I’ve been keeping track of my top books of each year since 2001. I give you…the best books of 2023!

Key: B: Black, C: Chinese, Ch: Chippewa, D: Disabled, I: Indian, J: Jewish, Jp: Japanese,
K: Korean, Q: LBGTQIA+, T: Tibetan

Nonfiction

• Finding Me, Viola Davis (B)
• Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation,
• Christina Edmondson, et al. (B)
• Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying…, Kim
• Malone Scott
• The 1619 Project…, Nikole Hannah-Jones (B)
• There Is Nothing for You Here…, Fiona Hill
• She Said…, Jodi Cantor, Megan Twohey (J)
• Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner (K)
• Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote…,
• Martha S. Jones (B)
• Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk,
• Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (Upper Skagit and Nooksack)
• Mastering Diabetes…, Cyrus Khambatta, R. Barbaro (D)
• White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own
• Racism…, Regina Jackson, Saira Rao (B, I)
• Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to
• Suicidal, Mark Bittman
• Black American Refugee…, Tiffanie Drayton (B)
• One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder…, Brian Doyle
• Going There, Katie Couric
• Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, Elsa
• Sjunneson (D)
• Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, Mira Jacob (I)
• Fits and Starts: Living with Epilepsy, Franziska Thomas (D)
• The Road Back to You: Enneagram Journey…, Ian Cron
• The Lightmaker’s Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing
• Your Joy, Karen Walrond (B)
• Obviously: Stories from My Timeline, Akilah Hughes (B)
• The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree, Nice Leng’ete (B)
• Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to
• Transgender Woman, Abby Stein (J, Q)
• Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School, Kendra
• James (B)
• Conversations with People Who Hate Me, Dylon Marron (Q)
• Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, Issa Rae (B)
• Mama Bear, Shirley Smith (B)
• Playing with Myself, Randy Rainbow (Q)
• We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning
• More…., Rachel Rodgers (B)
• Know My Name, Chanel Miller (C)
• Me, Elton John (Q)
• The Last Black Unicorn, Tiffany Haddish (B)

Fiction

• The Rose Code, Kate Quinn
• Matrix, Lauren Groff
• Passage West, Rishi Reddi (I)
• Embers on the Wind, Lisa W. Rosenberg (B, J)
• Shutter, Ramona Emerson (Dine)
• The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich (Chippewa)
• Convenience Store Woman, Murata Sayaka (Jp)
• The Italian Prisoner, Elisa Speranza
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See (C)
• The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi (I)
• The Lost Apothecary, Sarah Penner
• Lakewood, Megan Giddings (B)
• Breasts and Eggs, Kawakami Mieko (J)
• The Dressmaker, Kate Alcott
• Women Talking, Miriam Toews
• The Last Grand Duchess, Bryn Turnbull