How, as we ask every year, did Asia fare in the “Best Books” lists of 2024? As before, this list takes a broad view of what constitutes an “Asian” book. Click on the title for our review and listen to the podcast where listed.
- Raiders, Rulers and Traders by David Chaffetz (podcast, excerpt)
- Revolusi by David Van Reybrouck
- Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh
- The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll
- Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle T King (podcast)
- Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang
- The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
- Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- Connie by Connie Chung
- The New India by Rahul Bhatia
Washington Post Fiction Non-Fiction
- At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning With China by Edward Wong
- Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj
- The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota
- The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll
- Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung
- Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses by MG Sheftall
- Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji
- A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention Into the Russian Civil War by Anna Reid
- The Ghosts of Iraq’s Marshes: A History of Conflict, Tragedy, and Restoration by Steve Lonergan, Jassim Al-Asadi, and Keith Holmes
- A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall
- The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy by Suisheng Zhao
- Japan’s Quiet Leadership: Reshaping the Indo-Pacific by Mireya Solís
- The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China’s Future by Jonathan Chatwin (podcast)
- Empire of Contingency: How Portugal Entered the Indo-Persian World by Jorge Flores
- Shadows At Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji
- Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World by David Van Reybrouck
- The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World by William Dalrymple
- Singing with the Mountains: The Language of God in the Afghan Highlands by William EB Sherman
- The Art of Freedom: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and the Making of Modern India by Nico Slate
- Ruling Devotion: The Hindu Temple in the Imperial Imagination, 1800-1946 by Deborah Sutton
- A Nasty Little War: The West’s Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution by Anna Reid
- The Order and Disorder of Communication: Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire by Nir Shafir
- Children of the Ghetto: Star of the Sea by Elias Khoury
- The End of the Nineteen Nineties by Hafiz Noor Shams
- At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning With China by Edward Wong
- Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang
- Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson by Paul French (podcast)
- Other Rivers: A Chinese Education by Peter Hessler
- The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China’s Future by Jonathan Chatwin (podcast)
- Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle T King (podcast)
- Zhou Enlai, A Life by Chen Jian
- The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform by Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian
- The Conscience of the Party: Hu Yaobang, China’s Communist Reformer by Robert L Suettinger
- The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age by Thomas S Mullaney
- Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton
- Shanghai by Joseph Kanon
- Black River by Nilanjana Roy
- Silk: A World History by Aarathi Prasad (podcast)
- The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides
- I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now
- Sea Beach by Ismail Ferdous
- My Vietnam, Your Vietnam by Christina Vo and Nghia M Vo
- Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food by Fadi Kattan
- Dac Biet: An Extra-Special Vietnamese Cookbook by Nini Nguyen with Sarah Zorn
- Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon
- The Manicurist’s Daughter: A Memoir by Susan Lieu
- Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
- Shanghailanders by Juli Min (podcast)
- Knife by Salman Rushdie
- The Lucky Ones by Zara Chowdhary
- The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
- The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
- Connie by Connie Chung
- How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
- Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan
- Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- Root Fractures by Diana Khoi Nguyen
- Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
- […]: Poems by Fady Joudah
- Batshit Seven by Sheung-King
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel
- Here After by Amy Lin
- Everything and Nothing At All y Jenny Heijun Will
- Knife by Salman Rushdie
- Blood Rubies by Mailan Doquan
CBC: The best Canadian fiction of 2024
- Batshit Seven by Sheung-King
- A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
- Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat
- Bad Land by Corinna Chong
- Peacocks of Instagram by Deepa Rajagopalan
- Never Been Better by Leanne Toshiko Simpson
- The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
- The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
- The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas
- Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang
- Exhibit by RO Kwon
- Smoke and Ashes by Amitav Ghosh
- Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay
- The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
- The Coin by Yasmin Zaher
- The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota
- Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito, translated by Brian Bergstrom
- The Invention of the Darling by Li-Young Lee
- A Year of Last Things by Michael Ondaatje
- The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
- The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
- Little Shrew by Akiko Miyakoshi
- We Who Produce Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America by Joanna Ho, illustrated. by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiy
- Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan