The Top 20 Best Books of 2023

What better way to kick off the holiday season than by announcing our subscribers' best-loved books of 2023? The BookBrowse Top 20 are determined by a significant number of votes — maxing out at over 9,000 in recent years — and have become a treasured tradition through which we celebrate some of the most memorable books of one year before moving into the next. Scroll down to explore the finalists below.

We compile the Top 20 with the intention of reflecting authentic reader opinion, opening votes only to members and subscribers of our free newsletters to prevent vote-stuffing and promote balance between books with different degrees of marketing influence (see more). This gives us a true picture of the titles voters were most excited about. Thank you to everyone who participated this year!

Let Us Descend: A Novel
by Jesmyn Ward

Hardcover Oct 2023. 320 pages
Published by Scribner

From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.

By default, slavery offers its horrors as a tension. Annis's overwhelming grief as she loses people close to her is also a relatively expected narrative layer. Mama Aza's mystical, sometimes sinister presence is a fascinating, unexpected tension that complements Annis's experiences very well. But these tensions are not the only moving pieces of the plot as it unfolds: Ward's novel is also a coming-of-age story. Alongside the bleak reality of her life, readers grow up with Annis, hearing her interests and her desire for freedom, seeing how what freedom means to her evolves. (Reviewed by Lisa Ahima)

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The House of Doors
by Tan Twan Eng

Hardcover Oct 2023. 320 pages
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

From the bestselling author of The Garden of Evening Mists, a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption.

In writing The House of Doors, Twan Eng effectively reverse engineers the work of the real-life Maugham, using his book of short stories The Casuarina Tree to envision a context within which the author might have been sparked to create his fiction. In so doing, Twan Eng crafts a novel that has much to say about the very art of narrative crafting, and structurally functions as something of an infinity mirror held up to a repeating interplay between fiction and nonfiction. (Reviewed by Danielle McClellan)

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Remember Us
by Jacqueline Woodson

Hardcover Oct 2023. 192 pages
Published by Nancy Paulsen Books

Winner: BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023

National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson brings readers a powerful story that delves deeply into life's burning questions about time and memory and what we take with us into the future.

Winner: BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023

Woodson strikes an excellent balance of accessibility and poignancy with her writing, lending the novel genuine appeal to a broad readership. While Remember Us is aimed at younger audiences and her adolescent protagonist feels authentic, its themes of place, memory, identity, and belonging will ring true for readers of any age. It never seems as though Woodson is patronizing younger readers by simplifying the complex themes and emotions at play, and she never resorts to clichés or saccharine prose. (Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin)

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North Woods: A Novel
by Daniel Mason

Hardcover Sep 2023. 384 pages
Published by Random House

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

The natural history of New England's forests is central as the novel mourns how chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease have decimated the woods. The book also ponders how people's decisions affect the landscape. Mason presents dueling visions: a utopian future where trees are restored to life, versus a dystopian one where heat and fire threaten survival. I found it rewarding to spot biblical echoes: The fleeing Puritans enact an expulsion from Eden; the Osgood sisters have a Cain and Abel dynamic; and Teale's intimate relationship with his friend is in the tradition of King David's with Jonathan. The focus on history and myth feels somewhat at odds with the matter-of-fact reappearances of the (un)dead. Mason doesn't explain what's going on but appears to be enjoying the intellectual gymnastics, in a way that reminded me of Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. (Reviewed by Rebecca Foster)

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Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance
by Paulette Jiles

Hardcover Sep 2023. 320 pages
Published by William Morrow

Consumed with grief, driven by vengeance, a man undertakes an unrelenting odyssey across the lawless post–Civil War frontier seeking redemption in this fearless novel from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of News of the World.

Another of Jiles' talents is crafting care in only a few pages of storytime. In this journey of vengeance, John crosses paths with transitory characters who often linger in rippling effects. Like a web, everything is connected. Though most of the narrative lives in John's mind, the few third-person point-of-view transitions are seamless. Chenneville hearkens back to westerns long past, Riders of the Purple Sage in particular. But with Jiles' thoughtful care, it truly is one of a kind. Give this masterful novel a shot. It is highly recommended. (Reviewed by Christine Runyon)

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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel
by James McBride

Hardcover Aug 2023. 400 pages
Published by Riverhead Books

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah's Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

One of the most compelling elements of McBride's writing is its interconnectedness. The finale is a thrilling, Rube-Goldberg-esque sequence of events that culminates in a near perfect ending. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store shows readers that it is possible to connect with people who are radically different from you without relinquishing the things unique to your own experience. Love bursts from the pages of McBride's novel, shining its golden light on the miracles we can accomplish as a community. (Reviewed by Abby Edgecumbe)

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Tom Lake: A Novel
by Ann Patchett

Hardcover Aug 2023. 320 pages
Published by Harper

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers.

