The 24 best new books of 2023 (so far)

Each year’s slate of buzzy new books has a little something for everyone, whether it’s the will-they-or-won’t-they intensity of a romance novel or the seismic revelations of a tell-all celebrity memoir. Dizzying variety is just the start of what the best new books of 2023 have to offer.

From beach reads to literary fiction, 2023’s most noteworthy releases so far are highly personal and deeply memorable. In the first two months of the year alone, readers were treated to heartfelt debut novels by Jessica George and Delia Cai, plus award-winner Rebecca Makkai’s highly anticipated return. Even more of 2023’s best new books are still yet to come, with titles from Brandon Taylor, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Emma Donoghue arriving throughout the spring and summer. From studies of modern Brooklyn’s gilded upper class to a survey of time and how to spend it better, everyone will be talking about the following 24 books. More importantly, you’ll want to revisit them again in the not-distant future.

Read on for the best books of 2023 to pick up now and read a second time later. Then, check back on our 2023 reading list when you make it through your stack. We’ll update this list with even more titles.

The Survivalists: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 10, 2023

The Survivalists is one of the year's most noteworthy new books on premise alone. Aretha, a partner-track lawyer who thrives on corporate success, descends into the world of armageddon bunkers and doomsday arms-dealing after she begins dating a coffee entrepreneur whose roommates are preparing for all sorts of unknown catastrophes while managing the roastery in their shared brownstone. On execution, The Survivalists delivers with a portrait of an underground corner of Brooklyn that's so vividly captured, you may question what's going on behind your favorite coffee shop.

Maame: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 31, 2023

Maddie, the narrator of Jessica George's stirring debut novel, has spent most of her twenties caring for her father, who has Parkinson's disease. Her mother is in Ghana; her brother is on the road with a musician; neither offer much in terms of money or help. But a moment for Maddie to finally figure out what she wants from life, independent of her family, is on the horizon—just not in the way Maddie initially anticipates. This is a coming-of-age novel that finds beauty in the messiness and complexity of growing up, with a narrator whose singular voice instantly captivated readers and reviewers.

There's more where Maame came from: The novel has already been picked up for a TV adaptation.

Central Places: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 31, 2023

Heroines who travel from a bustling city to their flyover state hometown for the holidays often find trouble and maybe a new love interest in their old zip code. But Audrey Zhou, the narrator of Central Places, isn't on the Hallmark trajectory when she books a Christmas trip back to Hickory Grove, Illinois, for her first visit since high school. Audrey intends to spend the week introducing her Chinese immigrant parents to her white fiancé and helping them feel like one family—a tough order, considering Audrey and her mother aren't on the best terms. Instead, after run-ins with a past crush and old acquaintances, Audrey embarks on a self-reckoning that's hilarious at some times, heartfelt at others, and impossible to put down the whole way through.

Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Wolfish's explorations of predators and prey in the natural world and in the man-made world defies easy categorization. The way Berry weaves an ecological adventure story about OR-7, a wolf that makes a record-breaking journey away from its Oregon pack, with tales from her own coming-of-age, asks readers to reconsider their relationships with fear and the creatures who cause it.

I Have Some Questions for You: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 21, 2023

Is I Have Some Questions for You a campus novel, a noir murder mystery, or a literary dissection of #MeToo social dynamics? With literary sensation Rebecca Makkai steering journalist Bodie Kane back to her high school alma mater to teach a workshop and, eventually, sift back through the files of a former classmate's death to potentially exonerate a wrongly accused killer, the answer is all of the above.

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 7, 2023

In 2019, Jenny Odell drew our collective attention to the attention economy's downsides with her book How to Do Nothing. Saving Time, due in March, offers another chance to shift our perspective on the systems we accept as the standard—specifically time, and how we structure and spend it. You might just put this book down with a whole new outlook on how you measure your days.

Pineapple Street: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 7, 2023

Comedies skewering the one percent have borderline overstayed their welcome in film, but this novel's take on the sub-genre in fiction is laugh-out-loud good. It follows three women connected to the wealthier-than-wealthy Stockton family and their Brooklyn Heights brownstone: two Stockton siblings, Darley and Georgiana, and their sister-in-law with a middle-class background, Sasha. Love and money have always mixed like oil and water (not well), but Jackson finds new humor and warmth in her particularly witty debut.

Brother & Sister Enter the Forest: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 14, 2023

Richard Mirabella braids two timelines into one propulsive narrative about survival. In the first: Justin, a queer teen, sets off on a catastrophic road trip with his first boyfriend after his love interest gets into violent trouble. In the second: It's several years later, and Justin has arrived on his sister Willa's doorstep, desperate for refuge but at risk of damaging them both with the aftereffects of his trauma.

Hello Beautiful: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 7, 2023

Little Women fans will be endeared by Hello Beautiful's homage to the March siblings, in the form of the four Padavano sisters. Any lover of a sweeping family saga will be moved by the Padavano's unraveling after the eldest daughter, Julia, meets Will, a man whose tragic past comes back to disrupt the entire family.

Romantic Comedy: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: APRIL 4, 2023

The title doesn't lie: Curtis Sittenfeld sets up her latest novel with a plot that demands a fizzy on-screen adaptation, ASAP. Sally Milz, a writer on a fictional SNL twin, The Night Owls, has more or less given up on romance when popstar Noah Brewster signs on to host the show. Over a week of writing jokes and rehearsing the week's lineup, Sally feels something that's a lot like love—but you'll have to read to see if their connection is real or just another sketch.

A Living Remedy: A Memoir

RELEASE DATE: MARCH 7, 2023

On one level, Nicole Chung's second memoir is an elegy for her adoptive parents. On another, it's an indictment of the broken healthcare systems that prevent a disappearing middle class from receiving the affordable care they desperately need. Chung writes about and through her grief with clarity and wisdom. Her reflection on her early life and her parents' last days is a salve for any reader who has experienced the specific devastation that is losing a parent.

