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 Camp Zero

Nina Munteanu Why did I love this book?

Set in the remote Canadian north—a place I love for its harsh beauty—this feminist climate fiction explores a warming climate through the perilous journeys of several female characters, each relating to her environment in different ways.

Each woman exerts agency in surprising ways that include love, bravery, and shared community. The strength of female power carried me through the pages like a braided river heading to a singular ocean.

These very different women journey through the dark ruins of violent capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy—flowing past and through hubristic men pushing north with agendas and jingoistic visions—to triumph in an ocean of solidarity.

I empathized with each woman as she found her strength and learned to wield true heroism—one based on collaboration and humble honesty.

By Michelle Min Sterling,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick

In a near-future northern settlement, the fates of a young woman, a professor, and a mysterious collective of researchers collide in this mesmerizing and transportive debut that “delivers its big ideas with suspense, endlessly surprising twists, and abundant heart” (Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author).

In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is break­ing ground on a building project called Camp Zero, intended to be the beginning of a new way of life. A clever and determined young woman code-named Rose is…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of We

Nina Munteanu Why did I love this book?

While the story centres on logical D-503, a man vacuously content as a number in the One State, it is I-330—Zamyatin’s unruly heroine—who stole my attention.

Confident, powerful, and heroic, the liberated I-330 embraces the Green Wind of change to influence D-503. A force of hope and resilience, she braves torture to successfully orchestrate a revolution that breaches the Green Wall—feats typically relegated to a male protagonist in novels of that era.

When pregnant O-90 refuses to surrender her child to the State, I-330 helps her escape to the outside, where the Green Wind of freedom blows. I resonated with Zamyatin’s cautionary tale on the folly of logic without love and Nature.

By Yevgeny Zamyatin, Gregory Zilboorg (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A seminal work of dystopian fiction that foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Russian with an introduction by Clarence Brown.

In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD,…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Wool

Nina Munteanu Why did I love this book?

Juliette—humble and gutsy, kind and relentlessly motivated in her journey for the truth—kept the pages turning for me.

Juliette is a mechanic from the Down-Deep of the underground Silo, humanity’s last refuge to a toxic world. When Juliette inexplicably lands the job of sheriff, she treats her new position as a tool to seek the truth about her lover’s mysterious recent death. At her own peril, she pulls on threads that ultimately reveal a great conspiracy. 

Juliette’s literal and metaphoric rise from the Down-Deep to the Up-Top is a feminist’s journey that transcends intersectional barriers as she battles small-minded men of power and maintains her integrity by refusing to abide by the inhumane Up-Top rules of order.

By the end, I sensed a victory for humankind through womankind.

By Hugh Howey,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

SOON TO BE A MAJOR APPLE TV SERIES
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'Thrilling, thought-provoking and memorable ... one of dystopian fiction's masterpieces alongside the likes of 1984 and Brave New World.' DAILY EXPRESS

In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.

Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.

To live, you must follow the rules. But some don't. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Darwin's Paradox

By Nina Munteanu,

Book cover of Darwin's Paradox

What is my book about?

This speculative novel follows the complex dynamic of a brave mother and her willful teenage daughter, both ‘gifted’ by a virus living inside them. Accused of murder and deliberately spreading the virus that killed many, Julie fled the enclosed city and settled in the climate wastelands with her husband and their child. Years later, when their harsh refuge is threatened by city forces seeking mother and daughter for experimentation, Julie leaves her family and gives herself up to the city, hoping they will abandon pursuing her daughter. Still psychically connected to the city’s AI community (now evolving into an autonomous entity with the intelligent virus), Julie entangles with political intrigue while her daughter, who followed her to the city, stumbles into her mother’s violent past.  

Book cover of Camp Zero
Book cover of We
Book cover of Wool

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