best selling fiction books by year

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Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years

(and what everyone read instead).

As the year draws to a close, some of us like to look forward, and some of us backward—and some  way  backward. Last month, while working on the not-at-all-controversial Books That Defined the Decades series, I was often surprised by the dissonance between the books that sold well in any given year and the books that we now consider relevant, important, or illustrative of the time. I repeatedly regaled my colleagues with fun and interesting facts like: “Did you know that in 1940 the best-selling book of the year was  How Green Was My Valley  by Richard Llewellyn? That was also the year  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter  and  Native Son  came out!” They made me stop eventually, and so I compiled all my comments into this very piece you are now reading.

The data below comes almost entirely from the  Publisher’s Weekly  lists of the biggest fiction bestsellers in the United States. Where possible, I looked at adult fiction only, but some earlier lists did not make that distinction, and for some later, combined lists, I cut out the YA and nonfiction myself to maintain relative consistency. These lists are subject to all of the flaws, faults, and inaccuracies of any best-seller lists, but they’re what we’ve got.

Then I compared the biggest bestseller lists to what I’d consider to be some of the most  famous  books published in each year—that is, the books we still read and talk about. Again, these picks are subject to the flaws, faults, and inaccuracies of any list of books made by a human with her own tastes and interests and awarenesses, but that’s pretty much the deal.

Some general takeaways:

1. The biggest bestsellers of any given year are not necessarily the books we remember 20, 30, 50, or 100 years later. (Something to remember when your own book goes on sale.)

2. Sometimes books take a little while to work themselves onto the bestseller list. Books suspiciously absent from the list of the year they were published sometimes show up in the next year, likely due to paperback releases and/or word of mouth (or they may have simply been published too late in the year to compete with the spring books).

3. People like to read the same authors year after year.

4. John Grisham owned the 90s.

5. There are so very many books, and we have forgotten almost all of them.

Here’s to remembering (the good ones, at least):

The best-selling fiction of the year:

1. Zane Grey, The U. P. Trail 2. May Sinclair, The Tree of Heaven 3. Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Amazing Interlude 4. Edward Streeter, Dere Mable 5. Eleanor H. Porter, Oh, Money! Money! 6. Ethel M. Dell, Greatheart 7. Ralph Connor, The Major 8. E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Pawns Count 9. Gene Stratton Porter, A Daughter of the Land 10. Stephen McKenna, Sonia

Also published that year:

Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons Willa Cather, My Antonia

1. V. Blasco Ibanez, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 2. Joseph Conrad, The Arrow of Gold 3. Zane Grey, The Desert of Wheat 4. Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dangerous Days 5. Ralph Connor, The Sky Pilot in No Man’s Land 6. Harold Bell Wright, The Re-Creation of Brian Kent 7. Gene Stratton Porter, Dawn 8. Temple Bailey, The Tin Soldier 9. Elizabeth von Arnim, Christopher and Columbus 10. Robert W. Chambers, In Secret

Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

1. Zane Grey, The Man of the Forest 2. Peter B. Kyne, Kindred of the Dust 3. Harold Bell Wright, The Re-Creation of Brian Kent 4. James Oliver Curwood, The River’s End 5. Irving Bacheller, A Man for the Ages 6. Eleanor H. Porter, Mary-Marie 7. Joseph C. Lincoln, The Portygee 8. E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Great Impersonation 9. Ethel M. Dell, The Lamp in the Desert 10. Kathleen Norris, Harriet and the Piper

Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love Sinclair Lewis, Main Street Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

1. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street 2. Dorothy Canfield, The Brimming Cup 3. Zane Grey, The Mysterious Rider 4. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence 5. James Oliver Curwood, The Valley of Silent Men 6. Edith M. Hull, The Sheik 7. Mary Roberts Rinehart, A Poor Wise Man 8. Gene Stratton Porter, Her Father’s Daughter 9. Gertrude Atherton, The Sisters-in-Law 10. Coningsby Dawson, The Kingdom Round the Corner

Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

1. A.S.M. Hutchinson, If Winter Comes 2. Edith M. Hull, The Sheik 3. Booth Tarkington, Gentle Julia 4. Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Head of the House of Coombe 5. Robert Keable, Simon Called Peter 6. Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Breaking Point 7. A.S.M. Hutchinson, This Freedom 8. Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine 9. Zane Grey, To the Last Man 10. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt & Harold Bell Wright, Helen of the Old House (tie)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned James Joyce, Ulysses Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way (English translation)

1. Gertrude Atherton, Black Oxen 2. Arthur Train, His Children’s Children 3. Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April 4. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt 5. Temple Bailey, The Dim Lantern 6. A.S.M. Hutchinson, This Freedom 7. Harold Bell Wright, The Mine with the Iron Door 8. Zane Grey, The Wanderer of the Wasteland 9. Rafael Sabatin, The Sea-Hawk 10. Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Breaking Point

