Top 10 Books of 2023
“More than rich, more than famous, more than happy, I wanted to be great.”
Welcome back to the Best Ofs! I love making these lists. First up: Reading.
There has been some anxiety around Goodreads lately. Some of the people I’m friends with there have felt that the annual Goodreads challenge has boxed them in and turned reading into a chore and/or competition, rather than a hobby done for fun. The idea is that, by setting a number of books to read in a single year, it becomes about the tally instead of the enjoyment. I can understand where people are coming from with this. But what has helped me is that I don’t think of it as a competition about who can read more. Rather, it is a goal to set and see if the fun that comes from reading eventually gets me there throughout the year. I don’t work towards it; I just read it. Plus, I love lists, so I’ll always be setting Goodreads goals. Don’t sweat the tally, folks.
My goal in 2023 was to read thirty books. I anticipated increased business and wanted to ensure that the goal I set for myself was attainable. Well, I ended up reading the most books I’ve ever read in a single year instead. Sometimes, it just happens! Especially when you take full advantage of a summer reading opportunity. In 2023, I read fifty-two books, meaning the average was about one per week. Obviously, some weeks of free time were more prolific than others, but the mean remains the same. What also remains is that it was always fun. I did not see the famous “52” number and begin to stretch towards it. I read what I could and enjoyed it while I did.
This year, I read some of my favorite books of all-time. I didn’t know that’s what they’d be when I started them, but such is the euphoria of discovery. I also read some of my least favorites and, as well, some books I’ll look back on in 2026 and wonder if I actually did read it. I read books to help with my career, books to help with my intellectualizing, books to help with my empathy, books to help with my wonder, and more. I felt, in that sense, the full scope of a literary experience — even though I returned to my favorite genres (memoir, cultural treatise, coming-of-age, comedy) more than others. I experienced the Twilight series for the first time! And hopped on the hype train for the whole Fourth Wing phenomenon. And best of all, I read the following books that I am so excited to gush about for you now. What better way to reflect on the year that was than to remember and celebrate the books I read and the specific times in which I read them?
As always, I feel uncouth about ranking literature, so this is the only Year in Review list presented in alphabetical order. And, of course, it does not exclusively include 2023 releases. They’re just books I read for the first time this year.
Honorable Mentions: Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast by Scott Aukerman, I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, On the Outside Looking Indian by Rupinder Gill, Our Dumb Century by Scott Dikkers, Robin by Dave Itzkoff, Surrender by Bono, Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Nicole Mello also wrote It’ll Last Longer in 2023, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
Answers in the Form of Questions by Claire McNear
Few media companies seem to have their spoons in as many pots as The Ringer does. Just as Disney dabbles in everything from sports to radio to theme parks, The Ringer has its own documentary studio, its own podcast network, and — as you guessed from the article’s subject — its own publishing wing. One of the debut books (in 2020) from The Ringer was staff writer Claire McNear’s inside tell-all about all things Jeopardy! Published before the sad passing of host Alex Trebek, Answers in the Form of Questions is a testament to all things of the Jeopardy! we knew. This isn’t just some run-of-the-mill pocket guide with fun trivia that is already more common knowledge than a $200 question, though. Instead, McNear explores the must-read side of Jeopardy! and the true interiority that only Jeopardy! fans would find fascinating. And it’s as fascinating as it is definitive.
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Oftentimes, when a musician enters into literature with a memoir, readers can predict the trajectory of the story. Some rebellious moments in their upbringing lead to creative sparks, meeting the right people, and the occasional dalliance with drugs. It’s a tired tale and only the most talented can still tell it well. This is not to say that indie group Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner could not have achieved this, but she clearly had something headier and emotionally denser on her mind than the classic rock and roll regalia. Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, is an exploration of the grief of a challenged identity derived from both the overbearing presence and the overwhelming absence of one’s mother. Crying in H Mart explores the cultural legacies that exist within family ties, the day-to-day progressions and regressions of simply growing up, and the impossibility of watching your own mother slowly succumb to pancreatic cancer. No memoir is inherently full of merit, but Crying in H Mart’s story demanded to be told and to be told so well by Zauner. One of the greats.
