February 20, 2024 by Philip Lewenstein

Great Reading in 2023

I enjoyed reading several informative and entertaining books in 2023, covering sports, politics, a variety of general nonfiction, and fiction.

In sports, I read about several incredible athletes, including Althea Gibson, Bo Jackson, Ted Williams, Bill Walton, and Kara Goucher.

In politics, I read about Joe Biden’s first two years as president, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, and the Supreme Court justices. My favorite book was Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman. My son and I heard Freedman speak at the University of Minnesota, and the author autographed my book.

I read several general nonfiction books, including those on George Floyd, Sam Bankman-Fried, Golda Meir, Martin Luther King Jr., J. Robert Oppenheimer, Samuel Adams, and Camilla Hall. I recommend The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Gran.

In fiction, I continued to read books by Elin Hilderbrand, Tim O’Brien, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, and Colson Whitehead. I highly recommend The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

Sports

My Home Team: A Sportswriter’s Life and the Redemptive Power of Small-Town Girls by Dave Kindred (September 12, 2023)—memoir by a legendary sports journalist, who writes about the team that changed his life: the Morton (Illinois) High School Lady Potters basketball team.

The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson by Jeff Pearlman (October 25, 2022)—biography of mythic multisport star Bo Jackson—the first person to simultaneously star in two major pro sports from the mid-1980s to early 1990s.

Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Sally H. Jenkins (August 15, 2023)—story of American sports hero who overcame daunting odds—on the tennis court and off—to stand at the world pinnacle of her sport and become an inspiration to many.

Back from the Dead by Bill Walton (March 21, 2017)—memoir about one of the NBA’s greatest player’s recovery from debilitating physical injury and how lessons from coach John Wooden at UCLA inspired his darkest hours.

Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II by Anne R. Keene (April 21, 2020)—story of Ted Williams and other Major League Baseball stars who were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on the Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon (March 14, 2023)—an Olympian’s memoir of her experience living through and speaking out about one of the biggest scandals in running, the Nike Oregon Project, coached by distance-running legend Alberto Salazar.

When the Game Was War: The NBA’s Greatest Season by Rich Cohen (September 5, 2023)—account of the transformative 1987 NBA season told through the four teams and their four star players who dominated it: Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers, Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, and Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America by Michael MacCambridge (October 10, 2023)—story of major cultural shifts in sports in the 1970s—more sports into prime-time TV, beginning of athletes gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators.

Break Point: Two Minnesota Athletes and the Road to Title IX by Sheri Brenden (December 27, 2022)—story of how two teenage girls in Minnesota jump-started a revolution in high school athletics—how they took on the unequal system of high school athletics, setting a legal precedent for schools nationally before the passage of Title IX.

Nonfiction

Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader by Mark Bowden (April 11, 2023)—in-depth portrait of notorious leader of Baltimore gang and the 2016 investigation that landed eight gang members in prison.

His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa (May 17, 2022)—a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by two Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd’s life and legacy—from his family’s roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina to the ongoing inequality  in housing, education, health care, and criminal justice policy. The story tells how one man’s tragic experience brought about a global movement for change.

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis (October 3, 2023)—story of Sam Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system.

Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch by Deborah E. Lipstadt (August 15, 2023)—biography of the first and only woman to serve as prime minister of Israel: exploration of the history of the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community in Palestine) and Jewish state from the 1920s through the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World by Dan Senor and Saul Singer (November 7, 2023)—story of how a small nation of nine million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and economic divisions, has resisted so many of the societal ills plaguing other wealthy democracies: story of a diverse people and society built on the values of service, solidarity, and belonging.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig (May 16, 2023)—first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon and the first to include recently declassified FBI files: an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (April 11, 2006)—biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific programs.

Never Give Up: A Prairie Family’s Story by Tom Brokaw (June 13, 2023)—chronicle of the values and lessons the famous broadcaster and author absorbed from his parents and other people who worked hard to build lives on the prairie during the first half of the twentieth century.

Nazi Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch (January 9, 2024, paperback)—little known true story of a Nazi plot to kill Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the height of World War II at the first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran.

In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews during the Holocaust by Richard Hurowitz (June 24, 2023)—profiles of little-known heroes who risked their lives to save others out of a sense of shared humanity during the Holocaust: focuses on 10 stories of people who repeatedly defied authorities, risking their livelihoods and their families to save the helpless and the persecuted.

Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend by Joshua M. Greene and Deborah E. Lipstadt (April 6, 2021)—story of Auschwitz survivor who came from humble beginnings on arrival to the United States to become president, chairman, and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and grow a full-service commercial bank to more than $4 billion in assets.

