WML Staff's Best of 2023

Check out our staff's favorite reads from 2023!

Updated December 7, 2023
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Merrimack Valley Library Consortium Merrimack Valley Library Consortium
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WML Staff's Best of 2023

Check out our staff's favorite reads from 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 : a novel
Landay, William
Paper Book
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... One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin...
Birnam wood
Catton, Eleanor
Paper Book
Mother tongue : the surprising history of women's words
Nuttall, Jenni
Paper Book
Spinster. Cougar. Carer. Matron. Wife. A rich, provocative and entertaining history of women's words - of the language we have, and haven't, had to share our lives Special commendation from the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 'A gem of...
Fourth wing
Yarros, Rebecca
Paper Book
" Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the...
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 bestselling 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 into...
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. Volume 1
Oseman, Alice
Paper Book
*NEW YORK TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR* *Heartstopper Forever movie coming July 17 from Netflix* *HEARTSTOPPER: fastest ever selling graphic novel* *Winner of Best Book I Wish I Could Read Again...
The list
Adegoke, Yomi
Paper Book
The instant Top 5 Sunday Times bestseller 'The Book Of The Summer' VOGUE 'A page-turning read about the dark side of social media' STYLIST 'Topical, heartfelt, provocative' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'Impossible to put down' PAULA HAWKINS 'A page-turner...
The town with no mirrors
Collins, Christina
Paper Book
In a modern-day utopian community where mirrors, photos, and even words like beautiful and ugly are forbidden, a girl who has never seen her own face harbors a guilty curiosity about the outside world. A thoughtful exploration of self-image in a world familiar to readers of The...
House of earth and blood
Maas, Sarah J.
Paper Book
The first book in the #1 bestselling Crescent City series by Sarah J. Maas, author of the Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) 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,...
I am homeless if this is not my home
Moore, Lorrie
Paper Book
Lorrie Moore's first novel since A Gate at the Stairs--a daring, meditative exploration of love and death, passion and grief, and what it means to be haunted by the past, both by history and the human heart. From "one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation...
Surrender : 40 songs, one story
Bono
Paper Book
'When I started to write this book I was hoping to draw in detail what I'd previously only sketched in songs. The people, places, and possibilities in my life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not...
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
In the devastating but uplifting tradition of Adam Silvera and Nova Ren Suma comes a queer supernatural coming-of-age story from acclaimed author Maria Ingrande Mora. How do you face your fears when everything is terrifying?  Fifteen-year-old Brynn can't stop...
She is a haunting
Tran, Trang Thanh
Paper Book
*** A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *** "A riveting debut from a remarkable new voice! Trang Thanh Tran weaves an impressive gothic mystery in which Jade's father is determined to restore a decrepit home to its former glory and Jade is the only person who feels the soul...
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 NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER** 'A magnificent, sweeping epic' JENNIFER SAINT, Sunday Times-bestselling author of ARIADNE 'Shannon is simply a master of the genre' C. S. PACAT, New York Times-bestselling author of DARK RISE...
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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