Dreaming the Beatles by Rob Sheffield
When I learned that the talented Rolling Stone staffer, Rob Sheffield, had published a book about The Beatles only a couple years ago, my initial reaction was to scoff. Writing a book about The Beatles is like making a new movie about World War II — what more is there to be said? But I liked Sheffield enough to try it and, as someone who was not alive in the 1960s, I’ll always have something new to learn about The Beatles in some way. Yet, Dreaming the Beatles was not one of my favorite books I read this year because it elucidated the intricacies of a near-decade as the biggest cultural phenomenon of all-time. Rather, it was one of my favorites because it revealed what a phenomenon like that can do to shape the cultures in ways both big and small. Sheffield details what it was like to live in the aftermath of their impact and the sorts of questions that arise from loving the band so much that you never want to run out of things to talk about. It’s a Beatles book for the modern times.
Educated by Tara Westover
Sometimes, those little stands at the front of Barnes and Noble with the books they claim are the “must-reads” know what they’re talking about. I may always gravitate towards celebrity memoirs, but typically, non-celebrity memoirs get published for a reason. Those incredible stories of the everyday person are just dying to be told and when they are as compelling as Tara Westover’s, they couldn’t possibly be anything but “must-reads.” The story chronicled in Educated is of Westover — growing up in a strictly Mormon household in Idaho — learning to become her own person with her own ways of thinking by eventually earning a doctorate from Cambridge University. An undeniably remarkable account, what stays with me the most about Educated are the moments of horror cloaked in the mundane. For example, one memory is recalled of Westover’s mother appearing to snap out of a survivalist haze and beg her daughter to escape the family at the first moment she can. It’s not just the fleeting clarity, though. It’s the seeming indifference with which she slipped back into the same miserable trance that Westover was at risk of entering had she never embarked on the journey that led to this miraculous publication.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick
Time to break the nonfiction trend here. I’ve always enjoyed the 1947 Gene Tierney/Rex Harrison film adaptation of this book, written by Josephine Leslie under the deliberately ambiguous R.A. Dick pseudonym. However, actually delving into the original literary text enhanced my evergreen love of the story. When it comes to tales of the supernatural, my preference always lies within a ghost story. Who doesn’t love a tale of phantoms? Yet, this novel is not the horrific sort of ghost story; it is the soft and gentle kind and the one that edifies and balms the soul. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, headstrong widow Lucy Muir moves to a seaside community in England with her daughter at the turn of the century. There, she meets and begins to fall in love with the ghost of a sea captain who formerly occupied the home. Captain Daniel Gregg is believed to have committed suicide, but by hearing his side of the story, new dynamics open up between the two lead characters (a lovely gruff man/fearless woman trope) and new justice is provided to someone — perhaps an archetypal figure representing many more in real history just like him — with a life made richer by sharing it, both in publications and in the afterlife’s liberation of true, formless love. I read this during the holidays, which prompted my father to remark on Christmas Eve that reading a ghost story is one of the oldest festive traditions of all.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
So far, The Housemaid seems to be my biggest #BookTok win so far. I don’t always click with the books recommended around those parts, but I feel so excited that reading has become trendy, cool, and social again (it’s also why I wholly support the Empyrean breakout success). #BookTok is partially to thank for that! However, while I’ve seen The Housemaid appear on my for you page, it was actually the recommendation of a friend that placed it towards the top of my to-read list. I’m glad I did! McFadden’s Housemaid is about a woman, Millie, perpetually wronged by the stridently unforgivable boundaries of common society. When Millie takes on a position as the live-in maid of a well-to-do family, she learns that navigating their dicey social dynamics is vastly more challenging than keeping such an expensive home so tidy and prepared. What I loved about The Housemaid was its snappiness that never sacrificed an engaging, thoughtful story. Each chapter led right into the next, but it was plausible and well-written throughout. It helps when your protagonist is not a total drip! Getting into any more details would be a mistake for those reading who might want to enter into a hot thriller blindly. The sequel was also commensurately page-turning!
