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The best books of 2023

This list is part of the best books of 2023.

We've asked 1,608 authors and super readers for their 3 favorite reads of the year.

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My favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen

Gerald Elias Why did I love this book?

This is an exquisitely beautiful book, both visually and textually. It combines one of the author’s passions, food and cooking, with her other Jewish culture and traditions. 

The rich cultural history of the community of Roman Jews, dating back more than two millennia, is a story of cycles of ghettoized tribulation and resilience that Koenig tells with depth and compassion through her own personal experience of discovery. Along the way, the continuously evolving community developed a hybrid cuisine unique in the world.

Koenig’s reputation as a food authority is already impressive and is still growing. The photography in Portico is stunning –– no less so, the recipes! Whether you’re Jewish or not, you’re in for a culinary experience you’ll treasure.

By Leah Koenig,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A leading authority on Jewish food, Leah Koenig celebrates la cucina Ebraica Romana within the pages of her new cookbook. Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen features over 100 deeply flavourful recipes and beautiful photographs of Rome's Jewish community, the oldest in Europe. The city's Jewish residents have endured many hardships, including 300 years of persecution inside the Roman Jewish Ghetto. Out of this strife grew resilience, a deeply knit community and a uniquely beguiling cuisine. Today, the community thrives on Via del Portico d'Ottavia (the main road in Rome's Ghetto)-and beyond.

Leah Koenig's recipes showcase the cuisine's…


My 2nd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Dead Drop: A Detective Nathan Parker Novel

Gerald Elias Why did I love this book?

As a mystery writer myself, I know what it takes to write a great mystery thriller, and L’Etoile has it all.

Police detective Nathan Parker is enmeshed in a web of crime in the desert Southwest. While confronting human trafficking and drug cartels, he comes up hard against his own law enforcement authorities.

Dead Drop is a death-defying journey into the bowels of bad, and Parker’s ability to come through it alive is a testament to his guile, strength of character, and, sometimes, sheer good luck. The thriller is tautly written and straightforward with no added sugar, with a setting as unforgiving as Parker’s ruthless adversaries.

You’re in for a rollercoaster ride, so hold on to your seats.

By James L'Etoile,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Hundreds go missing each year making the dangerous crossing over the border. What if you were one of them?


While investigating the deaths of undocumented migrants in the Arizona desert, Detective Nathan Parker finds a connection to the unsolved murder of his partner by a coyote on a human smuggling run. The new evidence lures Parker over the border in search of the truth, only to trap him in a strange and dangerous land. If he's to survive, Parker must place his life in the hands of the very people he once pursued.


Border violence, border politics, and who is…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of A Book of Voyages

Gerald Elias Why did I love this book?

If you’re familiar with O’Brian’s masterful Jack Aubrey series of British nautical adventures, you’ll have a sense of where his inspiration came from in A Book of Voyages.

The volume comprises first-person accounts of exotic seventeenth-century journeys, whether overland to destinations throughout Europe and Asia or on perilous sea voyages to northern climes and the New World.

O’Brian has selected a handful of accounts that provide deep, unromanticized insight into life in those distant times, from extremes of unbelievable luxury to the horrors of starvation at sea. Minimally edited, we read the accounts exactly as their authors wrote them, with unadulterated original spellings and archaic writing style, all of which makes us feel we’ve entered a consciousness-opening time machine. 

By Patrick O'Brian (editor),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Never previously published in this country, A Book of Voyages presents writings by various travelers, annotated and introduced by Patrick O'Brian. Most are taken from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; O'Brian felt that, unlike Elizabethan or Victorian accounts, these writings were relatively unknown in our time.

On her journey through the Crimea, Lady Craven witnesses barbaric entertainments in the court of the Tartar Khan. John Bell tells us of his day's hunting with the Manchu emperor in 1721 outside Peking. An English woman in Madras gives us a detailed description of the extraordinary costume and body decoration of a high-born…


Plus, check out my book…

Murder at the Royal Albert: A Daniel Jacobus Mystery

By Gerald Elias,

Book cover of Murder at the Royal Albert: A Daniel Jacobus Mystery

What is my book about?

This uniquely conceived audiobook begins with the sudden death of a young violinist during a concert performance of Gustav Mahler’s Sixth Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall in London and is accompanied by music from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other luminaries.

Blind, curmudgeonly violinist Daniel Jacobus and his companions, Yumi Shinagawa and Nathaniel Williams, join forces with Branwell Small – a questionably trustworthy partner in crime solving – and follow every baffling twist and turn to the finale. 

Combining the talents of a world-class orchestra, author, and famed narrator Alison Larkin makes this a thrilling audiobook full of secrets and surprises that will keep mystery and classical music lovers on the edge of their seats.