Year-End Lists

Esquire: The 20 Best Books of 2023

[see also The Best Books of 2022 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The 50 Best Books of 2021 • The Best Books of the 2010s • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

1. Chain-Gang All-Stars
   Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
2. The Rediscovery of America

   Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
   Ned Blackhawk
3. A Living Remedy
   Nicole Chung
4. Monsters

   A Fan's Dilemma
   Claire Dederer
5. Poverty, by America
   Matthew Desmond
6. The Wager

   A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
   David Grann
7. The Possibility of Life

   Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos
   Jaime Green
8. The Vaster Wilds
   Lauren Groff
9. Doppelganger

   A Trip into the Mirror World
   Naomi Klein
10. Yellowface
    R.F. Kuang
11. Biography of X
    Catherine Lacey
12. Lone Women
    Victor LaValle
13. Wednesday's Child
    Yiyun Li
14. Absolution
    Alice McDermott
15. Wrong Way
    Joanne McNeil
16. America Fantastica
    Tim O'Brien
17. Saving Time

    Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock
    Jenny Odell
18. The Late Americans
    Brandon Taylor
19. Crook Manifesto
    Colson Whitehead
20. Land of Milk and Honey
    C Pam Zhang

The Economist: The Best Books of 2023

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2012]

Current affairs and politics

• Deadly Quiet City

  True Stories from Wuhan
  Murong Xuecun
• Fear Is Just a Word

  A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance
  Azam Ahmed
• Flowers of Fire

  The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide
  Hawon Jung
• The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory

  American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
  Tim Alberta
• Some People Need Killing

  A Memoir of Murder in My Country
  Patricia Evangelista
• Sparks

  China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future
  Ian Johnson

Business and economics

• Anansi's Gold

  The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
  Yepoka Yeebo
• Best Things First
  Bjørn Lomborg
• The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
  John Cochrane
• The Geek Way

  The Radical Mindset Transforming the Future of Business
  Andrew McAfee
• How Big Things Get Done

  The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between
  Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner
• Material World

  The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
  Ed Conway
• The Missing Billionaires

  A Guide to Better Financial Decisions
  Victor Haghani and James White
• Scaling People

  Tactics for Management and Company Building
  Claire Hughes Johnson
• Unscripted

  The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
  James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams

Biography and memoir

• Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

  A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival
  Daniel Finkelstein
• Ian Fleming

  The Complete Man
  Nicholas Shakespeare
• Into the Amazon

  The Life of Cândido Rondon, Trailblazing Explorer, Scientist, Statesman, and Conservationist
  Larry Rohter
• J.L. Austin

  Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer
  M.W. Rowe
• King

  A Life
  Jonathan Eig
• Milton Friedman

  The Last Conservative
  Jennifer Burns
• Monet The Restless Vision
  Jackie Wullschlager
• Still Pictures

  On Photography and Memory
  Janet Malcolm
• Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

  A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide
  Tahir Hamut Izgil
• Wifedom

  Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life
  Anna Funder

History

• A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

  Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
  Nathan Thrall
• The Blazing World

  A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689
  Jonathan Healey
• Emperor of Rome

  Ruling the Ancient Roman World
  Mary Beard
• In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors: A Past, Present and Personal Story
  Rachel Hewitt
• Judgment at Tokyo

  World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
  Gary J. Bass
• The Lumumba Plot

  The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination
  Stuart A. Reid
• Revolutionary Spring

  Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
  Christopher Clark
• On Savage Shores

  How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
  Caroline Dodds Pennock
• The Wager

  A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
  David Grann

Fiction

• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• The Fraud
  Zadie Smith
• Kairos
  Jenny Erpenbeck
• North Woods
  Daniel Mason
• Prophet Song
  Paul Lynch
• Soldier Sailor
  Claire Kilroy
• Western Lane
  Chetna Maroo

Culture and ideas

• Eight Bears

  Mythic Past and Imperiled Future
  Gloria Dickie
• Gradual

  The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age
  Greg Berman & Aubrey Fox
• High Caucasus

