I love year-end “best of” reading lists. I love the ones from people whose reading tastes I mostly share (for obvious reasons), but I’m also interested in lists from people who I’m pretty sure I have very little in common with. Because a reader is a reader, and even if we are not alike in other ways, we both love books. If someone loves them enough to make public their honest year-end favorite book list, then more likely than not, I’m happy to look at it.
I only started keeping an actual “books I’ve read” list in 2018. Why it took me so long, I’ll never know. What I would give today if I had a list like this for every year of my life. If you’re not already keeping a list, I encourage you to start in 2024!
That said, here are my favorite books that I read in 2023:
Fiction:
(A note regarding content, for more sensitive readers. Some of these books are entirely clean, some contain a fair amount of profanity—non-gratuitous and character-appropriate, in my opinion—and some contain subject matter that is gritty or difficult to read.)
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. This modern retelling of David Copperfield might fall into the love-it-or-hate-it category, but I loved it. Some of it is a realistic account of drug addiction, so it’s not easy to read at times, but Demon is such an authentic narrator, and I especially loved the ending.
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. A reread of what’s probably my favorite novel (well, trilogy) of all time. Poignant and beautifully written.
Mistborn series (Mistborn [or The Final Empire], The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages) by Brandon Sanderson. Do you have time to read a 1,700-page fantasy trilogy? Sure you do. Even if fantasy isn’t your favorite (I don’t care for it much, but my daughter convinced me to read these), I think there’s a very good chance you’ll like Mistborn.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. One of the narrators is an octopus. Need I say more? He was my very favorite part of the book (I’m sure I’m not alone in that), and it’s a sweet story overall.
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. I love epistolary novels, and I love those rare novels that make me laugh out loud. This one is a series of recommendation letters from a jaded English professor, and it’s funnier than that sounds. If you have a liberal arts degree or are in academia (or like me, escaped that possibility by the skin of your teeth), it’s especially funny.
Nonfiction:
Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God by Tim Challies, who lost his young adult son in 2020 and processed this tremendous loss as writers do. It’s a beautifully written book on the first year of grief, a great comfort for anyone who has loved and lost. Challies provides resources on his website, including a personal letter to bereaved parents that you can print and give with the book.
Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents―and What They Mean for America’s Future by Jean M. Twenge. Do you like pondering the differences between generations and why they are the way they are? Do you like charts and graphs? I love both of these things and I was in seventh heaven while reading this fascinating book.
Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson. If you like mysteries where people do get murdered in quaint English villages, then you’ll probably like this cute, fun little book. Get it from the library or give it as a gift. The illustrations are Edward Gorey-ish, making it even more delightful.
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. I’m cheating, because I actually read this in 2022. But I didn’t post a list for that year so here you go. One of the best “true survival” books I’ve ever read—the story of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, what happened to stop him, and how the crew managed to survive the harrowing ordeal. There have been other books written about the Endurance, but this 1959 title is the definitive one.
Books I wanted to read in 2023 but never got to:
There are far too many fiction titles in my TBR list for me to list here, but two nonfiction books I seriously intended to read (and still do—hopefully soon!) are these, written by two clear-headed, excellent Christian writers on timely and relevant topics:
The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes by Nancy R. Pearcy
Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age by Samuel D. James
And one biography I’m looking forward to:
Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S. R. Austen, published by Crossway. This is the recent one-volume bio, not the recent two-volume bio. For the record, I mostly liked Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn (volume 1, B&H Books), but I was really disappointed in Being Elisabeth Elliot (volume 2), so that’s the main reason I’m especially looking forward to the Austen bio.
For more books I’ve loved and other bookish things (including one of the most-read posts I’ve ever written, about the polarizing children’s book Love You Forever), check out the Reading tab on this blog.
For reasons why to read a daily devotional, with lots of suggestions, take a look here: Why Read Devotionals?
For my devotional choice for 2024, here’s a post from my Great and Noble Tasks Facebook page. Liking/following that Facebook page is another good way to keep up with what I post here, as well as some additional content that doesn’t always make it onto this blog.
Happy New Year and happy reading in 2024!
Great and Noble Tasks 
Demon Copperhead is on my TBR for 2024. I started Remarkably Bright Creatures but wasn’t sure it was for me. Maybe I should revisit it. I did love the octopus!
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I liked both books, but Demon is one that some people can’t get through. I hope you like it! … And I think I would have loved it if the octopus had narrated the *entire* book, but maybe that would have been overkill. 😉
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