Our 20 Favorite Books of 2023

Eileen Myles, easily the most energetic and doggedly curious writer of our time, cements both superlatives with their newest poetry collection. In sparse, hypnotic lines, Myles relays the minutiae of life that turn cosmic under quarantine, and then bizarrely new upon reemergence. Past bumps into the present, dreams blur with reality, and the bounds of time and space are contorted into awkward Zoom rooms and nearly missed plane rides. The brutal legacy of America, prodded to new depths by the former president, wrestles with itself across the internet while a dog awaits breakfast, “her crunchy / chewy good morning.” Myles’s work underscores that old grief and new love are as close to you as your next cup of coffee, that home has never been four walls and a roof—it’s the abundance that fills the empty space. —Mark Alan Burger, Social Media Manager

Thurston Moore’s passion for music was ignited by the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” and turbocharged by the Stooges. But his road map came from underground publications like Rock Scene, which was chronicling the burgeoning ’70s punk mecca at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB, luring the Connecticut teenager “like a siren’s song.” He and a friend started driving back and forth from Bethel to check out the likes of Television and the Ramones before Moore moved to the East Village to live out his rock-and-roll dreams. It’s also where he met Kim Gordon, his future wife and founding member of Sonic Youth. The artsy pair, along with guitarist Lee Ranaldo and later drummer Steve Shelley, would push the boundaries of punk, creating modern masterpieces like Daydream Nation, inspire countless groups, and help usher in the “alternative” wave of the ’90s.

It’s hard to read Sonic Life and not be reminded of Gordon’s evocative 2015 memoir, Girl in the Band, which unflinchingly revisited her husband’s affair that led to the breakup of their marriage and the band; Moore, meanwhile, opts not to get into such “intensely personal” matters. In taking readers along his musical trajectory—from idolizing the likes of Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, and Ron Asheton to sharing stages with them—Moore simultaneously charts rock’s decades-long evolution through punk and hardcore, new wave and no wave, indie and grunge. (He also was in New York for the birth of hip-hop and Madonna’s Danceteria days.) In preparing to tell the story of his life, Moore spent time scrolling through The Village Voice on microfiche in a Fort Lauderdale library, and perused old issues of NME and Melody Maker at the British Library, studiously scouring downtown culture and music magazines, just as his noisy odyssey began. —Michael Calderone, Editor, The Hive

Set at the turn of the 21st century, Thomas’s debut novel follows Nell and Fay, teenage best friends so inseparable that a third of the book is narrated by a collective consciousness called the “F&N unit.” Fay and Nell are unabashed theater kids, and they’re also both slightly tortured: Nell is a lesbian who once harbored a hopeless crush on Fay, but Fay only has eyes for beautiful boys like Theo, a mysterious new sophomore. Not because Fay wants to sleep with Theo—or at least, not only for that reason—but because Fay wants to be Theo. Though the book is almost painfully relatable for stage lovers who happen to be in the same microgeneration as Thomas—picture me raising my hand—there’s also something universal in its careful excavation of complicated relationships, its compassionate understanding of how teenage friends can love and resent and envy and condescend to each other all at once. It’s the sort of book you finish, absorb for a few minutes, then flip right over and start reading a second time. —Hillary Busis, Hollywood Editor

How thrilling when an author follows up on a promising debut by upending any and all expectations—while still building on what came before. Justin Torres’s Blackouts—a surreal, expansive, audacious excavation of queer history and identity—marks a stylistic leap from his celebrated first novel, We the Animals, while still showcasing his understanding of the fundamentals: playful dialogue, textured characterizations, narrative momentum. In this book’s case, entire worlds are contained in the conversations between a 20-something man known as Nene and the dying elderly man who’s called for him, Juan. We’re in a dreamy, stuffy mansion known as The Palace, the pair reuniting after meeting in a mental institution a decade earlier—both having been committed for their sexuality—in the effort to revive the authentic testimonies of queer people redacted from the (real-life) 1941 report Sex Variants. The construct, perhaps a bit unwieldy as a premise, results in satisfying, humane character portraits—the piecing together of a past that propels the present, of the emotional pain and erotic beauty inherent to LGBTQ+ history, and of the generational scars better unearthed than hidden. —David Canfield, Hollywood Staff Reporter