Jean Toomer, Cane

1. Edna Ferber, So Big 2. Percy Marks, The Plastic Age 3. Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl 4. Philip Gibbs, The Heirs Apparent 5. James Oliver Curwood, A Gentleman of Courage 6. Zane Grey, The Call of the Canyon 7. Booth Tarkington, The Midlander 8. Coningsby Dawson, The Coast of Folly 9. Rafael Sabatini, Mistress Wilding 10. Dorothy Canfield Fisher, The Homemaker

E. M. Forster, A Passage to India Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor

1. A. Hamilton Gibbs, Soundings 2. Margaret Kennedy, The Constant Nymph 3. Gene Stratton Porter, The Keeper of the Bees 4. E. Barrington, Glorious Apollo 5. Michael Arlen, The Green Hat 6. Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Little French Girl 7. Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith 8. Anne Parrish, The Perennial Bachelor 9. Rafael Sabatin, The Carolinian 10. A.S.M. Hutchinson, One Increasing Purpose

Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

1. John Erskine, The Private Life of Helen of Troy 2. Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 3. Warwick Deeping, Sorrell and Son 4. Sylvia Thompson, The Hounds of Spring 5. P. C. Wren, Beau Sabreur 6. John Galsworthy, The Silver Spoon 7. P. C. Wren, Beau Geste 8. Edna Ferber, Show Boat 9. Susan Ertz, After Noon 10. Temple Bailey, The Blue Window

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

1. Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry 2. Booth Tarkington, The Plutocrat 3. Warwick Deeping, Doomsday 4. Warwick Deeping, Sorrell and Son 5. Mazo de la Roche, Jalna 6. Mary Roberts Rinehart, Lost Ecstasy 7. Edith Wharton, Twilight Sleep 8. Anne Parrish, Tomorrow Morning 9. Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Old Countess 10. Louis Bromfield, A Good Woman

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

1. Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey 2. Hugh Walpole, Wintersmoon 3. John Galsworthy, Swan Song 4. S. S. Van Dine, The Greene Murder Case 5. Viña Delmar, Bad Girl 6. Booth Tarkington, Claire Ambler 7. Warwick Deeping, Old Pybus 8. Anne Parrish, All Kneeling 9. Mazo de la Roche, Jalna 10. Louis Bromfield, The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg

Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point Ford Madox Ford, Parade’s End Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall Virginia Woolf, Orlando

1. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front 2. Sinclair Lewis, Dodsworth 3. Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Dark Hester 4. S. S. Van Dine, The Bishop Murder Case 5. Warwick Deeping, Roper’s Row 6. O. E. Rölvaag, Peder Victorious 7. DuBose Heyward, Mamba’s Daughters 8. Susan Ertz, The Galaxy 9. Julia Peterkin, Scarlet Sister Mary 10. H. W. Freeman, Joseph and His Brethren

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury Henry Green, Living Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica Nella Larsen, Passing Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

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The Complete List of New York Times Fiction Best Sellers

Go beyond just the current list of New York Times Fiction Best Sellers to discover every bestselling book listed on the NYT Bestseller List in 2024.

Since 1931, The New York Times has been publishing a weekly list of bestselling books. Since then, becoming a New York Times bestseller has become a dream for virtually every writer.

When I first started reading adult fiction, one of the first places I went for book recommendations was the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers. I wanted to know what books were the most widely read, and start with those.

However, scrolling through the list week by week on The New York Times website is rather annoying. I just wanted all the bestselling fiction books gathered together in one place.

When I couldn’t find it, I decided to create it.

Here are all the New York Times fiction bestsellers from this year. I’ve got the current #1 and this week’s bestselling list, both of which you can find all over the place.

This list also compiles every book that appears on the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers list in 2024 for Hardcover Fiction. Every week I update it so you can get the most accurate view of the year in one place.

Since this is a bit of a sprawling post, feel free to jump to the section that most interests you or take your time scrolling through the complete list of New York Times fiction best sellers.

Quick Links

• Current #1 NYT Bestseller
• Current New York Times Fiction Best Seller List
• Previous #1 Fiction Best Sellers
• Heavyweights (10+ Weeks)
• Fan Favorites (5+ Weeks)
• Honorable Mention (2+ Weeks)
• One Hit Wonders

Don’t Miss a Thing

Current #1 New York Times Best Seller

Funny Story

Emily henry.

