50 Books to Gift in 2023

And maybe a few for your own shelves too.

Dec 01, 2023

As a former editor who’s been at the helm of a few gift guides, I now have a pretty complicated relationship with them (my friend Leslie beautifully outlines some hesitations). But as another friend wisely imparted: “Books are always the exception.” The exception and the antidote to spiritual malaise, ennui, disconnection—the cure, in so many cases, to a fragmented life.

So here’s a gift guide full of books for the readers in your life: the world travelers, nature lovers, hopeless romantics, and magically minded, among others. I’ve personally read all of these this year and loved them for different reasons. And as always, no affiliate links, just my undying enthusiasm.

This will likely be my last post of the year—or not, who knows; I follow a calendar driven by whim—so I’ll take this moment to thank you for being here in my corner of the newsletter multiverse. For sharing your own recommendations and thoughts. For filling my inbox with joy. It means a lot to know that when I send my words into the ether, there’s a safe place for them to land.

With love, gratitude, and the coziest tidings—

You might need to expand this email in your browser; it’s a doozy!

For the History Buffs

The Circus Train by Amita Parikh: An opulent traveling circus, a tender love story between an illusionist and a scholar, and an unforgettable backdrop of the Second World War. This book will take you on a ride through the bustling cities of Europe and the inner corners of a young heart.
Horse by Geraldine Brooks: A mysterious painting in the attic of the Smithsonian leads a scientist and art historian down a path to antebellum Kentucky, where an enslaved groom begins his journey through the war-torn South.
Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai: Phong, the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman, unravels his past to discover the truth behind his parentage—and make a new future for his family. Told through multiple perspectives and timelines, this epic will transport readers to beautiful and often tragic places.
The Whalebone Theater by Joanna Quinn: In the 1920s, a group of wild young children builds a makeshift theater from the rib cage of a washed-up whale, little knowing that their early thespian experiences will set the tone for all the artifices they’ll have to don in Nazi-occupied France.
Loot by Tania James: Abbas, a talented young woodcarver, becomes enmeshed in an 18th-century Indian court, where he helps create a life-sized tiger automaton that becomes the sultan’s most prized possession. When the automaton is plundered by the British Army, Abbas must prove himself by stealing the automaton back.
Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch: Sharp-witted (and flailing) actress Edie O’Dare pivots to a moonlighting gig as a gossip columnist, which vaults her into the secretive, glamorous, and high-stakes world of Golden Age Hollywood intrigue.
This Other Eden by Paul Harding: Set amongst the seismic cultural shifts of the early 20th century, this spellbinding novel focuses on a community of isolated and impoverished islanders who grapple with their will to survive and preserve legacy, even as prejudice and a rising interest in eugenics threatens to engulf all they’ve built.

For the World Travelers

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller: The immense beauty of an Arctic archipelago creates a dangerous and weighty setting for the fictional memoirs of ex-miner-turned-trapper Sven Ormson, whose native misanthropy gets challenged by a cast of stoic and endearing characters. Surprisingly optimistic, very often funny, and full of stunning sentences that you’ll want to savor.
This is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara: A collection of short stories for those who are scant on time, yet hungry for powerful prose. Each tells a tale of human connection and community, from the artist embarking on an epic project of a lifetime to the pair of sisters facing their own imperiled relationship.
Mothertrucker by Amy E. Butcher: A striking memoir about a professor escaping an abusive relationship only to find herself on the most dangerous road in America through the wilds of Alaska, riding alongside a tough and tender female trucker called Mothertrucker.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor: This epic sprawl of a novel begins with a horrific accident that takes the lives of a group of unhoused people along the bustling streets of New Delhi. What follows is a backward spiral that moves at a fast clip through political entanglements, class warfare, and one infamous dynasty enmeshed in privilege and corruption.

