Earlier this week Diane hosted a special edition of The Diane Rehm Book Club, her monthly series held on ZOOM in front of a live audience.

This month she asked some of her favorite book lovers to join her to talk about their favorite reads of year. And they did not disappoint.

Her guests were Ann Patchett, novelist and owner of Parnassus Books, Eddie Glaude Jr., professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and author of several books on race and politics, and Maureen Corrigan, book critic on NPR’s Fresh Air. She also teaches literary criticism at Georgetown University.

See below for a list of each guest’s top books of the year, along with all of the titles discussed during this conversation.

Maureen Corrigan’s top books of 2024:
“James” by Percival Everett
“Colored Television” by Danzy Senna
“Long Island” by Colm Tóibín
“Tell Me Everything” by Elizabeth Strout
“Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar
“Creation Lake” by Rachel Kushner
“Cahokia Jazz” by Francis Spufford
“The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore
“A Wilder Shore” by Camille Peri
“The Letters of Emily Dickinson” edited by Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell

Ann Patchett’s top books of 2024:
“James” by Percival Everett
“Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar
“Colored Television” by Danzy Senna
“Sipsworth” by Simon Van Booy
“Tell Me Everything” by Elizabeth Strout
“Mighty Red” by Louise Erdrich
“Time of the Child” by Niall Williams
“An Unfinished Love Story” by Doris Kearns Goodwin
“The Backyard Bird Chronicles” by Amy Tan
“Hotel Balzaar” by Kate DiCamillo (middle grade book)
“Water, Water: Poems” by Billy Collins

Eddie Glaude Jr.’s top books of 2024:
“Slaveroad” by John Edgar Wideman
“Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative” by Isabella Hammad
“We’re Alone” by Edwidge Danticat

Other titles mentioned in the discussion:
“Wide Sargasso Sea” with introduction by Edwidge Danticat
“Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver
“The Dog Who Followed the Moon: An Inspirational Story with Meditations on Life, Experience the Power of Love and Sacrifice” by James Norbury
“Afterlives” by Abdulrazak Gurnah
“Someone Knows My Name” by Lawrence Hill
“Moon Tiger” by Penelope Lively
“Sandwich” by Catherine Newman
“Windward Heights” by Maryse Condé
“There’s Always This Year” by Hanif Abdurraqib
“Mothers and Sons” by Adam Haslett (publication date in January 2025)
“Memorial Day” by Geraldine Brooks (publication date in February 2025)
“33 Place Brugmann” by Alice Austen (publication date in March 2025)
“Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell
“Independent People” by Halldor Laxness
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison
“Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward

If you’d like to view a video recording of this conversation, you can find it on our YouTube channel.