Paperback to the Future: Must-Read Paperbacks to Kick Off 2023

Brooklyn wedding planner Olga and her local politician brother Pedro brace for the upheaval of their lives when they learn their mother will be visiting from Puerto Rico. This was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library prize.

This concise, smart novel, about a 30-something ICU doctor who discovers she doesn’t have it all together after her father dies, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie medal.

This epic, in-depth look at the celebrated and scandalous family of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns discusses the unspoken, unacknowledged caste system in America that fosters division in our lives.

Foo’s moving memoir is a look at the trauma and PTSD that has shaped her over the years, and how she seeks the answers and treatments to help reclaim her life.

In this delightful, heart-squeezing novel, a young woman returns to her small New Hampshire hometown to help care for her dying father and take some time to figure out what she really wants.

A fantastic story of disability, injustice, love and loss, this is about two students and the headmistress at the River Valley School for the Deaf, whose lives are both complicated and changed forever by their time there.

This one was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for nonfiction. It’s a riveting exploration of the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases, as told through the lens of O’Rourke’s own experiences.

This is a dazzling short work about a young girl in London who fills up her notebooks and her life with stories. It was just named one of the five best novels of the year by The New York Times.

A true crime podcaster gets the chance to interview the reclusive suspect in her town’s cold murder case. But will she survive to tell the story?

This passionate, brilliant story of love, immigration, and forgiveness by the always-amazing Tahir was the 2022 winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

The debut novel from the award-winning author of the story collection Sabrina & Corina, this follows five generations of the Lopez family.

More than a decade after A Visit from the Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize, Egan followed it up with this sequel. It was named one of the five best novels of 2022 by the New York Times.

In this international best seller from Japan, a young man inherits his grandfather’s bookstore, and meets a cat who requests he accompany it on a quest to save books.

The long-awaited follow-up to Yanagihara’s A Little Life is set in three times periods in an alternative version of the United States.

This is a delightful college campus satire about a PhD student who cannot wait to finish her dissertation on an old poet. Then she finds an unusual note in a book that changes everything.

From the author of A Gentleman in Moscow comes a riveting novel about three wards of the state and an adventure across America in the 1950s.

Stuart’s debut novel, Shuggie Bain, won the Booker Prize. This much-lauded follow-up is a queer coming-of-age story set a housing estate in Glasgow.

Zauner, writer and member of the band Japanese Breakfast, looks back on her life with her mother, in which many of their experiences and her memories involve food.

An utterly gorgeous, slim novel about shifting time, a writer, a detective, and more, spanning 500 years from Canada to the moon.

Comedian and writer Gadsby’s first memoir builds on her stories of her life from her award-winning stage show Nanette.

This amazing work of trans fiction about houses, hauntings, and horrors is going to be the horror book everyone is discussing next year.

A web developer embarks on a journey of enlightenment and indulgence to find out who he really is. A new release from the wonderful indie press Two Dollar Radio.

From the voices behind the acclaimed documentary Horror Noire comes an examination of Black roles in horror films, and the frequent tropes and stereotypes, as well as a look at modern Black horror cinema.

Two strangers fleeing their lives become unlikely soulmates, even though they don’t speak the same language.

A shy book lover chats up her handsome neighbor in the hopes of scoring a date to a wedding, unaware he’s the author of her favorite fantasy series.

Cultural critic Clarkisha Kent has written a brilliant candid memoir about her life as a fat, Black, queer woman in America, and how she freed herself of societal expectations.

A speculative trans roman à clef about an interdimensional search for love, agency, and freedom from violence for trans people.

Mariel Spark discovers being the most powerful witch in generations come with perks and problems. One problem appears in a form of a handsome demon who wants her soul — who isn’t going to leave until he gets it.

From the author of bestsellers such as Dial A for Aunties comes the story of an elderly tea shop owner in San Francisco’s Chinatown who finds a body in her shop and decides to solve the case herself.

A Chinese immortal and a French elf try to make their relationship work in this romantic fantasy debut.

This is a collection of personal and lyric essays exploring nature and the lives of Black people in the United States over hundreds of years.

From the award-winning Mexican author Boullosa comes a novel about an apocryphal manuscript that alleges that the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was wrong.