For the Family Saga Enthusiasts

Small World by Laura Zigman: Two sisters are unexpectedly thrust into a small living space and forced to confront revelations about their complicated family history. Funny, intimate, and tenderly wrought.
The Mythmakers by Keziah Weir: A struggling journalist opens a literary magazine to find herself at the center of an acclaimed late author’s short story. She travels to his widow’s home, where she tries to piece together this minor mystery, only to realize that she’s untangling a much larger story about love, authorship, and the silences that lie inside all long marriages.
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson: Jenny’s book squats in one of my favorite fictional categories: rich people behaving badly. Pick this novel up for those who love sharp-witted family dramedies and/or those who can’t resist a good New York real estate story.
Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran: Three Vietnamese American daughters, three divergent fates determined by their zodiac signs. This ambitious novel begins in present-day New Orleans but unwinds back through time to colonial Indochina, telling a powerful story about female resilience and the ancestral burdens we carry.
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane: Two cop families intertwine in a novel that aptly captures the quiet desperation that unfurls in the wake of great tragedy. Against all odds, two teenagers find an abiding love that gets challenged in adulthood, when they come face-to-face with the histories they’ve fought so hard to leave behind.
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo: When David and Marilyn fall in love in the 1970s, they have no understanding of the twists and turns their lives will take. Their daughters will challenge their deepest understanding of love. Many decades later, when an unexpected family member arrives at their doorstep, the family begins to grapple with the gradual decay of a formerly stalwart history.
Wellness by Nathan Hill: One of the truest love stories I’ve ever read. It begins with two idealistic young Chicagoans in the ‘90s, drawn together for the very qualities they later come to resent. Tenderness and inside jokes gradually give way to the valleys of adulthood, where real estate challenges and parenthood and failed ambition begin to reveal all the bruises they’ve hidden from each other—and themselves. Smart, insightful, and heartbreaking; a must-read for those who are working to redefine marriage and partnership for themselves.
Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey: Told partially through text messages and Instagram captions, this sharp and well-paced critique of Millennial wedding culture will offer both cultural commentary and an intimate look at one young woman’s emotional turbulence on her ill-fated wedding day.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano: For Little Women fans, this modern reimagining follows the Padavano family of four sisters as they navigate the changing cultural landscape of Pilsen, Chicago, and their own fraught desires. The sisters’ closeness shatters after a cataclysmic rift that challenges the definitions of family and forgiveness.

For the Inquisitive Naturalists

Bewilderment by Richard Power: Easily the most heartbreaking and transcendent book I’ve read this year. Theo, an astrobiologist and single father, navigates his troubled son’s questions about death, personal accountability, and the wonders of the universe with startling emotional honesty and tenderness. This book is for anyone who struggles to place themselves within a rapidly disintegrating world.
How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler: By closely examining the habits of sea creatures through her essays, journalist Sabrina Imbler creates connections to the human condition with grace and breathtaking verve. She specifically examines her own identity as a queer, mixed-race feminist working in a male-dominated industry. A gorgeous collection of science writing.
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang: In the not-so-distant, speculative future, most of our natural food sources are depleted, reducing the human diet to lab-made approximations. Amidst this dystopian backdrop, a talented chef is lured into a remote compound by the promise of rare ingredients and an escapist existence. But of course, nothing in utopia is as it seems, and she must soon make a life-and-death decision that will test her allegiances and worldview.
Shark Heart by Emily Habeck: A moving meditation on grief and caretaking, Shark Heart tells the story of Lewis and Wren, a newly married couple facing a shattering diagnosis: Lewis’s rapid transformation into a Great White Shark. Lyrical, arresting, and completely original.

