The best books to read in 2023, from Prince Harry’s memoirs to Zadie Smith’s new novel

Another twelve months, many more books. This year promises juicy memoirs, the return of several notable novelists, and some tantalizing debuts. Read on for our guide to what to read in 2023.

Spare from Prince Harry

Since stepping down as royal elder, Prince Harry has made it clear he wants to follow in his mother’s footsteps wherever possible. Is his provocatively titled memoir his attempt at an Andrew Morton-style hand grenade? After leaving the family, he can now at least put his name on the cover. But, after hours of self-aggrandizing Haz and Megs content on Netflix and Spotify, audiences’ patience may be starting to run out. Whether the heavily-dragged memoir, ostensibly written “not as the prince I was born but as the man I became,” will be as inflammatory as anticipated is yet to be seen.

January 10th

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

The world was shocked when novelist Salman Rushdie, a lifelong free speech activist, was attacked on stage at an event this year. After years of living under a fatwa, Rushdie recently said his life had started to feel “normal” again. The publication of his fourteenth novel – his first since the accident – ​​is set to see the literary world embrace one of his most important figures.

February 9th

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton’s latest novel, her first since Booker’s 2014 winner, is said to be The Luminaries – is a capper. It is a psychological thriller about an activist “guerrilla gardening group”; Monty Don meets Extinction Rebellion.

March 2nd

Why Women Grow Up by Alice Vincent

What drives women to turn to the earth? In the beautifully written third book by Alice Vincent, creator of the must-have gardening Instagram account, noughticulture, women all over the country open up their gardens and talk about what draws them to the natural world.

March 2nd

Think Not, Dear by Alice Robb

This memoir by former School of American Ballet student Alice Robb attempts to unravel the extreme physical and psychological demands placed on ballet dancers. Intertwining Robb’s story with his fellow students and ballet icons like Misty Copeland and Margot Fonteyn, it’s a late contemporary re-examination of this grueling art form.

The story continues

March 2nd

Paris: The Memoirs of Paris Hilton

It’s hot. Two decades after setting the blueprint for a new kind of celebrity, Paris Hilton releases a memoir about his life. Her book will look back on being a young female celebrity in the pre-#MeToo era, as well as her experience with undiagnosed ADHD.

March 14th

Rosewater by Liv Little

Elsie, 28, is tired: she does a low-wage job, lives at the mercy of the London property market. This debut novel by gal-dem founder Liv Little is a highly relevant look at millennial life in the city, and has also been described as “a modern black British love story”.

April 20th

August Blue by Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy, a darling of the bougie literary scene, follows her triumphant string of living biographies with a new novel about a woman who discovers her living double. Levy is the patron saint of the contemporary uncanny; expect the language to be evocative and the questions researched.

May 4th

Elliot Page’s page

When announcing the publication of his memoir, Elliot Page admitted that he’d been asked to write about his life several times before, but only recently felt able to. The Oscar-nominated star of Junowho came out as a transgender man in 2020, has apparently written a tender and candid account of his life thus far, including “behind the scenes details” plus “intimate questioning about sex, love, trauma and Hollywood.”

June 6th

The Taylor-Dior Rumble situation

When you’re dating someone but you don’t know exactly what the score is, it’s a “situation.” It’s also the setting between Tia and Nate, the characters at the center of Taylor-Dior’s debut novel Rumble and the first romantic comedy released on Stormzy’s label, #Merky Books.

August 17th

The Zadie Smith Fraud

Zadie Smith’s first novel since 2016 is delightful Swing time it is also the first time he has written historical fiction. It is based on a real (and sensational) Victorian trial, in which a man claimed to be Sir Robert Tichborne, a baronet who was believed to have died in a shipwreck. Fiction’s Strangest Story will feature a range of real-life characters, from Eliza Touchet, an acquaintance of Charles Dickens, to Andrew Bogle, a former slave turned key witness in the trial.

September 7th

Memoir of Jada Pinkett Smith

Her husband made all the headlines in 2022 after his now-infamous Oscar slap, but Jada Pinkett Smith will tell her side of the story in a “no-holds-barred” memoir, out this fall. She will detail everything about her, from her upbringing to her mental health struggles, as well as her “complicated marriage” to Will Smith.

Fall