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 The Running Grave: A Cormoran Strike Novel

Karen C. Murdarasi Why did I love this book?

This book kept me up past my bedtime! It was so gripping and also so readable.

The characters are well-rounded and believable, and the interplay between them is as intriguing as the actual mystery they are trying to solve.

Because it’s a series, I already "knew" and cared about Robin, the female lead, so when she spends half the book in real and growing peril, there is an inescapable sense of dread.

The final reveal was satisfying (if horrific), and I didn’t see it coming, but it was the ride that I enjoyed as much as the destination.

By Robert Galbraith,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Running Grave as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The work of a master storyteller'
Daily Telegraph

'One of crime's most engaging duos'
Guardian
________

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner Robin Ellacott decides to infiltrate the cult and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The Magicians

Karen C. Murdarasi Why did I love this book?

I actually only ranked this book four stars out of five initially (I’m a harsh marker), but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Imagine a cross between the Narnia series and the Harry Potter series, but all the main characters are Edmund/Malfoy types. People sometimes do heroic things, but there are no heroes here.

It’s all much more muddy. This is a fantasy novel set in the real world, at least to start with, but there are also heavy elements of horror, and I think that’s why it put barbs into my brain – the things that happen to important characters are traumatic, unforgettable, and often very sudden.

A book that stays with you, whether you want it to or not.

By Lev Grossman,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Magicians as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY

"The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this."
-George R.R. Martin

"Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy."
-Joe Hill

"A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre."
-John Green

"The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I've read this century."
-Cory Doctorow

"This gripping…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Karen C. Murdarasi Why did I love this book?

What I loved about this book is that it was a love story, but not a romance. It’s so unusual to have the central love story of a book be a platonic friendship.

Sam and Sadie become friends as children, and despite breakups, bad relationships, misunderstandings, and tragedy, their friendship survives.

This is also a novel about computer games, but you don’t have to be a gamer to appreciate it. I think, as with Ready Player One (a favorite of mine), it helps to be a particular age so that you can remember early computer games, but I was drawn into the description of inventing and building a game, even though I have almost no experience of that because the relationships between the characters carry the story.

By Gabrielle Zevin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

* AMAZON'S #1 BOOK OF 2022 *

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect.

This is not a romance, but it is about love.

'I just love this book and I hope you love it too' JOHN GREEN, TikTok

Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987. Sadie is visiting her sister, Sam is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there, but playing together brings joy, escape, fierce competition -- and a special friendship. Then all too soon that time is…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Rambles Round Glasgow: 21st Century Edition

By Hugh MacDonald, Karen C. Murdarasi,

Book cover of Rambles Round Glasgow: 21st Century Edition

What is my book about?

Let Hugh MacDonald's Rambles Round Glasgow transport you to mid-nineteenth century Glasgow – to a busy, grimy, burgeoning city and to the towns and villages that would soon be swallowed up by its progress.

From the "rural-looking village of Govan" in the south to the "spot called the 'Bear's Den'" in the north, MacDonald will take you through familiar Glasgow locations and regale you with tales of their legends and history.

Book cover of The Running Grave: A Cormoran Strike Novel
Book cover of The Magicians
Book cover of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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