What novels will your book club love reading in 2023? It's never too early to start planning a spectacular lineup. To help you out, we've put together a list of fictional works being released in paperback during the first half of 2023 that have all received 5-star ratings from our reviewers.
Our list features exciting and significant debut novels, including two from authors who previously established themselves via poetry, Destiny O. Birdsong and Leila Mottley. We've also included books by writers who were already well-known and acclaimed for their fiction, like Douglas Stuart, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, and veteran bestselling author Victoria E. Schwab. While we're aware that some of these novels may be longer than the maximum page count that some book clubs stick to, we've considered what books would be worth exceeding this limit for and have endeavored to only choose longer selections that we think qualify as fast reads.
All the books have reading guides currently on the site or forthcoming, plus reviews and Beyond the Book articles that you can use to explore relevant subjects and start conversations. For each pick below, we've included discussion topic suggestions for your book club.
Is your book club in need of some fresh food ideas? In our most recent annual survey, we asked subscribers what snacks or meals their book groups prefer for their meetings. Below, we'll share with you some of the most popular responses, along with suggestions and resources that you can use for cooking up fun, food-filled sessions with your club in the future.
While still underrepresented, Native authors — including many emerging writers — have been behind an exciting variety of interesting literature from both major and small publishers as of late. As we at BookBrowse have been working to consciously build up the books featured in our Native and Indigenous category, we would like to take the opportunity to share with you some of our recently reviewed books by Native writers.
In addition to thousands of author bios and interviews, BookBrowse also contains pronunciation guides for 700 authors' names. For example, these are a handful that you might be getting wrong:
In the market for a name to give your book group? Why not look over some real book club names for inspiration? Earlier this year, we sent out a question with our annual book club survey asking about the names of subscribers' book clubs. We received more than 500 answers — ranging from straightforward and sincere to witty and laugh-out-loud entertaining — and we thoroughly enjoyed sifting through all of them. Thank you to everyone who submitted responses!
Below, we've highlighted common themes and categories we came across in hopes of sparking inspiration for those looking to name their own clubs.
In BookBrowse's book club section, you'll find more than 1,700 free reading guides covering many of the best fiction and nonfiction titles published in the past 20 years. So, whatever your book group's reading interest, start your search at BookBrowse to find books that will generate interesting and invigorating discussions.