( 2 Weeks ) Daphne and her fiancé Peter have the perfect cute story of how they met, up until Peter leaves her for his childhood best friend Petra. Stranded in Peter’s lakeside Michigan hometown with a job as a children’s librarian she loves, Daphne needs a roommate to help pay the bills. Who better than Petra’s ex, Miles, who is completely Daphne’s opposite? And no big deal if they happen to post misleading photos to make their exes jealous, because there’s no way they would ever actually fall in love.

Publication Date: 23 April 2024 Learn More: Goodreads | StoryGraph | More Info Buy Now: Amazon | Apple Books

Current List of New York Times Best Sellers

After their exes run off together, Daphne and Miles form a friendship and concoct a plan involving misleading photos.

In 1965, a nursing student follows her brother to serve during the Vietnam War and returns to a divided America.

Three estranged siblings find evidence of a dark secret involving their absent father and recently deceased mother.

In World War II Germany, Sophia Alexander joins the resistance and faces several kinds of loss of family members.

Violet Sorrengail is urged by the commanding general, who also is her mother, to become a candidate for the elite dragon riders.

Lawyers from different backgrounds represent a Black man charged with killing a wealthy white couple in Virginia in 1968.

The second book in the Empyrean series. Violet Sorrengail’s next round of training might require her to betray the man she loves.

A collection of six short stories based in New York City around the year 2000 and a novella set during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Three generations of a Chinese American family deal with race, class and secrets.

Luzia Cotado encounters dangers when her magic draws the attention of the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king.

A widow working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium is aided in solving a mystery by a giant Pacific octopus living there.

Secrets held by the residents of a dilapidated neighborhood come to life when a skeleton is found at the bottom of a well.

A reimagining of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” shines a different light on Mark Twain’s classic, revealing new facets of the character of Jim.

The 34th book in the Prey series. Letty and Lucas must find an expert on tropical and infectious diseases before a virus becomes weaponized.

The third book in the Crescent City series. Bryce wants to return home while Hunt is trapped in Asteri’s dungeons.

See what Upcoming Releases are coming out soon!

Previous #1 New York Times Fiction Best Sellers

Lessons in Chemistry

Bonnie garmus.

(99 Weeks) Elizabeth Zott has always defied stereotyping, especially as the only woman chemist at the Hastings Research Institute in the 1960s. After falling in love with another chemist who sees her for who she is, life throws her a curveball. Now as a single mom, she unexpectedly finds herself the host of a tv cooking show. When Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking charms her audience, the women who watch her begin to question the status quo in their own lives, making Elizabeth a target of those who find the change unwelcome.

Publication Date: 5 April 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Fourth Wing

Rebecca yarros.

( 52 Weeks ) Violet Sorrengail is all set to live a quiet life among her books until her mother orders her to become a candidate for the highly competitive dragon riders. But dragons usually prefer to kill rather than bond with weak humans like Violet. With half the competition willing to kill her to improve their odds and the other half hating her because of her mother, Violet must use all her wits to survive the war college. 

Publication Date: 2 May 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

( 26 Weeks ) In the highly anticipated sequel to Fourth Wing, Violet Sorrengail returns for her second year at Basgiath War College. No one expected her to survive this long, much less bond with one of the strongest dragons in existence and a second dragon as well. Now that she knows the secret the nation has been hiding, it will take all her wits to survive her second year, especially with the new vice commandant determined to make her betray the man she loves. 

Publication Date: 7 November 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Ann Patchett

( 24 Weeks ) In 2020, three grown daughters return to their family orchard in Michigan to isolate with their mother. They beg her to tell them about a story from her youth when she fell in love with famous actor Peter Duke while they performed together at the Tom Lake Theater Company. As Lara ponders her life, her daughters begin to wonder about their own choices.

Publication Date: 1 August 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Stephen King

(18 Weeks) Holly is meant to be on leave due to the myriad of personal struggles she is facing, but something about the plea to find a missing daughter is impossible to turn down. Mere blocks from where the girl disappeared live a respectable couple who harbor a chilling secret in their basement, and Holly must outwit and outmaneuver them in this frightening new novel from Stephen King.

Publication Date: 16 May 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Exchange

John grisham.

(16 Weeks) In a sequel to his debut thriller, The Firm , John Grisham returns to tell you what happened to Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of his corrupt Memphis law firm. Fifteen years later, Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan where Mitch is a partner in the world’s largest law firm. When Mitch gets caught up in another sinister plot with worldwide implications, he must do all he can to stay one step ahead of his enemies.

Publication Date: 17 October 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

House of Flame and Shadow

Sarah j. maas.

( 13 Weeks ) In the third Crescent City book, Bryce Quinlan struggles to find her way back to Midgard. Stranded in a new world, she must decide who she can trust. Meanwhile, Hunt Athalar is in the Asteri’s dungeons, again, with no clue what happened to Bryce. If he wants to find her, he must first escape the Asteri’s leash.