For the Literary Thriller Lovers

The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok: Jasmine is a newly arrived immigrant from China on a desperate search for her lost daughter through New York City. On the other side of the city, publishing executive Rebecca struggles to balance her life with her young adopted daughter amidst the demands of her marriage and career. Both women’s lives intertwine in unexpected and deadly ways, highlighting the dark corners of motherhood in a mystery that will keep you turning the pages.
The Night Flowers by Sara Herchenroether: One of the most lyrical thrillers I have ever read, The Night Flowers transcends genre entirely, appealing to readers who love language as well as those who crave gripping mysteries. In the late 1980s, a woman and two children are found dead in a national forest. Decades later, the cold case resurfaces through the dogged determination of a librarian and a nearly-retired detective. What they find is even more shocking than they could have imagined.
Homecoming by Kate Morton: On a scorching hot Christmas Eve in Australia, a confounding murder of a local family sets off a chain of events that sparks the interest of one journalist, hundreds of miles away. Told in exquisite detail, this breathless story is an epic family saga surrounded by an unsolved mystery.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Philips: As this nail-biting literary thriller opens, two sisters disappear in a remote peninsula in Russia. Months later, no trace of them is ever found. Told through rotating, linked perspectives, readers are invited to follow a swiftly vanishing trail, where time is of the very essence.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride: In Chicken Hill, an impoverished community of Black and immigrant Jewish residents, a brutal murder unfolds through the perspectives of a handful of characters, each adding their own voices to an unforgettable symphony. Accurately described as a “murder mystery inside a great American novel.”
Lone Women by Victor LaValle: A horror Western about a group of early-19th-century female homesteaders who struggle against the untamed Montana landscape and their own inherited burdens. Completely original and gripping.
Rouge by Mona Awad: From one of our most daring contemporary writers, this sensuous book is both dark fairy tale and bitter critique of the mechanisms of beauty that entrap women. After her mother dies of mysterious causes, Belle returns to her hometown, only to be led into a decadent and wildly off-putting manor that seems determined to claim Belle’s very essence for itself.
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim: A page-turning novel about a mysterious explosion in a hyperbaric chamber in a small town. The novel presents different points of view from on-scene witnesses, piecing together a layered story that also incorporates the complexity of a Korean American family’s immigrant experience.

For the Aesthetes

All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley: A memoir with a big, beating heart. After his brother’s sudden death, Bringley leaves his job at the New Yorker to become a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His meditations on history, community, and identity are profound and lovely. When the world seems especially dark, this is a book to lift us up.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: Theo, a young boy who’s lost his mother in a terrorist explosion, is the unlikely hero in this novel of art, grief, and survival. Theo is also the only one who knows the truth behind the theft of a priceless painting that inflames the art world. Taking us through the drawing rooms of Park Avenue, the hot wastes of the American West, and beyond, this memorable doorstopper has all the narrative chutzpah you might expect from Tartt.
Possession by A.S. Byatt: Two young academics find themselves entangled within an illicit, centuries-old love story involving a couple of Victorian poets. These scholars race through crumbling halls of old manors, archives of libraries, and the wilds of the English countryside in order to piece together letters, poems, and historical facts that might eventually shed light on this story of shrouded passion.
Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell: Circus Palmer—trumpet player, vagabond, and faithless lover—can’t be pinned down, despite the many responsibilities begging for his attention. Through the perspectives of the women in his life, we begin to understand the desperation that compels him to flee from reality; but more importantly, we see the women themselves in a vibrant chorus of anger and love and strength.

For the Magically Minded

Weyward by Emilia Hart: In 1619, a fearful Puritan community tries Altha for the murder of a neighbor. In 1942, Violet chafes against the expectations of her class and gender, while desperately trying to learn more about her deceased mother. In the present day, Kate flees her abusive relationship in London, only to land in a mysterious country cottage that connects her to the magical, indomitable Weyward women of the past.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: A haunting, hard-to-categorize book with nested stories that slowly reveal their interconnectedness. Zachary Ezra Rawlins stumbles across an old book in a library with no publisher info; it’s strange and beautiful and immediately arresting. When he learns that the book leads to a secret library accessible only through a series of improbable doors, he has to decide whether the discovery is worth the danger.
The Cloisters by Katy Hays: Dark Academia fans will fly through this novel that combines the mysteries of tarot with cutthroat art crimes that leave lives in their wake. One summer, Ann begins a job at The Cloisters, a Gothic museum in New York, amidst a group of enigmatic researchers who reluctantly induct her into their ritualistic world of intrigue and magic.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs: My husband and I both devoured this stylish fantasy novel about a library of magical books guarded by an estranged family with powers of their own. The strands of narrative weave together into a satisfying story that takes readers all over the world, from the remote reaches of Antarctica to a hidden family home in Vermont.

