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 Black Widows

Bernard Capp Why did I love this book?

This gripping crime thriller is more a ‘whichdunnit’ than a ’whodunnit’. The murder victim, a dissident Mormon patriarch, lived with his three wives in a rundown farmstead in Utah so remote that the women are the only plausible suspects.

They dislike and resent each other, and each has a strong motive to kill their tyrannical spouse. Quinn brilliantly brings her characters to life, each with a very different backstory, and captures marvelously the feel of the place and the period. I found the book impossible to put down.

It’s full of twists and turns, with surprises to the very end. And unlike many thrillers, it has stayed fresh in my mind for months.

By Cate Quinn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Widows as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"While Quinn writes with spirit on weighty subjects like domestic abuse, polygamy and religious cults, her primary and most poignant theme seems to be female friendship."-New York Times Book Review

"An absolutely thrilling novel. I devoured it over a weekend, unable to put it down. It's a clever and completely original take on a domestic thriller."-Alex Michaelides, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Silent Patient

"Original, informative, suspenseful-the big three in a literary slam bang."-New York Journal of Books

Blake's dead. They say his wife killed him. If so... which one?

Polygamist Blake Nelson built a homestead…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of A Single Thread

Bernard Capp Why did I love this book?

I love Chevaiier’s books. She has exceptional skill in recreating the past, from early medieval France to nineteenth-century America.

This novel explores the world of a small English cathedral city in the 1930s, through the life of Violet, a youngish woman rendered ‘surplus’ because her fiancé and so many other men of her generation had perished in the First World War. There are no fireworks in this story, but I found it moving in depicting the hopes, fears, prejudices, and struggles of its varied characters, with the shadows of another World War already looming on the horizon. 

By Tracy Chevalier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Single Thread as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

'Bittersweet ... dazzling' Guardian

'Deeply pleasurable ... the ending made me cry' The Times

'Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity' Penelope Lively

Violet is 38.

The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiance - and her future. She is now considered a 'surplus woman'.

But Violet is also fiercely independent and determined. Escaping her suffocating mother, she moves to Winchester to start a new life -a change that will require courage, resilience and acts of quiet rebellion. And when whispers of another…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown

Bernard Capp Why did I love this book?

Britain’s experiment with republicanism lasted only eleven years (1649-60). Keay explores it through the eyes of a dozen very different characters, from Oliver Cromwell to a cynical journalist, a countess, a country squire, a low-born visionary, and so on.

In each case she gives us a sympathetic insight into the person’s mindset and life, set against the backcloth of public events across England, Scotland, and Ireland.  I have been studying this period for decades and would recommend this book as the ideal introduction for anyone new to it. And there are lots of pictures to add to the page-turning narratives.

By Anna Keay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Restless Republic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE

Eleven years when Britain had no king.

In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution.

On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the 'useless and dangerous' House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew.

The Restless Republic is the story…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750

By Bernard Capp,

Book cover of British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750

What is my book about?

Many people today don’t know that huge numbers of Europeans were also enslaved in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Among them were roughly 20,000 Britons and a small number of Americans, seized by Barbary corsairs and sold into slavery in Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco. This book explores their stories, for the first time: capture, often at sea, humiliating sale in the slave market, and then life and often death in bondage. The more fortunate were eventually ransomed, while a brave handful contrived to escape and make it back home. Several later described their adventures in print, and the book makes full use of their extraordinary stories. 

Book cover of Black Widows
Book cover of A Single Thread
Book cover of The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown

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