Culture | Shelf help

The best books of 2023, as chosen by The Economist

This year’s picks transport readers to mountain peaks, out to sea and back in time

Dec 1st 2023

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Shelf help”

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds

Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies

The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction

They both have gods, rich institutions and secretive cultures

A dispassionate new biography chronicles the former president’s hostility to suffrage

What the Canadian intellectual gets right about young men