Virtually every moment of this slim, gripping, gorgeously translated novel takes place aboard a smoky, congested trans-Siberian train rushing east. Among the passengers are 100 Russian army conscripts in third class, one of whom is a scared, tragically innocent 20-year-old named Aliocha, who’s desperate to desert before the sickening train reaches its destination. (I’m no comp lit major, but I assume Aliocha is a hat tip to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov?) Eastbound is riveting whether or not you read it with the war in Ukraine in mind. What transpires may sound like a movie trope but feels absolutely genuine here: Aliocha meets an older French woman, Hélène, who’s got her own problems, to say the least. Though they can only communicate in gestures, Aliocha begs for Hélène’s help, and the lengths they eventually go—and the repercussions—will do a number on your heart. —Jeff Giles, Executive Hollywood Editor

This is the kind of story I would have loved to have read in high school—a close look at an intriguing, key figure of the Civil Rights Movement who hasn’t been widely talked about. Because of Ford’s research, we are now aware of Mollie Moon: an “It girl” and “influencer” before the terms were conceptualized, who founded the fundraising arm of the National Urban League, which funded youth educational programs, voter registrations, and more. Moon became famous for her ability to throw see-and-be-seen parties in such venues as Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom and the Astoria Hotel, with guest lists that included everyone from Billie Holiday to the Rockefellers. Her husband, Henry Lee, was the longtime publicist for the NAACP. The duo utilized their connections and influence for the greater good—a power couple par excellence. This is a story I will treasure for a lifetime. —Kia Goosby, Market Editor

Whether you go in for icons or relics, Mixing Up the Medicine, the first publication from the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, brings the reader closer to the Dylan godhead than perhaps any publication since Chronicles. It contains over 1,000 images by 135 photographers tracing the arc of Dylan’s shape-shifting image, along with letters, notebook pages, and a range of talismanic objects such as the namesake tambourine that inspired “Mr. Tambourine Man.” With an introductory essay by Sean Wilentz and epilogue by Douglas Brinkley, the book features a range of writers, artists, and musicians including Joy Harjo, Greil Marcus, Michael Ondaatje, Gregory Pardlo, Amanda Petrusich, Tom Piazza, Lee Ranaldo, Alex Ross, Ed Ruscha, Lucy Sante, Greg Tate, and many others. —Eric Miles, Visuals Editor

The Slip is a collective biography of the community of artists that, for a brief and halcyon period between the late 1950s to the middle of the 1960s, occupied a collection of former sail-making lofts on Coenties Slip, a dead-end street near Manhattan’s downtown waterfront. In a narrative filled with anecdotes and (mostly non-salacious) gossip, Peiffer argues convincingly that for artistic luminaries Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Jack Youngerman, and Youngerman’s wife, the French actor and filmmaker Delphine Seyrig, both the web of mutual influence, connectedness, and rivalry as well as the particularities of place and community were perhaps more formative than individual genius to their future artistic accomplishments. —EM

In his blistering, wry, and sometimes alienating debut novel, Ben Purkert paints a compelling portrait of the gallingly hubristic and increasingly frustrating Seth Taranoff, an amateur copywriter who treats his burgeoning career as though it were life and death. When he loses his job and his sometime lover and colleague, Josie, in one fell swoop, Seth’s life gets sent on a downward spiral which he’s unable—or perhaps more accurately, unwilling—to see that he’s complicit in. As Seth grapples with the wreckage of his life, he’s sent on a spiritual journey highlighted by flashbacks to a miserable birthright trip and an ill-begotten road trip to rural Pennsylvania that leads to a surprising relationship with an Orthodox rabbi and his family. In Purkert’s hands, Seth’s semi-delusional yet understandable quest to reclaim his old identity and discover a new part of himself is equal parts funny and pathetic, engendering sympathy and pity from the reader sometimes within the very same sentence. The Men Can’t Be Saved sits right at the intersection where Mad Men ambition meets an epic, existential meltdown. —Chris Murphy, Staff Writer

