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At The New York Times Book Review, we write about thousands of books every year. Many of them are good. Some are even great. But we get that sometimes you just want to know, What should I read that is good or great for me?

Well, here you go a running list of some of the years best, most interesting, most talked-about books. Check back next month to see what weve added.

(For more recommendations, subscribe to our Read Like the Wind newsletter, check out our romance columnists favorite books of the year so far or visit our What to Read page.)

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes. The billionaire decides to support the collective, citing common interests, but some of the activists suspect ulterior motives.

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This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon the Darkness for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

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Hardings latest novel was inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community. Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

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I want a hard-boiled tale from a master of noir

In the second novel in Mosleys King Oliver series, a Black private detective in New York investigates whether the government framed a prominent white supremacist. The plot gets more intricate the more he digs, with prison contractors, alt-right militias and Russian oil traffickers all in play.

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Rushdies new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

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A comedic take on the trials of immigration, Mas latest novel follows a Chinese man who is woefully unprepared for his move to America, but who powers through thanks to his belief that generosity and connection always exist among his fellow countrymen.

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In her radiant and brilliantly crafted fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on a classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take Little Women, move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and youve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

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Nonfiction

I want to take a head-spinning trip through the deep state

The people in this darkly funny book include fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. Like many of us, they have left traces of themselves in the digital ether by making a phone call, texting a friend, looking up something online. Howley writes about the national security state and those who get entangled in it Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner all figure into Howleys riveting account.

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The central claim of this manifesto by the Princeton sociologist (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 book Evicted, about exploitation in Milwaukees poorest housing market) is that poverty in the United States is the product not only of larger economic shifts, but of choices and actions by more fortunate Americans.

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More here:
The Best Books to Read in 2023 - The New York Times