It’s not too late to catch up on the best books of 2023 — here’s your fiction and nonfiction checklist.
FICTION
“Wellness”
Nathan Hill (Knopf)
At turns (darkly) hilarious and heartbreaking, this 624-page novel from the author of “The Nix” skewers Gen X cynicism, self-care devotion, cancel culture and aspirational wealth — with a brutal breakdown of how Boomers fall for conspiracy theories online. Jack and Elizabeth fall in and out of love, raise a difficult child and strive, often begrudgingly, to climb the corporate and social ladder, in gentrified Chicago, until the suburban dream starts to look more like a nightmare.
“The Berry Pickers“
Amanda Peters (Catapult)
In July of 1962, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine from Nova Scotia to pick berries for the summer. Weeks later, their youngest child, Ruthie, vanishes. Despite the family’s frantic attempts to find her, nothing turns up. Decades later, the heartbreak from her disappearance still reverberates. Meanwhile in Maine, a girl named Norma grows up in a family full of secrets and explanations that have never quite made sense. A gripping read, a mystery and a moving narrative all in one book.
“Maame“
Jessica George (St. Martin’s Press)
Maddie’s life in London is saddled with responsibilities: Just in her twenties, she is her sick father’s primary caretaker, while her mother spends most of her time back in Ghana. Maddie’s job has hit a dead end, but she lacks the energy to get on with it and find something else. When her mother returns and takes some of the load off, Maddie decides to seize the opportunity to move out of her dad’s apartment and embark on new adventures, from internet dating to new roommates to travel. Funny and raw, and you’ll find yourself cheering for Maddie as she tackles life.
“Yellowface“
R.F. Kuang (William Morrow)
Classmates June Hayward and Athena Liu were both aspiring authors desperate to break into the publishing world. But while Athena has become a literary It girl, June is, well, a nobody. One evening, while they are hanging out in Athena’s apartment, Athena dies in a freak accident. June makes a split decision: She will take Athena’s brilliant manuscript and present it as her own, sending it on to her agent and rebranding herself as the ethnically ambiguous Juniper Song. It works; June-Juniper becomes the toast of the town. But her newfound success is built on a house of cards, and it all threatens to come crashing down in this sharp, hilarious sendup of the publishing world.
“Hello Beautiful“
Ann Napolitano (Dial Press)
From the author of “Dear Edward” comes this poignant spin on “Little Women,” set in Chicago. When William Waters begins dating Julia Padavano during their freshman year of college, he’s not only awed by her, but by her family — which includes sisters Sylvie, Cecilia and Emeline. When William marries into the happy chaos of the Padavanos, it brings him some respite from a life filled with silence and tragedy. But the respite doesn’t last long, and William’s darkness has repercussions for the tight-knit siblings. A beautifully written family epic.
“The Guest“
Emma Cline (Random House)
Summer is coming to an end in the Hamptons, and Alex has been coasting through the season, relying on the hospitality of an older man she’s been dating (really, it’s his well-appointed house she’s more interested in). When he kicks her out, she is left to wander. Her bank account is low, her phone is waterlogged, and there’s nothing waiting for her back in the city, but she has an uncanny ability to navigate new situations and earn herself places to stay.
“Crook Manifesto”
Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Ex-fence Ray Carney has gone straight and sworn off his old life of crime. But the decision to reach out to an old contact for a favor — getting Jackson Five tickets for his daughter — sets in motion a deadly re-entry into the seedy underbelly of New York City. Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead makes early ’70s Harlem spring to vivid life, spinning a yarn that ropes in movie stars, drug dealers, hit men and politicians.
“Everything’s Fine“
Cecilia Rabess (Simon & Schuster)
Jess has just started at Goldman Sachs, the only black woman on the floor. When she sees Josh, a white conservative guy who liked to argue with her in college classes, she’s none too pleased to learn they are now coworkers. Despite their rocky past, she’s surprised when a friendship develops — and then something more, in this sharply drawn opposites-attract story bound to elicit plenty of book-club conversation.
“The Rachel Incident“
Caroline O’Donoghue (Knopf)
Rachel and James are bookstore coworkers who become BFFs instantly, and then roommates. They are two young people living in Cork, Ireland, as the specter of the financial crash looms; their professional prospects seem limited, but their enthusiasm is boundless. Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne. But when they arrange a book reading at the bookstore in an attempt for Rachel to seduce him, it turns out Fred is much more interested in James. The lives of Rachel, James, Fred and Fred’s glamorous wife become intertwined in this painful, poignant coming-of-age novel.
“Small Mercies”
Dennis Lehane (Harper)
Apple+ has already bought the TV rights for the 15th novel from Dennis Lehane, who has suggested this might be his last. If so, it’s a helluva way to go out. Set in 1974, the story — positioned amidst tensions around racially-motivated busing just before the start of a new school year — unflinchingly prods at bigotry and provincial pride in South Boston as it explores a murder mystery and two mothers’ desperation for answers about their lost kids. Not for the faint of heart, but “Small Mercies” is captivating and will stick with you for a good while.
