My favorite books of 2023 (so far)...

and I'll likely finish three more by December 31.

Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash

These are my favorite books I read in 2023. They're listed in the order I read them. They include notes I made to myself about each book. I've left out my non-favorites, as I don't recommend them. This means I've read a lot more books this that I don't recommend than those I do.

As usual, I read fiction, non-fiction, memoir, graphic novels, and how-to books.

If I put these books in order of how much I loved them, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver would be number one book of fiction. There Was an Old Woman by Andrea Carlisle is my number one non-fiction.

*4. All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews 2022 Viking 310pp. Wonderful lesbian novel by an East Indian woman. A saga of striving to make it in a new country, missing parents in the old, making friends, trying and failing at love relationships, plus a bit of spicy love-making.

*5. Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb 2016 Farrar, Straus & Giroux 323 pp. I thoroughly enjoyed this flawlessly edited memoir by one of the most famous editors of our time. A chronicle of his life in books. Made me want to read so many of the books he edited including at least one of the LBJ books by Caro. Also sent me to The New Yorker archives to read his article about Minou Drouet, French girl poet.

*11. Horse by Geraldine Brooks. 2022 by Viking, 416 pp. One of the best books I've read in ages. Brooks is a masterful writer. In this book, she narrates from the point of view of different characters in different time periods, and she does so seamlessly. The depth of her research shows in the ease of how she slips between characters and time periods, each of which have specific lives and/or occupations which are unknown to most people.

*14. Demon Copperfield by Barbara Kingsolver 2022 880 pp in large print edition

A masterpiece. Kingsolver has at last written widely and deeply about her own people, the people of Appalachia. She has taken all the aspects of this part of the US and put them into a remarkable story of one boy. There is poverty, domestic abuse, pregnant high school girls, orphans, coal, strip mining, and the scourge of Oxy. There is the discrimination against land people by money people who see land people as ignorant, incested, poor, addicted and/or alcoholic and toothless. I'm not from Appalachia, but I am from the Ozarks, which is not too much different. I have experienced the discrimination, the shaming, all my life. I gave up my accent due to shaming. When I presented a play about my people, feedback included the words incest and inbreeding (neither of which are part of the play). And Kingsolver did all this through the story who was born to an alcoholic mother, sent to abusive foster situations with overworked noncaring case workers. No spoilers here. I hope this book goes a long way toward ending the discrimination that not only exists, but is rampant.

*15. My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite 2017 Doubleday 223 pp The title tells the story: the woman protagonist has a sister who is a serial killer. The protagonist is a nurse at a hospital, where she confides about her sister's crimes to a man in a coma. After the third murder, the man she is interested in falls for her beautiful sister. She tries to warn him re the sister, but he dismisses her warning. The sister doesn't go out looking for victims, she gets tired of or has a falling out with her boyfriend and suddenly he is dead. The protagonist helps get rid of the bodies and the evidence. The ending is a surprise, but perhaps it is inevitable. The reader can decide.

*16. The Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson 2021 Simon & Schuster 288 pp. Totally immersive book about an enslaved woman, "high yellow" in color, who marries the notorious Jailer to give a better life to her child, then children. The horrors of slavery are here, fully researched by Johnson. In fact, the story was inspired by a visit to the site where the story is set. More than 300,000 slaves were traded at the site, in squalid conditions, many tortured, whipped mercilessly, and sold. The protagonist uses all her wits and skills to help herself, her children, and others have the best life possible.

*19. Sometimes I Wonder About You by Walter Mosley 2015 Double Day 272 pp This is the fifth in the Leonid McGill series. For me, it was a page turner. It's complicated with many twists and turns, multiple characters and settings, but Mosley does not disappoint.

*23. Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades 2022 Random House 209pp "Written from the perspective of a choral we, Brown Girls captures a sense of solidarity among these women, who Daphne Palasi Andreades follows from childhood, into their adulthood as some leave their borough, and eventually the city they first called home. But Queens is always with them, and in the novel’s vignettes, Andreades explores the specific experiences of these girls: childhood summers spent sunbathing on concrete and singing Mariah Carey, teenage nights spent sneaking out to house parties, and the quiet, painful realization that your youth is not forever."(from an interview)

*26. March by Geraldine Brooks 2005 Penguin Books 273 pp Pulitzer Prize Winner. Brooks takes Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and brings it back to life by writing about the father who was mostly missing in Alcott's book. Brooks uses deep historical research to create a more complete world for the little women by creating a backstory for Mr. March. For me, the book rapidly picks up pace in Part 2, when Mrs. March (Marmee) picks up the pen. Mr. March takes it back for the fascinating, page-turning end of the book. Filled with detailed experiences of slavery, civil war, and the hopes and dreams of all involved, this novel deserves every accolade it received.

*28. A Certain Time by Kate Kasten 2023 Feminism, 1970s, live theatre -- what's not to like? Kate is an excellent writer and this third person memoir tells of her evolution before, during, and after the second wave feminism swept the world. I especially enjoyed her standing up to academic men, and her exploits as a comedian.

*29. Smile by Sarah Ruhl 2021 Thorndike Press 353 pp Memoir by the playwright Sarah Ruhl about how, after her pregnancy with twins, she got Bell's Palsy that never went away. How she coped, struggled, and finally regained most of her facial muscles, and what she learned along the way.

*30. Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan 2022 Ballantyne Books 700 pp

A story about two women with abusive pasts. One is single mom Olivia who flees her abusive husband and father of her son Asher and makes a new life as a beekeeper. The other is teen Lily, who (with her mother) starts a new life in the same town as Olivia and Asher. Lily and Asher fall in love. Their relationship is stormy as each withholds secrets of their pasts. Then Lily falls down stairs to her death and Asher is accused of first degree murder. The rest of the book is the trial, but with flashbacks to each of the character's lives before. The pace is quick, the story suspenseful, and the topic timely. I give this book five stars.

*32. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 2022 Penguin Random House Large Print 540pp

A delightful novel about a woman whose work goes unrecognized as a chemist until she goes on live TV as a cook. Set in the sixties, hers is the life any woman might expect: put down for being a woman, denied money, recognition, promotions, sexually assaulted, called names, shamed, ignored. Yet because she has brains, talent, and drive (and is white), she is able to overcome and succeed. This is Garmus's first novel. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

*33. there was an old woman by Andrea Carlisle 2023 Oregon State University Press 207 pp "there was an old woman," is brilliant. It is a collection of essays on what it is to be an old woman. I imagine it will be in great demand with book clubs, and for me (an old woman) it is a call to action. We as a people need consciousness raising around aging and the aged. I'd love to see CR groups again, this time on aging.

*35. Foster by Claire Keegan 2010/2023 Grove Press A heartbreaking story of one little girl growing up in rural Ireland in a pre-tech era. Keegan is a gifted storyteller, and this is a beautiful example.

*38. What Do We Need Men For? by E. Jean Carroll 2019 St Martin's Press 273 pages

Humorous look at the egregious acts of men against women, and how women do not actually need men.

*42. How do Meerkats order Pizza? by Brooke Barker 2022 Simon & Schuster 200 pp (including a glossary) This is a book for young people (grades 3-7) and it's a good resource for facts about wild  animals and the scientists who study them. I enjoyed it not only for the facts, but for the author's sense of humor. In fact, that's why I read it. I recommend it for everyone who cares about animals.

Please buy books from independent booksellers when you can. I get most of my books from the public library, buy used, and when I buy new I go to Bookshop.org

What are your top books of 2023?

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