Three top fiction reads of 2023

I put together a list of three of the books I most enjoyed reading this year for this cool literary organization called Shepherd, which has been conceived as a competitor to Goodreads. Some time ago I compiled my list of the best historical novels of early colonial New England; this year they asked me to compile my three top fiction reads.

I think it’s important for writers and readers to support organizations that are trying to get the word out about good books. For one thing, it’s a way to circumvent the powerful media channels dominated by conglomerate publishing; instead of the books they say we should be reading, why not listen to each other? Word of mouth, not well-funded marketing campaigns, after all, is a much more reliable way to find good books.

Of course anyone who loves to read is going to be relying to a major extent on the conglomerates; it’s just baked into the system. I try to buy books from small and independent presses whenever possible, but many of my favorites were put out by the Big 5 corporate imprints. And while it’s true that Goodreads is owned by the Amazon corporate empire, Goodreads and Amazon offer some of the best (and often the only) ways for relatively unknown writers to make their books discoverable to the world at large. This is why I’m pretty assiduous about rating and briefly reviewing the books I’ve read and enjoyed on these sites—and if you care about books and authors, you should too!

Still, Shepherd is a refreshing upstart, and I love what they’re doing for books and authors, so I tend to respond when they approach me to make this kind of list. Enjoy!

Tim Weed’s 3 favorite reads of 2023

The best historical novels of early colonial New England