The Best Books I Read in 2023

Well, the time has come yet again, to rank the top books I read in the past year. This is the third installment of my best books series, and with each subsequent year, I feel as though my love of literature only grows stronger. Of all the books I’ve read this year, the following eight titles have stood out from the rest, for writing, character development, theme, or–in many cases–a combination of the three. Here they are …

The Great Believers – Rebecca Makkai

This was the first book I read in 2023, and it set a pretty high standard for the year, to say the least. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2018, the story alternates between two characters: Yale, a young art gallery director living with his boyfriend in Chicago in the 1980s, and Fiona, the older sister of one of Yale’s friends, now middle-aged and searching for her estranged daughter in Paris in 2015. Initially distinct, the narratives quickly become intertwined, taking the reader through the horror of the AIDS epidemic and the lasting trauma, as well as the complexities of the modern world. It’s a beautifully written story, as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, with flawed but likable characters that feel like real people.

The Trees – Percival Everett

When a series of brutal murders plague a rural town in Mississippi, two Black detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation show up to investigate. But it quickly becomes clear that these are not ordinary crimes: at each scene, there is a second body, one that resembles Emmitt Till. More puzzling still, the Emmitt Till-lookalike disappears after every murder, only to reappear at the next. As similar murders begin to crop up around the country, the detectives must work together with the racist county sheriffs and a local root doctor to figure out what is going on. Fast-paced and extremely thought-provoking, The Trees is a brilliant take on racism and police violence, and an important reminder of how our past can–literally–come back to haunt us.

(As a side note, Everett’s lesser-known novel, Erasure, is also a smart, witty, unique story that I very much enjoyed and would highly recommend.)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuk

Drive Your Plow is another untraditional murder mystery, this one set in a small Polish village and told from the perspective of an eccentric older woman with a strong connection to animals. When several of the townspeople turn up dead in increasingly bizarre ways, she immerses herself in the investigation and uncovers a vital link between the murders–the only problem is, no one will take her seriously. The voice is what made this story stand out for me–it’s fantastically original and unreliable–and I appreciated the underlying messaging about the importance of practicing kindness toward non-human animals.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate – Naomi Klein

This list wouldn’t be complete without at least one climate-related title, and this year, it goes to Naomi Klein’s acclaimed 2014 novel on how capitalism has driven–and continues to drive–the ongoing climate crisis. This Changes Everything is a must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of the laws, politics, and cultural shifts that have shaped our current society, one that prizes eternal economic growth over human life and ecological longevity, as well as what we must now do to stop climate change and save our only home.

Honorable mentions go to The Climate Book, a 2022 accumulation of climate-themed essays by Greta Thunberg and other leading voices in the climate movement, and Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert, for its chilling yet darkly comedic exploration of all the ways scientists are currently trying to undo the immense damage we’ve inflicted upon the planet, from gene-editing invasive species into extinction to literally dimming the sun.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong

This beautiful, haunting novel is written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese-American son to his mother who can’t read. It describes his life growing up queer and Asian in Hartford, Connecticut, as well as his family’s history in Vietnam and the often complicated familial and romantic relationships that have shaped him as a now late-twentysomething. On Earth tackles themes of race, sexuality, masculinity, grief, and coming-of-age in a raw and honest manner, while simultaneously weaving a beautiful story through a series of moments and memories. The author is primarily known for his poetry, and this shows in the writing style and narrative structure. While the style won’t work for everyone, I personally enjoyed it and learned a lot from reading this book.

A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

Never has a book made me laugh as hard as the first half of this 1989 classic did. Owen Meany is a tiny, somewhat otherworldly boy with a larger-than-life personality and a very loud and peculiar voice (HE SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS). When he accidentally kills the mother of his best friend and protagonist, John, in a Little League baseball game, he doesn’t believe it was an accident but instead that he is God’s instrument. What follows is a hilarious, tragic, and wildly unpredictable tale of faith, doubt, friendship, and purpose, primarily set in a rural New Hampshire town. The writing is top-notch, the characters (especially Owen) are multi-dimensional, and the ending has stuck with me long after I turned the final page.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft – Stephen King

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Stephen King (I’m currently listening to The Stand on audiobook), and I enjoyed his memoir even more than I’d expected to. On Writing does a fantastic job, in my opinion, of capturing what writing is truly about: the daily grind of sitting down at your computer and trying to spin the ideas in your head into a story, all the rewrites and “killing your darlings,” constantly measuring yourself against the works of other authors and feeling inadequate, becoming so absorbed in a work-in-progress to the point where all you ever want to do is write, the myriad of emotional highs and lows that come with the craft, and so on. While some of the information about publishing, in particular, is outdated, there’s a lot of excellent advice and insight in On Writing, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about Stephen King and/or the essence of writing.

Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut

I’d never read Slaughterhouse-Five until March of this year and had no idea what to expect. Needless to say, this 1969 American classic was a wild ride, introducing me to truly one-of-a-kind characters and storylines that were so bizarre and unpredictable that I had to keep reading to find out what happened next. In short, the novel is a satirical account of Billy Pilgrim, an eccentric prisoner-of-war who believes he has experienced time travel. His story is told by an unreliable narrator who’s vaguely implied to be Vonnegut himself and explores a whole host of topics that include war (with a strong anti-war message), PTSD, sanity vs. insanity, aliens, life and death, and so much more. Darkly funny and highly thought-provoking, I greatly enjoyed this book.

Let me know in the comments what the best books you read this year were!