“You Can’t Stay Here Forever“
Katherine Lin (Harper)
While Ellie Huang grapples with the fact that her husband, Ian, has died in a car accident, she learns that he also had a mistress. She cashes in on Ian’s life insurance policy and decides to embark on an extended stay at the luxurious Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France, along with her best friend, Mabel Chou. The pals become regulars as they make new jet-setting friends and spend time poolside, cocktails in hand. Meanwhile, Ellie tries to make sense of what has happened to her life.
“Tom Lake“
Ann Patchett (Harper)
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three adult daughters have come home to help out with the family cherry orchard in Northern Michigan. While they pick fruit, Lara tells them the story of Peter Duke, the famous actor she dated many years before at a summer theater company called Tom Lake. As she recounts the past, her current relationships with her daughters comes to light during a season when everything feels as if it has been put on hold.
“The Quiet Tenant“
Clémence Michallon (Knopf)
Aidan Thomas is well-liked in his small town, and is known as the kind of man who won’t hesitate to help out a neighbor in need. He’s also a kidnapper and serial killer who has been keeping a young woman named Rachel chained up in his backyard shed, but no one in town knows about that. Neither does his 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia. When Aidan and Cecilia have to move after the death of Aidan’s wife, he brings Rachel along, introducing her as a family friend who needed a place to stay. Eerie and tense, this is a spine-tingling exploration of the domestic lives of serial killers.
“Day”
Michael Cunningham (Random House)
The pandemic and loss are at the center of the Pulitzer-prize winner’s first novel in a decade, but Covid-19 is never mentioned explicitly. Divided into sections covering the same date over three years — the morning of April 5, 2019; the afternoon of April 5, 2020; and the evening of April 5, 2021 — the book focuses on the lives of a brownstone-Brooklyn family. Married couple Isabel and Dan are drifting apart as they raise their kids with the help of Isabel’s brother, who lives with them and holds the clan together but also needs to move out. The characters are perfectly drawn and Cunningham’s sentences are reliably elegant and beautiful. With chapters only a few pages in length, and measuring less than 300 pages in total, this tight, focused novel is a reminder of the delight and depth that come can in the details.
“Prophet Song”Paul Lynch (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Lynch’s terrifying dystopian novel just nabbed the coveted Booker Prize. In contemporary Dublin, a new political party has taken power. Eilish, a biologist and middle-class mother-of-four, gets a knock at the door from two men wishing to speak to her husband about his role in the teacher’s union, which the government isn’t a fan of. Things rapidly devolve from there, as freedom fades, the country divides into those who are with and against the new party, and Eilish struggles to do right by her family.
NONFICTION
“Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic- And What We Can Do About It”
Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Portfolio)
If you’ve long suspected there’s something a bit toxic about our culture of success and striving, this is the book for you. A fascinating look at affluent communities and what the constant pressure to succeed and achieve does to kids. (Spoiler alert: Not good things.) Should be a must-read for every parent that’s ever allowed a focus on grades and college admissions to overshadow their emotional connection with their child.
“There Will be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA and Two Minutes that Changed History“
Rory Carroll (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
An in-depth look at an event that nearly altered the course of history: The IRA assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England in 1984. It was the last day of the Conservative Party Conference, and the bomb went off at 2:54 in the morning, killing five people and wounding dozens. It came very close to killing Thatcher herself. Carroll draws on his own interviews and original reporting to weave together a narrative that is engrossing and impactful.
“A Stone is Most Precious Where It Belongs: A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival“
Gulchehra Hoja
One night in 2018, 24 members of Gulchehra Hoja’s family disappeared overnight. Their crime: Hoja’s own investigative reports on the plight of her people, the Uyghurs, a group being systematically destroyed by the Chinese government. But Hoja refused to stop telling the world about what was happening. This fascinating memoir casts a light on what everyday life is like for Uyghurs under Chinese rule, a world that includes technological surveillance and detention camps.
“We Are Electric”
Sally Adee (Hachette)
This wonder of a book opens with a gripping anecdote in which the author has the chance to fight off “enemy troops” in a war simulation — then gets to do it again with the benefit of transcranial direct-current stimulation, an electrical jolt to the brain. The results are astonishing, as is this read on the body’s cellular bioelectricity and how microcurrents might change everything for humanity. But this is no trendy biohacker book; Sally Adee dives deep into two centuries of science and quackery, going back to a weirdly captivating feud between 18th-century physicists.
“The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions“
Jonathan Rosen (Penguin Press)
Michael Laudor was Jonathan Rosen’s closest childhood friend. Laudor was brilliant; the two friends both attended Yale, with Michael graduating in 3 years. But all was not well. Michael was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after suffering a psychotic break that landed him in a psychiatric hospital. And then one night, while experiencing paranoid hallucinations, he stabbed his girlfriend to death. An exploration of mental illness, friendship and the broken American health system.
