10 Books to Put on Your Holiday List in 2023

Sign up for this newsletter — it’s free!

It’s time again for one of my favorite posts of the year – the annual book roundup! Looking for prior years? Here’s 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017!

These are 10 books I loved in 2023. In this year’s list, you’ll see evidence of my journey down the J.R. Moehringer rabbit hole. If you’re also new to the work of Mr. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who just published the article of the moment on Travis Kelce, there is much delight ahead for you. You’ll also see in these book choices the mark of a Peloton rider; the two most famous Peloton instructors came out with memoirs the same year I got a bike myself (and became a total convert, but I’ll shut up about it already). I also enjoyed some fantastic fiction reads this year, including several books that do the multiple-perspective trick and several books centered on Irish bars. But the #1 book was about a Sri Lankan ghost!

10. “Open” by Andre Agassi (ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer). Moehringer has a way of writing that makes you feel like you’re sitting next to the author at a bar or on a long flight or beside a campfire – so I went on a weeklong journey with 90s/00s tennis champ Andre Agassi and heard his whole life story. His life story is crazy. His dad was nuts, his tennis-maniac childhood was insane, and he tells you about a thousand times – and he really means it – that he hates tennis. I read this memoir after reading Moehringer hits “Spare” (see #2) and “The Tender Bar” (#3), so you might be thinking, why is it all the way down at #10? I was mainly here for the Moehringer effect. If you have more of a genuine interest in Agassi or tennis, the book is fantastic and has plenty to say about the lonely reality behind his fame and achievement.

9. “Marrying the Ketchups” by Jennifer Close. Centered around an Irish pub in Chicago and the family who owns it, this is an easy-reading novel that entertains without being frivolous. The perspective keeps rotating through different family members, who are each going through their own personal or professional setbacks – things that are driving them both away from each other and back to the family restaurant, like it or not. Meanwhile, their founder and patriarch has passed away and the fate of the pub hangs in the balance. You’re rooting for the family.

8. “Xoxo, Cody” by Cody Rigsby. File this one under pop culture but don’t dismiss it – Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby is very real in his memoir. I enjoyed his run last year on Dancing With the Stars, which I made my tween begrudgingly watch with her mother, and I now enjoy Cody’s entertaining stewardship during 30-minute sessions on the exercise bike. At first glance, Cody is a sassy gay icon with the quotable one-liners that everyone loves. But when you get right down to it, he’s an incredibly hardworking guy who was out there making this path for himself, while also figuring out how to care for a mentally ill mother who barely raised him. He manages to be funny and joyful while sharing the hardships he has faced. I finished this book with lot of respect for his character. (I also read and enjoyed Emma Lovewell’s memoir but it didn’t make the top-10 cut.)

7. “Secrets of Happiness” by Joan Silber. Another novel that circles through multiple perspectives and flows along at an easy breezy pace, but I found this one to be more of an artistic piece. There’s a garment-manufacturing executive in New York who’s dying, and it turns out he has two families – a white American family in the city, and a second family with his Thai mistress tucked away just over the bridge in Queens. The marriage falls apart, all the kids meet. There are peripheral stories of other related characters in London and Boston. Each vignette gives you some bit of the puzzle of what happened and to whom, while testing the worth of assorted ingredients in the happiness recipe. A little dark with gritty 1970s New York vibes. Great story.

6. “Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan. This novel came out when I was 9 and I remember all the fanfare about it, though I was obviously too young to read and appreciate it then. Luckily my mom gave it to me for Christmas last year in the spirit of mothers and daughters! All the reasons why it was a hit 30+ years ago are still valid today. It’s another book of rotating perspectives – that’s 3 for 3 on fiction so far – which goes back and forth between the lives of Chinese-American women in California and their mothers, women born in pre-1949 China who faced tragedies, secrets and fates that are unfathomable in modern Western culture. The journey to other times and places, through un-humanly events, really sticks with you. Amy Tan is a master.

5. “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I put off reading this beach-categorized book for a while, assuming it was going to be just like “Malibu Rising,” which I liked but found underwhelming. But this old-Hollywood centered story had a much more exciting plot. I won’t give away the twist, if you don’t know already – I’ll just say it wasn’t what I assumed. The characters can be a bit underdeveloped but it’s worth getting over and enjoying the ride!

4. “Normal People” by Sally Rooney. This Irish novel was promptly turned into a hit miniseries by the BBC, now on Hulu. It’s a head-on story of the coming of age and romantic entanglements of Marianne, the brainy beautiful rich girl, and Connell, the brainy athletic poor guy, who are from the same small town in Ireland and go to the same university in Dublin. Prepare to be vacuumed right through the book. It’s intense, which is apparently Rooney’s signature move.

3. “The Tender Bar” by J.R. Moehringer. Here we are again in Moehringer’s world, but this is the only time it’s his direct voice. This is his own story, his tale of growing up in Manhasset, NY, hearing his dad as a local radio DJ but living without his presence at home. Needing and wanting father figures, he embraces the assorted characters in the corner bar, who mostly give him the stability and wisdom he seeks. It’s a cast of characters very worth your time.

2. “Spare” by Prince Harry (ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer). You just can’t skip this one. A third of the book is about Harry’s childhood, a third about his military career, and a third about his life with Meghan. The book’s thesis is tiresome – there’s a lot of real estate devoted to campaigning against the media and assigning it the blame for all his problems. Much of that is surely warranted, but it’s worth it to ignore the excess and visit the world of the royal family on a trip that only Harry and J.R. can lead.

1. “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Shehan Karunatilaka. This was the 2022 Booker Prize winner and it caught my eye because of its premise of being set completely in the afterlife – the protagonist is a ghost trying to solve his own murder. Amid the Sri Lankan civil war, a photographer is killed, and he has seven moons to sort a few things out. After the seventh moon, his soul can either move on to a peaceful resolution or live in a tortured state, presumably forever. This book starts off a little dense but is well worth a bit of perseverance for a creative and thrilling story, which also ponders themes of civil violence, morality and modern identity. When I finished it, I closed the book and went, Whew.

Readers need readers – send your ideas back!

I hope this list provides a gift or two of reading enjoyment to you this holiday season. As always, I LOVE getting book recommendations in return. Please share what you loved in 2023.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Need help with year-end content campaigns? Reach out to find out how I work with marketing teams on strategy and freelance financial writing.