My Ten Most Recommended Books of 2023
I simply can't make a best-of list
Hello readers!
I am nowhere near being ready to create an epic “Favorite Books I Read in 2023” list yet ~ it’s always so daunting to tackle this curation because my feelings about books sometimes change over time, and I’m still reading so many great books this month!
However, what I DO have to offer you today are ten of the books I recommended over and over this year. I originally intended this to be a list of five, but I couldn’t narrow it down! Even if I read another amazing book this year, I simply won’t have time to recommend it a ton, right??
While creating this list, what hit me hardest was the fact that I read SO MUCH impactful nonfiction in the first two-thirds of the year. So many more than are shared here today. However, once I started back to school in September, that part of my brain obviously turned off because I haven’t read much nonfiction at all …… but why?? Is it limited time? Lack of NF titles that interest me? The simple fact that it was a stressful time period? I’m worried that it may be that nonfiction titles are slower reads for me ~ if that’s the case, and I’m hurrying my reading ~ why??? Lots to ponder.
With all that said, here are the titles that hit me hardest this year ~ hard enough to try to convince everyone else to read them too!
Nonfiction
I like my nonfiction to be narrative and hard-hitting, and it really needs to be somehow about how people live. These all fit that criteria, albeit in different ways. The first four titles just confirmed all of my outrage and sorrow about the inequality in America, but also gave me hope that there are people working to change things. The final two titles are about love and family, in the form of very different memoirs ~ one about death and and one about motherhood.
Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder
Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine by Ricardo Nuila
The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City by Kim Foster
In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom
It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly
Fiction
These four fiction titles have absolutely nothing in common except for the fact that they changed the way I see the world or the people in it. I’m proud of the fact that these four books rose to the top instantly and in doing so, highlight the broad range of my reading!
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck
Search by Michelle Huneven
Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young
Have you read and loved any of these titles? Did you find one (or a lot!) to add to your TBR? Let me know in the comments!
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That’s all for this edition, my friends!
Thanks for reading,
I love to hear from readers, so please do reach out to me with questions or feedback at mindfullibrarian@substack.com . If we aren’t already connected on Goodreads, I would love to see you there as well!
Based on those non fiction recommendations I’m confident you’d enjoy my most-recommended non fiction book! When The Dust Settles is by disaster recovery expert Lucy Easthope and it’s all about what happens after the immediate crisis response of a big disaster, whether it be a natural disaster, an industrial accident, or a terrorist attack. Absolutely fantastic and SO human.
Great choices, Katy - and thanks to Book Directory by Abra McAndrews for introducing your bookish writing to me. I'm a big fan of literary round-ups.