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 A Sin of Omission

John D. Marks Why did I love this book?

Marguerite Poland vividly brings to life a period in South Africa’s history about which I knew nothing, and she proves to be a masterful storyteller. 

In this book, I felt the horror and the tension of those 19th-century days before apartheid was finalized – but when the roots of what was to come were very much present. 

By Marguerite Poland,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Winner of The Sunday Times CNA Literary Awards. Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize

Torn from his parents and tribe as a boy in the 1870s, Stephen Mzamane is picked by the Anglican church to train at the Missionary College in Canterbury to be a rural preacher in Southern Africa's Cape Colony.

He is a brilliant success but troubles stalk him: his unresolved relationship with his family and people, the condescension of church leaders towards their own native pastors, and That Woman-seen once in a photograph and never forgotten.

And now he has to find his mother and take her…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Life on the Run

John D. Marks Why did I love this book?

It was fascinating to read about Bill Bradley’s life as a basketball star at Princeton and with the New York Knicks – before he was elected a US Senator. 

I found him to be an exemplary model on how to achieve excellence. He would have made a great president of the United States.

By Bill Bradley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Life on the Run as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Former NBA star, New York Knicks player, and United States senator Bill Bradley's account of twenty days in a pro basketball season remains a classic in the literature of sports, unparalleled in its candor and intelligence.

Bradley takes readers from the court to the locker room, from the seamless teamwork of a winning game to the loneliness of a motel in a strange city. We see Bradley and his fellow Knicks, like Willis Reed, as they withstand the abuse of the press and the smothering adoration of their fans, along with the shameless appeals of those who want to parlay…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of My Friend Anne Frank: The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds

John D. Marks Why did I love this book?

I was gripped by this first-person story of the horrors of the Holocaust. 

This is the story of a teen-age girl who experiences hell on earth – and manages to survive. It provides testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.

By Hannah Pick-Goslar, Dina Kraft,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Friend Anne Frank as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Both heartbreaking and life-affirming" (Edith Eger, author of The Choice), the long-awaited memoir of Holocaust survivor Hannah Pick-Goslar, who shares an intimate look into her life and friendship with Anne Frank.

In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Book cover of The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences

What is my book about?

In this explosive book, best-selling, award-winning author John Marks tells the story of the CIA's top-secret program to perfect mind control. Playboy called it “one of the most important books of the year….We see the CIA on the cutting edge of inquiry into hypnosis, drugs, brainwashing, personality assessment, psychosurgery, electric and radio stimulations of the brain, the creation of involuntary amnesia, terminal shock therapy.” 

Marks worked from thousands of pages of CIA documents, interviews, and behavioral science studies to produce a book that ”accomplished what two Senate committees could not” (Senator Edward Kennedy). As legendary reporter Seymour Hersh put it, this is “a wonderful piece of investigative reporting – the best account we’ll ever get of one of the seamiest episodes of American intelligence.”