I couldn't believe how easy it was to get into the book and absorbed in Lara's story. As a writer myself, I took a lot of notes about Patchett's style here. Rather than crafting shimmering passages that call attention to her skill, Patchett's gift is to make herself disappear so we can better connect with the characters. The events of Lara's life flow perfectly together, which makes it exciting when we learn how she goes from swimming with a movie star to owning a cherry orchard with a husband and kids. Also, that's really how life is: we never know if a single moment will turn out to be important or not, or when we'll see someone for the last time, or how what we will come to learn about them in future will change how we see the past. (Reviewed by Erin Lyndal Martin)

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Disobedient: A Novel
by Elizabeth Fremantle

Hardcover Aug 2023. 368 pages
Published by Pegasus Books

A riveting novel based on the life of Artemisia Gentileschi—the greatest female painter of the Renaissance—as she forges her own destiny in a world dominated by the will of men.

The prose pays tribute to the subject's art in its own subtle yet effective way, painting vivid scenes with words much like Gentileschi would with her brush. Despite capturing a sense of time and place so well, and sticking closely to factual accounts of the events, Fremantle keeps her focus firmly on the personal, human aspect of Gentileschi's story, lending it a timeless, universally relatable quality. Consequently, Disobedient is just as likely to stir passionate art historians as it is those who have never heard the name Artemisia Gentileschi before. (Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin)

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King of the Armadillos
by Wendy Chin-Tanner

Paperback Sep 17, 2024. 336 pages
Published by Flatiron Books

A transcendent debut novel about family, love, and belonging, set against the backdrops of 1950s New York City and a historical leprosarium in Louisiana, following one young man's quest to not only survive, but live a full and vibrant life

Although fiction, this coming-of-age novel sheds light on the reality of dealing with a rare, debilitating and feared disease. It is dedicated to the author's father, who was a patient at Carville, where there is today a museum of artifacts on the grounds of the now-closed leprosarium near New Orleans (Laura C). I grew up not far from Carville and often heard stories and rumors about the "leper colony." Reading King of the Armadillos was shocking for me as I had no idea what life was truly like inside the Hansen's facility and figured it was just a locked-down hospital. The description of the treatments and the effects of the disease were eye-opening to say the least! (Margot P). (Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers)

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The Postcard
by Anne Berest

Paperback May 7, 2024. 480 pages
Published by Europa Editions

Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. Luminous and gripping to the very last page, it is an enthralling investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life.

The novel is at once a closely depicted, meticulous account of the lives of the Rabinovitch family and the ways in which their terrible fate has resonated in the lives of their descendants; a fascinating, true-life mystery involving detectives and handwriting analyst; and a powerful account of the occupation of France and the unfurling, systemic reinforcement of antisemitism through the Vichy government's administrative practices. (Reviewed by Danielle McClellan)

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The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese

Hardcover May 2023. 736 pages
Published by Grove Press

Winner: BookBrowse Fiction Award 2023

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Winner: 2023 BookBrowse Fiction Award

Verghese sustains this massive story with numerous enigmatic and vividly drawn characters like Big Ammachi, Digby, a Swedish physician named Rune who runs a colony for lepers, Philipose and his love Elsie, who is born to be an artist of staggering genius if only the world will let her. However, running like a riptide beneath the waters of the Malabar Coast, the Condition strikes the family in new, unbidden and heartbreaking ways. It will reach a crescendo with Mariamma, Big Ammachi's granddaughter, who becomes a neurosurgeon to unlock the secrets of this affliction, only to face the secrets "that can bind them together or bring them to their knees when revealed." (Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski)

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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
by David Grann

Hardcover Apr 2023. 352 pages
Published by Doubleday

Winner: BookBrowse Nonfiction Award 2023

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

Winner: BookBrowse Nonfiction Award 2023

I found this book to be well-researched, well-written and extremely easy to read. It was actually quite a thrilling read to be honest. It felt more like I was reading an adventure book than a nonfiction book (Tara T). Although the subject matter was not of great interest to me when I started reading the book, my opinion quickly changed when more of the narrative was developed. The author takes a maritime scandal and engulfs the reader in a suspenseful historical thriller! (Dan W). It's a riveting, page-turning adventure, complete with shipwreck, mutiny and murder (Lois K). (Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers)

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Only the Beautiful
by Susan Meissner

Paperback Mar 5, 2024. 400 pages
Published by Berkley Books

A heartrending story about a young mother's fight to keep her daughter, and the winds of fortune that tear them apart by the USA Today bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War.

Meissner's extensive research into this time period and movement is clear in her detailed descriptions of mental institutions and the resistance Helen meets as she advocates for the differently abled. Brutal and heartbreaking, yet ultimately joyful, Only the Beautiful not only shines a light on a dark period in American history but shows the importance of speaking out for what's right. (Reviewed by Jordan Lynch)

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A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
by Timothy Egan

Hardcover Apr 2023. 432 pages
Published by Viking

A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them.

