Best Books of 2023

Paul Lynch's Prophet Song presents a dystopian vision of Ireland descending into authoritarianism. The story follows Eilish Stack, a mother and scientist, as she navigates a society unraveling under oppressive rule. As civil liberties erode and violence escalates, Eilish faces harrowing choices to protect her family. Lynch's narrative is a haunting exploration of resistance, sacrifice, and the human cost of political turmoil. Through Eilish's eyes, the novel examines the fragility of democracy and the enduring strength of maternal love amidst chaos.

On 28 January 1742, a battered boat arrived on Brazil’s coast, carrying thirty half-dead men with a shocking tale. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship The Wager, wrecked off Patagonia in 1741 while chasing Spanish treasure during a secret wartime mission. Stranded and starving, the crew built a fragile craft and sailed 2,500 miles over brutal seas. Hailed as heroes—until, months later, another ragged boat reached Chile with three men accusing the first group of mutiny. The accused claimed tyranny in return. The truth? A descent into chaos, betrayal, and murder—leading to a court martial where the guilty might hang.

After her friend dies in a freak accident, struggling writer June Hayward steals her unpublished manuscript—and her identity. As June rides a wave of fame under false pretenses, guilt, appropriation, and race explode in this razor-sharp satire of the publishing industry. Yellowface is a provocative, page-turning novel that skewers cultural gatekeeping, tokenism, and ambition, blending suspense with biting social commentary.

Set in 1970s Pottstown, Pennsylvania, this novel uncovers secrets buried within a tight-knit, racially diverse community. When a skeleton is discovered in a well, the town's residents are forced to confront long-held truths. At the heart of the story is the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, a beacon of kindness owned by a Jewish woman who shelters a deaf Black boy from institutional cruelty. McBride’s novel is a rich tapestry of history, humor, and humanity, illuminating how love and community can thrive despite systemic injustice, making it both a gripping mystery and a moving exploration of American life.

Pulitzer Prize-winning sociologist Matthew Desmond examines why poverty persists in one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Drawing on extensive research, Poverty, by America argues that the United States maintains poverty through policies and choices that benefit the affluent at the expense of the poor. Desmond reveals how housing, wages, taxation, and welfare systems are structured to keep millions in hardship while others profit. The book is a passionate call for systemic reform, challenging readers to rethink their complicity in economic inequality and to imagine a society rooted in justice, dignity, and shared prosperity for all.

Inspired by Little Women, this tender family saga follows William Waters, a lonely college basketball player, and the four closely bonded Padavano sisters. As William is pulled into their vibrant, chaotic world, buried traumas threaten to upend everything. Spanning decades, Hello Beautiful explores love, loss, mental illness, and the ties that both bind and break us. Ann Napolitano crafts a deeply emotional story about forgiveness and self-discovery, illuminating how family—whether biological or chosen—shapes our sense of self and belonging. It’s a heartfelt portrait of resilience and the enduring need for connection.

Set against the backdrop of a Michigan cherry orchard during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tom Lake follows Lara as she recounts her youthful romance with a now-famous actor to her three grown daughters. As they harvest fruit, the story weaves past and present, exploring the choices we make, the roads not taken, and the meaning of a life well-lived. Ann Patchett’s luminous novel is a meditation on motherhood, storytelling, and the quiet beauty of ordinary life. Richly atmospheric and emotionally resonant, Tom Lake invites readers to consider how love, memory, and time shape us.

This gripping eco-thriller pits a guerrilla gardening collective against a billionaire tech mogul with sinister motives in rural New Zealand. As the idealistic Birnam Wood group trespasses to plant crops, they clash with corporate greed and political intrigue. Tensions escalate into a high-stakes battle between environmental activism and capitalist exploitation. Eleanor Catton, Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, returns with a taut, intelligent novel exploring surveillance, ideology, and moral compromise in the age of climate crisis. Birnam Wood is both a literary page-turner and a sharp critique of modern power structures.

