The best books of 2023

This list is part of the best books of 2023.

Join 1,707 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Lessons

Amanda West Lewis Why did I love this book?

This book is a saga, in that it covers a wide swath of historical time – a time span exactly in relation to the life of one human being. Perhaps part of the reason I was drawn to it is that the time frame is similar to my own. I understood the politics and knew of the players.

But what I really loved was the way that the central character, Roland, doesn’t see things. He lives his life without understanding his life or the choices he is making. He can’t see beyond the immediacy of his moment. But as he ages, you watch things start to fit together. Perhaps this is the hope we all have – that our lives will start to make sense when we view them backwards.

The book is a brilliant view into politics and the pressures that social movements exert upon a person. 

By Ian McEwan,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Lessons as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Discover the Sunday Times bestselling new novel from Ian McEwan.

Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers.

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Twenty-five years later Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son. Her disappearance sparks of journey of…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Permanent Astonishment

Amanda West Lewis Why did I love this book?

This is a beautifully written memoir by a prominent First Nations writer and theatre creator. I was left with so many stunning images of life on the land, of growing up in the North, of growing up in a healthy and loving family.

The book changes every preconception you have about First Nations communities and culture. It doesn’t have a narrative or chronological arc, rather it’s like a series of short stories – anecdotes that become almost Thuberesque in their idiosyncratic characters.

At a time when we are trying to come to grips with the legacy of residential schools, the book is honest, optimistic, realistic, and profoundly uplifting. 

My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Horse

Amanda West Lewis Why did I love this book?

Being a horse person, I have to admit I loved the horsey-ness of this book. But more importantly, the politics are revealing.

Brooks uses the reality and the metaphor of horse breeding and racing to examine our relationship to slavery. Her story exists both contemporarily and in the past. 1850, 1954, and 2019. Part of the horror of it is how little things have changed over that century and a half.

It’s a wonderful read, and an inspiring blend of fact and fiction. Because I, too, write historical fiction, I am always interested in how writers work with their research, and how they form a setting that doesn’t feel research-heavy. Brooks is a master at that. Her ability to set her reader in a historical time that feels completely contemporary is amazing. She’s also a fine writer, who handles descriptions like no one else.

By Geraldine Brooks,

Why should I read it?

23 authors picked Horse as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Brooks' chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling." -The New York Times Book Review

"Horse isn't just an animal story-it's a moving narrative about race and art." -TIME

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Focus. Click. Wind.

By Amanda West Lewis,

Book cover of Focus. Click. Wind.

What is my book about?

1968. The NYPD storm the student strike at Columbia University, where aspiring photojournalist 17-year-old Billie Taylor is protesting the war in Vietnam. Political chaos becomes personal when her widowed mother yanks Billie away from New York and into “exile” in Canada. In Toronto, they join the Underground Railroad movement, and their house becomes home for draft evaders and deserters.

Billie’s activism grows, and she finds herself involved with a group of radical exiles who make her confront who she is, and finally, what she believes about family and sacrifice.

When is violence justified? How many atrocities must take place before you act to stop them?