“A lie can be halfway around the world while the truth is still pulling up his britches.”
2023 was a great year for great fiction reads. From stories of adventure and survival to suspenseful murder mysteries, we here at What We Reading thought we would pay homage to the year with some of the best books for men from 2023.
Now, there is obviously no such thing as books for men or women, readers are free to pick up whatever book they like. Nevertheless, the following recommendations of the best books for men have all been based on what we’ve been recommending to our friends and loved ones.
The Bee Sting – Paul Murray
Kicking off our list of the best 2023 books for men is Paul Murray’s acclaimed work, The Bee Sting. The author of Skippy Diaries brings readers an infectiously funny and thought-provoking ride through family, fortune, and the struggle of trying to be a good person when the world is collapsing around you.
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-thriving car business is collapsing. Rather than facing the music, he spends his days building an apocalypse-proof bunker in the woods with an enigmatic handyman. Back at home, wife Imelda is selling her jewellery online, daughter Cass is binge-drinking her way through her exams, and twelve-year-old son PJ is perfecting his plan of running away from home. Where did it all go wrong for the Barnes’? Can one piece of bad luck derail an entire life? Is there any possibility of finding a happy ending?
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Tremor – Teju Cole
Teju Cole’s Tremor is a masterfully constructed and intimate 2023 book that explores what makes a meaningful life in a violent world. The protagonist, Tunde, is a Nigerian American photographer and artist who teaches at an affluent college in New England. The book begins with readers following Tunde as he looks for antiques for his wife, Sadako.
As he hunts, he begins to ponder colonialism and its relation to the objects around him. He pulls at the strings of history, meditating on how contemporary society has been moulded by the events of the past. Rather than told from a traditional storytelling perspective, Tremor is a philosophical work that delves into everything from how Americans view art to how a marriage can slowly and quietly split at its seams.
An Honest Man – Michael Koryta
Undoubtedly one of the best mystery-thriller books from 2023, An Honest Man is a book by Michael Koryta, the New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Wish Me Dead. Perfect for any men looking for a gripping crime tale, it tells the story of a local lobsterman, a young boy, and the murder of several politicians out at sea.
After discovering the bodies of seven murdered men aboard their yacht – including two Senate rivals – Israel Pike is regarded as the police’s prime suspect. Having already gained an infamous reputation for killing his father, he is short on friends, family, and options. Elsewhere on Salvation Point Island, twelve-year-old Lyman Rankin flees from his alcoholic father, only to encounter a mysterious woman in an abandoned house. As the investigation begins, the fate of Lyman, Israel, the case, and the entire island all begin to collide in earth-shocking ways.
All The Sinners Bleed – S.A. Cosby
Another one of the best 2023 mystery-thriller books for men comes from S.A. Cosby in All the Sinners Bleed. In it, readers are introduced to Titus Crown, the first black sheriff in Charon County, Virginia’s history. Having given years of training to the FBI, Titus knows that dark secrets are lurking underneath the town’s veneer of cornbread, moonshine, and honeysuckle.
Then, a year on from Titus’ election, a school teacher is murdered by a former student, who is then gunned down by the sheriff’s deputies. Titus opens an investigation into the shootings, quickly unearthing harrowing revelations about terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. With the killer’s possible links to the local church and the town’s grave history weighing on him, Titus is forced to grapple with everything from his own conscience to the growing tension across Charon County in his efforts to bring this town’s dark secrets to light.
Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
For male readers looking for a more poignant look at family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett has you covered with her 2023 book, Tom Lake.
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters make a return to their family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While out picking cherries, they pester their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke. Peter was a famous actor who shared both the stage and a romance with their mother at a theatre company called Tom Lake. Delivered with warmth, hope, and piercing insights into family dynamics, the three daughters follow along with their mother’s tale of her and Peter growing up, reflecting and reconsidering their own lives and everything they thought they knew about the world.
The Hive And The Honey – Paul Yoon
At just 160 pages, Paul Yoon’s The Hive and the Honey is one of the best short stories for men from 2023. Named a Literary Hub and Time most anticipated book, the award-winning author delivers a series of unique tales, each confronting issues ranging from belonging, identity, and the collisions of cultures across centuries.
