Best Books To Read In 2023
Get out your notes app, you’ll want to jot these down.
Dedicated bookworms already know there’s just no experience quite like getting lost in a good read. Whether you’re the type who loves to walk in someone else’s shoes through a well-penned memoir, scare yourself silly with a solid mystery or thriller, get all hot and bothered with a juicy new romance novel, hold your breath through the twisty turns in an exciting suspense, learn something about the past via historical fiction or explore new worlds through sci-fi or speculative fiction, there’s bound to be something you’ll love in this crop of the best books to read in 2023.
1. ‘Age of Vice: A Novel’ by Deepti Kapoor
This stunning crime epic starts off with a car crash that leaves five people dead, a driver who wasn’t supposed to be there, and a lot of unanswered questions. More Qs emerge throughout as we come to know the wealthy Wadia family, loyal servant Ajay and journalist Neda, who all find themselves swept up in a complex, gasp-inducing drama that accelerates to an explosive ending. Block out some time: You won’t be able to put this one down.
2. ‘The Survivalists’ by Kashana Cauley
Aretha knows she can’t prepare for every tragedy, especially in the wake of her mother’s death. But there are some she can plan for “The Survivalists” follows one lawyer’s detour into an underground world of people who believe the apocalypse is coming and are trying to get ahead of it.
3. ‘Love, Pamela’ by Pamela Anderson
After a life in the headlines, you might think you know Pamela Anderson. In this revealing memoir, Anderson describes what it was like to be in her shoes during her ascent to fame and scrutiny, and how she found herself.
4. ‘Stealing: A Novel’ by Margaret Verble
Kit, a young Cherokee girl, gets ripped away from what’s left of her family and sent to a Christian boarding school just when she’s most vulnerable. There, she suffers horrifying abuse but finds solace in her journal, where she records what happens to her and what she remembers about her past. It’s a historical reckoning with a hint of mystery that keeps the plot past your bedtime propulsive.
5. It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders
At last a book from the anti-capitalist king! I mean, it’s certainly not his first, but it feels like this is exactly the kind of thing he would write. In It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism, the senator takes on billionaires, blaming unfettered capitalism for the destruction of our planet and wealth inequality. Hear hear.
6. ‘I Have Some Questions for You’ by Rebecca Makkai
A privileged boarding school that covered up an old murder, a former student-turned-podcast host and guest professor who can’t help digging up long-buried secrets, and all the fallout thereof? This psychological thriller hits all the high notes, complete with at least a few revelations you won’t see coming.
7. ‘The Mimicking of Known Successes’ by Malka Older
Exploring communities in conflict and the loss of ecosystems, this science fiction novella — part sapphic romance, part murder mystery — imagines what life would be like in a human colony on Jupiter.
8. ‘Hang the Moon: A Novel’ by Jeanette Walls
Fans of plucky heroines will find a lot to love in Sallie, the daughter of big-shot Duke and sister to the timid Eddie. When an accident leads to her banishment, everyone in their small Virginia town all but gives up on her. But Sallie returns nine years later ready to fight for her place in the family, and there’s a lot of spunk in Sallie yet.
9. ‘Evil Eye’ by Etaf Rum
In Evil Eye, Yara was raised in a conservative Palestinian Brooklyn household, but she thought she freed herself by obtaining an education, a good job, an entrepreneurial husband who took her to the suburbs, and two daughters. Still, it doesn’t feel like “enough.”
After she responds to a racist provocation, she’s placed on probation at work and must seek counseling. Her mother blames a family curse, and Yara can’t help but believe she’s repeating the same mistakes. She must reconcile with her past in order to create a better future for her daughters.
10. ‘Cursed Bread’ by Sophie Mackintosh
Taking a grain of truth, Booker Prize-nominated author Sophie Mackintosh kneads this unsolved tale about the 1951 mass poisoning of a French village into a story of obsession, desire, and envy. Cursed Bread follows the baker’s wife, Elodie, a plain unremarkable woman who becomes infatuated when the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, descend on her town small town Pont-Saint-Esprit.
11. ‘Nothing Special’ by Nicole Flattery
Sally Rooney is a fan and we’re sure we will be too. Nothing Special follows 17-year-old Mae as she drops out of high school and is presented with a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. It’s New York in 1966 and she’s hired as a typist for Andy Warhol. You see, Warhol is composing a book that consists of conversations he’s recorded between his many high profile and glamourous friends, and Mae, along with her newly befriended colleague Shelley, throw themselves into the scene, orbiting parties and coming of age on the fringes of the Factory and its 60s counter-cultural movement.