Spanning centuries, North Woods traces the lives, deaths, and legends rooted in a single New England house and its surrounding forest. From Puritan settlers and eccentric naturalists to star-crossed lovers and reclusive artists, each inhabitant leaves a mark on the land. Mason weaves history, folklore, letters, and even fungi into a vivid portrait of change and continuity. This richly imaginative novel explores humanity’s relationship with nature, time, and storytelling itself. North Woods is a haunting, lyrical mosaic that celebrates the enduring power of place and the mysterious threads connecting all lives across generations.

This powerful nonfiction narrative recounts the daring 1848 escape of Ellen and William Craft from slavery in Georgia. Ellen, light-skinned, disguised herself as a disabled white man; William acted as her servant. Their journey to freedom through the North and eventually to England is one of ingenuity, courage, and love. Ilyon Woo’s detailed and gripping account draws on archival research to illuminate not only their story but the broader resistance to slavery and racism. Master Slave Husband Wife is both a suspenseful escape narrative and a testament to the resilience of those who dared to break the chains of bondage.

In this harrowing and deeply reported memoir, journalist Patricia Evangelista documents Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs in the Philippines. Drawing from years of firsthand reporting, Evangelista chronicles the violence, propaganda, and moral disintegration that defined a nation’s descent into authoritarianism. Through vivid narratives of victims, enforcers, and survivors, the book becomes a powerful indictment of state-sponsored killings and a meditation on fear, complicity, and resistance. Some People Need Killing is both a work of fearless journalism and a profoundly personal reckoning with truth and accountability in the face of terror.

This definitive biography offers a sweeping, intimate portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., drawing on newly released FBI files and hundreds of interviews. Jonathan Eig presents King not as a sanitized icon but as a complex, courageous, and fallible human being. From his rise in the civil rights movement to his assassination, King explores the moral convictions and personal struggles that shaped his leadership. The book reveals new dimensions of his activism, including his economic and anti-war stances. King is a monumental work of scholarship that restores the radical legacy of one of America’s most transformative figures.

A deeply personal memoir and cultural history, The Best Minds recounts Jonathan Rosen’s friendship with Michael Laudor, a brilliant Yale Law student whose promising future was shattered by schizophrenia. After a tragic murder committed during a psychotic break, Rosen confronts the failures of mental health care, societal stigma, and his own illusions. Blending biography, reportage, and philosophical inquiry, the book probes the tension between genius and madness, and the ethical limits of storytelling. The Best Minds is a haunting, compassionate examination of ambition, mental illness, and the tragic costs of a system that abandons its most vulnerable.

In a world where mysterious portals shimmer in every city, Fetter is raised by a ruthless mother who grooms him to assassinate his father—a powerful spiritual leader. Rejecting this destiny, Fetter flees to the capital, where magic, politics, and personal trauma collide. As he tries to find purpose beyond violence, Fetter is drawn into conspiracies surrounding the bright doors and their true meaning. Blending surrealism with sharp political critique, The Saint of Bright Doors explores themes of agency, faith, and identity in a brutal yet vividly imaginative world. It’s a bold, genre-defying debut that challenges fantasy’s traditional boundaries.

As climate catastrophe looms, the Barnes family unravels. Dickie retreats to building a doomsday bunker, Imelda clings to social status, and their children—Cass and PJ—grapple with guilt, love, and survival in an unraveling Ireland. Spanning perspectives and timelines, The Bee Sting is a sweeping, darkly comic novel about family secrets, economic collapse, and existential dread. Paul Murray’s masterful storytelling blends tragedy and absurdity, exploring how people face (or flee from) inevitable change. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it’s a richly layered, emotionally resonant story that captures both the intimacy of personal loss and the scope of global anxiety.

Set in 19th-century London, The Fraud reimagines the Tichborne Trial—a real-life Victorian scandal—as a lens through which to examine truth, authorship, and identity. At the story’s center is Eliza Touchet, housekeeper and cousin to novelist William Ainsworth, who becomes entangled in the trial of a butcher claiming to be a long-lost aristocrat. Through Eliza’s sharp observations and moral grappling, Zadie Smith interrogates class, empire, race, and the shifting lines between fact and fiction. With her signature wit and depth, Smith crafts a historical novel that feels urgently modern, revealing the social and literary frauds that still echo today.