From a samurai escorting an orphan to his countrymen during the Edo Period, a formerly incarcerated man attempting to build a new life and new family in upstate New York, to a boy searching for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island, The Hive and the Honey is a bold collection of tales that combine beauty, cruelty, and the complexities of characters and communities.
The Vaster Wilds – Lauren Groff
One of the best 2023 historical fiction books, Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds is an electrifying survival story following a young woman alone in the wilderness.
Set against the backdrop of America’s colonial era, readers follow a young female as she escapes a settlement and heads for the wild. Armed only with a few personal belongings, her wits, and the enduring spirit burning inside her, the unmapped world she soon discovers is unlike anything her imagination could have conjured. A part adventure story, part biography of a continent at a hinge point in history, The Vaster Wilds is as raw as it is beautifully told.
System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) – Martha Wells
Nominated for Best 2023 Science Fiction book in the Goodreads Choice Awards, Martha Wells’ System Collapse kicks off following the events in Network Effect. The Barish-Estranza Corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly colonised planet teetering on the edge of peril. But, Murderbot knows all too well that if Barish-Estranza can’t have a planet, they’re going to be leaving with something.
And an entire colony of humans fit to serve as a free workforce sounds like a good enough runner-up prize. As the humans from Preservation do all they can to protect the colonists, Murderbot realizes that something may be very wrong with it. And, for their sake, they better hope it can work itself out soon.
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Lights Out (Kate Green #1) – Elise Hart Kipness
Former Olympic athlete and current semi-disgraced sports reporter Kate Green isn’t certain how much she can take in her life. Then NBA hotshot Kurt Robbins is killed. The prime suspect in the case is none other than his wife, and Kate’s best friend, Yvette.
Kate knows that Yvette’s marriage was hardly stable, but she is convinced that her friend is no murderer and is determined to prove so with an investigation of her own. But, whilst she attempts to salvage Yvette’s life, her own continues to spiral. Gossip columns speculate on her future, her children have their own demons, and her estranged father suddenly reappears as the investigating officer into Kurt’s homicide. As her worlds collide, exposing secrets, lies and motives in the process, Kate is forced to decide between the games she can play and the one she may have to lose.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store – James McBride
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were constructing the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to discover was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton is and how it found its way there are two long-held secrets by the residents of Chicken Hill, a run-down neighbourhood where African Americans and immigrant Jews live side-by-side.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is a 2023 historical fiction book by James McBride. As the characters and stories of Chicken Hill are told, it becomes clear what life on the edge truly involves. When it is finally revealed what happened in the neighbourhood, and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows that, even in the darkest of times, love and community keep us going.
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These Burning Stars (The Kingdom Trilogy #1) – Bethany Jacobs
Jun Ironway – hacker, con artist and occasional thief – has gotten her hands on a valuable piece of contraband that could implicate the powerful Nightfoot family in a planet-wide genocide over seven decades ago. The Nightfoots control the precious sevite that fuels interplanetary travel, meaning someone is sure to pay handsomely for anything that breaks their monopoly.
Naturally, holding such contraband is also dangerous. The Kindom, the ruling power of the star systems, is tied to the Nightfoots. And they cannot afford for Jun to expose the truth. They send two of their most brutal clerics, Esek and Chono, to retrieve the evidence. Bethany Jacobs’ 2023 sci-fi debut, These Burning Stars, is a story of a deadly cat-and-mouse space opera featuring three women all with secrets of their own.
The Only One Left – Riley Sager
The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one night in 1929. As the sole survivor, most suspected seventeen-year-old Lenora was the one responsible. But, other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken about the night, nor has she ever left Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
Now in 1983, home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at Hope’s End to care for Lenora. Rendered mute by a series of strokes and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora is now only able to communicate via a typewriter. Then, one evening, she makes Kit a tantalising offer: ‘I want to tell you everything’. As Kit helps Lenora reveal the events that led up to her family’s deaths, it becomes clear there’s more to the story than most know. Soon, however, Kit begins to suspect that Lenora might not be telling the complete truth and that this seemingly harmless woman in her care may be far more dangerous than she first thought.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
