The Best Books I Read in 2023

Every month, I recommend books I love that you might too. Every year, I go back collect them into a single post. For reference, here are my picks from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.

And now, the best books I read in 2023:

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata does that special thing that prose fiction, at its best, does so well: invite you inside someone else’s head. In this particular case, it invites you inside the head of someone who’s never been able to fit in, who struggles to navigate social norms despite how keenly she observes them, who looks at the world differently. In a world largely determined by opaque systems, she finds a place for herself working in a Tokyo convenience store, but when they hire a difficult new employee who also approaches reality from an unusual angle, she’s forced to reassess the life she’s built for herself. Funny, engaging, and rich with psychological and sociological insight, this short novel will weird you out in the best possible way, broadening your understanding of what it means to be human.

The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown is one of my favorite audiobooks in part because it plays with the form: instead of narrated text, it’s a recording of the author running a live workshop with an audience. Each session is a chapter, and each chapter is full of hilarious stories and compelling research. With her signature blend of tender awkwardness and generous wisdom, Brené invites you inside her mind and heart to show how the walls we build around ourselves hold back more love than pain.

The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks takes you on an epic adventure through a far-future galaxy teeming with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations (the only reason we haven’t already noticed them in our parochial present is because we haven’t yet developed sufficiently sophisticated technology to observe or interact with them). The story follows a human anthropologist-ambassador whose vocation requires cultivating relationships with an alien species whose individuals live for billions of years. As intrigue escalates to open war, the novel explores the profound implications of this extraordinary gap in time horizons. How would we see the world and treat each other differently if we could outlive stars?

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern takes you on an unforgettable adventure through a network of secret doors to an ancient library buried deep underground. Morgenstern mixes mythology, conspiracy, mystery, and self-discovery into a psychedelic cocktail that you won't be able to put down after taking your first sip. This is a book for book lovers, a story about stories, a quest for those brave enough to quest within—a magic portal disguised as a novel.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel is a thrilling adventure that unfolds when the discovery of a mysterious artifact kicks off a clandestine race to divine secrets that will change the course of history. Scientists, spies, soldiers, and powerbrokers vie for influence with humanity’s future hanging in the balance. Exciting, insightful, and endlessly compelling—Sylvain can spin a hell of a yarn.

Metazoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith is a profound synthesis of philosophy and biology that explores what science has learned about the evolutionary basis for subjective experience in order to ask better questions about consciousness. By closely examining the lives of shrimp, fish, octopuses, and many more of our animal cousins, Peter illuminates countless subtle truths about what it means to be human. Learning how biological intelligence works is especially valuable when everyone’s talking about artificial intelligence, but, most importantly, this book will help you better understand yourself and the people you love.

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson is a tight, taught thriller that begins with a chance encounter at an airport that quickly spirals across years and continents to take you inside the opaque, exclusive machinations of fine-art dealing. This is one of those stories that will constantly surprise you, not just with its wonderful plot twists, but also with its emotional depth and psychological insight. A one-sitting book—once you pick it up, you won’t put it down.

Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly is a collection of aphorisms that each offer a lens for looking at the world differently. Every pithy nugget is a tool for thought, a way of seeing. Some are practical. Some are philosophical. All are generous. This is a book to turn to when you want to remind yourself of what’s important, a cornucopia of timeless wisdom you already feel the truth of, but perhaps haven’t articulated yet.

Night Heron by Adam Brookes is a spy story following an escapee from a Chinese labor camp and a British foreign correspondent in Beijing who brave a labyrinth of political intrigue in pursuit of secrets far more dangerous than they imagine. Informed by impressively extensive research, this espionage thriller is so grounded and realistic that it feels more like journalism than fiction—countless little details reenforce the verisimilitude: specific street food dishes from Western China, opaque bureaucratic turf battles inside intelligence agencies, revealing psychological ticks, etc. If you’ve ever wondered what’s it’s really like to get caught up in an intelligence operation, this is the book for you.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco follows two medieval monks trying to solve a series of brutal murders revolving around a forbidden book stolen from a labyrinthine library in a monastery hidden deep in the Italian alps. Steeped in the very specific politics, culture, and thinking of its time, the novel transports you to a foreign era whose idiosyncrasies shed fresh light on our own. Eco likes to say that detective stories are the most philosophical of plot archetypes because their resolution reveals the underlying structure of a mysterious series of events—and this detective story contains at least as many philosophical revelations as plot twists.

Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton is an epic tale of intrigue and adventure set in a future where humans have stitched together hundreds of habitable planets with a network of wormholes, extended lifespans indefinitely with artificial rejuvenation, and yet still struggle to overcome that most stubborn of troublesome habits: human nature. Yes, there are characters and plot, but what makes this novel special is its cascade of thought-experiments that stack and shuffle and refract into an imagined society that acts as an uncanny mirror for the one we happen to live in.

Hild by Nicola Griffith follows a girl growing up in seventh century Britain who uses her keen powers of observation to carve out a precarious space for herself as the King’s seer. I described this book to a friend as “a perfect novel” because it will suck you in, touch your heart, open your mind, keep you reading late into the night, and leave you breathless, satisfied, and unable to look at the world in quite the same way as you did before reading it.

The best book I published in 2023:

Foundry is about two spies locked in a room with a gun grappling over how semiconductors will refactor 21st century geopolitics. It’s about love, power, betrayal, reinvention, and summoning the courage to face the unknown. It’s the best thing I’ve written, and if you read it, I’d love to hear what you think.

Thanks for reading. We all find our next favorite book because someone we trust recommends it. So when you fall in love with a story, tell your friends. Culture is a collective project in which we all have a stake and a voice.

Best, Eliot

Eliot Peper is the author of Foundry, Reap3r, Veil, Breach, Borderless, Bandwidth, Neon Fever Dream, Cumulus, Exit Strategy, Power Play, and Version 1.0. He also consults on special projects.

“This book will devour your free time. It will ruin your sleep. It will infiltrate your mind. It will steal your heart. Buy it. Read it. You can thank me later.”
-David Cohen, founder of Techstars, on Foundry