Top 12 books of 2023, recommended by critics and editors

NPR Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan and New York Times book editor Gilbert Cruz shared their favorite fiction and nonfiction picks with PBS.

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Absolution by Alice McDermott

main character is a young wife drawn into a group of women who are doing charity work in Vietnam while their husbands are busy doing something else. And without being heavy-handed, McDermott manages to draw connections between these women's persistent charity and early American involvement in Vietnam, as Maureen Corrigan has said.

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" James McBride

“I think James McRide is one of our most subtle but insightful writers on race,” Corrigan says. - Action books takes place in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, around 1925, in a historically Jewish neighborhood of immigrants and African Americans. And I'll leave it at that. It's amazing".

On the subject: A Utah woman suffered because of the death of her husband and even wrote a book about it, and then she was accused of his murder

"The Bee Sting" Paul Murray

It is a book about four family members who used to be in the running before the 2008 financial crisis hit Ireland. It hit their small town. This is a book about the kind of unknowability of the people you love. You can live with someone for a very long time and never get to know them, because you can never really know a person. It's funny. Sad. This is tragic. It's a lot of things, as Gilbert Cruise wrote about the book.

"North Woods" Daniel Mason

Instead of focusing on any single character, the main character books is this piece of land and this house in western Massachusetts. It takes you through three centuries and shows you all these different characters.

Through these characters, Daniel Mason describes several different genres and several different types of literary styles. It's constantly surprising and just a joy to read, as Gilbert Cruz said.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Speech is about a shipwreck, mutiny, survival on a rocky island. A group of British sailors are on the ship Wager. This ship is broken during a storm in 1741 off the coast of Patagonia. And for some time they survive on this island. And then a group of sailors repairs the rickety ship and sails 4000 km to Brazil.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

В a book tells the familiar story of emerging from the oppressive context of childhood into the wider world. In the writer's case, she grew up in a strict Rastafarian family. She's a wonderful writer. She's a poet. And her descriptions of Jamaican nature, like everything else, are simply stunning, as Maureen Corrigan said.

“Master Slave Husband Wife” by Ilion Wu

«Speech is about a couple in 1848. This is an enslaved couple. They decide to run away to leave Georgia. They're trying to escape to the North... It's very tense. It's amazingly researched. This is only the first part of the story... This is a love story that reads like a novel. This is an amazing book,” said Gilbert Cruz.

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant

Supposedly speech is about the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire that occurred in Canada. This is a place that arose and brought great wealth to people thanks to the extraction of oil from underground. This extraction led to climate change, and climate change led to a giant forest fire that led to the evacuation of almost 100 people in 000... The book combines a detailed account of the forest fires with the history of oil production and climate change.

Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott

“We live in a time very similar to the 30s. Our fiction focuses a lot on social issues and social problems,” says Maureen Corrigan. “However, I found it interesting that this year some novels, in which I did not expect to see social issues, especially reproductive rights. Suddenly these novels became a storyline about abortion rights... So we're very socially conscious in our art these days."

"Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett

It is a reflection about youthful love, love in marriage and the life that parents led before the birth of children. The novel is both hopeful and elegiac, exploring what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all her novels, Anne Patchett combines compelling storytelling with a poignant understanding of family dynamics.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read all this on ForumDaily New York.

The result is a rich and illuminating story, told with deep intelligence and emotional subtlety, which once again proves why she is one of the most revered and recognized literary talents of our time.

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Many dream of joining the riders' quadrant in order to gain a dragon, and with it magical abilities and respect in society. But surviving the bloody selection process for a military academy is not so easy, especially when you are preparing to become a scribe from an early age.

Violet Sorrengale has no choice - she must become a horseman. And even though she is more vulnerable than the rest, and half of her classmates dream of killing her, Violet does not intend to give up. But how to avoid the most powerful and ruthless enemy if he is the commander of your wing?

She will have to make every effort to meet the next sunrise. Welcome to Basgiat Academy! The best place for those who are ready to die. For a dream.

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Now The real training begins, and Violet is already wondering how she will get through it. The training is grueling and brutal, and it's not even that it's designed to make riders unable to handle the pain. Dragon Riders make their own rules.
But this year, determination to survive alone will not be enough.

After all, Violet knows the real secret, hidden for centuries at the Basgiata Military College, and nothing, not even dragon fire, will save them in the end.

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