Publication Date: 30 January 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Kristin Hannah

( 13 Weeks ) The Women   is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism,  The Women   is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

Publication Date: 6 February 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Save for Later

Heavyweights (10+ Weeks on the NYT Bestseller List)

Demon Copperhead

Barbara kingsolver.

(70 Weeks) In a modern-day version of David Copperfield set in the Appalachian Mountains, Demon Copperhead speaks of how institutional poverty and the opioid epidemic damaged an entire generation of children. A child of a single mother living in a single-wide trailer, young Demon must survive foster care, child labor, poor schools, addiction, success, and failure in this epic tale perfect for book clubs who love thought-provoking topics.

Publication Date: 18 October 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle zevin.

( 51 Weeks ) On a bitterly cold day, Sam Masur runs into Sadie Green on a train platform and they renew their childhood friendship bonding over video games. Together, they create Ichigo, a blockbuster game that changes their lives. Over the next three decades, their friendship is tested as their success leads them to money, fame, love, and betrayal. More a heartrending story about friendship than video games, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an unputdownable read with complex character development.

Publication Date: 12 July 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby van pelt.

( 49 Weeks ) After her husband died, Tova Sullivan began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Thirty years ago, Tova’s son Erik disappeared on a boat in the Puget Sound, and cleaning the aquarium helps her cope. When she befriends Marcellus, the aquarium’s giant octopus, Marcellus discovers what happened to Erik and must find a way to show Tova the truth before it’s too late.

Publication Date: 3 May 2022 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Covenant of Water

Abraham verghese.

(39 Weeks ) At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl grieving her father is sent by boat to meet her 40-year-old husband. Eventually she becomes to be known as Big Ammachi, the matriarch of a family particularly cursed to have one member of each generation die by drowning. From 1900-1977, Big Ammachi sees unimaginable changes to her Christian community on South India’s Malabar coast.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

James mcbride.

(37 Weeks) Secrets held by the residents of a dilapidated neighborhood come to life when a skeleton is found at the bottom of a well.  When the truth is finally revealed the real lesson learned is that even in dark times, it is love and community-heaven and earth-that sustain us.

Publication Date: 8 August 2023 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

First Lie Wins

Ashley elston.

( 16 Weeks ) Every time an assignment comes in from the mysterious Mr. Smith, Evie takes a new identity and learns everything she can about the town and its people. Her newest mark: Ryan Sumner. But Evie connects with Ryan in a way she hasn’t in a long time. When a woman shows up using Evie’s real name, Evie must do everything she can to stay one step ahead of her boss and complete her mission. Especially after what happened last time.

Publication Date: 2 January 2024 Amazon | Goodreads | More Info

The Little Liar

Mitch albom.

(12 Weeks) Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis has never told a lie. His best friend Fannie loves him for it but his brother Sebastian resents it. When his coastal Greek city is occupied by Nazis, the Germans use Nico’s reputation for honesty as a tool. Realizing what he’s done, Nico vows to never tell the truth again, constantly changing names and identities desperate to find forgiveness.

Publication Date: 14 November 2023 Amazon | Goodreads

Fan Favorites (5+ Weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List)

Gothikana by RuNyx

Amazon | Goodreads (8 Weeks) A century-old mystery brings Corvina Clemm and Vad Deverell together at a university based in a castle at the top of a mountain with a dark history.

A Fate Inked In Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

Amazon | Goodreads | More Info (8 Weeks) After the secret of her magic to repel attacks is revealed, Freya encounters dangerous tests by the gods.

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

Amazon | Goodreads |  More Info

(7 Weeks) After meeting a woman who shares the same birthday, Alix Summer becomes the subject of her own true crime podcast.  

The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Amazon | Goodreads (7 Weeks) The 28th book in the Jack Reacher series. It’s 1992 and Reacher looks into the cause of a string of mysterious deaths.  

The Edge by David Baldacci

Amazon | Goodreads (7 Weeks) The second book in the 6:20 Man series. Travis Devine investigates the murder of the C.I.A. operative Jenny Silkwell in rural Maine.  

Alex Cross Must Die by James Patterson

Amazon | Goodreads (7 Weeks) The 32nd book in the Alex Cross series. When a jet is gunned down, Cross goes back into action.  

James by Percival Everett

Amazon | Goodreads (7 Weeks) A reimagining of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” shines a different light on Mark Twain’s classic, revealing new facets of the character of Jim.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Amazon | Goodreads | More Info (6 Weeks) Violence erupts when a former movie star brings a group of her friends to her private Greek island for Easter.

Holmes, Marple & Poe by James Patterson & Brian Sitts

Amazon | Goodreads (5 Weeks) Three private investigators working in New York City draw the attention of an N.Y.P.D. detective.

