At the end of every year, the internet is inundated with Best of lists, including many, many, many Best Books of the Year lists. No one has time for all of that. Luckily, SCCLD does the work for you, so there's no need to look any further than this post to find out which books are truly the best! How do we do it? We look at lists from our professional literature, like Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist; major newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal; popular websites like Goodreads, Bookriot, and Vulture; retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and more! In all this year, 23 lists were consulted to find the best of the best. Every time a book makes it onto a list, it gets a point, so the more lists it's on, the higher its score. And now, here are the Best Books of 2023!
The top fiction book of 2023 is The Heaven & Earth Grocery Story by James McBride, with a score of 15! In second and third place respectively, are Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah with a score of 13 and North Woods by Daniel Mason with a score of 12.
For nonfiction, the top spot was won by How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair by appearing on a total of 12 lists. In second place is Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond with a score of 11, and third place is a tie between King: a Life by Jonathan Eig and The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann, each with a score of 10.
Beyond those, there are so many wonderful books on these lists! We have the top fiction and nonfiction in the lists below. Remember, we have these books in multiple formats, so whether you like traditional print, large print, ebook, or audio, we probably have you covered. Happy reading!
