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Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Lifestyle
Catherine Jarvie

Best books of 2023: The Marie Claire reading list of the must-reads and page-turners

A montage of the best books of 2023.

Kindles at the ready, Readers, when it comes to books –our round-up of new releases and recommended favourites for 2023 is designed to give you a TBR—to be read—list to treasure this year. 

The best books to read in December

Yes, it’s that time of year. We know – you must be exhausted. Time to step away from the tinsel and curl up with a good book and some brandy butter-soaked mince pies for some literary me-time – and we have a sprinkling of festive-themed gems (old and new) in with this month’s featured new releases to assist with precisely that.

With fewer new releases in December, we’ve taken the opportunity to use the latter part of this month’s round-up to include a handful of 2023 titles we missed first time round that have since gone on to pick up some starry accolades (Booker and Goldsmiths Prize-winners among them). Enjoy – and see you next year!

The best books to read in November

If the drawing in of November nights has your world feeling a little smaller, this month’s selection of new releases does the opposite, leading your imagination to destinations as far flung and unknown as the International Space Station and into worlds past, present and future, with a sprinkling of funny-sad romance and high gothic in between.

The best books to read in October

In the month that celebrates both Black History and the annual fright-fest that is Halloween, our offering of new literary releases serves up plenty of both – sometimes (as in Jordan Peele’s anthology of new Black horror writing) in one book. Jump scares not your preferred form of entertainment? Never fear – there is plenty to entertain and enlighten you too, including a surreal hike into the Mojave Desert, a handful of brilliant new short story collections, and a delicately drawn tale in which a young woman with no memory of her past journeys deep into her own secret history.

The best books to read in September

Just as you’re likely to be hitting the refresh button on your wardrobe, September is the perfect month to bring some new-season energy to your reading list. From sensual near-future dystopias and the Manhattan Project physicist who predicted the distinct existential threat posed by AI, to genre-defying historical releases and a darkly funny gothic feminist fairy tale – consider it the ultimate ‘capsule wardrobe’ for your autumn bookshelf. 

The best books to read in August

August is the month of escape. And you don’t have to board a plane or a train or even climb into an automobile to head off into frontiers unknown. All you need to transport you to lands from Casablanca to Malaysia to Down Under and – in one of our picks, whole new universes – is to arm yourself with this month’s round-up of new releases and must-reads. Lucky you!

The best books to read in July

Whatever your summer holiday plans, this month’s selection of transportive fiction will carry you away.

Our July picks take us from 19th-century USA to contemporary New Zealand via Orkney and Ireland in a line-up that features genre-bending takes on supernatural and dystopian fiction, alongside a brace of hotly-anticipated releases from some of the most exciting young authors writing today.

The best books to read in June

It doesn’t have to be Pride Month for us to want to champion a full spectrum of narrative experiences, but whether by accident or design this month’s releases are, happily, full of them.

From a tale of erotic obsession set in an uptight English boarding school to a satirical caper about a slacker werewolf trying to find some direction in life via a tenderly emotional tale of transition, we have plenty of picks to keep you reading all the way through to the summer solstice – and beyond.

The best books to read in May

This month’s reading picks come hot on the heels of the announcement of the Women’s Prize shortlist and the – shock, horror – news that with one exception all the authors on it are over fifty. (The ‘exception’ is the tender age of 49). 

It’s been heralded as one more kick to the persistent myth that, in publishing, youth equals sales. But whatever it says about the shift to a more inclusive reading landscape – to which we can only say hear, hear – there is always more to be done. 

The best way to do it as booklovers? Read widely and read well. Starting right here with our selection for the month of May – 12 new titles full that invite you do just that.

The best books to read this April

April proves to be anything but the cruellest month with a bumper crop of new releases that takes us from 1980s Gothenburg to post-Brexit London with a stop-off in a hit New York TV show’s writer’s room along the way.

Whether you’re in the mood for an epic love story, some time-travelling neo-noir, prize-winning literary fiction or a crime-solving anti-hero in the form of an anarchic smoking nun, it’s all here. Enjoy!

The best books to read this March

9 knock-out new books written by women

It is a persistently noted observation that men don’t read books written by women. If that seems like one of those outdated ‘facts’ ready to be filed along with ‘women aren’t funny’ and other cliches, the stats, sadly, bear this out: men make up less than 20% of the overall readership of the top 10 books written by women (versus 45% of equivalent reads by women of books written by men).

More fool them. As author Mary Ann Sieghart wrote on LitHub last year, when men do read books by women, they tend to actually prefer them (slightly) over those written by their own sex. Which doesn’t surprise us one bit. 

Just take a look at this month’s list of new releases – an international line-up of established and emerging names which spans genres, timelines and geography to take us from post-war Vietnam to the seedy glamour of 1960s New York to Down Under (twice) – all of which are written by women.

And yes, it’s March. And yes, that means this month’s round-up coincides with International Women’s Day. But if you’re thinking those two facts are related, think again. These are not our pick of the best books to be reading this month that are written by women. They’re our pick of the best books to be reading this month, period. 

The best books to read this February

February may be the ‘official’ month of romance, thanks to St Valentine™, but as this month’s crop of new releases reveals, there’s a lot more to human relationships than those served by cupid’s arrow.

Take our fiction picks: from flights of fancy in ancient India to cultural and socio-economic divides in Nigeria and the US with a sprinkling of generational magic for good measure – at the centre of all of them are questions around friendship, identity, family and loyalty.

And not a red rose or chocolate in sight.

The best books to read this January

In the first of what is our rolling list of monthly recommended titles throughout 2023, we’re leaving the royal free-for-all surrounding the publication of Harry’s memoir, Spare, firmly out of it. 

Instead, we suggest you kick off this year’s reading list with some standout debuts – which take us from contemporary Toronto to queer Victorian London via medieval Norwich – alongside new works by up-and-coming and established names. 

Interestingly, a full four of the titles listed below are not just ‘drawn from’ or ‘inspired by’ real-life historical or contemporary figures, but set out to deliberately redraw the lines of what ‘fiction’ is. Could we be looking at the literary trend for 2023?

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