The #1 Lawyer by James Patterson and Nancy Allen

Amazon | Goodreads (5 Weeks) A criminal defense attorney in Biloxi becomes the prime suspect in his wife’s murder.

Honorable Mention (2-4 Weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List)

For 20 years, Daphne received slips of paper accurately predicting the length of her relationships. That changes when she meets Jake.

One Hit Wonders (1 Week on the New York Times Best Seller List)

Do You Agree with The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers?

What books do you think are the best of the year? Do you think The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers deserve the hype? As always, let me know in the comments!

More New Book Releases:

• The New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List
• The Most-Anticipated Upcoming Releases of 2024
• The 2023 New York Times Fiction Bestsellers
• The Current Celebrity Book Club Picks
• The Top 50 Books of the Last Decade

Recommended

• Entertainment

The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2021

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

T he year 2021 was poised to be a great one for established, fan-favorite authors. We were blessed with new work from a buzzy roster of titans, from Colson Whitehead to Lauren Groff to Kazuo Ishiguro . But while they, along with several others, did not disappoint (see TIME’s list of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 ), it was debut authors who truly shined. In an industry that has long been criticized for exclusion—and where it’s increasingly difficult to break out from the crowd—a crop of bright new voices rose to the top. From Anthony Veasna So to Torrey Peters to Jocelyn Nicole Johnson and more, these writers introduced themselves to the world with fiction that surprised us, challenged our perspectives and kept us fulfilled. Here, the top 10 fiction books of 2021.

10. Klara and the Sun , Kazuo Ishiguro

The eighth novel from Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, longlisted for the Booker Prize, follows a robot-like “Artificial Friend” named Klara, who sits in a store and waits to be purchased. When she becomes the companion of an ailing 14-year-old girl, Klara puts her observations of the world to the test. In exploring the dynamic between the AI and the teen, Ishiguro crafts a narrative that asks unsettling questions about humanity, technology and purpose , offering a vivid view into a future that may not be so far away.

Buy Now: Klara and the Sun on Bookshop | Amazon

9. Open Water , Caleb Azumah Nelson

In his incisive debut novel, Caleb Azumah Nelson tells a bruising love story about young Black artists in London. His protagonist is a photographer who has fallen for a dancer, and Nelson proves masterly at writing young love, clocking the small and seemingly meaningless moments that encompass longing. In just over 150 intimate pages, Nelson celebrates the art that has shaped his characters’ lives while interrogating the unjust world that surrounds them.

Buy Now: Open Water on Bookshop | Amazon

Read more about the best entertainment of the year: TV shows | Movies | Songs | Albums | Podcasts | Nonfiction books | YA and children’s books | Movie performances | Video games | Theater

8. Afterparties , Anthony Veasna So

The nine stories that constitute Anthony Veasna So’s stirring debut collection, published after his death at 28, reveal a portrait of a Cambodian American community in California. One follows two sisters at their family’s 24-hour donut shop as they reflect on the father who left them. Another focuses on a high school badminton coach who is stuck in the past and desperate to win a match against the local star, a teenager. There’s also a mother with a secret, a love story with a major age gap and a wedding afterparty gone very wrong. Together, So’s narratives offer a thoughtful view into the community that shaped him, and while he describes the tensions his characters navigate with humor and care, he also offers penetrating insights on immigration, queerness and identity.

Buy Now: Afterparties on Bookshop | Amazon

7. Cloud Cuckoo Land , Anthony Doerr

The five protagonists of Anthony Doerr’s kaleidoscopic and remarkably constructed third novel, all living on the margins of society, are connected by an ancient Greek story. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, a National Book Award finalist, a present-day storyline anchors a sweeping narrative: in a library, an ex-prisoner of war is rehearsing a theatrical adaptation of the Greek story with five middle schoolers—and a lonely teenager has just hidden a bomb. Doerr catapults Cloud Cuckoo Land forward and back from this moment, from 15th-century Constantinople to an interstellar ship and back to this dusty library in Idaho where the impending crisis looms. His immersive world-building and dazzling prose tie together seemingly disparate threads as he underlines the value of storytelling and the power of imagination.

Buy Now: Cloud Cuckoo Land on Bookshop | Amazon

6. The Life of the Mind , Christine Smallwood

The contemporary fiction landscape is full of protagonists like Christine Smallwood’s Dorothy: white millennial women who are grappling with their privilege and existence in a world that constantly feels like it’s on the verge of collapse. Plot is secondary to whatever is going on inside their heads. But Dorothy, an adjunct English professor enduring the sixth day of her miscarriage, stands apart. In Smallwood’s taut debut, this charming yet profound narrator relays amusing observations on her ever-collapsing universe. Languishing in academia, Dorothy wonders how her once-attainable goals came to feel impossible, and her ramblings—which are never irritating or tiring, but instead satirical and strange—give way to a gratifying examination of ambition, freedom and power.