  A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland
  Tom Parfitt
• The Identity Trap

  A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
  Yascha Mounk
• Magisteria

  The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion
  Nicholas Spencer
• Pandora's Box

  How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV
  Peter Biskind
• Sailing Alone

  A History
  Richard J. King
• A Thread of Violence

  A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder
  Mark O'Connell

Science and technology

• The Coming Wave

  Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma
  Mustafa Suleyman
• The Heat Will Kill You First

  Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
  Jeff Goodell
• Outlive

  The Science and Art of Longevity
  Peter Attia
• Time to Think

  The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock's Gender Service for Children
  Hannah Barnes
• Ultra-Processed People

  The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food
  Chris van Tulleken
• What an Owl Knows

  The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
  Jennifer Ackerman

The New Yorker: The Best Books of 2023, a list of a"essential reads" that accompanies a long list of further recommendations

[see also The Best Fiction and Poetry of 2022 • The Best Nonfiction of 2022 • The Best Books We Read in 2020]

Nonfiction

• The Country of the Blind

  A Memoir at the End of Sight
  Andrew Leland
• A Day in the Life of Abed Salama

  Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
  Nathan Thrall
• Fear Is Just a Word

  A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother's Quest for Vengeance
  Azam Ahmed
• Fire Weather

  A True Story from a Hotter World
  John Vaillant
• I Love Russia

  Reporting from a Lost Country
  Elena Kostyuchenko
• Judgment at Tokyo

  World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
  Gary J. Bass
• King

  A Life
  Jonathan Eig
• Liliana's Invincible Summer

  A Sister's Search for Justice
  Cristina Rivera Garza
• Master Slave Husband Wife

  An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
  Ilyon Woo
• Ordinary Notes
  Christina Sharpe
• The Rediscovery of America

  Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
  Ned Blackhawk
• Some People Need Killing

  A Memoir of Murder in My Country
  Patricia Evangelista

Fiction & Poetry

• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Biography of X
  Catherine Lacey
• Birnam Wood
  Eleanor Catton
• The Fraud
  Zadie Smith
• Grand Tour
  Elisa Gonzalez
• The Guest
  Emma Cline
• I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
  Lorrie Moore
• The Lights
  Ben Lerner
• Roman Stories
  Jhumpa Lahiri
• A Shining
  Jon Fosse
• Vengeance Is Mine
  Marie NDiaye
• Y/N
  Esther Yi

The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2023

[see also 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

Fiction

• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Chain-Gang All-Stars
  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• Eastbound
  Maylis de Kerangal
• The Fraud
  Zadie Smith
• North Woods
  Daniel Mason

Nonfiction

• The Best Minds

  A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
  Jonathan Rosen
• Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

  A Journey Through the Deep State
  Kerry Howley
• Fire Weather

  A True Story from a Hotter World
  John Vaillant
• Master Slave Husband Wife

  An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
  Ilyon Woo
• Some People Need Killing

  A Memoir of Murder in My Country
  Patricia Evangelista

The Booker Prize: Best Fiction of 2023

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

Winner

• Prophet Song
  Paul Lynch

Shortlist

• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Western Lane
  Chetna Maroo
• This Other Eden
  Paul Harding
• If I Survive You
  Jonathan Escoffery
• Study for Obedience
  Sarah Bernstein

Longlist

• The House of Doors
  Tan Twang Eng
• In Ascension
  Martin MacInnes
• All The Little Bird-Hearts
  Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
• Pearl
  Siân Hughes
• How to Build a Boat
  Elaine Feeney
• Old God's Time
  Sebastian Barry
• A Spell of Good Things
  Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2023

