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim ($30; Ecco) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
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Where The Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez
The title sounds like a horror story to me (Libraries can hide? Did I hurt their feelings? But I need my library!). In fact this is the conclusion to a duology that began with What The River Knows. It’s an historical fantasy set in Egypt featuring a hero who came there seeking answers to the mysterious deaths of her parents. Now in a classic enemies to lovers storyline, she may need to marry the one man who can save her inheritance. But he’s also the one man with secret plans that may destroy everything she fought for.
Goodreads member Shea is pleased with how the story wrapped up, to say the least, posting, “Is it just me or was this book even more fantastic than the first one??” Discover more reader comments at Goodreads.
Where The Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez ($20; Wednesday Books) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org
Time of the Child by Niall Williams
And here’s the book that’s also among my picks for the best books of November. It’s a new novel by Irish writer Niall Williams, set in the fictional village of Faha in 1962 during the Christmas season. It's the sort of place where everyone knows everyone's business...and yet, there are still secrets of the heart. An abandoned baby is found, lives are changed and everyone comes together during the holidays. But this is a richer, more complicated and satisfying novel than you might think from that amiable description that promises easy comfort reading. It’s that, too, however. Just trust me on this one.
I’d missed out on Niall Williams until reading a description of this book, discovering he’d been shortlisted for the Booker and thinking, this sounds right up my alley. (The praise from Ann Patchett It stands alone but is linked to two earlier books. Well, I really don’t have the time to do so, but I plunged into his earlier book This Is Happiness, which is also set in Faha but focuses on different characters. And it is fantastic! I can’t recommend it highly enough, but that raised the bar for this one…and Time of the Child is fantastic as well. You can read them in any order, I think. But trust me, you’ll want to read them both. (And History of the Rain, which is also set in Faha. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s the one that became a Booker nominee so I’m certain it will be great as well.)
Goodreads member Rita Egan wrote in part, “A beautifully crafted and heart warming story, that examines themes of humanity, community, class differences and the bravery of those who defy the system. How I'd love to see this on the big screen. In the right hands it could be the next It's A Wonderful Life.” Discover more reader comments at Goodreads.
Time of the Child by Niall Williams ($28.99; Bloomsbury Publishing) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org