It’s Better to Be Feared by Seth Wickersham
Could I have found better timing to read this one? When Tom Brady was eliminated from the playoffs last year by the Dallas Cowboys, it seemed like the path forward for him was clear. Retirement was imminent for him. Yet, a year after reading it, the same might be true for Bill Belichick. At the very least, the greatest coach of all-time’s tenure with the New England Patriots came to an end just this month. So, barring the need for a rewritten epilogue now (that would somehow need to put Robert Kraft on top, which does not sit right), this is the best time to read It’s Better to Be Feared. Stopping just short of an oral history and instead revolving around an impressive, emotional narrative woven by Seth Wickersham, the book is the inside, rubber-stamped (depending on whom you ask) look at the two-decade-long Patriots dynasty. The book is framed around the three stalwarts of it — Brady, Belichick, and Kraft — and tracks their contributions and developments over the course of the six Super Bowl titles, amid myriad other accomplishments. However, what makes this book great is that it’s not just a victory lap for devoted Patriots fans. It’s imperative reading for sports fans of any kind because it hones the lights on the century’s definitive sports franchise. Not only does the world of sports crystallize as a result of reading this book, but so does the world of the most human emotions and experiences enthralling and eschewing three men whose greatness would be thought to lead to them being considered untouchable by any of it. Belonging, resentment, focus, greed, lust, loyalty. It’s all here. The tale of these three and the Foxborough around them could only be imagined to be more richly and densely developed if it was William Shakespeare’s name on the byline.
The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski
You know, to paraphrase Dwight Schrute, it’s always the biographies you most medium suspect. Throughout history, there are countless subjects who would be considered surefire candidates for riveting, nonfiction narrative accounts of their lives. Walter Isaacson proved as much when he wrote tomes in the names of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, among others. However, when I learned that Joe Posnanski was writing a book about the life (and, as he put it, afterlife) of Harry Houdini, I was merely whelmed. I don’t have any particular beef with Houdini, but I also don’t have any discerning fascination with the man either. He is to magicians what Babe Ruth seemed to be to many of the great baseball players from the 1960s onward: the classical legend who set the template that many others would (Dr. Cox voice) extr-e-hee-mely improve upon. But it was the baseball-evoking allegory that drew me to it in the first place. I’ve always loved Posnanski’s writing since I first read him at Sports Illustrated. Yet, for the first time that I could remember, he was not writing a book about sports. Instead, it was a book about a magician. And legacy and self-sacrifice and the mystery of being so entertaining you cease to live. Much in the same way his history-reshaping ode to Buck O’Neill was in 2007. I may not have expected greatness from a book about Houdini, but I should have expected it from a book by Posnanski.
Making a Scene by Constance Wu
Perhaps the story of Constance Wu is one of our strongest pieces of evidence for why social media, namely Twitter, should not exist. I, like many others, was perplexed by Constance Wu’s negative response to the news that Fresh Off the Boat had been renewed. But you know what I, and millions of others, didn’t know? The context for her message, the context of her world purview, the daily occurrences amounting in her life, the hardships she endures, the happiness she embraces, and — to be quite honest — what Fresh Off the Boat was even about. Yet, the world assumed we did know the answers to all of those things because we felt the emboldened nature of a keyboard, a screen, and the feeling of, “Hey! She screwed up and I didn’t. Get her!” Twitter, redux. This is one of the major moments Wu touches upon in her 2022 memoir and it is a way into some of the most revealing and wrenching sentiments I’ve ever seen expressed in a book of this type. Wu is raw and the reader is left breathless throughout moments like these, which fill a still-ongoing career and life story that should always be defined by more than just a tweet. One is daunted to recall a performer crafting a case so fiercely demanding and immediate as to why their work matters and why it matters that it is her who is doing that work.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
When I realized I loved The Martian wholly, I should have never taken so long to read Project Hail Mary. It’s clear that the writing style of Andy Weir is one that is as directly in my wheelhouse as Aaron Sorkin’s and Greta Gerwig’s are. What matters, though, is that I’ve read Project Hail Mary and, boy, did I really cherish it. There is no better feeling than when you are reading a spectacular book that leaves you looking forward to when you get to pick it back up again. It doesn’t always happen, but I want the book to last forever when it does. For that reason, Project Hail Mary is probably my favorite book that I read in 2023, even though I do try not to rank them; I just think it’s going to be the one that sticks with me for a long, long time. It’s a trickier premise to work my way into with a synopsis than The Martian is (the latter has a great “elevator pitch” premise of “An astronaut is left stranded on mars — how do we get him back?”), but I’ll try. In Project Hail Mary, Ryland Grace awakens aboard a rocket and learns he is the only one alive on it. With a parallel timeline structure, Ryland eventually starts to piece together his memory, as he realizes he is aboard the Hail Mary spacecraft to help save Earth from an apocalyptic, sun-dissolving event. There isn’t more I should write than that, but if you love gripping sci-fi with well-developed problem-solving and process skills, as well as characters to adore, then Project Hail Mary may leave you as high and floating as it left both me and Ryland.
What did you read in 2023?
See also:
My 10 Favorite Books of 2017