Happy Place

RELEASE DATE: APRIL 23, 2023

Happy Place is a different kind of Emily Henry romance. Harriet and Wyn, its leading duo, aren't a couple in the making. They're partners since college who quietly broke up months ago—and didn't tell any of their friends before an annual group trip to Maine. Back at their usual summer escape, Harriet and Wyn have to fake that they're still together for the friends the haven't clued in to the truth and maybe come to a new understanding with one another in the process. Don't be surprised if you're weeping through the last few chapters (in a cathartic way, we promise).

Homebodies: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MAY 2, 2023

Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel astutely captures what it's like to fight for yourself in a world that's stacked against you. Unfairly ousted from her job, Mickey Hayward puts her experiences as a Black woman in media to paper in the hopes it'll wake up the industry to the racism and sexism she endured. Instead, it hardly makes a ripple—until Mickey has left New York for her Maryland hometown and her letter reappears amid a larger scandal involving her old workplace.

Wildflower: A Memoir

RELEASE DATE: MAY 9, 2023

How did Aurora James found her CFDA Award-winning label Brother Vellies and galvanize retailers to take a stand for Black-owned brands through The Fifteen Percent Pledge? James' forthcoming memoir recounts the peaks and valleys from childhood to adulthood that led her to the fashion industry—where she changed it for the better.

Yellowface: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MAY 16, 2023

The unexpected death of acclaimed author Athena Liu presents (what looks like) an opportunity for struggling writer June Hayward to finally break through—by stealing Liu's last manuscript and inventing an Asian American identity to pass off Liu's masterwork as her own. Posing as "Juniper Song," June gets a taste of the literary success she stole and definitely doesn't deserve. And as she soon learns, she can't keep up the lie forever—can she?

R.F. Kuang's satirical thriller covers everything from white privilege to internet culture with increasingly eviscerating precision the further June/Juniper spirals away from the truth.

The Late Americans: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: MAY 23, 2023

Brandon Taylor's third book is the most dazzling example of his sharp pen and keen observations of human nature yet. The Late Americans assembles a troupe of Iowa City student-artists and their lovers, friends, and neighbors in a novel that tracks their shifting relationships over the course of a single year. Taylor develops his characters so precisely, they feel like close friends: recognizable, sometimes infuriating, and always worth following to the book's last page.

(Double-recommendation: Check out Taylor's literary newsletter while you wait for The Late Americans to arrive.)

Girls and Their Horses

RELEASE DATE: JUNE 6, 2023

Tensions have always run high in the elite (and usually, rich) equestrian world. Girls and Their Horses dials up the intrigue by several degrees, embedding a new-money family into an insular and highly competitive horseback riding community—where deceit, romance, and even murder aren't out of the question in pursuit of a blue ribbon.

The Mythmakers

RELEASE DATE: JUNE 13, 2023

Keziah Weir's debut novel takes an age-old literary question—is this fiction actually based off reality?—and twists it into a compelling story about art, perspective, and the line between inspiration and transgression. The Mythmakers isn't from the perspective of a novelist, though: It begins with a down-on-her-luck journalist who recognizes herself in a short story by an acclaimed, and recently deceased, author.

Adult Drama: And Other Essays

RELEASE DATE: JUNE 20, 2023

Three years after an essay about her (unhealthy) friendship with influencer Caroline Calloway went viral, Natalie Beach is delving into other can't-look-away dramas—in her relationships, in her work, and in the world at large—with the same captivating voice that landed her on so many readers' radars. This isn't a debut essay collection to miss.

The Light Room

RELEASE DATE: JULY 4, 2023

Early reviews have called this book a miracle between two covers. In The Light Room, Zambreno writes about the intersections of catastrophes that unfold on a global scale—like the pandemic and climate change—with the small wonders and worries of raising her children. Despite the unfathomable distractions we're all facing, Zambreno writes with a sense of hope that will especially resonate with anyone who's soldiered through pandemic-era parenting.

Crook Manifesto: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: JULY 18, 2023

Fans of 2022's Harlem Shuffle didn't have to wait long for its equally riveting sequel. Now, it's the 1970s, New York is in chaos, and furniture salesman-slash-former-conman Ray Carney's commitment to turning his back on crime is starting to waver. What comes next is a journey through a tumultuous decade in Manhattan with equal doses of dark humor and poignancy.

Family Lore: A Novel

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 1, 2023

In her first novel for adults, National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo tackles some of life's biggest questions with the vivacity and empathy readers know from her young adult novels. Family Lore is a multi-generational family epic that's grounded in a supernatural twist. This novel's Dominican-American matriarch, Flor Marte, can predict exactly when someone will die—and the novel's events build over three days toward a "living wake" for an as-yet-unannounced member of the Marte clan. Is the next death one of Flor's three sisters, one of Flor's nieces—or Flor herself?

Learned by Heart

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 29, 2023

Emma Donoghue's upcoming novel turns a real-life love story into one of the year's most compelling dramas. Eliza Raine, an orphaned heiress, and Anne Lister, a tomboy with a rebellious streak, meet at the Manor School for Young Ladies in 1805. The fourteen-year-olds' connection is the foundation of a story that's passionate and heartbreaking in equal measure—inspired in part by the secret journal Lister kept as a student.

My Name Is Barbra

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Fans, critics, and casual moviegoers all think they know the legend who is Barbra Streisand. This fall, the superstar will tell everyone exactly who she is and reflect on her illustrious career in one of 2023's most anticipated celebrity memoirs.

This piece originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar US