December 9, 2023
My esteemed colleagues at The Center for Fiction are avid and passionate readers. In the Bookstore we get to recommend titles to customers all the time, so now it’s the rest of the staff’s turn to share the books that meant the most to them in 2023. Here are their favorites of the year, beginning with our indefatigable new Executive Director.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Demon Copperhead
By Barbara Kingsolver
Published by HarperCollins
My own roots run deep in the often-forgotten corner of the world where Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia meet. To see that region’s story in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel was the highlight of my reading year. Recommended for anyone who enjoys a coming-of-age narrative with an extraordinary protagonist.
—Lydah Pyles DeBin
Executive Director -
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Terrace Story
By Hilary Leichter
Published by HarperCollins
Have you ever wished for more space in your apartment? Or, perhaps, more space in someone’s heart? Who among us hasn’t? This slim, enchanting novel begins with a magically appearing terrace off a crowded apartment and continues expanding into the realms of fairy tales and even outer space. It is funny, sincere, and will make you think about where we are supposed to put our desires when there is no room for them in our rigidly bounded world.
—Kait Astrella
Assistant Librarian.
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The Daughter Ship
By Boo Trundle
Published by Knopf Doubleday
In this inventive story, we meet an eclectic mix of characters—the inner children of our protagonist, Katharine—in a rusting WWII submarine off the coast of Virginia Beach, as Katharine comes to terms with her past trauma and looks toward the future. The book takes us on a surprising journey with strange and intriguing imagery that develops in poetic ways, a groundbreaking and perfectly suited narrative style, and an unflinching commitment to the simultaneous seriousness and ridiculousness of exploring one’s inner self.
—Eliana Cohen-Orth
Event Production Coordinator -
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Forbidden Notebook
By Alba de Céspedes
Published by Astra House
Translated by Ann Goldstein
A middle-aged, working housewife in post-war Italy buys a legally “forbidden” blank notebook on impulse and journals her inner thoughts about her family, a budding new workplace romance, and her daily ruminations. The story manages to be both evocative of a particular place and time, and universal and timeless in equal measure. This quiet, unassuming novel completely captivated me, and I have thought about Valeria so many times since finishing this book months ago.
—Allison Escoto
Head Librarian & Education Director.
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Tom Lake
By Ann Patchett
Published by HarperCollins
This is the perfect book for anyone who loves stories within stories, family dynamics, or the play Our Town. A mother tells her three grown daughters about her life-long relationship with the Thornton Wilder play, and about the movie star she met during one of its productions.
—Abbie Martin Greenbaum
Barista & Bartender -
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The Fraud
By Zadie Smith
Published by Penguin
I was immediately transported to the world of Victorian England where a makeshift “family” becomes engrossed in a case of identity theft. Smith’s lyrical yet propulsive writing makes this such a pleasure to read. She gets bonus points for the humor hidden between the lines of her one-of-a-kind characters.
—Kristin Henley
Managing Director.
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Idlewild
By James Frankie Thomas
Published by The Overlook Press
An absolutely heartbreaking portrayal of intense, insular, queer teenage friendship. I’ve never read anything quite like it.
—Ceara Hennessey
Barista & Bartender -
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The Feast
By Margaret Kennedy
Published by McNally Editions
Newly reissued in a handsome edition, this upstairs-downstairs comedy from 1949 is by turns sweet, sour, romantic, and even a little thrilling. (Which of the delightful—and despicable—characters survive the landslide that buries the seaside hotel where the novel is set? Find out!) A total pleasure to read with biting social commentary and unexpected depth.
—Matt Kafoury
Art Director.
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Big Swiss
By Jen Beagin
Published by Scribner
This book is weird, disturbing, sexy, funny, and full of bees. I’ve thought about it roughly once a week since I read it a year ago. For fans of Melissa Broder, Ottessa Moshfegh, and complicated women.
—Celeste Kaufman
Senior Manager of Marketing & Community Engagement -
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Let Us Descend
By Jesmyn Ward
Published by Scribner
A mother-daughter story with Dante’s Inferno as inspiration, this novel evokes grief on an epic scale. The writing is peak Ward—skillful, lyrical, propulsive, deeply spiritual, brutally honest, and yet reparative in its humanity.
—Melanie McNair
Senior Director of Public Programming.
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Hangman
By Maya Binyam
Published by FSG
Maya Binyam writes with gaps at the fore. The narrative employs confusion and passiveness that the protagonist experiences. The text feels flat in how plain it is, until it cracks and the reader peeks at the lead’s motivations and repressed memories. These moments in the text are poignant and poetic. They feel like gems in a sandbox and make the reader continue.
—Majo Restrepo
Development Associate -
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I Don't Want to Read This Book Aloud
By Max Greenfield
Published by Penguin Young Readers
This is a fun book to read. I read it with my daughter Lorelai, and I felt my animated voices come out as I turned the pages.
—Mirian Varela
Facilities Assistant.
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The Upstairs Delicatessen
By Dwight Garner
Published by FSG
You never eat alone with a good book. Here Garner places reading and eating in a stand mixer set to high. Fittingly a reader’s digest of sorts on food found in fiction, I left with a grocery list of the next novels I’ll be reading! And you can read it too while having something to eat and drink at our café!
—Scott D. Williamson, Jr.
Café & Bar Manager -
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Temple Folk
By Aaliyah Bilal
Published by Simon & Schuster
This work is groundbreaking. It’s one of the first works of American fiction that centers on characters who are African American Muslim women. Literature is supposed to expand our views of the world, our place in it, and the impact of the communities and cultures around us. This collection helped me expand my understanding of the world beyond my own and be a part of a vibrant conversation around resisting mainstream cultural norms.
—Randy Winston
Director of Writing Programs.
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The Bandit Queens
By Parini Shroff
Published by Random House
In a book about oppressive marriages and homicide, the last thing you might expect is humor. The setting is a remote village in India, the genre is comedic thriller, and the protagonist is a bumbling “self-made widow” who keeps getting roped into assisted homicide—the shenanigans don’t get more shenanigan than this! Shroff’s humorous approach to serious subject matters humanizes a small village in a way that is refreshing, relatable, and completely addicting; a must-read from a promising debut author!
—YJ Wang
Barista & Bartender