“I See You, Survivor: Life Inside (and Outside) the Totally F*cked-Up Troubled Teen Industry“
Liz Ianelli (Hachette Books)
Liz Ianelli (known as Survivor993) spent years at the Family Foundation, an institution for “troubled teens” that purported to offer treatment. Instead, it meted out emotional and physical abuse to vulnerable youth. Ianelli survived, but many of her fellow students didn’t — an alarming number of them committing suicide or overdosing in the years after leaving the Foundation. Now, she’s determined to shed light on the shocking, largely unregulated Troubled Teen Industry that preys on parents’ fears.
“Billionaires’ Row: Tycoons, High Rollers and the Epic Race to Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers”
Katherine Clarke (Crown Currency)
A fast-moving inside look at the race to turn a humdrum strip of 57th Street at Central Park into what’s now known as Billionaires’ Row: the most moneyed, ambitious “neighborhood” in New York City. This is no tale of old-money discretion, as real-estate impresarios — some fueled by Saudi cash — will go to any length to get jaw-dropping “supertalls” like One57 into the air. Some lose big in their quest to redraw the Manhattan skyline, and Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Clarke is like a fly on the wall.
“Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents — and What They Mean for America’s Future”Jean M. Twenge, PhD (Atria Books)
Although it’s not meant as a horror story, Dr. Jean Twenge’s latest temperature-check of America offers plenty of scares about Gen Z — including that the number of teens who don’t enjoy life has doubled from a decade ago. The psychologist not only dives deep into how social media and screen time have caused this, but she also suggests urgent-warning solutions for how the parents of Gen Alpha (those born in 2012 or later) can try to turn things around.
“The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder”
David Grann (Doubleday)
Telling a 282-year-old story about the crew of a Royal Navy warship is a feat best left in the hands of David Grann, who turns it into a thriller. It’s packed with cinematic elements: a secret mission, a fight for survival, and a shocking twist that puts the truth in a tailspin. The movie rights have already been snapped up by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, who also collaborated on the recent adaptation of Grann’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“My Name Is Barbra”
Barbra Streisand (Viking)
Yes, it’s 970 pages (and that’s without an index) and the audio book clocks in at 48 hours. But, really, would you want or expect anything less from an actual living legend? Streisand manages to make the smallest details — like the hot-water bottle she carried around as a child in Flatbush or the sable fur coat she splurged on, only to discover it was skunk — well, sing. You get Greenwich Village in its entertainment heyday, Hollywood, romance and heartbreaks, the making of classic films and songs, and a healthy sprinkling of Babs’ steel. It’s even a delight reading how she phoned Apple’s Tim Cook to demand that Siri get the pronunciation of her name right.
“The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team”
Kara Goucher (Gallery Books)
Two-time Olympian and three-time New York City Marathon winner Kara Goucher exposes the horrors — including alleged sexual abuse, pregnancy discrimination and doping — inside the world of Nike’s competitive Oregon Project. Told at an appropriately zippy pace, the book paints a vivid picture of life on an elite track team and what it felt like to lose it all to a well-respected predator.
“You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir”
Maggie Smith (Atria)
Maggie Smith shot to fame when her poem “Good Bones” went viral in 2016. Her memoir borrows a key line from that piece and focuses on the aftermath of her sudden fame — the resentment it created in her marriage, her husband allegedly cheating on her and their divorcing. Smith avoid the gory details of the split, but tells her story of coming to terms with a new chapter of her life and a new family structure for her beloved children. Throughout, she quotes the Emily Dickison line “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself,” and the book shines with a light all its own.
“Elon Musk”
Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster)
Journalist Walter Isaacson’s take on the tech titan is full of the sort of dishy details and insight one only gets by shadowing a subject for two years (and by being Walter Isaacson). Big revelations include Musk’s secret third child with musician Grimes; the secret twins he fathered with an executive; Musk’s “brutal” relationship with actress Amber Heard that ended with a dramatic fight in Brazil; and how his decision to buy Twitter came after staying up until 5 a.m. playing video games with Grimes. Isaacson is a master at profiling huge personalities, and though the book is nearly 700 pages, it flies by.
“A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?“
KellyWeinersmith, Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press)
Funny. Accessible. Captivating. These aren’t always words one associates with science books, but this informative take on what living in space would really be like bristles with wit and knowledge. The authors note that life on another planet would likely “suck,” between the awkward sex, terrible food, toxic atmosphere and potential for ugly turf battles. Zach Weinersmith, an illustrator, peppers the book with delightful drawings that offset the doomy predictions that likely come by way of Kelly Weinersmith, a behavioral ecologist at Rice University.
“The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens All — But There Is a Solution”
Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott (Simon & Schuster)
Greg Lukianoff — president of free-speech defenders FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) — and Post columnist Rikki Schlott break down cancel culture, studying its components from all angles, and explain in a conversational, anecdote-driven way how we’ve let it take over American campuses, comedy, publishing, science and more. But all is not lost, as the duo also offers a path forward and out of the cancel-culture trap.
