2023 has been a great year in the literary world, with some incredible fiction debuts and new works from established masters. Historical fiction, crime capers, and speculative fiction have rubbed shoulders with epic fairytales and romance.
So, if you’re looking for inspiration for the perfect book gift for a loved one this Christmas, you’ve come to the right place.
Here’s our rundown of five of the best books from 2023.
- Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
One of the most eagerly-anticipated fiction books of 2023 was a sequel.
Colson Whitehead already had five novels under his belt when he released – and then won the Pulitzer prize for – 2016’s The Underground Railroad. He followed up this tale of escaped slave Cora in the 19th-century American South with The Nickel Boys (2019). This book too won the Pulitzer, meaning Whitehead joined a select few authors to ever win the prize with two consecutive works.
In 2021, Whitehead returned with Harlem Shuffle. The tale of a second-hand furniture salesman looking to go straight in 1960s Harlem, Ray Carney was only ever one deal away from being dragged back into the criminal underworld.
The book was a huge success and in July 2023, its sequel, Crook Manifesto arrived.
It’s now the 1970s and crime, violence, and corruption are on the rise. Carney is on the straight and narrow and all is looking up, until, that is, his daughter asks him to source some elusive Jackson 5 tickets.
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn
Alice Winn’s In Memoriam won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize in 2023 and is a devastating wartime epic mixing romance and tragedy.
Surrounded by the calm of the English countryside in 1914, the War feels like something happening to other people. Except that Henry Gaunt, who is half-German, can’t help but notice the coldness his family suffers.
When his mother asks him to enlist to prove the family’s loyalty to the allies, he immediately agrees. His decision is made partly due to family loyalty, but partly as a means to escape the debilitating crush he has on his classmate, Sidney Ellwood.
Soon Henry and Sidney find themselves in the trenches where death surrounds them, even as they find moments of solace with each other.
Alice Winn’s debut is a heartbreaking tale of loyalty, war, and forbidden love.
- In Ascension by Martin MacInnes
In Ascension, Martin MacInnes’s third novel is an accomplished and page-turning epic of speculative fiction that also poses some huge existential questions. It was long-listed for the 2023 Booker prize.
Leigh Hasenbosch grows up in Rotterdam with a sister and mother who both fail to see, for different reasons, the violence at the heart of their family home.
Keen to escape, Leigh heads to university to become a marine biologist and soon finds herself onboard a research voyage to the mid-Atlantic. An undersea abyss, many times deeper than the Mariana Trench, has been discovered and it could hold answers to questions about the beginnings of life on Earth.
As the extent of the mystery deepens, Leigh’s quest to know more will take her from the depths of the ocean to the widest expanses of deep space. Always, though, it is her human connections and the love for those she leaves behind that will drive her onward, even as she is forced ever further away.
- Victory Cityby Salman Rushdie
Rushdie’s 15th novel, Victory City arrived in February 2023, just six months after the novelist was attacked onstage as he delivered a lecture in New York.
Completed before the attack, this epic novel set in the 15th-century weaves history and magical realism to create a mythic fable of great drama, high comedy, and fairytale.
After the death of her mother, nine-year-old Pampa Kampana becomes the vessel for a goddess. She is granted (or cursed with) a 247-year life during which she will breathe an entire empire into existence.
- The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith shot to fame with her debut novel, 2000’s White Teeth. It followed the later lives of two wartime friends, Samad Iqbal and Archie Jones, and their experiences in London, centring on the relationship between the Bangladeshi and English families.
In her latest novel – Smith’s sixth – the author tackles the historical novel for the first time. Set over more than 50 years, the story revolves around the real-life trial of a man claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, previously presumed to have died at sea and heir to a fortune.
The “Tichborne Trial” captivated all of 19th-century England, including housekeeper Eliza Touchet. We see the trial through Eliza’s eyes while the narrative also follows the life of the formerly enslaved Andrew Bogle, who finds himself in the unenviable role of star witness.
Exuberant, tightly plotted, and extensively researched, the novel is a serious and deep examination of colonialism that also manages moments of levity and a light narrative touch.
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