This week Mary Riley Styles Public Library released its lists of the most popular books of 2023, based on checkouts by library patrons. The library announced readers’ top ten lists across six genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Teen Fiction.
In the Fiction genre, the most popular book was “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, featured on Oprah’s Book Club and a New York Times top-ten book for 2022, “Demon Copperhead” is the story of Demon, a boy born in southern Appalachian. A modern-day “David Copperfield,” Demon’s story of survival and resilience speaks to the invisibility of abandoned rural people.
The most popular Nonfiction book of 2023 was “Spare,” a Prince Harry tell-all memoir explaining the 2020 decision he and his wife, American actress Meghan Markle, made to give up their royal titles, move to Canada, and seek meaning from life. A #1 New York Times bestseller, “Spare” is a recounting of Harry’s perspective from the 1997 death of his mother, Princess Diana, through the reaction of the public, press, and Royal Family to his marriage to Markle.
Another #1 New York Times bestseller, the most popular book in the Mystery genre was “A World of Curiosities,” the 18th book in author Louise Penny’s series following Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as she uncovers one mystery after another while investigating a decades-old murder. Reader reviews suggest this riveting story is best enjoyed after reading previous installments of Penny’s “Three Pines” series (also an Amazon television series).
Topping off the Romance genre was “The Love Hypothesis,” by Ali Hazelwood, whose novels often follow women in academia within STEM fields. “The Love Hypothesis” is a story of the unlikely romance between Ph.D. candidate Olive Smith, who doesn’t believe in love, and young hotshot professor Adam Carlsen, well-known for being a jerk. Hazelwood (which is a pen name for an Italian neuroscience professor) derived the book from her 2018 Star Wars fan fiction portraying a romance between Rey and Kylo Ren (the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia).
Of novels in the Science Fiction & Fantasy genre, “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros was most popular in The Little City. “Fourth Wing” is the first of two books in “The Empyrean Series,” preceding the also highly acclaimed “Iron Flame” (which was released on November 7 of this year). The series follows the journey of twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail after her mother, the commanding general of elite dragon riders known as the Navarre, orders her to enroll as a cadet at Basgiath War College, where fiercely competitive candidates seek to become Navarre, as war escalates outside and threatens their kingdom.
The most popular Teen Fiction novel of 2023 was “One of Us Is Lying,” a 2017 book by Karen M. McManus, follows four Bayview High students after the apparent murder of Simon (“the outcast”), the creator of a notorious gossip app that promised to post juicy reveals about each of them the next day. Yale-bound Bronwyn (“the brain”), homecoming princess Addy (“the beauty”), probation-supervised Nate (“the criminal”), and baseball star Cooper (“the athlete”) all had secrets to hide, but was concealing them motivation enough to kill Simon, or is a killer still on the loose? A New York Times bestseller, “One of Us Is Lying” is the first in a three-book series, and was adapted into a Netflix series in 2021.
Other top books of note from MRSPL’s lists include Nonfiction works “Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner, “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Terror” by David Grann, and “Poverty, by America” by Matthew Desmond, and Fiction novels “Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese, “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano, and “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett.
We at the News-Press would love to hear what books our readers loved in 2023 — let us know your favorites on Facebook!
