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By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK (AP) — Even through a year of nonstop news about elections, climate change, protests and the price of eggs, there was still time to read books. U.S. sales held steady according to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the print market, with many choosing the relief of romance, fantasy and romantasy. Some picked up Taylor Swift’s tie-in book to her blockbuster tour, while others sought out literary fiction, celebrity memoirs, political exposes and a close and painful look at a generation hooked on smartphones. Here are 10 notable books published in 2024, in no particular order. Asking about the year’s hottest reads would basically yield a list of the biggest hits in romantasy, the blend of fantasy and romance that has proved so irresistible fans were snapping up expensive “special editions” with decorative covers and sprayed edges. Of the 25 top sellers of 2024, as compiled by Circana, six were by romantasy favorite Sarah J. Maas, including “House of Flame and Shadow,” the third of her “Crescent City” series. Millions read her latest installment about Bryce Quinlan and Hunter Athalar and traced the ever-growing ties of “Maasverse,” the overlapping worlds of “Crescent City” and her other series, “Throne of Glass” and “A Court of Thorns and Roses.” If romantasy is for escape, other books demand we confront. In the bestselling “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt looks into studies finding that the mental health of young people began to deteriorate in the 2010s, after decades of progress. According to Haidt, the main culprit is right before us: digital screens that have drawn kids away from “play-based” to “phone-based” childhoods. Although some critics challenged his findings, “The Anxious Generation” became a talking point and a catchphrase. Admirers ranged from Oprah Winfrey to Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee, who in a letter to state legislators advocated such “commonsense recommendations” from the book as banning phones in schools and keeping kids off social media until age 16. Bob Woodward books have been an election tradition for decades. “War,” the latest of his highly sourced Washington insider accounts, made news with its allegations that Donald Trump had been in frequent contact with Russian leader Vladimir Putin even while out of office and, while president, had sent Putin sophisticated COVID-19 test machines. Among Woodward’s other scoops: Putin seriously considered using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and President Joe Biden blamed former President Barack Obama, under whom he served as vice president, for some of the problems with Russia. “Barack never took Putin seriously,” Woodward quoted Biden as saying. Former (and future) first lady Melania Trump, who gives few interviews and rarely discusses her private life, unexpectedly announced she was publishing a memoir: “Melania.” The publisher was unlikely for a former first lady — not one of the major New York houses, but Skyhorse, where authors include such controversial public figures as Woody Allen and Trump cabinet nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And its success was at least a minor surprise. Melania Trump did little publicity for the book, and offered few revelations beyond posting a video expressing support for abortion rights — a break from one of the cornerstones of GOP policy. But “Melania” still sold hundreds of thousands of copies, many in the days following her husband’s election. Taylor Swift was more than a music story in 2024. Like “Melania,” the news about Taylor Swift’s self-published tie-in to her global tour isn’t so much the book itself, but that it exists. And how well it sold. As she did with the “Eras” concert film, Swift bypassed the established industry and worked directly with a distributor: Target offered “The Eras Tour Book” exclusively. According to Circana, the “Eras” book sold more than 800,000 copies just in its opening week, an astonishing number for a publication unavailable through Amazon.com and other traditional retailers. No new book in 2024 had a better debut. Midnight book parties are supposed to be for “Harry Potter” and other fantasy series, but this fall, more than 100 stores stayed open late to welcome one of the year’s literary events: Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo.” The Irish author’s fourth novel centers on two brothers, their grief over the death of their father, their very different career paths and their very unsettled love lives. “Intermezzo” was also a book about chess: “You have to read a lot of opening theory — that’s the beginning of a game, the first moves,” one of the brothers explains. “And you’re learning all this for what? Just to get an okay position in the middle game and try to play some decent chess. Which most of the time I can’t do anyway.” Lisa Marie Presley had been working on a memoir at the time of her death , in 2023, and daughter Riley Keough had agreed to help her complete it. “From Here to the Great Unknown” is Lisa Marie’s account of her father, Elvis Presley, and the sagas of of her adult life, notably her marriage to Michael Jackson and the death of son Benjamin Keough. To the end, she was haunted by the loss of Elvis, just 42 when he collapsed and died at his Graceland home while young Lisa Marie was asleep. “She would listen to his music alone, if she was drunk, and cry,” Keough, during an interview with Winfrey, said of her mother. Meanwhile, Cher released the first of two planned memoirs titled “Cher” — no further introduction required. Covering her life from birth to the end of the 1970s, she