Best Books of 2023
Hopefully this inspires you to pick up one of these (or any) books!
These four books were not published in 2023, but they are my favorites from what I read last year. Enjoy!
- The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
This was the first book I read in 2023, and a year later I am still thinking about quotes from Dostoevsky’s final novel. It is a murder mystery, commentary on philosophies of life and religion, and a classic for good reason. These are some of my favorite lines:
“A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact.”
“Taking freedom to mean the increase and prompt satisfaction of needs, they distort their own nature, for they generate many meaningless and foolish desires, habits, and the most absurd fancies in themselves….to satisfy it, they will sacrifice life, honor, the love of mankind, and will even kill themselves if they are unable to satisfy it….I ask you: is such a man free?”
“Schoolboy, do not stoop to lying, first; and second, not even for a good cause.”
2. Person of Interest, by J. Warner Wallace
As a Christian, I enjoyed reading about the impact Jesus has had on history, science and every culture throughout history. I think anyone curious about Christianity or the historical Jesus would be interested in this book. Wallace was an atheist homicide detective who decided to investigate the death of Jesus as he would one of his cold-cases, and this book is the story of his findings. The most intriguing part for me was Wallace’s reasoning on why Jesus came at that specific point in time, which I wrote more about here.
3. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage
This was my most enjoyable reading experience of the year, albeit namely due to nostalgia. I’ve always read Arthurian retellings, and loved experiencing this classic English tale. It’s a simple story of Sir Gawain going on an adventure with a lesson in goodness and morality. Armitage kept the rhythm of the original verse, just giving a more accessible version to modern readers.
4. The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London
Jack London’s The Call of the Wild has been my favorite book since childhood, so The Sea-Wolf was also a bit of a nostalgic read. Besides being a novel of seafaring escapades, The Sea-Wolf discusses questions of idealism, and whether our morality is, or should be, more than a survival of the fittest philosophy. My favorite quote:
“He was daring destiny, and he was unafraid.”
