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2023 was such a great year for fiction! We had the hardest time narrowing down our list of the best fiction books of the year, but after much debate, we settled on these 23 (an appropriate number for 2023, we decided). The books on this list take place in Hawaii, Argentina, the Hamptons, a Palace in the desert, and a land of milk and honey. We’ve got campus novels and high-concept museums, fictional biographies and black holes, ugly publishing truths and gladiatorial dystopias...

If there’s one thing you know you can rely on, it’s the good taste of Powell’s booksellers, which is soundly reflected in this year’s collection of nonfiction books that we thought were the best from this past year. On this list, you’ll find bookstores and hot dogs, doppelgangers and wolves, celebrities and shitty crafts. These books explore questions of identity, belonging, community, resistance, capitalism, colonialism, to name just a few of their topics; they’re tender and hilarious and heartfelt and insightful...

There’s a primal power to combining words with pictures and bookstores in 2023 saw that power being used to beautiful effect. This year we’re highlighting graphic works that run the gamut of genres and age groups.

Below are books about coming of age and books about grief; books about navigating difficult situations and books about giving in to the absurd; works of horror and works of quiet beauty. And then there’s Monica, which does all of that at once...

In a world as scary as ours is, sometimes you need to sink into a terrifying story to distract yourself. Which is where our list comes in: the best horror of 2023, as determined by Powell’s booksellers, experts in all things macabre and eerie and unnerving. On this list, you’ll find books about vampires and vaqueros, monsters and slashers, curses and carnivorous houses, mermaids and jellyfish and even Tom Cruise.

Get your late-night-reading-oil ready, because you won’t want to put any of these books down. Without further ado: the Best Horror of 2023....

As a person who tries to avoid spoiler alerts, romance surprised me a little bit — knowing that a happily ever after is most likely at the end of the story should annoy me. But it turns out that I really, really want to know how these crazy kids figure it out, even if their love is broadcast on the first page. These books contain a lot of twists and turns and surprises — secret exes turning up out of the blue! overcoming generational trauma! vampires! — and knowing everything ends up okay makes the journey...

"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions…" — George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789

Washington issued a proclamation on October 3, 1789, designating Thursday, November 26 as a national day of thanks.

Perhaps George Washington picked the third Thursday in November because he didn't want another holiday on the calendar too close to the Fourth of July or crowding his own birthday in February. American Thanksgiving has morphed into a holiday...

Welcome readers, to the second of our Best Books of 2023 lists: Science Fiction & Fantasy! Absolutely an excuse for me to run up to booksellers — street-interview style — and demand to know their favorite world-building, magic-systems, and political messes (in SPACE!).

And readers, they delivered.

We’ve got Romantasy (petitioning Merriam-Webster to make this the word of the year); we’ve got veteran romantasy authors returning to beloved series to say “we’ve been doing this!“; we’ve got dragons and more dragons; love letters to books in cozy fantasy settings; unionized dolphins; cyberpunk thrillers about orbital elevators; series conclusions that stick the landing...

November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate and recognize the history and experiences of Indigenous and Native American people. In today’s edition of Five Book Friday, we’re bringing you some important books that better illustrate the experiences of some Indigenous people here in the United States and Canada. It is important to reflect on the experiences of Native Americans year-round, not just in November. One of the ways that we can do that is to decolonize our bookshelves...

It’s coming! Do you feel it? That rumble under your feet? That is the approach of something amazing! In fact, it’s so thunderous that the trees are shaking and the ground is jumping and — careful! — you can hardly stay on your feet, until… almost… almost… YES, it’s here! The very first of Powell’s Best Books of 2023 lists. My very favorite category: Kids and Teens.

No wonder it made such a rumbly ruckus as it came. It’s sooooo heavy — filled with ten tons of terrific tomes: from picture books to medieval romcoms, from graphic memoirs to gothic horror. You’ll find giant jellyfish, brainy minotaurs, witch’s...

Every year, we like to celebrate Native American Heritage Month by featuring a list of recently published books by Native authors. This year, we’re featuring new titles that are filled with hauntings and curses, creatures and body horror, witches and missing children, Vikings and dragons, tradition and historical dispossession, apocalypses and landscapes corroded by grief. These stories are filled with questions about belonging, community, identity, intergenerational trauma, Indigenous identity...