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 How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

Steven S. Skiena Why did I love this book?

I love a good history book, and I love well-written books. How to Hide an Empire is a fun and informative history of all the territories the United States has controlled over the years: how we got ‘em, and how we integrated them or gave them up.

Much of this was new and surprising to me. I liked the story of the U.S. Guano islands in the days when bird poop was a highly valued commodity for fertilizer. The history of why the United States gave up its colonies right after WWII was very insightful: a function of plastics, military bases, and industrial standardization. He connects Osama bin Laden, the Beatles, and Sony’s founder Akio Morita as direct consequences of the system.

I strongly recommend this book.

By Daniel Immerwahr,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked How to Hide an Empire as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune
A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire

We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories―the islands, atolls, and archipelagos―this country has governed and inhabited?

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The World of Yesterday

Steven S. Skiena Why did I love this book?

Some books you love because of where you were when you read them. During my recent sabbatical in Vienna, I was determined to read a book by Stephan Zweig, perhaps the most popular writer in the world during the 1920s, yet one whose works had fallen into relative obscurity over time. A big reason is that he was a Jewish writer in German just before the Nazis purged bookstores and libraries of all such “degenerate” works. 

This book is a memoir of life buffeted by the events of the 20th century. Zweig lived a rich intellectual life in the stability of Vienna toward the end of the Hapsburg empire in Austria. He watched that life shatter during WWI and the coming of the Nazis before fleeing into exile, ultimately in South America. This is a book documenting the collapse of civilization, written in the darkest days of the Second World War.

And man, this guy could write! Even in translation, you hear his voice: sensible, refined, warm, and funny. I learned so much about the times and places of his life and found him fascinating.

The story of this book is ultimately a tragedy. The day after he put the manuscript in the mail to his publisher, he and his wife killed themselves, unwilling to live longer in those days of darkness. But he left us the book about the world of yesterday, a world well worth knowing and recalling.

By Stefan Zweig,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The World of Yesterday, mailed to his publisher a few days before Stefan Zweig took his life in 1942, has become a classic of the memoir genre. Originally titled “Three Lives,” the memoir describes Vienna of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, the world between the two world wars and the Hitler years.

Translated from the German by Benjamin W. Huebsch and Helmut Ripperger; with an introduction by Harry Zohn, 34 illustrations, a chronology of Stefan Zweig’s life and a new bibliography, by Randolph Klawiter, of works by and about Stefan Zweig in English.

“The best single memoir of Old Vienna by…


My 3rd favorite read in 2023

Book cover of The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 4B: Combinatorial Algorithms Part 2

Steven S. Skiena Why did I love this book?

Knuth is perhaps the true founder of Computer Science, who set out in the late 1960s to produce a seven-volume series of books containing all the foundations of the discipline.

Three volumes appeared by 1973, after which he got distracted by many other things, and the promised volumes seemed destined never to emerge. But Knuth finished Volume 4A in 2011, after a lapse of 35 years. And then, in the Fall of 2022, at the age of 84, he published the 712-page Volume 4B: Combinatorial Algorithms Part II!

There is nothing in the world like a Knuth book. He has a unique way of looking at the world and an unrivaled sense of detail and humor. He goes deeper down rabbit holes than any man alive, and you come out smarter and with a sense of wonder that such books really exist.

Volume 4B is dedicated to combinatorial search algorithms, like backtracking, with applications to Satisfiability, famous as the first and most fundamental NP-complete (computationally hard) problem. But he shows how these hard problems still can be practically solved through doses of beautify theory.

Any computer scientist or programmer is not a real computer scientist until you read a Knuth book.   Why not start with his latest and then work back?

By Donald E. Knuth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Art of Computer Programming as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Art of Computer Programming is Knuth's multivolume analysis of algorithms. With the addition of this new volume, it continues to be the definitive description of classical computer science.

Volume 4B, the sequel to Volume 4A, extends Knuth's exploration of combinatorial algorithms. These algorithms are of keen interest to software designers because ". . . a single good idea can save years or even centuries of computer time."

The book begins with coverage of Backtrack Programming, together with a set of data structures whose links perform "delightful dances" and are ideally suited to this domain. New techniques for important applications…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

The Data Science Design Manual

By Steven S. Skiena,

Book cover of The Data Science Design Manual

What is my book about?

This engaging and clearly written textbook/reference provides a must-have introduction to the rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field of data science.

It focuses on the principles fundamental to becoming a good data scientist and the key skills needed to build systems for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data.

The Data Science Design Manual is a source of practical insights that highlights what really matters in analyzing data and provides an intuitive understanding of how these core concepts can be used. The book does not emphasize any particular programming language or suite of data-analysis tools, focusing instead on high-level discussion of important design principles.

Book cover of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States
Book cover of The World of Yesterday
Book cover of The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 4B: Combinatorial Algorithms Part 2

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