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 Prince of Fire

Charles S. Oliviero Why did I love this book?

Like all of Silva’s novels, Prince of Fire weaves intricate storylines together with seemingly effortless dexterity. 

The joy in reading his novels is in more than just the plotline. His characters are three-dimensional and relatable. They are flawed humans without being pitiable. Further, for anyone who loves language, there is joy in observing the craft of his storytelling. The reader is pulled into the scene.

Further, and perhaps most important to me, there is inevitably a moral lesson (or two) in all his novels: good versus evil, the difficult but necessary choices.

By Daniel Silva,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva presents "a first-rate thriller" (Rocky Mountain News) featuring art restorer—and reluctant spy—Gabriel Allon.

After an explosion in Rome destroys the Israeli embassy, Gabriel Allon makes a disturbing discovery—the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, and lays bare his history. Drawn into the heart of a service he’d once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking a master terrorist across a bloody landscape generations in the making. But soon, Allon will wonder who is stalking whom.

When the final showdown comes, it won’t be Allon alone who is threatened…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow

Charles S. Oliviero Why did I love this book?

Towles is a great storyteller who weaves the warp and woof of one man’s life into the historical fabric of the early years of Soviet Russia.  

The story is a multilayered account that uses a Count as the focal point. The author immerses the reader in the Count’s daily life without being trite or corny. The story spans decades and as it does so, the reader is drawn into the daily rhythms of the characters. The prose pulls the reader along like a sleigh through soft snow.

The story develops over decades, and Towles is masterful at allowing the characters to grow and develop ever so subtly.

By Amor Towles,

Why should I read it?

41 authors picked A Gentleman in Moscow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

Charles S. Oliviero Why did I love this book?

Bolton is a serious man who has worked for three American administrations. He understands strategy and policy. He knows incompetence when he sees it.

In Trump’s White House, Bolton struggles to work with Trump’s “basket of incorrigibles” and incompetents. The good people leave; too many incompetents stay. Bolton describes an Administration in constant chaos and a President with the attention span of a toddler. It offers deep insight into how Trump’s policies were always based on his personal interests rather than national priorities. It also offers a first-hand account of how long and meeting-filled the days are for senior officials.

The memoir has no axe to grind. Bolton is not vindictive. He doesn’t skewer opponents and colleagues. There are no debts to settle. All of this makes it quite readable.

By John Bolton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Room Where It Happened as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As President Trump's National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves.

The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration, and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Strategia

By Charles S. Oliviero,

Book cover of Strategia

What is my book about?

War fascinates us, but what do we really know about its nature? 

Strategia (The Science and Art of Military Command) is the product of Colonel Oliviero’s decades-long intellectual quest to address this fundamental query. His work offers both the serious student and the casual reader a foundation stone upon which to build a deeper understanding of military thought and theory, and thereby a richer appreciation of mankind’s deadliest pursuit.

Strategia introduces many of the major contributors to military thought and theory as well as some of their most profound impacts on the conduct of war, from Sun-Tzu to the modern day, encompassing warfare on land, at sea, and in the air, as well as in the cyber-realm.

Book cover of Prince of Fire
Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow
Book cover of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

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