12. ‘Before We Were Innocent’ by Ella Berman
In Before We Were Innocent, Bess and Joni were cleared of involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death ten years prior, but they are forever changed by the media exposure.
While Joni capitalized on her fame by becoming a motivational speaker, Bess created a very small, controlled life. But now, Joni is entangled in a similar crime and seeks Bess’s support, as the past and present intertwine.
13. ‘Homecoming’ by Kate Morton
When the grandmother who raised her ends up in the hospital after a fall, Jess rushes back from London to Sydney to take care of her. While going through her grandmother’s house, Jess discovers a true crime journal, following a notorious murder at a mysterious mansion on Christmas Eve in 1959. As any journalist would, Jess begins to look into the mystery and the surprising connections to her family’s history. It’s been over 4 years since Kate Morton released a book, so Homecoming is undoubtedly one of my most anticipated books of 2023.
14. ‘The Half Moon’ by Mary Beth Keane
In The Half Moon, Malcolm is a bartender who finally buys the bar where he works. Meanwhile, his wife is a successful attorney who realizes she may never become a mother.
In Malcolm’s first week of ownership, discovers shocking news about his wife, a patron goes missing, and a blizzard hits the town. It’s a story of a marriage in crisis and the meaning of family.
15. ‘The Three of Us’ by Ore Agbaje-Williams
Like Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age and Candice Carty-William’s People Person, The Three of Us deftly captures the subtleties that make or break a relationship. Set over the course of a single day, Agbaje-Williams tells the story in three parts, each one from the perspective of a wife, her husband and her best friend, the latter two of which despise each other.
16. ‘Yellowface’ by R. F. Kuang
Although June and Athena went to school together, Athena has found major success as an Asian-American novelist while June struggles to get a foot in the door, probably because she’s just another basic white girl. When June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she impetuously snatches up Athena’s unfinished work. Publishing it as her own, June rebrands herself as a racially ambiguous Juniper Song and becomes an instant bestseller. Yet as the truth threatens to come out, June must decide how far she is willing to go to keep her secret in one of my top picks for books to read in 2023.
17. ‘Quietly Hostile’ by Samantha Irby
There’s nothing like a Samantha Irby essay to unclench your jaw and loosen your limbs. So we’re glad another collection of them is on the way. What’s changed since Wow, No Thank You? A lot actually. Irby has found fame in Hollywood, attended a major red carpet premiere, and after writing for And Just Like That… she’s also received a lot of strange emails about Carrie Bradshaw. Strap in for more candid and comedic advice on all the gross and mundane details of life.
18. ‘Save What’s Left’ by Elizabeth Castellano
When her husband Tom leaves her without warning to go on an around-the-world cruise, Kathleen is left with a gaping hole — and a chance to reinvent herself. So she decides to move to a small beachside town across the country and becomes pulled into its ecosystem. Laugh-out-loud funny, “Save What’s Left” is a novel about life in a town that makes the perfect escape.
19. ‘Family Lore: A Novel’ by Elizabeth Acevedo
Release date: 1 August 2023
In 2018, Acevedo received the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for her novel-in-verse “The Poet X,” which also became a New York Times bestseller. “Family Lore” is Acevedo’s first novel for adults and it tells the story of a Dominican-American family exploring their shared history as they approach the wake of one of its members.
20. ‘The Fraud’ by Zadie Smith
Release date: 5 September 2023
I thought we’d be getting this bad boy in 2022 but all good things are worth waiting for. Set in 1873, The Fraud follows an ensemble cast of characters. There’s Mrs. Touchet, a Scottish housekeeper to her cousin — by marriage — a once-famous novelist gone to seed named William Ainsworth. And there’s Andrew Bogle, who grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation in Jamaica and understands that every lump of sugar comes at a human cost.
When Bogle is summoned to London as the star witness to the Tichborne Trial, his future depends on telling the right story. Meanwhile, the whole country is captivated by the story, including Mrs. Touchet, and out oozes a story about authenticity and deception, Britain and Jamaica, and as Smith does so well, the mystery of “other people”.
