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 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Wendy Bashant Why did I love this book?

This is a many-layered story about three high-achieving friends who make video games. It is a book that I shouldn’t have liked—I don’t know anything about video games—but I did.

Sadie wants to write games that break boundaries to show the male-dominated video world what she can do. Sam has grown up poor with severe health problems and thus wants to make games that are crowd pleasers. Marx is the practical mind who tries to accommodate their disparate creativity and mold it into something that sells.

The characters find that they need each other, but as time passes, they also discover how messy life is when imagination, business, friendship, and love compete in real life. 

By Gabrielle Zevin,

Why should I read it?

27 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…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Horse

Wendy Bashant Why did I love this book?

A discarded painting, the bones of a horse, an art historian, a naturalist: this enthralling tale takes these fragments from the basement of museums and the dustbin of history and builds a heart-wrenching novel.

Her two main modern characters are, as she is, scholars. One is Australian, the other British with a Nigerian mother. Through their “outsider” status and their overlapping academic interests, they slowly uncover the story of Lexington, one of America’s great racehorses, Jarret, his enslaved keeper, and almost 200 years of American history.

As they piece together this complicated history, they become entangled in its threads. They discover, as we do, that the sins of our past continue into our present.

By Geraldine Brooks,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"Brooks' chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling." -The New York Times Book Review

"Horse isn't just an animal story-it's a moving narrative about race and art." -TIME

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an…


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My 3rd favorite read in 2023…

Book cover of Small Things Like These

Wendy Bashant Why did I love this book?

Keegan’s book is slight, intense, and poetic. It is 1985, a bitter winter in Ireland. A coal seller in a small village reflects on his good fortune.

He came from humble beginnings, but his family is healthy—five girls. He has a happy marriage and is prosperous in these hard times. He even has enough to be generous to neighbors who have less. His comfortable position, however, is shaken when he discovers a secret in the locked barn by the convent.

With that discovery, the novella morphs from a fairy tale to a moral fable. It asks hard questions of us: What is our responsibility when we see something wrong? What power do we have to speak up?

By Claire Keegan,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked Small Things Like These as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize

"A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

The Same Bright Moon: Teaching China's New Generation During Covid

By Wendy Bashant,

Book cover of The Same Bright Moon: Teaching China's New Generation During Covid

What is my book about?

In 2019, a burned-out teacher quit her job to teach 200 students in the ancient, walled city of Xi’an, China.

The year turns extraordinary when tensions between China and the US escalate: first tit-for-tat tariffs, then a worldwide pandemic, finally lockdowns, closed consulates, and expelled journalists. All the while, accusations are lobbed back and forth like flaming arrows launched over the Pacific. 

The Same Bright Moon is the story of China’s newest generation told during a remarkable year to the teacher assigned to teach them. Their vibrant voices will challenge, inspire, and bring hope for the future. 

My book recommendation list