Buy Now : The Life of the Mind on Bookshop | Amazon

5. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois , Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

The debut novel from poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, longlisted for a National Book Award, is a piercing epic that follows the story of one American family from the colonial slave trade to present day. At its core is the mission of Ailey Pearl Garfield, a Black woman coming of age in the 1980s and ’90s, determined to learn more about her family history. What Ailey discovers leads her to grapple with her identity, particularly as she discovers secrets about her ancestors. In 800 rewarding pages, Jeffers offers a comprehensive account of class, colorism and intergenerational trauma. It’s an aching tale told with nuance and compassion—one that illuminates the cost of survival.

Buy Now: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois on Bookshop | Amazon

4. Detransition, Baby , Torrey Peters

Reese is a 30-something trans woman who desperately wants a child. Her ex Ames, who recently detransitioned, just learned his new lover is pregnant with his baby. Ames presents Reese with the opportunity she’s been waiting for: perhaps the three of them can raise the baby together. In her delectable debut novel, Torrey Peters follows these characters as they become entangled in a messy, emotional web while considering this potentially catastrophic proposition—and simultaneously spins thought-provoking commentary on gender, sex and desire.

Buy Now: Detransition, Baby on Bookshop | Amazon

3. My Monticello , Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s searing short-story collection is one to read in order. Its narratives dissect an American present that doesn’t feel at all removed from the country’s violent past, and they build to a brutal finish. The unnerving standout piece—the titular novella—follows a group of neighbors who seek refuge on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation while on the run from white supremacists. Johnson’s narrator is college student Da’Naisha, a Black descendant of Jefferson who is questioning her relationship to the land and the people with whom she’s found herself occupying it. The story is as apocalyptic as it is realistic, a haunting portrait of a community trying to survive in a nation that constantly undermines its very existence.

Buy Now: My Monticello on Bookshop | Amazon

2. The Prophets , Robert Jones, Jr.

At a plantation in the antebellum South, enslaved teenagers Isaiah and Samuel work in a barn and seek refuge in each other until one of their own, after adopting their master’s religious beliefs, betrays their trust. In The Prophets, a National Book Award finalist, Robert Jones, Jr. traces the teens’ relationship, as well as the lives of the women who raised them, surround them and have been the backbone of the plantation for generations. In moving between their stories, Jones unveils a complex social hierarchy thrown off balance by the rejection of the young mens’ romance. The result is a crushing exploration of the legacy of slavery and a delicate story of Black queer love.

Buy Now: The Prophets on Bookshop | Amazon

1. Great Circle , Maggie Shipstead

The beginning of Maggie Shipstead’s astounding novel , a Booker finalist, includes a series of endings: two plane crashes, a sunken ship and several people dead. The bad luck continues when one of the ship’s young survivors, Marian, grows up to become a pilot—only to disappear on the job. Shipstead unravels parallel narratives, Marian’s and that of another woman whose life is changed by Marian’s story, in glorious detail. Every character, whether mentioned once or 50 times, has a specific, necessary presence. It’s a narrative made to be devoured, one that is both timeless and satisfying.

Buy Now: Great Circle on Bookshop | Amazon

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Write to Annabel Gutterman at [email protected]

The best books of 2023

From Paul Murray’s brilliant tragicomedy to Barbra Streisand’s epic memoir, Guardian critics pick the year’s best fiction, politics, science, children’s books and more. Tell us about your favourite books in the comments

Zadie Smith’s first foray into historical fiction, medieval magical realism from Salman Rushdie and Paul Murray’s Booker-shortlisted tragicomedy – Justine Jordan looks back on the year in fiction.

Read all fiction

Children’s books

From poignant stories of love and grief to picture books about rockets and ogres, Imogen Russell Williams picks the best books for children, including titles by Carnegie-winning Katya Balen and children’s laureate Joseph Coelho.

Read all children’s books

Young adult books

Imogen Russell Williams highlights five of the best books for teenagers, including a superb graphic memoir, a poignant family saga and a chilling murder mystery.

Read all young adult books

Crime and thrillers

Laura Wilson ’s pick of the year’s page-turners, from cosy crime by Richard Osman and Janice Hallett to spy novels, historical crime and psychological thrillers.

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Science fiction and fantasy

A Booker-longlisted story of cosmic exploration, a historical multiverse novel and a military tale in space – Adam Roberts chooses five of the best science fiction and fantasy books.

