Best books of 2023

Find your next great read.

Dec 06, 2023

Ever wonder what you’d do if you could travel through time? Me, I know exactly how I’d wield this awesome super power.

I’d travel through time to find quiet moments in which I could read more books, just like Bill Nighy’s character in About Time (2013). (As an aside, great movie, probably due to a re-watch).

For me, it’s books, books, books. I’ve read everything a man could wish to.”

Bill Nighy gif 'Wow... massive'. — The man in question is divine. Also sorry, this is the best GIF I can find, this movie is criminally underrepresented on the internet.

Words are of course a kind of magic and books are brilliant. If you’re looking for something to thumb through over the summer/winter break (irrespective of wherever you are in the world), I hope you find your next great read on this page. Or, the perfect gift for a loved one/family member, or acquaintance you’re somehow obliged to buy a present for, something you wish to successfully fulfill, without having to think too much about it.

Note: most of these were published in 2023, however some were re-released this year. Others were published recently, then read by moi over the course of the last 12 months.

Covers of Wifedom by Anna Funder, Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss and Astronomy by Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli. — Some of the best of the year.

For a good yarn

Just after a quality story? I’ve got you covered.

You can’t go wrong with Ann Patchett and her latest release, Tom Lake, is no exception. Set in the summer of 2020, three daughters return to the family cherry farm, where they beg their mother to recount the tale of a long ago romance with a now-famous actor. Highly recommend the audiobook, if you fancy having Meryl Streep crooning in your ears for a few hours (who wouldn’t?).

Stone Yard Devotional is Aussie author Charlotte Wood’s latest. It’s a meditation on grief and despair, yet somehow an utter joy to read. Where Light Meets Water by Susan Paterson is perfect for fans of historical fiction, and with a cover like that, should take a place of pride on your bookshelf.

Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost was my first read of 2023 and remains one of my favourites of the year. Set in Tasmania, a life is shaped by the events of one pivotal summer. Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie is humourous, yet deep-reaching, splitting its timeline between the mid 19th century and 2024 Magandjin-Brisbane.

If interconnected short stories are more your thing, pick up a copy of Ellen van Neerven’s award-winning collection Heat and Light, which has been re-released as a First Nations classic, here in Oz.

For fans of ‘millennial fiction’

This has somehow become the genre lining my virtual bookshelves – sometimes this kind of fiction can be a bit hit and miss, but I’ve read quite a few good’uns over the course of this year.

The standout has been Green Dot by Madeleine Gray. It’s a tale as old as time; young girl falls for older, married man. Chaos ensues, but her sharp and snappy writing breathes new life into what some might say is an overdone story.

The protagonist of One Day We’re All Going to Die, Naomi, too engages in an affair with an older man, with somewhat unpleasant consequences. All while struggling with culture, identity politics and generational trauma, as a 27 year old Jewish woman navigating Melbourne life in the late noughties. Inter-generational trauma seems sadly rife in multicultural Australia, seen through the eyes of the unnamed narrator in Jessica Zhan Mei Yu’s But The Girl, as she attempts to write a ‘postcolonial’ novel while on an artist residency in Scotland.

I loved, loved, loved Laura McPhee-Browne’s debut Cherry Beach and was eager to read her newest novel Little Plum. 29-year-old Coral discovers she is pregnant after a brief fling. The book delicately examines the vulnerability of new motherhood alongside the trials and tribulations of perinatal mental health.

Hydra by Adriane Howell is also exceptionally good. Anja is back from Greece, minus a wedding ring. Showing evidence of being more than slightly unhinged, she is let go from the auction house she works at and moves to a rundown shack on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, where she is seemingly stalked by one of the country’s great urban myths – a wild big cat.

Anyone who has dated has probably been guilty with showing an interest that may border on unhealthy in their partner’s past loves, at one point or another. Amy Taylor’s Search History takes this one step further – how can you ever compete when the seemingly beloved ex has died in a tragic accident? And all you’re left with is their ghostly imprint on the internet?

For takes on the genre from the other side of the globe, look to Caroline O’Donaghue’s The Rachel Incident and Dolly Alderton’s Good Material. O’Dongahue’s sees a friendship collide with a crush, and Alderton examines the fallout from the breakup of a hetro long-term relationship in one’s thirties, painting a sympathetic portrait from the male dumpee’s point of view – then revealing with each page turn much more than initially meets the eye.

For fans of the memoir

We were very lucky this year to be gifted with memoirs penned by two of the most famous women in the world at the turn of the millennium, with both Britney Spears and Paris Hilton releasing The Woman in Me and Paris: The Memoir, respectively. I enjoyed these books immensely, for different reasons. Both however, hold a shocking mirror to society, reflecting the way young women of this era were treated (and really, how much has changed in the last 25 years?). Also I recommend you don’t read Spears’ memoir - instead listen to the very excellent audiobook, narrated by the very excellent Michelle Williams.

Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart stayed with me a long time after finishing the final page. It details the unimaginable grief of losing a parent in your mid-twenties, when you’re just beginning to figure out who you are, and re-navigate your relationship to each other. Food and the act of cooking can be its own language of love and Zauner uses the dishes of her own heritage – Korean – to examine this momentous loss in her young life.

Cover of the book 'Yellowface' by Rebecca F Kuang, featuring a yellow cover and a pair of feminine-looking eyes. — ‘Yellowface’ is a strong contender for best cover too…

For thrills & chills

A good thriller or horror is hard to come by. I read heaps this year but can really only recommend three.

