In our season finale, Daniel Ford and the Writer's Bone Podcast Network share the books we loved in 2023.
Thank you to the authors we interviewed and read, our network hosts, and, of course, you, our dear listeners for another terrific year of podcasting. We can't wait to celebrate our tenth anniversary in 2024!
The Best Books of 2023:
Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott
Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Under the Tamarind Tree by Nigar Alam
Kind of a Big Deal: How Anchorman Stayed Classy and Became the Most Iconic Comedy of the Twenty-First Century by Saul Austerlitz
King Hancock: The Radical Influence of a Moderate Founding Father by Brooke Barbier
Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post by Martin Baron
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
Dark Ride by Lou Berney
Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks—A Cool History of a Hot Commodity by Amy Brady
All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley
At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich
Bob Dylan: Mavericks of Music: Stories for Children by Daniel Budnik
No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of A League of Their Own: Big Stars, Dugout Drama, and a Home Run for Hollywood by Erin Carlson
The Christmas Wager by Holly Cassidy
A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti
Hide by Tracy Clark
When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season by Rich Cohen
Thicker Than Water by Megan Collins
The Art of Libromancy: On Selling Books and Reading Books in the Twenty-first Century by Josh Cook
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
The Rhythm of Time by S.A. Cosby and Questlove
The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever by Jack Curry
The Last Beekeeper by Julie Carrick Dalton
The Way Life Should Be by William Dameron
The Loneliness Files by Athena Dixon
The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan
Skull Water by Heinz Inus Fenkl
Maddalena by Julia Fine
Death Watch by Stona Fitch
Come With Me by Erin Flanagan
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
The Hunt by Kelly J. Ford
The Long War on Drugs by Anne L. Foster
Devil Makes Three by Ben Fountain
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
The Wager by David Grann
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Wellness by Nathan Hill
62: Aaron Judge, the New York Yankees, and the Pursuit of Greatness by Bryan Hoch
A Sleight of Shadows by Kat Howard
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Loot by Tania James
Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio by Katherine Rye Jewell
The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson
Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy
Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair L.M. Kelley
For You and Only You by Caroline Kepnes
What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim
Morning in This Broken World by Katrina Kittle
The Liberators by E.J. Koh
You Should Have Told Me by Leah Kohen
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Big Gay Wedding by Byron Lane
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
Prom Mom by Laura Lippman
Walk the Darkness Down by Daniel Magariel
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The Revenge List by Hannah Mary McKinnon
Call and Response by Gothataone Moeng
You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult by Lane Moore
Real Friends Talk About Race: Bridging the Gaps Through Uncomfortable Conversations by Yseult P. Mukantabana and Hannah Summerhill
The Dream Builders by Oindrila Mukherjee
Speech Team by Tim Murphy
Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman
House Woman by Adorah Nworah
Gilmore Girls: At Home by Micol Ostow
A Summer Morning by Anne Leigh by Parrish
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Cooking My Way by Jacques Pépin
The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski
You Were Always Mine by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
The Men Can't Be Saved by Ben Purkert
The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann by Virginia Pye
Advika and the Hollywood Wives by Kirthana Ramisetti
Go as a River by Shelley Read
The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes
The Kirschbaum Lectures by Seth Rogoff
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Evil Eye by Etaf Rum
Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself by Luke Russert
Somebody's Fool by Richard Russo
Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan
The Birthparents by Frank Santo
Information Desk by Robyn Schiff
Naked in the Rideshare: Stories of Gross Miscalculations by Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold
The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly by Katherine A. Sherbrooke
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Pieces of Blue by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder
Bruce Springsteen A Little Golden Book Biography by Laurel Snyder
Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski
Making It So by Patrick Stewart
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal
Super Bloom by Megan Tady
Congratulations, the Best is Over! by R. Eric Thomas
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb
The War Begins in Paris by Theodore Wheeler
Saying It Loud: 1966―The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement by Mark Whitaker
On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain by Ronald C. White Jr.
City of Dreams by Don Winslow
Busy Betty & the Circus Surprise by Reese Witherspoon
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine
Small World by Laura Zigman