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Translated fiction

John Self ’s top five novels in translation, including a colourful and eccentric South Korean tale and the late Spanish author Javier Marías’s final page-turner.

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Jilly Cooper’s take on the world of football, a film tie-in edition of Red, White & Royal Blue, and Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy bestseller – Jenny Colgan showcases five of the best novels about love and romance.

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Biography and memoir

From vivid accounts of siblings and grief to Barbra Streisand’s doorstopper, Fiona Sturges selects the best books about people’s lives.

Read all biography and memoir

Gaby Hinsliff on memoirs and biographies across the political spectrum, an insider account of Trump’s White House and a humorous take on the tumultuous last two years in No 10.

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Emma John picks five of the year’s best sport books, including the story of how Graham Taylor and Elton John turned Watford Football Club around, a biography of tennis heroine Althea Gibson and an oral history about the brutality of horse racing.

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Feminism, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence and vaccines are just some of the topics explored in Steven Poole ’s roundup of books that take on the world’s big questions.

Read all ideas

Rishi Dastidar chooses the year’s best collections, from a new translation of The Iliad to Forward prize winners that examine race and identity.

Read all poetry

Graphic novels

A new memoir from Pulitzer winner Darrin Bell, a story about an imagined world in which wishes can be granted and an affecting collection of manga – James Smart picks out the finest comics and graphic books.

Read all graphic novels

Alexis Petridis chooses his five favourite music books of the year, from homages to dance music and 90s/00s pop to a look at the role LGBTQ people played in the early days of blues.

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Rachel Roddy on five of the best food books of the year, which include a study of food’s role in national identity, a brilliant vegetarian cookbook and an engrossing history of rice.

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To browse all of the Guardian and Observer’s best books of 2023 visit guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

• 2023 in Culture
• Best books of the year

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The 10 Best Books of 2023

The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s standout fiction and nonfiction.

Credit... By Timo Lenzen

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By The New York Times Books Staff

• Nov. 28, 2023

Every year, starting in the spring, we spend months debating the most exceptional books that pass across our desks: the families we grow to love, the narrative nonfiction that carries us away, the fictional universes we can’t forget. It’s all toward one goal — deciding the best books of the year.

Things can get heated. We spar, we persuade and (above all) we agonize until the very end, when we vote and arrive at 10 books — five fiction and five nonfiction.

We dive more into the list in a special edition of our podcast . And in case you’d like even more variety, don’t miss our list of 100 Notable Books of 2023 , or take a spin through this handy list , which features all the books we’ve christened the best throughout the years.

Here they are, the 10 Best Books of 2023.

The Bee Sting , by Paul Murray

Murray makes his triumphant return with “The Bee Sting,” a tragicomic tale about an Irish family grappling with crises. The Barneses — Dickie, Imelda, Cass and PJ — are a wealthy Irish clan whose fortunes begin to plummet after the 2008 financial crash. But in addition to this shared hardship, all four are dealing with demons of their own: the re-emergence of a long-kept secret, blackmail, the death of a past love, a vexing frenemy, a worrisome internet pen pal and more. The novel threads together the stories of the increasingly isolated Barneses, but the overall tapestry Murray weaves is not one of desolation but of hope. This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love and resilience even as their world crumbles around them. Read our review .

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Chain-Gang All-Stars , by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

A dystopian satire in which death-row inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom, Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel — following his 2018 story collection, “ Friday Black ” — pulls the reader into the eager audience, making us complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. “As much as this book made me laugh at these parts of the world I recognized as being mocked, it also made me wish I recognized less of it,” Giri Nathan wrote in his review. “The United States of ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is like ours, if sharpened to absurd points.” Amid a wrenching love story between two top competitors who are forced to choose between each other and freedom, the fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick. Read our review .

Eastbound , by Maylis de Kerangal

De Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, first published in France in 2012 and newly translated by Jessica Moore, follows a young Russian conscript named Aliocha on a trans-Siberian train packed with other soldiers. The mood is grim. Aliocha, unnerved by his surroundings after a brawl, decides to desert — and in so doing, creates an uneasy alliance with a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman. Their desolate environment — de Kerangal describes the Siberian landscape as “a world turned inside out like a glove, raw, wild, empty” — only heightens the stakes. “The insecurity of existence across this vastness and on board the train emphasizes the significance of human connection,” our reviewer, Ken Kalfus, wrote. “In a time of war, this connection may bring liberation and salvation.” Read our review .

The Fraud , by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century criminal trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast, acute panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters. Chief among them are a widowed Scottish housekeeper who avidly follows the trial and a formerly enslaved Jamaican servant who testifies on behalf of the claimant. Smith is a talented critic as well as a novelist, and — by way of the housekeeper’s employer, a once popular writer and friendly rival of Dickens — she finds ample opportunity to send up the literary culture of the time while reflecting on whose stories are told and whose are overlooked. “As always, it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself,” Karan Mahajan wrote in his review. “Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive.” Read our review .