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

Fiction

• After Sappho
  Selby Wynn Schwartz
• All the Sinners Bleed
  S.A. Cosby
• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Biography of X
  Catherine Lacey
• Birnam Wood
  Eleanor Catton
• Blackouts
  Justin Torres
• Bright Young Women
  Jessica Knoll
• Chain-Gang All-Stars
  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• The Covenant of Water
  Abraham Verghese
• Crook Manifesto
  Colson Whitehead
• The Deluge
  Stephen Markley
• Eastbound
  Maylis de Kerangal
• Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
  Heather Fawcett
• Enter Ghost
  Isabella Hammad
• Forbidden Notebook
  Alba de Céspedes
• The Fraud
  Zadie Smith
• From From
  Monica Youn
• A Guest in the House
  Emily Carroll
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
  James McBride
• Hello Beautiful
  Ann Napolitano
• A History of Burning
  Janika Oza
• Holly
  Stephen King
• A House for Alice
  Diana Evans
• The Iliad
  Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
• Ink Blood Sister Scribe
  Emma Törzs
• Kairos
  Jenny Erpenbeck
• Kantika
  Elizabeth Graver
• Land of Milk and Honey
  C Pam Zhang
• Lone Women
  Victor LaValle
• Monica
  Daniel Clowes
• The Most Secret Memory of Men
  Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
• The New Naturals
  Gabriel Bump
• North Woods
  Daniel Mason
• Not Even the Dead
  Juan Goméz Barcena
• The Nursery
  Szilvia Molnar
• Our Share of Night
  Mariana Enriquez
• Pineapple Street
  Jenny Jackson
• The Reformatory
  Tananarive Due
• The Saint of Bright Doors
  Vajra Chandrasekera
• Same Bed Different Dreams
  Ed Park
• Take What You Need
  Idra Novey
• This Other Eden
  Paul Harding
• Tom Lake
  Ann Patchett
• The Unsettled
  Ayana Mathis
• Victory City
  Salman Rushdie
• We Could Be So Good
  Cat Sebastian
• Western Lane
  Chetna Maroo
• Witness
  Jamel Brinkley
• Y/N
  Esther Yi
• Yellowface
  R.F. Kuang

Nonfiction

• The 272

  The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church
  Rachel L. Swarns
• Anansi's Gold

  The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
  Yepoka Yeebo
• Battle of Ink and Ice

  A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media
  Darrell Hartman
• The Best Minds

  A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
  Jonathan Rosen
• Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

  A Journey Through the Deep State
  Kerry Howley
• Built from the Fire

  The Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street
  Victor Luckerson
• Cobalt Red

  How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
  Siddharth Kara
• Crossings

  How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
  Ben Goldfarb
• Daughter of the Dragon

  Anna May Wong's Rendezvous with American History
  Yunte Huang
• Doppelganger

  A Trip into the Mirror World
  Naomi Klein
• Easily Slip into Another World

  A Life in Music
  Henry Threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards
• The Exceptions

  Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science
  Kate Zernike
• Fire Weather

  A True Story from a Hotter World
  John Vaillant
• The Great Escape

  A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
  Saket Soni
• The Half Known Life

  In Search of Paradise
  Pico Iyer
• How to Say Babylon

  A Memoir
  Safiya Sinclair
• Humanly Possible

  Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope
  Sarah Bakewell
• Judgment at Tokyo

  World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
  Gary J. Bass
• King

  A Life
  Jonathan Eig
• The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory

  American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
  Tim Alberta
• The Land of Hope and Fear

  Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul
  Isabel Kershner
• Liliana's Invincible Summer

  A Sister's Search for Justice
  Cristina Rivera Garza
• Lives of the Wives

  Five Literary Marriages
  Carmela Ciuraru
• A Living Remedy
  Nicole Chung
• Master Slave Husband Wife

  An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom
  Ilyon Woo
• Monsters

  A Fan's Dilemma
  Claire Dederer
• My Name is Barbra
  Barbra Streisand
• The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley

  A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
  David Waldstreicher
• Ordinary Notes
  Christina Sharpe
• Oscar Wars

  A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears
  Michael Schulman
• Our Migrant Souls

  A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”
  Héctor Tobar
• Pageboy
  Elliot Page
• Poverty, by America
  Matthew Desmond
• The Rediscovery of America

  Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
  Ned Blackhawk
• The Rigor of Angels

  Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
  William Egginton
• Schoenberg

  Why He Matters
  Harvey Sachs
• Sink
  Joseph Earl Thomas
• The Slip

  The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever
  Prudence Peiffer
• Some People Need Killing

  A Memoir of Murder in My Country
  Patricia Evangelista
• Spoken Word

  A Cultural History
  Joshua Bennett
• A Thread of Violence

  A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder
  Mark O'Connell
• Time's Echo

  The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance
  Jeremy Eichler
• The Undertow

  Scenes from a Slow Civil War
  Jeff Sharlet
• Unscripted

  The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
  James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams
• Up Home

  One Girl's Journey
  Ruth J. Simmons
• The Wager

  A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
  David Grann
• Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

  A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide
  Tahir Hamut Izgil
• What an Owl Knows

  The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
  Jennifer Ackerman
• Wifedom

  Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life
  Anna Funder
• You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live

  Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America
  Paul Kix

New York Public Library: Top 10 Books for Adults, posted along with other lists for browsing

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018]

• The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
  Shannon Chakraborty
• Bad Kids
  Zijin Chen
• The Bee Sting
  Paul Murray
• Knockout
  Sarah MacLean
• Land of Milk and Honey
  C Pam Zhang
• Last On His Feet

  Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century
  Youssef Daoudi (art) and Adrian Matejka (poetics)
• The New Guy
  Sarina Bowen
• Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco
  K. Iver
• Shubeik Lubeik
  Deena Mohamed
• When Crack Was King

  A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
  Donovan X. Ramsey

Financial Times: Best Fiction of 2023, selected by Laura Battle and Andrew Dickson

• August Blue
  Deborah Levy
• Old God's Time
  Sebastian Barry
• The Late Americans
  Brandon Taylor
• Soldier Sailor
  Claire Kilroy
• The House of Doors
  Tan Twang Eng
• Our Strangers
  Lydia Davis
• Tremor
  Teju Cole
• The Pole and Other Stories
  J.M. Coetzee
• In Ascension
  Martin MacInnes
• The Guest
  Emma Cline
• The Fraud
  Zadie Smith

Chicago Public Library: Top 10 Books of 2023

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014]

• Absolution
  Alice McDermott
• All the Sinners Bleed
  S.A. Cosby
• Chain-Gang All-Stars
  Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• The Great Displacement

  Climate Change and the Next American Migration
  Jake Bittle
• Hello Beautiful
  Ann Napolitano
• Our Migrant Souls

  A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”
  Héctor Tobar
• The Talk
  Darrin Bell
• Tom Lake
  Ann Patchett
• The Wager

  A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
  David Grann
• Yellowface
  R.F. Kuang

BookPage: The Best Nonfiction of 2023

[see also The Best Fiction of 2023 • Best Nonfiction of 2022 • Best Fiction of 2022 • Best Books of 2020: Nonfiction • Best Books of 2020: Fiction • Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • Best Fiction Books of 2019]

• A Fever in the Heartland

  The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
  Timothy Egan
• A Man of Two Faces

  a Memoir, a History, a Memorial
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Gator Country

  Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades
  Rebecca Renner
• Goodbye, Eastern Europe

  An Intimate History of a Divided Land
  Jacob Mikanowski
• I Saw Death Coming

  A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction
  Kidada E. Williams
• King

  A Life
  Jonathan Eig
• Our Migrant Souls

  A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”
  Héctor Tobar
• Owner of a Lonely Heart
  Beth Nguyen
• Rough Sleepers
  Tracy Kidder
• Still Life with Bones

  Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains
  Alexa Hagerty
• The Kneeling Man

  My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
  Leta McCollough Seletzky
• The Quickening

  Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth
  Elizabeth Rush
• The Underworld

  Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
  Susan Casey
• The Wager

  A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
  David Grann
• Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

  A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide
  Tahir Hamut Izgil