WML Staff's Best of 2023

Check out our staff's favorite reads from 2023!

Updated December 7, 2023
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Your face belongs to us : a secretive startup's quest to end privacy as we know it
Hill, Kashmir
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The story of a small AI company that gave facial recognition to law enforcement, billionaires, and businesses, threatening to end privacy as we know it "The dystopian future portrayed in some science-fiction movies is already upon us. Kashmir Hill's...
The crane husband
Barnhill, Kelly Regan
Paper Book
All the sinners bleed
Cosby, S. A.
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * USA Today Bestseller * Washington Post's The Twelve Best Thrillers of the Year * TIME's 100 Must Read Books of the Year * Goodreads Choice Award Nominee * USA Today's Best Reviewed Books of the Year * BookPage's Best...
Once more we saw stars : a memoir
Greene, Jayson
Paper Book
As the book opens: two-year-old Greta Greene is sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead, striking her unconscious, and she is immediately rushed to the hospital. But although it begins with this event and with the...
All that is mine I carry with me
Landay, William
CD
A mother vanished. A father presumed guilty. There is no proof. There are no witnesses. For the children, there is only doubt. From the New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob. . . . "Astonishing, powerful, and provocative, this book is worth the...
Birnam Wood
Catton, Eleanor
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Financial Times, Slate, The Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, The TelegraphA...
Mother tongue : the surprising history of women's words
Nuttall, Jennifer Anne
Paper Book
"A fascinating look at how we talk about women. . . . Dense with information and anecdotes, Mother Tongue touches on the hilarious and the devastating, with ample dashes of an ingredient so painfully absent from most discussions of sex and gender: humor." ―Lisa Selin Davis, The...
Fourth wing
Yarros, Rebecca
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller * TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society * Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 * Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 * Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 * NPR "Books We Love" 2023 * Audible Best Books of...
Don't let them bury my story : the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa race massacre in her own words
Ford Fletcher, Viola
Paper Book
"Every day, I have lived through the massacre. While our country may forget this history, I cannot." Viola Ford Fletcher   Viola Ford Fletcher's memoir Don't Let Them Bury My Story vividly recounts the lasting impact of the Tulsa Massacre on her life....
We were once a family : a story of love, death, and child removal in America
Asgarian, Roxanna
Paper Book
Winner of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle for Nonfiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A Washington Post best nonfiction book of 2023 | Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "A riveting indictment of the...
All you can ever know : a memoir
Chung, Nicole
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER This beloved memoir "is an extraordinary, honest, nuanced and compassionate look at adoption, race in America and families in general" (Jasmine Guillory, Code Switch, NPR) What does it means to lose your roots--within your culture,...
The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager...
Still life
Penny, Louise.
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestselling Author -- Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team are called to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal and yet a world away. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, has been found dead in the woods on Thanksgiving...
Walking with Sam : a father, a son, and five hundred miles across Spain
McCarthy, Andrew
Paper Book
An intimate, funny, and poignant New York Times bestseling travel memoir following award-winning author and actor Andrew McCarthy as he walks the Camino de Santiago with his son Sam.    When Andrew McCarthy's eldest son began to take his first steps...
Dykette : a novel
Davis, Jenny Fran
Paper Book
Named one of the Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2023 (So Far) by Vogue * Named a Best Book of 2023 (So Far) by Cosmopolitan * Named a Best Book of Spring 2023 by Esquire * Named a Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of 2023 by BuzzFeed, Electric...
Camp zero : a novel
Sterling, Michelle Min
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick Libby Book Award Winner for Best Diverse Author In a near-future northern settlement, the fates of a young woman, a professor, and a mysterious...
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
McBride, James
Paper Book
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the...
Murder your employer : the McMasters guide to homicide
Holmes, Rupert
Paper Book
A New York Times bestseller! From Edgar Award-winning novelist, playwright, and story-songwriter Rupert Holmes comes a diabolical thriller with a killer concept: The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, "a fantasy academy laid out like a combination of Hogwarts, Downton Abbey, and...
Heartstopper. V. 1
Oseman, Alice
Paper Book
*Now an acclaimed live-action Netflix series!* *Winner of Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again For The First Time - TikTok Book Awards* Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and...
The list : a novel
Adegoke, Yomi
Paper Book
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! Recommended by The New York Times * Vogue * People * NPR * Vulture * The Guardian * Cosmopolitan * Rolling Stone * Publishers Weekly * The Sunday Times * and many more! In this sensational, page-turning debut novel, a high...
The town with no mirrors
Collins, Christina
Paper Book
"The Giver meets Uglies in this intricately crafted world.... Destined to be the next beloved dystopian novel." --Brigit Young, author of The Prettiest In the town of Gladder Hill, there's no such word as ugly. Or beautiful. Zailey has never seen her own face. She's never seen her...
I am homeless if this is not my home
Moore, Lorrie
Paper Book
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * A NEW YORKER ESSENTIAL READ * From "one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation" (The New York Times)--a ghost story set in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, an elegiac consideration of grief, devotion...
House of earth and blood : a Crescent City novel
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
The first book in Sarah J. Maas's #1 bestselling Crescent City series. Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night-until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the...
Surrender : 40 songs, one story
Bono
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * Bono--artist, activist, and the lead singer of Irish rock band U2--has written a memoir: honest and irreverent, intimate and profound, Surrender is the story of the remarkable life he's lived, the challenges he's faced, and the friends and family who...
Stories I only tell my friends : an autobiography
Lowe, Rob.
Paper Book
A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a...
Small mercies : a novel
Lehane, Dennis
Paper Book
Instant New York Times Bestseller "Small Mercies is thought provoking, engaging, enraging, and can't-put-it-down entertainment." -- Stephen King The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River--an all-consuming tale of...
Menewood
Griffith, Nicola
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by Vox and Autostraddle Making a much-anticipated return to the world of Hild, Nicola Griffith's Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal...
The vaster wilds
Groff, Lauren
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, ESQUIRE, VOGUE, LA TIMES, SLATE, HARPER'S BAZAAR and others "Part historical, part...
The immeasurable depth of you
Ingrande Mora, Maria
Paper Book
A beautiful--and necessary--story about teen mental health. In the gut-punching but uplifting tradition of Adam Silvera and Kathleen Glasgow comes a queer coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Florida mangroves. "Raw and compassionate." --...
She is a haunting
Tran, Trang Thanh
Paper Book
William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist Instant New York Times and Indie Bestseller This house eats and is eaten . . . "A riveting debut from a remarkable new voice! Trang Thanh Tran weaves an impressive gothic mystery in which...
Unlikely animals
Hartnett, Annie
Paper Book
"This tragicomic novel is heartfelt, touching, and delightfully quirky. You'll fall in love with the offbeat cast of characters (both living and dead) and find yourself rooting for them right through the last page."--Good Housekeeping (Book Club pick) A lost young woman...
Night of the living rez
Talty, Morgan
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection New England Book Award Winner, Fiction A Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction, The Story Prize, B&N Discover Book Prize A New York...
A day of fallen night
Shannon, Samantha
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling stunning, standalone prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. "A magnificent, sweeping epic. Shannon has created a world rich in intricate mythology, beautifully realized and complex." Jennifer Saint, bestselling...
Divine rivals : a novel
Ross, Rebecca
Paper Book
When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever. After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family...
Foster
Keegan, Claire
Paper Book
An international bestseller and one of The Times' "Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century," Claire Keegan's piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love; now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US ...

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