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard takes the genre and flips it on its head, writing from the perspective of a serial killer, with a survivor from his last murderous rampage hot on his trail. In Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot, writer Jacob Finch Bonner has written and published nothing decent for years and teaches in a MFA program totally lacking in prestige. An arrogant and obnoxious student reveals a cracking story, but dies shortly after – leaving Jake free to take the tale for himself, repackaging and publishing it under his own name. His book is a success, but someone out there knows the truth, campaigning against him as he begins to wonder how much of this chilling plot was truly based in fiction.

Funnily enough, Rebecca F Kuang’s latest book Yellowface follows a similar trajectory, with a side of white privilege. Juniper Hayword’s writing career seems like it’s over before it ever truly took off. When her ‘friend’, literary darling Athena Liu dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript, sending it out into the world under the ethnically ambiguous name ‘Juniper Song’. Yet someone out there knows the truth and will threaten to undo everything June believes she has rightly earned… and are they indeed flesh and bone, or is it Athena’s vengeful ghost?

For the adventurer

Know someone who loves to travel? Or itching to hit the path yourself? Here are a few adventures you can get lost in. A real theme here – most of these are books about walking.

The Crossing by Sophie Matterson details the journey a young woman takes with her five wild camels, across Australia. It’s reminiscent of Robyn Davidson’s trek with camels from Alice Spring to the west coast almost 50 years ago (a journey she details in her bestselling book Tracks), except Sophie walked further, for longer, and did it while COVID lockdowns were affecting various states and territories across the country. Speaking of Davidson – no surprise, but she has gone on to have a truly epic life and has published yet another memoir, Unfinished Woman. Highly recommend listening to her chat with Sarah Kanowski on ABC’s Conversations, before diving headfirst into this book.

I’m currently reading my way through Raynor Winn’s trio of memoirs. Ten years ago, she and her husband Moth were served a double whammy by life; evicted from their house and homeless, they discover he has a slow-moving but debilitating disease. With nowhere else to go, they decide to walk the 630-mile (1,010 km) South West Coast Path, which runs from Somerset through to Dorset, despite medical advice to do the exact opposite. And the miraculous happens – with each step, with each movement, Moth grows stronger. The Salt Path is the first in the series and so, an excellent place to start.

And finally, having raved about it in a previous newsletter, I must give an honourable mention to 52 Ways to Walk. As the title suggests, the book covers a multitude of ways to walk – the when, where, how and why. I must buy myself a copy of this book and try them all! You’ll see me walking backwards around Melbourne in no time at all.

For the nature lover

Braiding Sweetgrass was published a few years ago, but is worth reading at any time, ever. ‘A botanist asks questions of nature with the tools of silence’ and there’s some fascinating insight on Native American knowledge between the pages (as author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation).

Fancy yourself to be a bit of a bird nerd? Me too, friend. The Life of Birds by the true king David Attenborough has been re-released and is a worthy addition to your bookshelves. Some of the most interesting among our feathered friends are the most ignored. In Ten Birds That Changed the World Stephen Moss dives into natural history to examine the world’s most notable birds, and the impact they have had on both us and the planet.

Indeed, there is so much we don’t know about the world, but perhaps you can end twenty-twenty-tree by amassing a little more knowledge about the LITERAL VESSELS THAT GIFT US THE AIR WE BREATHE, via Peter Wohlleben's The Power of Trees. Spoiler alert: they’d be much better off without us but goodness gracious, do we need them.

And finally, turn your gaze upward, with the help of Astronomy: Sky Country (First Knowledges Series), which details the long lasting relationship Indigenous Australians have with the night sky. The First Knowledges Series is excellent and covers a range of topics – from design, to plants, to the songlines embedded deep in the earth of this ancient land, and in the culture of its First Peoples.

For the intellectually curious

Anna Funder’s Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life is easily one of the best books I read this year; a curious mix of memoir, biography and creative non-fiction, sure to become a feminist touchstone. Not much is known about Eric Blair/George Orwell’s wife Eileen Blair (née O'Shaughnessy), with Funder basing much of this work on the six surviving letters she wrote to her friend Norah. If you want to read a fun and true story about how the patriarchy diminishes women’s work and in some cases, erases them entirely from history, then this is the book for you!

The most powerful woman in media is also one of the world’s most enigmatic. In Anna: The Biography, Amy Odell peeps behind the giant sunglasses to examine Wintour’s rise to power; from a fashion-obsessed teenager in swinging London, to global chief content officer of Condé Nast.

Love or hate the media, most of us have an interest in how the news gets made. In Storytellers, legendary journalist Leigh Sales talks to some of the biggest names across the Australian mediascape, to discover exactly how it is they go about their craft. And you can’t really speak of the news without mentioning the Murdochs. Paddy Manning’s excellent biography of Lachlan Murdoch, The Successor, is unputdownable – and frankly quite a chilling read, when you consider both the power that family wields worldwide and the possible ultra-conservative depths of some of Lachlan’s core beliefs.

For the ‘lols’

Heavy stuff. Let’s end with a laugh. If you’re looking for reads that are reflective yet funny, let me point you in the direction of both Robert Skinner’s I’d Rather Not and Sam Irby’s Quietly Hostile. Both a treat to unwrap, and enjoy.

Well, that’s my round-up for the year. Would love to hear your top reads and recommendations. Have you read any on this list – agree, or disagree?

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