North Woods , by Daniel Mason

Mason’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic novel ushers readers over the threshold of a house in the wilds of western Massachusetts and leaves us there for 300 years and almost 400 pages. One after another, in sections interspersed with letters, poems, song lyrics, diary entries, medical case notes, real estate listings, vintage botanical illustrations and assorted ephemera not normally bound into the pages of a novel, we get to know the inhabitants of the place from colonial times to present day. There’s an apple farmer, an abolitionist and a wealthy manufacturer. A pair of beetles. A landscape painter. A ghost. Their lives (and deaths) briefly intersect, but mostly layer over each other in dazzling decoupage. All the while, the natural world looks on — a long-suffering, occasionally destructive presence. Mason is the consummate genial host, inviting you to stay as long as you like and to make of the place what you will. Read our review .

The Best Minds , by Jonathan Rosen

An inch-by-inch, pin-you-to-the-sofa reconstruction of the author’s long friendship with Michael Laudor, who made headlines first as a Yale Law School graduate destigmatizing schizophrenia ; then for stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death with a kitchen knife, after which he was sent to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital. Drawing from clips, court and police records, legal and medical studies, interviews, diaries and Laudor’s feverish writings (including a book proposal of his own), Rosen examines the porous line between brilliance and insanity, the complicated policy questions posed by deinstitutionalization and the ethical obligations of a community. “The Best Minds” is a thoughtfully constructed, deeply sourced indictment of a society that prioritizes profit, quick fixes and happy endings over the long slog of care. Read our review .

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs , by Kerry Howley

Howley’s account of the national security state and the people entangled in it includes fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. At the center is Reality Winner (“her real name, let’s move past it now”), the National Security Agency contractor who was convicted under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to The Intercept and sentenced to 63 months in prison. Howley’s exploration of privacy and digital surveillance eventually lands her in the badlands of conspiracy theorists and QAnon. It’s an arc that feels both startling and inevitable; of course a journey through the deep state would send her down the rabbit hole. The result is a book that is riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable. Read our review .

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Fire Weather , by John Vaillant

In 2016, raging wildfires consumed Fort McMurray in the Canadian province of Alberta. In the all-too-timely “Fire Weather,” Vaillant details how the blaze started, how it grew, the damage it wrought — and the perfect storm of factors that led to the catastrophe. We are introduced to firefighters, oil workers, meteorologists and insurance assessors. But the real protagonist here is the fire itself: an unruly and terrifying force with insatiable appetites. This book is both a real-life thriller and a moment-by-moment account of what happened — and why, as the climate changes and humans don’t, it will continue to happen again and again. Read our review .

Master Slave Husband Wife , by Ilyon Woo

In 1848, Ellen and William Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, made a daring escape north disguised as a sickly young white planter and his male slave — Ellen as the wealthy scion in a stovepipe hat, dark green glasses and a sling over her right arm to conceal her illiteracy. Improbably, despite close calls and determined slave catchers, the Crafts succeeded in their flight, going on to tour the abolitionist speaker circuit in England and to write a popular account of their journey. Their story, which a leading American abolitionist called “one of the most thrilling in the nation’s annals,” is remarkable enough. But Woo’s immersive rendering, which conjures the Crafts’ escape in novelistic detail, is equally a feat — of research, storytelling, sympathy and insight. Read our review .

Some People Need Killing , by Patricia Evangelista

This powerful book mostly covers the years between 2016 and 2022, when Rodrigo Duterte was president of the Philippines and pursued a murderous campaign of extrajudicial killings — EJKs for short. Such killings became so frequent that journalists like Evangelista, then a reporter for the independent news site Rappler, kept folders on their computers that were organized not by date but by hour of death. Offering the intimate disclosures of memoir and the larger context of Philippine history, Evangelista also pays close attention to language, and not only because she is a writer. Language can be used to communicate, to deny, to threaten, to cajole. It can propagate lies, but it also allows one to speak the truth. Read our review .

Explore More in Books

Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

The complicated, generous life  of Paul Auster, who died on April 30 , yielded a body of work of staggering scope and variety .

“Real Americans,” a new novel by Rachel Khong , follows three generations of Chinese Americans as they all fight for self-determination in their own way .

“The Chocolate War,” published 50 years ago, became one of the most challenged books in the United States. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it .

Joan Didion’s distinctive prose and sharp eye were tuned to an outsider’s frequency, telling us about ourselves in essays that are almost reflexively skeptical. Here are her essential works .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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