As we wrap up the year, you've probably stumbled upon tons of year-end lists online — covering everything from the hottest books to the coolest video games. Well, here's the news: We're joining the fun! Check out our BookNet staff picks for the year, spiced up with a bit of data. As usual, you can find our picks in this CataList catalogue.

BookNet Reads

The BookNet staff read a total of 352 books.

43% were audiobooks, 29% print books, and 28% ebooks.
64% were Fiction and 36% were Non-Fiction.

The BookNetter who read the most, read 103 books in 2023.

Vivian Luu

The Isles of the Gods by Amie Kaufman

The notion that you have to please the spirits and charm them into doing what you want is beautiful and complicated. The audiobook has several wonderful performers!

Noah Genner

Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast by John Vaillant 🍁

Unfortunately, as the summer of 2023 drove home, massive forest fires may be the new norm in Canada's spring and summer months. In Fire Weather, John Vaillant writes about the enormous forest fire that ravaged Fort McMurray, Alberta, in 2016. Weaving in information about fire, the Alberta oilsands, climate change, and the battle to save Fort McMurray, Vaillant creates a compelling tale of what may lay ahead if we don’t take care of our environment.

Tom Richardson

On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory by Thomas Hertog

Written by one of Hawking's collaborators, this is much more readable than Hawking’s early 2000s and famously unfinished-by-most (including me) A Brief History of Time. Hertog provides a history of quantum mechanics and cosmology all the way through to string theory, holography, and the multiverse — and provides a view of where things stand in theoretical physics at the beginning of this decade. It’s certainly not the last or only word on it but an inspiring one that describes Hawking’s changing viewpoint.

Nataly Alarcón

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

The audiobook of A Flicker in the Dark narrated by Karissa Vacker truly immerses the listener in the story and makes you not want to stop listening. The characters of the story are complex and unpredictable, setting it up for mouth-opening plot twists.

El Tercer Mundo Despues del Sol by Rodrigo Bastidas

El Tercer Mundo Despues del Sol (The Third World After the Sun) by Rodrigo Bastidas is a fantastic collection of 14 Latin American science fiction short stories that will change the way you’ve been looking at the genre all these years.

Adaobi Nnaobi

The Giver by Lois Lowry & The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Read both books if you enjoyed The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin. Both books have similar themes to the short story.

Carol Gordon

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

My favourite fiction read came early in the year with Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. A fun little mystery with a dark sense of humour, a somewhat hapless narrator, and an interesting cast of supporting characters — who have all, in some form or other, already killed someone. It certainly makes for a long suspect list when a suspicious death occurs at a family reunion!

Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment by Susannah Breslin

In non-fiction, I just had to snap up a copy of Susannah Breslin’s memoir, Data Baby. I mean, books plus data really hits a BookNet sweet spot! This memoir was far from a numbers game though, as we follow Breslin down some meandering paths as she grapples with questions of nature and nurture, predetermination and free will, viewed through the lens of her lifelong participation in the Block Project’s personality study.

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Extra Good Things by Noor Murad and Yotam Ottolenghi

A tasty dinner followed up with a good book is a recipe for happiness! I’ve really been enjoying the latest from the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, Extra Good Things. All things that come from Ottolenghi are delicious, but the Charred green pepper and bulgur pilaf with parsley oil has quickly become an all-time favourite. Tip: It’s fantastic with just regular green bell peppers.

Tim Middleton

Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted by Daniel Sokatch

I didn't realize how valuable this book would be when I picked it up to read. Surely one of the most complicated of the world's problems, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is not one-sided. Daniel Sokatch's book is very even-handed. Michael Chabon's "review" sums it up best: "clarity, fair-mindedness, and universal compassion ― can be found in this elegantly written and surprisingly entertaining book."

Talks with Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness by Ramana Maharshi

Another great discovery for me in 2023 was this series of dialogues between Ramana Maharshi and seekers who made pilgrimages to ask him about the meaning of life, how to attain bliss, and more. These dialogues take place between the years 1935 and 1939, and are far-ranging discussions about reality. Maharshi was a humble man with deep insight. Many considered him a jivanmukta — a person liberated while alive. His intelligence is razor sharp and even the moments where he answers with silence seem full of wisdom. Even though recorded 90 years ago this book has a timelessness to it. The world at this time was facing the eve of fascism and world war, so many of the concerns of the pilgrims will feel very familiar to our own fraught time.

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton has been an intrigue of mine for a while. I appreciate his conviction and his honesty. In this book, which some have referred to as one of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace, Merton takes us on his pilgrim's progress from dissolute youth, atheistic academic, and finally to becoming a Trappist monk, taking a vow of silence and working for peace. It's a cliche to say, but I couldn't put this book down on my summer vacation this year.

Lily Dwyer

Babel by R. F. Kuang

I finally read R.F. Kuang’s Babel this year and I’m SO glad I did, as this was easily my favourite book of 2023. At first, I thought this would be a cozy read about the beauty and intricacies of translation, but it quickly became something darker. I was completely hooked and gasped the whole way through.

