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Bookstore Picks

Joy to the World

2023-12-23.column-graphic.website

December 23, 2023

This roundup of our 25 bestselling books from 2023 can act as a last-minute holiday gift guide for your family and friends—or for yourself, as you prepare your 2024 reading list. What other present can expand our minds, take us to new places, allow us to picture ourselves in another person’s shoes, and hold up a mirror for us to know ourselves better?

As ever, thanks for your ongoing support and patronage. We are so very grateful. From all of us at The Center for Fiction, we wish you a very happy, healthy, and safe holiday.

See you in the New Year,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore


The Apple in the Dark
Claire Lispector
Translated from the Portuguese by Benjamin Moser

Birnam Wood
Eleanor Catton

Chain-Gang All-Stars
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The Covenant of Water
Abraham Verghese

The Creative Act
Rick Rubin

Crook Manifesto
Colson Whitehead

Family Lore
Elizabeth Acevedo

Fat Ham
James Ijames

Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yarros

Francisco
Alison Mills Newman

The Fraud
Zadie Smith

The Guest
Emma Cline

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
James McBride

I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Lorrie Moore

I Have Some Questions for You
Rebecca Makkai

The Iliad
Homer
Translated from the Ancient Greek by Emily Wilson

Let Us Descend
Jesmyn Ward

Monstrilio
Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Roman Stories
Jhumpa Lahiri
Translated from the Italian by Jhumpa Lahiri & Todd Portnowitz

Same Bed Different Dreams
Ed Park

Tom Lake
Ann Patchett

The Wager
David Grann

We Are a Haunting
Tyriek White

The Wren, the Wren
Anne Enright

Yellowface
R. F. Kuang