The 10 Best Books of 2023
The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s standout fiction and nonfiction.
Fiction
The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray
Murray makes his triumphant return with “The Bee Sting,” a tragicomic tale about an Irish family grappling with crises. The novel threads together the stories of the increasingly isolated Barneses, but the overall tapestry Murray weaves is not one of desolation but of hope. This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love and resilience even as their world crumbles around them. Read our review.
Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
A dystopian satire in which death-row inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom, Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel pulls the reader into the eager audience, making us complicit with the bloodthirsty fans. Amid a wrenching love story between two top competitors who are forced to choose between each other and freedom, the fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick. Read our review.
Eastbound, by Maylis de Kerangal
De Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel follows a young Russian conscript named Aliocha on a trans-Siberian train packed with other soldiers. Their desolate environment only heightens the stakes. "The insecurity of existence across this vastness and on board the train emphasizes the significance of human connection,” our reviewer wrote. “In a time of war, this connection may bring liberation and salvation.” Read our review.
The Fraud, by Zadie Smith
Smith’s novel offers a vast, acute panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters. Chief among them are a widowed Scottish housekeeper who avidly follows a trial and a formerly enslaved Jamaican servant who testifies on behalf of the claimant. Smith finds ample opportunity to send up the literary culture of the time while reflecting on whose stories are told and whose are overlooked. Read our review.
North Woods, by Daniel Mason
Mason’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic novel provides a glimpse into the lives of the inhabitants of a house in the wilds of western Massachusetts spanning 300 years. Their lives (and deaths) briefly intersect, but mostly layer over each other in dazzling decoupage. All the while, the natural world looks on — a long-suffering, occasionally destructive presence. Read our review.
Nonfiction
The Best Minds, by Jonathan Rosen
An inch-by-inch, pin-you-to-the-sofa reconstruction of the author’s long friendship with Michael Laudor, who made headlines as both an advocate for those with mental illness and for a shocking crime. “The Best Minds” is a thoughtfully constructed, deeply sourced indictment of a society that prioritizes profit and quick fixes over the long slog of care. Read our review.
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, by Kerry Howley
Howley’s account of the national security state and the people entangled in it includes fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. At the center is Reality Winner, the National Security Agency contractor who was convicted under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information. The result is a book that is riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable. Read our review.
Fire Weather, by John Vaillant
In "Fire Weather", Vaillant details how a devastating wildfire set Fort McMurray ablaze in Canada and the perfect storm of factors that led to the catastrophe. We are introduced to firefighters, oil workers, meteorologists and insurance assessors. But the real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites. This book is both a real-life thriller and a moment-by-moment account of what happened. Read our review.
Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo
In this remarkable rendering of Ellen and William Craft's daring escape from slavery in Georgia, Woo beautifully captures their journey in novelistic detail. Their story, often labeled as one of the most thrilling in American history, is brought to life through meticulous research and sincere storytelling. Read our review.
Some People Need Killing, by Patricia Evangelista
This powerful book covers the years when Rodrigo Duterte was president of the Philippines and pursued a murderous campaign of extrajudicial killings. Offering the intimate disclosures of memoir and the larger context of Philippine history, Evangelista also pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer. Language can be used to communicate, to deny, to threaten, to cajole. It can propagate lies, but it also allows one to speak the truth. Read our review.