About a mile from my home in Durham, North Carolina, protesters tore down a Confederate statue in 2017. When we drive to visit family, we pass two enormous Confederate flags flying beside the highway before arriving in Asheville, where an enormous concrete Confederate memorial was removed, at great expense, in 2021. All of these things are part of the modern South and at the heart of David Joy’s bracing novel, which begins when a bold, young Black artist returns to her Western North Carolina hometown and sets a local Confederate memorial as her target. What emerges from there is both a murder mystery and a deeply intimate story of generational relationships and loss, taking the perspective both of the local Black community—so often ignored in stories of Appalachia—and the aging white sheriff forced to solve a crime that hits far too close to home. —Katey Rich, Awards Editor

In the most recent publication from the Anonymous Project (a collaborative series in which English filmmaker Lee Shulman provides artists with found photographs from the 1950s and ’60s so that they might give them a second life), Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop, best known for his self-portraits, has seamlessly inserted himself into the frame. The photographs he has chosen are lighthearted in nature—family celebrations, public pools in the summer, community barbecues—and comprise white middle-class Americans in a postwar, segregated country. While at a glance the spaces remain celebratory, with Diop often joining in on the original subjects’ laughter, it’s clear he’s laughing at a slightly different joke. It’s impossible not to be challenged by the stark fact that these all-white spaces may well have been, as they often still are, violent and entirely unwelcoming toward Black people. While the work is rooted very literally in history, Shulman and Diop give readers the opportunity to scrutinize not only American history, but contemporary day-to-day spaces, from those represented in media to what they encounter in their own lives. —Allison Schaller, Visuals Editor

Like many fans, I read Britney Spears’s long-awaited memoir, The Woman in Me, in one sitting, completely gripped by her newfound freedom to tell all. After enduring a 13-year conservatorship, and a lifetime of unrelenting public scrutiny, she reveals the gentle but brave woman behind the pop star, exposing the truth behind the tabloid fodder I grew up reading. Britney employs the same confidence she has had onstage throughout her career. Her storytelling and voice are unwavering, from heartbreaking revelations to bittersweet anecdotes that bring you back to the Britney you know and love. Strip away the sold-out world tours and countless accolades and what you have is a story about generational trauma and survival. What’s most inspiring is despite all that she’s been through, and continues to battle, Britney ends on a note of hope, stronger than ever. —Daniela Tijerina, Executive Assistant to the Editor

One need not be infatuated with dashboards, have gotten drunk at the Magician, worked in media, nor be any degree of coastal elite to enjoy this accessible, jargon-less, character-driven tour of the New York media-tech-biz nexus from the mid-2000s—remember Silicon Alley?—to the late 2010s. Written by the former head of BuzzFeed News for a general audience, Traffic is undergirded by a hero’s quest to control the internet yet gift wrapped in a chronological listicle of “remember when” viral moments—Shirley Sherrod, dick pics, “Is the dress blue and black, or white and gold?”

The protagonist, Jonah Peretti, philosophizing founder of BuzzFeed, longs to bottle the magic of driving “traffic,” first defined as attention, but by the end, a stand-in for society at large. What makes something go viral? What makes people want to share? As the tail wags the dog and stories are written to chase eyeballs, he rises too close to the sun and falls, as does our antihero, Jonah’s “nemesis, archrival, and polar opposite” Nick Denton of Gawker Media. Following the dual origin stories, the book continues as a simplified yet satisfying behind-the-scenes look at the roller-coaster narratives of several onetime high-profile media start-ups—Gawker, Drudge, HuffPost, Jezebel, Breitbart, BuzzFeed, Upworthy—with digestible insights into the dynamics of a nascent industry, including Facebook’s maneuvers and The New York Times’ struggles. (Given that the author plays a significant role in the scene, Smith’s thoughtful mea culpa and minor self-deprecations strike an ingratiatingly undersung tone, whether he’s lamenting his obsession with Twitter, regretting his hiring of far-right provocateur Benny Johnson, or agonizing over his decision to publish the infamous Steele dossier.) By 2019, our lightly flawed main characters are scarred and chastened: Jonah bails on a Disney buyout during the heady days of BuzzFeed’s ascent only to see his news division shuttered and his baby’s valuation halved. Nick’s Gawker Media is demolished by PayPal supervillain Peter Thiel vis à vis his bankrolling of Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape civil suit against the company. But we were never too concerned with the outcomes for these rich, well-connected white men—we stayed for the viral nostalgia. —Michael Quiñones, Copy Manager