For the Pensive Dreamers

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin: Set amidst the Clinton/Lewinski scandal of the late-’90s, this novel follows Isabel, a young woman who begins an affair with her married professor, Connelly. Exploring issues of consent and creative ambition, this daring book spins an obsessive tale that you’ll want to keep reading.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith: This much-anticipated memoir sheds light on the painful moments of a sudden divorce, due to infidelity. Smith is a master at elevating the smallest moments and observations, and, as a poet, her language is unparalleled. Lines from the memoir still float up to the surface of my mind.
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer: Hailed as Willy Wonka for adults, this warm-hearted novel is perfect for those hoping to hibernate. On the mysterious Clock Island, a reclusive bestselling author comes out of his self-imposed publishing exile to announce a new manuscript he’ll be gifting to one lucky winner. What follows is a whirlwind quest that takes every contestant to unexpected places. Part riddle book, part romance, and part adventure story, this novel will bring out the kid in its readers.
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry: In the 1950s, Hazel discovers a children’s book in the storeroom of the bookshop where she works. The surprising part? The story is hers, one she made up to entertain her sister Flora amidst the forced evacuations of WWII. Flora was the only one who’d ever heard Hazel’s story, but she disappeared in a tragic accident twenty years ago. A confused Hazel follows the trail of this mysterious book back to the past—and back to the versions of herself she’d long left behind.

For the Hopeless Romantics

Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan: A witty summer romance by a sparkling voice in the genre. Sam returns to her family’s summer home with her perfect-on-paper fiance in tow only to discover that Wyatt, her childhood sweetheart and the boy next door, is also back with his dreamy guitar strumming and all the memories that Sam swore to leave behind.
Brynn and Sebastian Hate Each Other by Bethany Turner: Brynn, America’s sunshiny morning show anchor, makes a huge gaffe on air that can only be fixed by a convincing redemption story in her tiny hometown in the mountains of Colorado. As she attempts to re-win the hearts of her childhood friends and neighbors, she’s also forced to contend with Sebastian, a suspicious grump who seems to always bring out her worst impulses.
Secretly Yours by Tessa Bailey: The maestro of dirty talk returns in a romcom set in a California vineyard. On the job, a scatterbrained and charming gardener Hallie begins working right outside the window of her high-strung (and very handsome) high school crush, Julian, who’s returned home to work on his book. Two people couldn’t be more opposite in temperament—but you know what they say about opposites.
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez: High-achieving ER doctor Alexis finds herself stranded in a small town two hours from her home—and then, in the bed of a very distracting carpenter ten years her junior. What should have been a simple one-night stand turns into a surprising connection that forces Alexis to reevaluate the life she wants.
Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren: This was one of my very favorite romance reads of the year. Told in two different timelines, we learn about the once-in-a-lifetime love between Macy and Elliott. Their teenage story is deeply touching—and, it turns out, fleeting. But the old feelings (and trauma) reemerge when they meet as adults. Full of longing and beautifully true moments of intimacy, this book will ask us to reexamine the stories we tell ourselves about our pasts.
The Hundred Loves of Juliet by Evelyn Skye: When Sebastien (another Sebastien!) meets Helene one icy night in Alaska, he’s flooded with the overpowering sense that he’s met her before. But the truth is, he has met her before—dozens of times. Due to a centuries-old curse, Sebastien (or, as he was originally known, Romeo) is forced to meet the love of his life (the reincarnation of Juliet) time and time again, only to lose her tragically. Juliet never remembers their doomed love; only immortal Romeo understands their star-crossed fate. Yet—maybe this time will be different. Because this time, for the first time, Helene seems to remember him too.

* If a few of these descriptions seem familiar, know that halfway through this post, I decided to lift them from my previous newsletters. Work smarter, or something. ;)