What Is Your Favorite Book of 2023?
Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine
Confession: I love end-of-the-year lists. My favorite part of subscribing to Entertainment Weekly as a teen was their best-of lists. And my favorites of all the “best of the year” lists are the book lists. Even then, I loved to see how my favorites compared to the literary critics.
Usually, there’s some overlap in “the critics’” choices and mine. But here’s the thing: for better or for worse, I am not an especially diverse reader in terms of genre and style and themes. I’m mostly okay with that now. I love to read, and I love what I love, and I don’t like being told that there are certain books that I should read only because they won awards or they are literary darlings. Of course, every once in awhile a book outside of my typical genres will surprise me (I haven’t read a Stephen King book in decades, and Holly was one of my favorites of the year). Reading for me is a passion and a deep pleasure, not a checklist of required reading.
At this point in my life, I mostly read literary fiction — with strong midlife characters and with family themes, often intergenerational struggles — but also a healthy smattering of crime and thriller novels (think Tana French or Jane Harper, for instance), memoir, and narrative and historical nonfiction.
My following list is a different kind of Best Books of the Year list. I read a lot (many books each month), and I don’t keep terribly good track of what I read and I also find it difficult to remember the plots and characters clearly even if I did record the titles. I’m also not entirely comfortable with the idea of “best.” Best what? Best story? Best written? Best characters? Most original? My list is not a determination of literary quality.
My list is a compilation of the novels with midlife, mostly female characters that most stuck with me. That I haven’t been able to get out of my head. That moved me so much that even months later I’m still wondering about their lives and choices. (I realize that a few of these were actually published in 2022 but I read them in 2023.)
These are about mature, but not always wise, people trying to make sense of what life has thrown at them in the the middle of their lives.
Those books from this year with unforgettable characters that will stick with me most strongly are:
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
The Postcard by Anne Barest
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
My honorable mentions are:
Beyond That, The Sea by Laura Spence-Ash
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
Holly by Stephen King
Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls
Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Iona Iverson’s Rules For Commuting by Claire Pooley
The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange
I’d love to talk about any of these books in the comments. Did you read any of them?
I really liked Hello Beautiful and felt it was worth the hype. It was one of the books I read this year that really kept my attention. I really also liked:
-- My Last Innocent Year
-- The Unlikely Village of Eden
-- Congratulations, The Best is Over
-- Pineapple Street
Thanks for all the great winter reading ideas. I rarely read books the year they are published. I may buy them that year, but then I don't get to them until the next. For instance, I am thrilled to finally begin The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. My sister just passed it to me with rave reviews. A 2023 book I read and loved was a craft book by Alice McDermott: What About Baby? Some Thoughts on Fiction. I have been working on and off on a novel for 8 years and I wish I read it sooner. I mostly write nonfiction and the best memoir I read this year was Katie Arnold's Running Home. Its beautiful (2019). And finally, I often re-read books since I love to listen to the language, how bout best re-reads this year: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexander Fuller. I'd love to hear favorite re-reads too:)