When whistleblower Reality Winner was arrested in 2017 and later pleaded guilty to sending classified documents to The Intercept, it was a story with huge relevance to the group of activists and journalists with interests in the security state and its overreaches, but it didn’t easily translate to the broader public. In Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs, Kerry Howley draws an intimate portrait of the woman, her world, and her motivations with literary flair and a wry voice. Her approach allows her to draw out the connections between her prosecution, the recent history of leakers, dissidents, and accused traitors of the post-9/11 age. Most attempts to understand the war on terror leave a reader with more questions and moral confusion than they began with. In approaching that lack of stability with intellect and keen aesthetics, Howley’s book leaves a reader immeasurably enriched. —Erin Vanderhoof, Staff Writer

During a weekend spent in a delightful Hudson Valley town (an organic farm; roses climbing the doorway of the Airbnb) I did not want to take long walks through creekside greenery, I did not want to forage for antiques, I did not want to sip vegan “lattes” devoid of espresso—all activities I typically enjoy. I wanted to stay in bed and read this sumptuous, spiky, brilliant book. In it, a fetid fog envelopes the globe, smothering agriculture in its wake; most food is replaced by a protein-dense mung bean flour. A chef connives her way into a job cooking for a billionaire at his mountain compound, where his daughter is cultivating a Noah’s ark of lost species and a grand plan for the future of humanity—or, at least, those with sufficient capital. —Keziah Weir, Senior Editor

In a 2020 Vanity Fair essay on the death of her husband, Jesmyn Ward described her novel-in-progress that would become Let Us Descend as being “about a woman who is even more intimately acquainted with grief than I am, an enslaved woman whose mother is stolen from her and sold south to New Orleans, whose lover is stolen from her and sold south, who herself is sold south and descends into the hell of chattel slavery in the mid-1800s.” Early in the book, its narrator, Annis—whose mother was raped by the man who claims to own her—lingers outside the room where her white half-sisters are reading Dante’s Inferno. Her mother warns her against being caught learning, but Annis thinks, “How to apologize for wanting some word, some story, some beautiful thing for my own?” She acquires her own imperfect spirit guide who accompanies her on a hellish journey from the Carolinas to a Louisiana sugar cane plantation. I read the book over the summer but have been thinking about it a lot recently: how it contains death and cruelty and suffering, but also brims with Ward’s poetry about how humanity thrums even under violent oppression; the ways in which violence can control a body, but not a mind. “My loss was a tender second skin,” Ward wrote in that essay. “I shrugged against it as I wrote, haltingly, about this woman who speaks to spirits and fights her way across rivers.” —KW

Oh, this collection. Seven stories that span some four decades and take place everywhere from upstate New York to the Russian Far East, linked by the Korean diaspora. (Full disclosure: I share an editor with Yoon and was in conversation with him on his book tour.) The book is 148 pages of exquisite, subtly interwoven narratives—a brief, evocative volume perfect for sinking into on a plane ride or a gray winter day. Sometimes I’ll read and love a book but over time its images slip away; those of The Hive and the Honey lodged fast and remain as vivid as those in a dream: A mother of a lost son screaming into the void. A soft-eared hunting dog in a 17th-century Japanese trading outpost. A carton of strawberries in a plastic bag dangling from a bike’s handlebar, the rider’s bloody knuckles bandaged with tape. Moonlight hitting stones on a valley floor. A couple mock-boxing in a rippling field before dawn. —KW

This is a real “how did she do it?!” book: How did Patchett alchemize the ingredients of a ’90s rom-com (mother of three grown daughters looks back on her summer romance, at age 24, with a now-megawatt movie star) with a complex double-timeline narrative structure, pulled off seamlessly and breezily, to create a beautiful page-turner that is cherry-pie sweet and sad and peopled with characters so real I wouldn’t be surprised if one showed up at my front door unannounced, as they are wont to do? It’s a family sheltering together at their orchard during the pandemic, it’s poolside Hollywood, it’s actors and dancers carousing at a festival. It is a delight, through and through. —KW