focuses on her ill-fated marriage to Sonny Bono, remembering him as a gifted entertainer and businessman who helped her believe in herself while turning out to be unfaithful, erratic, controlling and so greedy that he kept all the couple’s earnings for himself. Unsure of whether to leave or stay, she consulted a very famous divorcee, Lucille Ball, who reportedly encouraged her: “F— him, you’re the one with the talent.” A trend in recent years is to take famous novels from the past, and remove words or passages that might offend modern readers; an edition of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” cuts the racist language from Mark Twain’s original text. In the most celebrated literary work of 2024, Percival Everett found a different way to take on Twain’s classic — write it from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. “James,” winner of the National Book Award, is a recasting in many ways. Everett suggests to us that the real Jim was nothing like the deferential figure known to millions of readers, but a savvy and learned man who concealed his intelligence from the whites around him, and even from Twain himself. Salman Rushdie’s first National Book Award nomination was for a memoir he wished he had no reason to write. In “Knife,” he recounts in full detail the horrifying attempt on his life in 2022, when an attendee rushed the stage during a literary event in western New York and stabbed him repeatedly, leaving with him a blinded eye and lasting nerve damage, but with a spirit surprisingly intact. “If you had told me that this was going to happen and how would I deal with it, I would not have been very optimistic about my chances,” he told The Associated Press last spring. “I’m still myself, you know, and I don’t feel other than myself. But there’s a little iron in the soul, I think.”This report is from today's CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here . > Philadelphia news 24/7: Watch NBC10 free wherever you are Markets in the red U.S. markets retreated on Thursday as investors assessed hotter-than-expected wholesale inflation numbers. The pan-European Stoxx 600 saw a 0.14% decline amid a rate cut by the region's central bank. Shares of Brunello Cucinelli jumped 8% after the Italian luxury brand raised its annual forecast for 2024. U.S. producer prices still hot U.S. producer prices rose 0.4% in November, higher than the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 0.2%. On an annual basis, PPI advanced 3%, the most since the 12 months ended February 2023. The hotter-than-anticipated increase in producer prices comes after headline consumer prices rose at a sharper annual rate in November compared with the prior month. Inflation in India cools India's headline inflation rate came in at 5.48% in November, lower than the 5.53% expected by a Reuters poll and the 6.21% in October. The reading follows a disappointing quarter of economic growth for India and a new central bank governor , raising hopes that the Reserve Bank of India might cut rates at its next meeting in February. ECB cuts rates On Thursday, the European Central Bank lowered its key interest rate to 3%, reducing it by an expected 25 basis points. The bank also lowered its forecast for euro zone economic growth in 2024 to 0.7% from a prior forecast of 0.8%, and growth in 2025 to 1.1% from 1.3%. [PRO] Tom Lee makes his 2025 predictions Fundstrat's Tom Lee has a history of correct calls. Not only did he nail this year's rally, he also saw the S&P 500 rebounding in 2020 after the pandemic-caused crash earlier that year. Lee lays out his predictions for the stock market — and bitcoin — for 2025. The U.S. producer price index, which measures the increase in wholesale prices, came in higher than expected on Thursday. A day earlier, the U.S. consumer price index showed annual inflation in November ticked up from the previous month. Those numbers might have been a tad uncomfortable to handle, and the markets didn't want to take inflation hot to go. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — which affects longer-term rates such as mortgages and corporate loans — jumped to 4.334%. Major indexes also fell. The S&P 500 lost 0.54% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.53%, its sixth consecutive day in the red. The Nasdaq Composite dipped below the 20,000 level after retreating 0.66%, weighed down by losses in tech stocks. Adobe shares slumped 13.7%, their steepest drop in more than two years, after the company gave disappointing guidance for its fiscal first-quarter revenue. That said, the Nasdaq might find some reprieve the next day. Broadcom shares popped 14% in extended trading after releasing its earnings, which showed the chipmaker increasing its artificial intelligence revenue by 220% for the year. Even prior to announcing its better-than-expected earnings, Broadcom had been earning praises from analysts. "Broadcom was previously considered a value stock, but it could now be seen as a growth stock. However, it appeals to both, thanks to its continued dividend payments and growth," Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, said in a note to clients. Indeed, the company's stock has surged 66.5% year to date — a figure that puts Broadcom in the league of the Magnificent Seven companies: Shares of Amazon are up 52.7% and that of Apple have risen 33.6% for the year. It's important, then, to keep stocks' sterling performance this year in mind even as investors wonder what it'll take to get inflation numbers below the U.S. Federal Reserve's target of 2%. — CNBC's Pia Singh, Sean Conlon and Lisa Hakyung Kim contributed to this report.Wheels: Remember the RIckenbacker?
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