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 Salvage the Bones

Sharman Apt Russell Why did I love this book?

When I read this for the second time- I again fell into the story, completely absorbed in the language and the main character, fourteen-year-old Esch.

I loved how she loved her brothers and how they loved her back in such real and relatable ways. I believed in her pregnancy and in her poverty. I felt the suspense and drama of Hurricane Katrina getting stronger and coming closer, even as the family struggled with their more everyday problems and needs. I loved the lush and vivid descriptions of nature.

I felt I was there, experiencing this with these people. This is what literature can do: cross boundaries of class and race and age and gender, helping us transcend the narrowness of our particular life.

By Jesmyn Ward,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked Salvage the Bones as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

_______________ 'A brilliantly pacy adventure story ... Ward writes like a dream' - The Times 'Fresh and urgent' - New York Times 'There's something of Faulkner to Ward's grand diction' - Guardian _______________ WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Hurricane Katrina is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family. Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets;…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Matrix

Sharman Apt Russell Why did I love this book?

I don’t often read historical fiction, but Matrix had a sensibility that resonated strongly with my own modern confidence and spirit and yet also felt accurate, in so many ways, for that woman in that twelfth-century nunnery.

The plot was deeply satisfying. We marched along with this young nun on her surprisingly quick path to achievement and success. If the victories were not easily won, I still had a constant sense of winning. That was exhilarating!

And then the ending took a turn that I found both profound and radical—something that connected strongly to environmental issues today and the world we live in, but that also reflected on the long arc of human history.   

By Lauren Groff,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
AN OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Gorgeous, sensual, addictive' SARA COLLINS
'Brightly lit' NAOMI ALDERMAN

Born from a long line of female warriors and crusaders, yet too coarse for courtly life, Marie de France is cast from the royal court and sent to Angleterre to take up her new duty as the prioress of an impoverished abbey.

Lauren Groff's modern masterpiece is about the establishment of a female utopia.

'A propulsive, captivating read' BRIT BENNETT
'Fascinating, beguiling, vivid' MARIAN KEYES
'A dazzlingly clever tale' THE TIMES
'A thrillingly vivid,…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of Dinosaurs

Sharman Apt Russell Why did I love this book?

Like most of my friends and family, I live in the sturm and drang of climate change and social injustice. In many ways, I feel the painful moral complexity of my time.

In particular, as an environmentalist, I very much enjoyed the quietness of this novel about modern American life, a sense of the efforts we must make to build community, with the underlying belief that this is possible. I liked the book’s heart of decency, the main character’s particularly befuddled decency, and the swells of the plot that never overwhelmed me.

I liked all the birds! I felt I was always inside this relatively unassuming story, letting it simply unfold.

By Lydia Millet,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Over twelve novels and two collections Lydia Millet has emerged as a major American novelist, writing vividly about the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction. Her exquisite new novel, the first since A Children's Bible (ISBN 978 0 393 86738 1) ("a blistering little classic"-Ron Charles, Washington Post), tells the story of an Arizona man's relationship with the family next door, whose house has one wall made entirely out of glass.

The story delivers attraction and love, friendship and grief. But Millet also evokes the uncanny. Through close observation of human and animal life in…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World

By Sharman Apt Russell,

Book cover of Diary of a Citizen Scientist: Chasing Tiger Beetles and Other New Ways of Engaging the World

What is my book about?

Revolution, renaissance, transformation. This is how I describe the exploding world of citizen science.

Winner of the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing and WILLA Literary Award for Best Creative Nonfiction, Diary of a Citizen Scientist begins with me in pursuit of the Western red-bellied tiger beetle.

As an entomologist once told me, “Study any obscure insect for a week and you will then know more than anyone else on the planet.” I chased the red-bellied tiger beetle for two summers across New Mexico, where I live, and have explored a dozen other citizen science programs. What I found is a renewed optimism in the mysteries of this world and a renewed faith in how ordinary people can contribute to science and environmental activism.

Book cover of Salvage the Bones
Book cover of Matrix
Book cover of Dinosaurs

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