Last Updated on January 3, 2024 by BiblioLifestyle
Look no further if you’re looking for the best literary fiction of 2023. From thought-provoking analyses to evocative stories, this list of fiction titles will surely please any reader who appreciates beautifully written and emotionally rewarding stories. With writers from around the world exploring a range of topics, including love, relationships, loss, and coming of age, there is something here for everyone. So continue reading to discover some must-read titles that will add depth and pleasure to your reading experience.
The Best Literary Fiction of 2023
With writers from around the world exploring a range of topics, including love, relationships, loss, and coming of age, there is something here for everyone.
- The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley
- Small World by Laura Zigman
- The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon
- Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein
- Flux by Jinwoo Chong
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn
- The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie
- Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
- A Likely Story by Leigh McMullan Abramson
- Y/N by Esther Yi
- I Could Live Here Forever by Hanna Halperin
- The Only Daughter by A.B. Yehoshua, Translated by Stuart Schoffman
- The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel
- Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
- Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton
- The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher
- Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith
- Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
- Dances by Nicole Cuffy
- The Humble Lover by Edmund White
- Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
- The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams
- The Guest by Emma Cline
- The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer
- Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style by Paul Rudnick
- Lucky Dogs by Helen Schulman
- Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad
- Reproduction by Louisa Hall
- The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
- The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
- I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore
- Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
- Excavations by Kate Myers
- North Woods by Daniel Mason
- Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
- Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
- The Caretaker by Ron Rash
- A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma
- Family Meal by Bryan Washington
- Tremor by Teju Cole
- Julia by Sandra Newman
- The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
- Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park
Small World by Laura Zigman
A heartfelt novel about two offbeat and newly divorced sisters who move in together as adults—and finally reckon with their childhood.
Small World is one of the books selected in The 2023 Winter Reading Guide.
The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon
An epic story of love, war, and displacement that traces the life of Rafael Pinto, spanning decades and continents, starting just before the First World War.
The World and All Thay It Holds is one of the books selected in The 2023 Winter Reading Guide.
Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein
Set in 1940s Trinidad, an immersive story of two families colliding and the chilling mystery at the center of how interconnected their lives are.
Hungry Ghosts is one of the books selected in The 2023 Winter Reading Guide.
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
A haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during a time of war.
In Memoriam is one of the books selected in The 2023 Spring Reading Guide.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes an emotionally layered and engrossing family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole?
Hello Beautiful is one of the Oprah’s Book Club selections.
A Likely Story by Leigh McMullan Abramson
The only child of an iconic American novelist discovers a shocking tangle of family secrets that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this brilliantly observed standout debut.
Y/N by Esther Yi
Surreal, hilarious, and shrewdly poignant—a novel about a Korean American woman living in Berlin whose obsession with a K-pop idol sends her to Seoul on a journey of literary self-destruction.
Y/N is one of the books selected in The 2023 Spring Reading Guide.
The Only Daughter by A.B. Yehoshua, Translated by Stuart Schoffman
From the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Israeli author, a stunning novella that brilliantly illuminates a young girl’s crisis of faith and coming of age in Padua, Italy.
The Only Daughter is one of the books selected in The 2023 Spring Reading Guide.
Ghost Girl, Banana by Wiz Wharton
Set between the last years of the “Chinese Windrush” in 1966 and Hong Kong’s Handover to China in 1997, a mysterious inheritance sees a young woman from London uncovering buried secrets in her late mother’s homeland in this captivating, wry debut about family, identity, and the price of belonging.
Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith
In Michael Farris Smith’s latest gritty epic, a young woman returns home with her child, to her ghost-haunted father, while a religious extremist hunts the stormridden territory to find the girl who may hold the key to the region’s apocalyptic future.
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style by Paul Rudnick
A witty and charming love story about the decades-long romance between an aspiring writer and the son of one of America’s wealthiest families.
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams
Set over the course of one day, the long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point.
The Three of Us is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
You can listen to my chat with Ore on the podcast here: The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
A satire of the publishing industry that centers on a struggling writer who steals her successful dead college friend’s manuscript and publishes it as her own.
Yellowface is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
Dances by Nicole Cuffy
An African American ballerina at the height of her career questions whether she will ever find fulfillment as she confronts the tension between her family, career, and art.
Dances is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
Chronicles the growing pains of a queer Black woman after she loses her dream job and is then forced to confront her realities and find her voice and place in the world.
Homebodies is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
You can also listen to my chat with Tembe on the podcast here: Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst
Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
A Silicon Valley woman is struggling in her professional and personal life while the world around her unravels, and she starts questioning whether this toxic workplace is worth it.
Ripe is one of the books selected in The 2023 Summer Reading Guide.
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world.
Land of Milk and Honey is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma
A genre-bending debut with a fiercely political heart, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores the weight of the devil’s bargain, following the lengths one man will go to for the promise of freedom.
Listen to my chat with Raul on the podcast here: A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot, an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.
Family Meal is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
Tremor by Teju Cole
A novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world.
Tremor is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
Julia by Sandra Newman
An imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell’s 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman.
Julia is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection.
The Vulnerables is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park
A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present—loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media.
Same Bed Different Dreams is one of the books selected in The 2023 Fall Reading Guide.
What do you think about this list of best literary fiction of 2023?
Have you read any books from this list? What are your favorite literary fiction books of 2023? What books would you add to the list? Let’s talk all about the best literary fiction 2023 in the comments below.
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