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 This Is Happiness

Leslie Larson Why did I love this book?

From page one, I fell in love with the language of the book, its meandering pace, and the voice and temperament of the narrator.

At 78, Noe Crowe looks back on the year he lived with his grandparents in a remote County Clare village when he was 17. His time there coincides with the arrival of electricity in western Ireland, an event that will change a way of life that has been the same for centuries.

Noe befriends his grandparents’ lodger Christy—an older man who is an equal parts conman, dreamer, and guru—and their adventures, along with the convoluted progress of the electrification, propel the story.

Because of this book, I find myself enjoying more moments where I stop and say, “this is happiness.”

By Niall Williams,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked This Is Happiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for Best Novel in the Irish Book Awards Longlisted for the 2020 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction From the acclaimed author of Man Booker-longlisted History of the Rain 'Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive' Sunday Times 'A love letter to the sleepy, unhurried and delightfully odd Ireland that is all but gone' Irish Independent After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain. But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish - the electricity is finally arriving. With it…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Brick Lane

Leslie Larson Why did I love this book?

I love this book because it so completely submerged me in the life and surroundings of the protagonist, Nazneen, a young Muslim woman who leaves her small Bangladeshi village to live in a London council flat in an arranged marriage with an older man.

Ali conveys a visceral sense of the stifling apartment, the tedious work, the bleak weather, and the loneliness and dullness of Nazneen’s life. Not that it’s a place we want to be, but we experience Nazneen’s yearning for escape so profoundly that we root passionately for her as she pursues some degree of freedom and purpose.

A master of the finest detail, Ali brings the sights, smells, and sounds of Brick Lane to dazzling life.

By Monica Ali,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Nazneen's inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For years, keeping house and rearing children, she does what is expected of her. Yet Nazneen walks a tightrope stretched between her daughters' embarrassment and her husband's resentments. Chanu calls his elder daughter the little memsahib. 'I didn't ask to be born here,' says Shahana, with regular finality. Into that fragile…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Someone Knows My Name

Leslie Larson Why did I love this book?

This is an adventure story with the highest possible stakes. It portrays the most brutal and debased human urges and doesn’t shy away from graphically depicting horrifying scenes of disease, starvation, torture, filth, and death.

At the center is Aminata Diallo, who was kidnapped from Africa as a child and sent into slavery in North America. In her, Hill has created one of the most luminous characters in contemporary literature. Her voice speaks directly to our hearts with breathtaking authenticity and intelligence.

The beauty of her spirit and the strength of her hope, not to mention the power of her narration, triumph over the suffering and injustice, making this a heart-expanding read.

By Lawrence Hill,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Someone Knows My Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kidnapped from Africa as a child, Aminata Diallo is enslaved in South Carolina but escapes during the chaos of the Revolutionary War. In Manhattan she becomes a scribe for the British, recording the names of blacks who have served the King and earned their freedom in Nova Scotia. But the hardship and prejudice of the new colony prompt her to follow her heart back to Africa, then on to London, where she bears witness to the injustices of slavery and its toll on her life and a whole people. It is a story that no listener, and no reader, will…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Breaking Out of Bedlam

By Leslie Larson,

Book cover of Breaking Out of Bedlam

What is my book about?

Cora Sledge, an 82-year-old widow, lives on junk food, pills, and cigarettes. When her kids force her into The Palisades, an assisted living facility, Cora decides that truth is the best revenge and begins to write a tell-all journal that reveals the secret she has guarded since her teens.

In entries that are profane, profound, and gossipy, she chronicles both her past and the day-to-day dramas—including her budding romance with a suave new resident, feuds with her tablemates, and the sinister cloud of suspicion that descends as a series of petty crimes sets everyone on edge.

Book cover of This Is Happiness
Book cover of Brick Lane
Book cover of Someone Knows My Name

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