From runaway bestsellers to the Roman Empire, indie picks to AI, 2023 was one for the books. We saw a rise in romantasy as well as huge interest in nonfiction and celebrity memoirs like Prince Harry’s Spare and Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me. Books in the romance genre—especially from relative newcomers like Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood—had our hearts racing all the way to the top of the bestseller list, and over the summer, Barbie had us feeling pretty in pink. Book challenges were at the forefront of the cultural conversation this year while the impact of libraries remains as important as ever. The popularity of audiobooks trends upward and BookTok continues to fuel book and author discovery.

With such a big year for books, it was nearly impossible to pick and choose our favorites, but our librarians were up for the challenge—consulting trusted sources like The New York Times, Time Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Amazon Editor’s Best Books of 2023 and Publishers Weekly to narrow down the list. Aiming to include a diverse range of titles, authors and genres, these highlights also reflect books that appeared multiple times on these "best of" lists.

Let’s take a look back at the 100 most-raved-about books from 2023, according to our librarian experts, and available to borrow from your library for free on the Libby app.

ADULT FICTION

✍🏿 African American fiction

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump

The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

📜 Historical fiction

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

🔪 Horror/suspense/thriller

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

The Eden Test by Adam Sternbergh

Holly by Stephen King

How Can I Help You by Laura Sims

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose

😆 Humor

Wellness by Ari Fliakos

Y/N by Esther Yi

🌈 LGBTQIA+

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

📚 Literature

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

Kantika by Elizabeth Graver

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

Yellowface by R. F. Huang

🔍 Mystery

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman

A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb

✍🏽 Poetry

The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

❤️ Romance

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

To Have and to Heist by Sara Desai

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

🐉 Science fiction & fantasy

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Ell Potter

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

Translation State by Adjoa Andoh

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang

ADULT NONFICTION

🎨 Art

Monsters by Claire Dederer

🧑🏾 Biography & autobiography

Bottoms Up and Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley

Congratulations, the Best is Over! by R. Eric Thomas

Daughter of the Dragon by Yunte Huang

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza

A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung

My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

Pageboy by Elliot Page

Spare by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

Unscripted by James B. Stewart

Up Home by Ruth J. Simmons

🍳 Cooking & food

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook by Tamar Adler

🌎 History

Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara

The Exceptions by Kate Zernike

Flee North by Scott Shane

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk

The Wager by David Grann

When Crack Was King by Donovan X. Ramsey

🧠 Psychology

The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen

How Not To Kill Yourself by Clancy Martin

🌲 Science & nature

Crossings by Ben Goldfarb

Fire Weather by John Vaillant

The Parrot and the Igloo by David Lipsky

The Underworld by Susan Casey

What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman

💪 Self-improvement

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

Everything/Nothing/Someone by Alice Carrière

Outlive by Peter Attia

📊 Sociology

The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland

Our Migrant Souls by Héctor Tobar

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

👮 True crime

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

Fear Is Just a Word by Azam Ahmed

YOUNG READERS

👧 Juvenile

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer by Jeff Kinney

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Like a Hurricane by Jonathan Bécotte

Mexikid by Pedro Martin

The Skull by Jon Klassen

Together We Swim by Valerie Bolling

🧒🏻 Young adult

America Redux by Ariel Aberg-Riger

Divine Rituals by Rebecca Ross

The Eternal Return of Clara Hunt by Louise Finch

Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez

*Title availability may vary by region.

Borrow and read these books and more in the Libby app.

Looking back

For a peek into the past, check out last year’s list of the biggest books of 2022 to borrow that book you meant to read. (✨ Bonus: Holds lists are probably much shorter!)

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