We are proud to announce that BookBrowse has won Platinum in the 2024 Modern Library Awards.

9 Debut Authors to Watch Out For in 2024

6 Debut Authors to Watch in 2024

What debut authors will you discover in 2024? You may be excited about the latest work from writers you already adore, but this could very well be the year you find a new slew of first-time favorites. The march of excellent debut books has already begun, and there are many soon-to-be-established literary stars worth watching, both those who have been published recently and those with releases in the coming months. Keep an eye on who’s emerging and who’s waiting in the wings with our list of some of the most promising, intriguing, provocative debut authors working today.

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BookBrowse 2023 Award Winners

Every year, we announce our annual Top 20 books, chosen by participating BookBrowse subscribers. But which are the cream of the crop, the favorites among favorites? From this year's list, we bring you the Award Winners for Top Fiction, Top Nonfiction, Top Debut and Top Young Adult, determined by the highest rated books in each category.

Best Fiction Award 2023 The Covenant of Water

The Covenant of Water
by Abraham Verghese


Hardcover May 2023. 736 pages
Published by Grove Press

Verghese sustains the massive story in The Covenant of Water with numerous enigmatic and vividly drawn characters like Big Ammachi, Digby, a Swedish physician named Rune who runs a colony for lepers, Philipose and his love Elsie, who is born to be an artist of staggering genius if only the world will let her. However, running like a riptide beneath the waters of the Malabar Coast, the Condition strikes the family in new, unbidden and heartbreaking ways. It will reach a crescendo with Mariamma, Big Ammachi's granddaughter, who becomes a neurosurgeon to unlock the secrets of this affliction, only to face the secrets "that can bind them together or bring them to their knees when revealed." (Peggy Kurkowski)

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The Top 20 Best Books of 2023

Top 20 Awards LogoWhat better way to kick off the holiday season than by announcing our subscribers' best-loved books of 2023? The BookBrowse Top 20 are determined by a significant number of votes — maxing out at over 9,000 in recent years — and have become a treasured tradition through which we celebrate some of the most memorable books of one year before moving into the next. Scroll down to explore the finalists below.

We compile the Top 20 with the intention of reflecting authentic reader opinion, opening votes only to members and subscribers of our free newsletters to prevent vote-stuffing and promote balance between books with different degrees of marketing influence (see more). This gives us a true picture of the titles voters were most excited about. Thank you to everyone who participated this year!

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Book Club Buzz: All Our 2023 Discussions

All our 2023 discussions

Looking for some lively book banter? Whether you're hunting for possible book club picks or just curious about others' thoughts on a recent title, BookBrowse Book Club discussions are the perfect resource for tuning in to readers' opinions, feelings and observations.

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Meeting New Books: First Impressions Reviews

Look Back on First Impressions 2023

Reading other people's opinions on a book is a fun way to decide whether you want to read it yourself. With BookBrowse's First Impressions program, you can dive into a variety of personal perspectives on new titles, enjoying honest reviews from multiple independent readers to form an idea of a book similar to what you might gather from a casual conversation with a group of friends.

We make sure our First Impressions reviews and ratings are free from any connections to an author or outside influences by exclusively featuring feedback from members who opt in to the program and receive books assigned by an algorithm months ahead of publication. So you can browse high-quality comments with confidence and feel excited about choosing your next read!

In 2023, our First Impressions program covered more than 50 books. We invite you to peruse these reviews as well as ones for hundreds of other titles in our archives.

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14 Books on the Questions and Contemplations of Mid-Life

14 books contemplating mid-life

It can be difficult to decide what middle age is, much less what books on the subject should cover. Depending on who you ask, mid-life may begin as early as 35 and end as late as 65. And experiences of the period vary widely based on many factors; for example, whether or not a person has (or wants to have) children, where they are professionally or in life. But when it comes to books about those in middle age, the particular topics that emerge often have to do with aging itself and a growing understanding of the limits of human existence. In accordance with the concept of the mid-life crisis, it's in middle age that many begin to grapple with the question of whether it's "too late" — to be a parent, to excel in one's chosen career path, to make significant changes to one's personal life. Middle age can also be a time of reflecting on the past, of questioning, from a more mature perspective, the choices one made long ago, and the current cycles and habits those decisions have established. All of this makes for philosophically rich considerations that many authors turn into literary gold, as evidenced by this list we've compiled of recent books about people in middle age.

Topics covered include mental health, infertility, illness, love in mid-life, how one's personal decisions impact others, the search for meaning, the everyday realities of marriage, the legitimacy of choosing a childless or unmarried life, and many others. All of the books come recommended by our reviewers and some have reading guides provided by the publisher to help build fulfilling book club discussions. Whether you fall into the middle-age range yourself or are somewhere on either side of it, we hope you enjoy these selections.

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