Egan's research of this nearly 100-year-old story is detailed and he makes the case that the details were imperative to the results. Oberholtzer's death triggered the death of the Klan. The Klan strategy of bribing and influencing rural men triggered boundless fantasies. One of the more ridiculous ones was that the Klan had the political capital, chops and numbers to win the White House and rule the United States. (Reviewed by Valerie Morales)

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Poverty, by America
by Matthew Desmond

Hardcover Mar 2023. 304 pages
Published by Crown

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

Poverty, by America leans upon history, since poverty is like an old oak tree with a million gnarly roots. I was surprised to learn that tipping waitstaff began after slavery, when former slaves who worked at restaurants were not paid and had to depend on the charity of diners. Desmond wants to do away with the sub-minimum wage for waiters. In another section of the book, he compares the aftermath of the 2008 recession with the financial effects of the COVID pandemic. After the 2008 recession, families in the bottom half of income levels had to wait a decade for their incomes to return to pre-recession levels. But after what Desmond calls "the COVID-induced recession," the same families had to wait just a year because of government intervention by way of stimulus payments and rental assistance. Desmond's scholarship and his unpacking of the multi-layered systems that keep poverty intractable, like housing, employment, banking, and government, is brilliant. (Reviewed by Valerie Morales)

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In Memoriam: A Novel
by Alice Winn

Paperback Mar 19, 2024. 400 pages
Published by Vintage

Winner: BookBrowse Debut Book Award 2023

A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during World War I.

Winner: BookBrowse Debut Book Award 2023

Winn's descriptions of the WWI battlefront leave an indelible image and the author realistically conveys the various ways conflicts like this can leave someone permanently scarred, both physically and emotionally. As well-written as the novel's battle scenes are, its highlight is the love story between Ellwood and Gaunt, and the dynamic between the two sets up the primary tension in the narrative. Winn completely captures Ellwood and Gaunt's terrible longing for each other and the ache of their unexpressed love. (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs)

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Go as a River: A Novel
by Shelley Read

Hardcover Feb 2023. 320 pages
Published by Spiegel & Grau

Set amid Colorado's wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter. A tragic and uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival—and hope.

The best part of the novel is Victoria herself. Read creates such a lifelike, three-dimensional character that I woke up one morning wondering how my friend was doing, only realizing after a second that the person I was worried about wasn't flesh and blood. In short, Go as a River is a truly stellar work, so nearly perfect that it's hard to believe it's Shelley Read's first book. It earns my highest rating and is one of my favorites of the year. I recommend it to most audiences, particularly those who enjoy brilliantly written coming-of-age works. Book groups, too, will want to put this one on their reading lists, as many great discussion topics can be found within its pages. (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs)

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This Other Eden: A Novel
by Paul Harding

Paperback Dec 2023. 224 pages
Published by W.W. Norton & Company

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast.

Gracefully written in magisterial and poetic language, Apple Island itself becomes a fully developed character. Despite its slimness (a bit over 200 pages), the book demands concentration and focus but the rewards are abundant (Jill S). It is not an easy story to read, and many parts are shocking, but the narrative voice treats the main characters with respect and gentleness. I was swept into its time and location, and found myself caring deeply about the residents of Apple Island. There's so much depth in theme, richness in detail and beautiful prose to savor that I have no qualms in calling it a masterpiece (Joan R). This remarkable, understated, luminous novel is well worth reading. Given the issues Harding explores, it would make an outstanding book club selection (Eileen C). (Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers)

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Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people
by Tracy Kidder

Paperback Jan 2024. 320 pages
Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks

The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston's homeless community—by the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains

Kidder's portrait of O'Connell is vivid, painting his subject as a caring individual who is both frustrated and fascinated by his profession. He chronicles the doctor's journey from his first enthusiastic but naïve efforts to his becoming savvy about getting care to his patients, even if he has to use unconventional methods to do so (he decides, for example, to leave some patients' medications with a bartender who agreed to make them take their pills before giving them a drink). It's a finely-tuned portrayal that avoids the temptation of casting the physician as overly saintly or heroic; his flaws are evident, as are his strengths, and as a result, readers feel they know O'Connell well by the book's end. (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs)

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In the Time of Our History
by Susanne Pari

Paperback Jan 2023. 384 pages
Published by Kensington Publishing

Inspired by her own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Susanne Pari explores the entangled lives within an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes, the roles imposed on women, and a tragic accident that forces them to reconcile their guilt or forfeit their already tenuous bonds.

I felt I was witnessing an unraveling of an artful web of multiple viewpoints and history. The story effortlessly describes each character's contribution or thread in that web. I felt emotionally invested in each angle of the various dynamics and family relationships, such as the push and pull of the bond between sisters, the strong love between mother and daughter, and the love-hate struggle of a patriarchal father-daughter duo (Diane J). The depth of the characters made me want them to walk off the page so we could sit down, share tea and have deep conversations (Mary L). This is one of those stories that makes you sad when you reach the last page because you just aren't ready to let the characters go yet (Rebecca H). (Reviewed by BookBrowse First Impression Reviewers)

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