NYT's 100 Notable Books of 2023

Each year, NYT staff pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the 2023 standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

Showing 1 - 8 of 8  There are a total of 99 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Forbidden notebook"
Star rating for Forbidden notebook
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In this modern translation and portrayal of domestic life, Forbidden Notebook centers on the inner life of a dissatisfied housewife, Valeria Cossati, living in postwar Rome.--
Book cover for "Hello beautiful"
Star rating for Hello beautiful
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it's a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three...
Book cover for "A history of burning"
Star rating for A history of burning
Author:
Description:
"At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family's future for years to come. Pirbhai's children are born and raised under the jacaranda trees and searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule....
Book cover for "A house for Alice"
Star rating for A house for Alice
Description:
"In the early hours of June 14, 2017, the world watches as flames leap up the sides of a residential high-rise in West London, devouring Grenfell Tower and the makeshift lives it houses--those of London's immigrants, its refugees, its working class. At the same time across town, another spark catches. A cigarette left burning in an ashtray. A table strewn with post-it reminders and old newspapers. And one Cornelius Winston Pitt--estranged husband,...
Book cover for "Kantika"
Star rating for Kantika
Description:
"A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family's displacement across four countries, Kantika-"song" in Ladino-follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way-a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood....
Book cover for "Pineapple Street"
Star rating for Pineapple Street
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"The product of generational wealth and capitalist success, Darley renounced her inheritance when she married Malcolm, a first generation Korean American with a lucrative job in banking. Sasha, Darley's new sister-in-law, has come from more humble origins, and her hesitancy about signing a pre-nup has everyone worried about her intentions. Georgiana, newly graduated from Brown and proud to think of herself as a "do-gooder," has enough money from her...
Book cover for "Tom Lake"
Star rating for Tom Lake
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything...
Book cover for "Y/n"
Star rating for Y/n
Author:
Description:
When her K-pop idol Moon suddenly retires, vanishing from the public eye, the narrator, a Korean American woman living in Berlin, acts on her obsession, arriving in Seoul where she searches for the object of her love until she finds him at long last as art and real life converge.