The Best Books I Read in 2023

A collage of the Best Books I Read in 2023.

I fell slightly short of my Goodreads goal of reading 25 books in 2023, coming in at 24 books for the year. True to my trend of reading random old books, I didn’t read many books that were actually published in 2023. Which means my list isn’t the best books of 2023, but rather the best books that I read in 2023. If you want to read my full reviews of these books, just click on the title, and that will take you to my original review of the book.  

The Roof Over Our Heads, by Nicole Kronzer, 2023. Nicole Kronzer’s young adult novel The Roof Over Our Heads is a wonderful love letter to theater, families, and belonging. The main character of the novel is Finn Turner, a 17-year-old who lives with his two mothers and two brothers in a Victorian mansion owned by a theater company. But the theater has a new artistic director who isn’t convinced that the expense of the mansion is worth it to the theater’s bottom line. Finn’s mothers get the idea to perform an interactive play in the house—while the cast lives in the mansion as though it’s 1891. The house that the action takes place in is called the Jorgensen house, and it’s based on the James J. Hill House. I used to be a tour guide at the Hill House, so I was thrilled to read a novel where I know the setting so well. The Roof Over Our Heads is a delightful novel full of vivid characters. 

Being Elvis: A Lonely Life, by Ray Connolly, 2016. This book is a fantastic examination of the personality of Elvis Presley. Ray Connolly has clearly done his homework, as he compresses Elvis’ life story into 320 pages. Elvis was something of an enigma: a huge star who remained at times oddly passive about his own career. Being Elvis is a sympathetic portrait of a gifted artist who was adored by millions of people around the world, and yet his life was a lonely one indeed.  

If At First, by Keith Hernandez and Mike Bryan, 1986, updated 1987. Keith Hernandez won 11 Gold Gloves at first base, won a batting title, was co-MVP in 1979, and led the 1982 Cardinals and 1986 Mets to the World Championship. He also had one of the greatest mustaches ever. If At First is Hernandez’s daily diary of the 1985 season, in which the Mets won 98 games, but just missed out on the postseason. Hernandez is smart and self-reflective, and a gifted writer. Before game time, Keith could be found working on The New York Times crossword puzzle. His hobby was reading books about the Civil War—this immediately impressed me when I was a kid and read this on the back of one of Hernandez’s baseball cards. If At First is an excellent look at a different era of baseball: When Hernandez’s left ankle is in pain after seven games on artificial turf, his solution is: “Tape it up, gulp three aspirin, and keep on truckin’.” When Keith grounds into a double play with the bases loaded to end a game, he faces the reporters: “Sitting on my stool, fresh beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, waiting.” The 80’s were a different time, kids. 

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, by Sarah Churchwell, 2013. Churchwell examines Fitzgerald’s classic novel in detail, and she takes us through Fitzgerald’s time in Great Neck, Long Island, which inspired the setting of The Great Gatsby. By relentlessly combing through primary sources, Churchwell shows us how then-current events may have influenced the gestation of Gatsby. Churchwell combines expert scholarship with great writing to create a fascinating look at Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. Every Fitzgerald fan needs to read Careless People.  

Conversations with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Judith S. Baughman, 2004. This volume collects 37 interviews with Fitzgerald that were published during his lifetime. It’s astonishing that none of the interviews in the book mention The Great Gatsby in any detail, an indication of how the book was neglected by the public at the time it was published in 1925. The interviews show more of Fitzgerald’s political side, which didn’t often make it into his fiction. One of the most interesting interviews in this book is from 1927. The interview was titled “Fitzgerald, Spenglerian,” a reference to the German philosopher Oswald Spengler, whose book Decline of the West Fitzgerald was reading at the time. Fitzgerald sounds like a prophet: 

“Mussolini, the last slap in the face of liberalism, is an omen for America...The idea that we’re the greatest people in the world because we have the most money in the world is ridiculous. Wait until this wave of prosperity is over! Wait ten or fifteen years! Wait until the next war on the Pacific, or against some European combination!” 

Together, these interviews offer a glimpse into what a fascinating and intelligent man F. Scott Fitzgerald was.  

The Late George Apley, by John P. Marquand, 1937. The Late George Apley is an exquisite work of satire. The framing device of the novel is that George Apley’s son has asked the narrator to write a biography of his father, a leading citizen of Boston. Marquand threads the needle perfectly, as his narrator/author takes us through the events of George Apley’s life, much of it reconstructed through primary sources such as letters. Marquand pulls off a tricky feat in this novel—he is able to make you laugh at George Apley and also have sympathy for him. The Late George Apley launched Marquand as a serious novelist, and for the rest of his life his novels garnered critical acclaim as well as high sales.