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

This was the year that I discovered I just want to read novels and memoirs about women living in New York City in the 20th century and figuring out just what it is they want to do with their lives. The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe delivers just that. This is for you if you love Mad Men, Sex and the City, and Mary McCarthy’s The Group.

The Vanity Fair Diaries: Power, Wealth, Celebrity, and Dreams: My Years at the Magazine That Defined a Decade by Tina Brown

Along those lines, I also loved Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries. It’s her chronicle of working as editor of Vanity Fair in the 1980s. This one is entirely self-indulgent — it’s gossipy, there are name drops in every other sentence, and it gives a fun peak into the world of magazine publishing.

Kalpna Patel

Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

Tell me it’s a pandemic novel without telling me it’s a pandemic novel — Sara Baume’s Seven Steeples is a gorgeous and poetic story of voluntary isolation, avoidance, decay, and retreat. A couple decides to vanish from society and move into a dilapidated old house on the Irish coast with their two dogs. Over the years we see their lives become smaller, eventually reduced to a series of habitual, physical activities (a swim in the lake, walking the dogs). Even speaking to each other becomes superfluous, as the two seem to merge into a single consciousness. So much of their lives fall away and yet nothing feels missing; it’s terrifying and liberating to think about how much you can lose — or let go of — without experiencing loss, and to consider (as I think a lot of us did during the height of the pandemic) what is truly necessary to keep going.

Bariloche by Andres Neuman, translated by Robin Myers

Reading this short novel felt like watching Jim Jarmusch’s film, Paterson, except instead of New Jersey, we’re in Buenos Aires, and instead of a bus driver, our protagonist is a garbage collector, and instead of writing poems, he builds jigsaw puzzles that depict images of the countryside where he grew up, each piece bringing back a childhood memory. In both the film and the book though, we see a man performing the same routine day after day, making his way through the same city streets, seeing the same people. Not a whole lot happens (there was one dramatic twist I didn’t see coming), but if you like quiet, kinda sad books and want to read incredibly beautiful and moving descriptions of rotting food and trash, I highly recommend this one.

Grimmish by Michael Winkler

I picked up this slim novel when I learned that it was shortlisted for a prestigious Australian literary prize (the Miles Franklin Award) even though it was initially self-published because no publisher would touch it. It's a weird and funny, heartbreaking story based on the real-life boxer Joe Grim, also known as the Human Punching Bag because he could withstand the worst physical beating and never get knocked out. But he also never won a fight either — he was an astounding loser. The novel bounces from the present to Grim’s boxing tour in Australia in 1908, in what reads like exploded non-fiction — all the absurd, Don Quixote–style adventures are anchored to reality through bits of memoir and found text (newspaper clippings). There is also a swearing goat.

Lauren Stewart

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis 🍁

Had to reread Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis after catching the brilliant production in Toronto early in 2023 (Montrealers must be sure not to miss it at the Segal Centre in the new year). It never fails to entertain, nor to make me think.

Kent Monkman: Being Legendary at the Royal Ontario Museum by Kent Monkman 🍁

I was so upset when the last day of Kent Monkman’s “Being Legendary” exhibit ended at the Royal Ontario Museum, but Being Legendary at the Royal Ontario Museum by Kent Monkman offers a magnificent overview and stunning full spreads of the artwork, plus close-ups you couldn’t possibly encounter IRL. A beautiful, and important, book.

Bad Mormon by Heather Gay

If you need your Bravo reality TV book picks, I’m here for you. Of the seven Bravolebrity-related properties I read in 2023, I'm stanning for the Bad Mormon herself, Heather Gay. However, while Bad Mormon by Heather Gay is dishy about her time as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it won’t tell you how she got the black eye (IYKYK).

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire, If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display by Nick Thran 🍁, and Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

Does publishing like anything more than books about itself? I perused three notable ones this year and, if you’re looking for something inside-publishing once you finish The Other Black Girl on streaming, Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire, If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display by Nick Thran, and Yellowface by R. F. Kuang offer a recognizable setting for those in the trade. Bonus: If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display features BookNet’s own Kalpna Patel and her adventures in bookselling (the title is a known Kalpna bookselling mantra).

Ainsley Sparkes

Not That Kind of Place by Michael Melgaard 🍁, The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, Greenwood by Michael Christie 🍁, and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

This was a good reading year for me, which is great until it comes time to narrow it down to a couple to share here. All in all, not a bad problem to have. Here are two that I found myself thinking about long after I’d finished them: Not That Kind of Place by Michael Melgaard isn’t your typical crime novel, but it's just as compelling and The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan is a dystopian novel that made me think of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale crossed with Orange is the New Black. If you like either of those genres, I would recommend checking them out.

Honourable mentions: Greenwood by Michael Christie and the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano.

Curious to discover the books that captured the hearts of Canadians? Explore the lists of bestselling and most circulated books for 2023. Happy reading!