Not the Camilla We Knew: One Woman’s Life from Small-Town America to the Symbionese Liberation Army by Rachel Hanel (December 13, 2022)—mystery of how an ordinary Minnesota girl, Camilla Hall, came to be one of the most wanted domestic terrorists in the United States: case of a pastor’s daughter from small-town Minnesota who eventually joined the Symbionese Liberation Army before dying in a shootout with Los Angeles police in May 1974.

The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts (May 30, 2023)—story of an acclaimed journalist’s effort to understand how she escaped her small town in Arkansas while her brilliant friend could not—illuminating the unemployment, drug abuse, sexism, and evangelicalism killing poor, rural white women all over America.

Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic and What We Can Do about It by Jennifer Breheny Wallace (August 22, 2023)—investigative report on how the rise of the “toxic achievement culture” overtakes kids’ and parents’ lives, resulting in growing rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm in America’s highest-achieving schools; asserts that kids need to feel like they matter and have intrinsic self-worth, not be dependent on external achievements.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Gran (April 18, 2023)—riveting story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court-martial that reveals a shocking truth.

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff (October 25, 2022)—biography of man who led what has been called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history—portrait of a shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution.

Accepted!: Secrets to Gaining Admission to the World’s Top Universities by Jamie Beaton (February 23, 2022)—guide on beating the odds and getting into Ivy League and other elite schools: view from behind the doors of the world’s top college admission offices, revealing the highly strategic selection processes.

Politics

The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future by Franklin Foer (September 5, 2023)—inside story of first two years of the Biden presidency, with exclusive access to Biden’s longtime team of advisers, concluding with the midterm elections.

Fight of His Life: Inside Biden’s White House by Chris Whipple (January 17, 2023)—story of Biden and his seasoned team’s battle to achieve their agenda during two years of crisis at home and abroad.

The Joy of Politics: Surviving Cancer, a Campaign, a Pandemic, an Insurrection, and Life’s Other Unexpected Curveballs by Amy Klobuchar (May 9, 2023)—memoir of personal challenge, political turmoil, and the state of American democracy by Minnesota’s senior senator.

Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences by Joan Biskupic (April 4, 2023)—inside look at the history-making era of the Supreme Court during the Trump and post-Trump years, from its shift to the right to its controversial decisions, including Roe v Wade.

Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It by Elie Honig (January 31, 2023)—exploration of America’s two-tier justice system, explaining how the rich, the famous, and the powerful, including Donald Trump, manipulate the legal system to escape justice and get away with misdeeds.

Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party by Jonathan Karl (November 14, 2023)—story of Trump’s improbable journey from disgraced and defeated former president to the dominant force again in the Republican Party.

Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman (July 14, 2023)—story of Humphrey’s journey to his pivotal civil rights speech at the 1948 Democratic Party convention, from a remote all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackled its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy.

For the Good of the Order: Nick Coleman and the High Tide of Liberal Politics in Minnesota, 1971-1981 by John Watson Milton (March 8, 2012)—former colleague’s story of Nick Coleman, one of the state’s most inspiring leaders as Minnesota Senate majority leader.

Fiction

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (August 8, 2023)—a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson (March 7, 2023)—a funny, sharply observed debut of family, love, and class that follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hiderbrand (June 13, 2023)—after tragedy strikes, food blogger Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages of her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket.

The Exchange: After the Firm by John Grisham (October 17, 2023)—high-flying international suspense in a new legal thriller that marks the return of Mitch McDeere, hero of The Firm.

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks and R.Sikoryak (May 9, 2023)—novel about the making of a star-studded multimillion-dollar superhero action film and the humble comic books that inspired it.

America Fantastica by Tim O’Brien (October 24, 2023)—rollicking odyssey in which a bank robbery sparks a satirical romp through a country plagued by deceit—depiction of post-Iraq war, mid-Covid, and mid-Trump world: a witty novel about the causes and costs of outlandish fantasy.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (April 5, 2022)—story of Elizabeth Mott, a gifted research chemist, self-absorbed and immune to social convention in 1960s California; her career takes a detour when she becomes not only a single mother but the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (July 18, 2023)—portrait of Harlem in 1971, 1973, and 1976—continuation of saga, Harlem Shuffle.

Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks (August 8, 2023)—a novel about risking everything for a dream—and whether it’s possible to leave the past behind.

Sources: summaries are borrowed from Amazon.