“Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis” by Jonathan Blitzer (Penguin, Jan. 30, 2024) and “The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster” by John O’Connor (Sourcebooks, Feb. 6, 2024).

The novels and nonfiction we couldn’t stop thinking about this year—and in a year like this one, that’s saying something.

100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

The book, which hit shelves in May, centers on Noor Khan, a high school senior who discovers that the library at her new school is being ravaged by book banners who have been slowly (but legally) swiping books right off the shelves — and most of the books are by writers of color or queer authors.

The Shutouts is set in the same world as Gabrielle Korn’s first novel, 2023’s Yours For The Taking, and though the two books share some characters, it’s not a direct sequel. Instead, The Shutouts continues to explore the fallout of the environmental disaster that made it unsafe to be outside in Yours For The Taking.