Sarah Jessica Parker Just Shared All the ‘Blissfully Transportive’ Books She Read in 2023 – Here’s the Full List!

‘The Bee Sting’ by Paul Murray

The Bee String by Paul Murray tells the story of the Barnes family going under. While Dickie’s car business is going downhill, his wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, his daughter Cass is struggling with some serious bringe drinking and his youngest, PJ, is on the brink of running away.

“If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go?” the description wonders. “To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?”

‘Coleman Hill’ by Kim Coleman Foote

Coleman Hill by Kim Coleman Foote tells the story of Celia Coleman, Lucy Grimes and their families as they escape post–Civil War South for Vauxhall, New Jersey. The new life, however, doesn’t come without its challenges. 

Through the perspective of nine family members, the book then follows their new life through the ups and downs of the generations to come. “A stunning biomythography―a word coined by the late great writer Audre Lorde―Coleman Hill draws from the author’s own family legend, historical record, and fervent imagination to create an unforgettable new history,” the description reads. 

‘We Must Not Think of Ourselves’ by Lauren Grodstein

We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein tells the story of Jewish teacher named Adam Paskow as he becomes a prisoner of the Nazis in a Warsaw Ghetto in 1940. While imprisoned in the tightly-squeezed quarters, he accepts the offer to join a group of archivists to explore and immortalize the struggles and hopes of the Jews of the time. 

In one interview, he talks to his flatmate Sala Wiskoff and there’s an immediate spark between them. “As they desperately carve out intimacy, their relationship feels both impossible and vital, their connection keeping them alive,” the description reads. “But when Adam discovers a possible escape from the Ghetto, he is faced with an unbearable choice: whom can he save, and at what cost?”

‘Close to Home’ by Michael Magee

Close to Home by Michael Magee might have a disturbing start, but the overall story is worth it. The novel follows Sean, a young man who grew up in West Belfast and just returned to his hometown after the country’s thirty-year conflict only to find out it’s all the same. As he begins to come to terms with the reality, he assaults a stranger at a party. “Close to Home begins with this sudden act of violence and expands into a startling portrait of working-class Ireland under the long shadow of the Troubles,” the description reads. 

‘A Quitter’s Paradise’ by Elysha Chang

A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysha Chang follows main character Eleanor as she struggles to balance her struggling career, her secret-filled love life and the recent death of her mother. “Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present,” the description reads. “As Eleanor’s avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous―often hilarious―choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear.”

‘Martyr!’ by Kaveh Akbar

Much like A Quitter’s Paradise, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar follows main character Cyrus Shams as he grapples with the truth of his parents’ life and legacy. While his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf, his dad lived his life killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest and his uncle rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying. “Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others,” the description reads. 

‘The Fraud’ by Zadie Smith

The Fraud by Zadie Smith follows three separate and intertwining storylines. The first story follows Mrs. Eliza Touchet, a housekeeper and widow who works for her cousin, writer William Ainsworth. The second story follows the infamous Tichborne trial in which a man claimed that he was the long presumed-dead baronet Sir Roger Tichborne. Lastly, the book also shares the life of Jamaican-born Andrew Bogle, a formerly enslaved man who was one of the witnesses in the Tichborne trial. “Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of ‘other people,'” the description reads. 

‘Wandering Stars’ by Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange tells multi-generational stories of violence, addiction, and trauma that all stem from the same root cause: the cultural erasure toward indigenous tribes. The story, which begins following one survivor from the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, continues to modern-day where young Opal awakens in his hospital bed after a school shooting. 

‘A History of Burning’ by Janika Oza

In another multigenerational story, A History of Burning by Janika Oza begins with Pirbhai, a teenage boy in India who commits a brutal act while working at the East African Railway in 1868. Despite being tormented by his actions, Pirbhai continues on with his life and even welcomes his kids in the divided nation of Uganda. Fast forward to 1972 and Pirbhai’s family has to flee the country under Idi Amin’s military dictatorship. “A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home,” the description reads. 

‘The Road to the City’ by Natalie Ginzburg

The Road to the City by Natalie Ginzburg tells the story a young 17-year-old woman named Delia as she attempts to escape her father’s neglect and her mother’s sadness through dreaming of a new wealthy life. One day, she finds out she’s pregnant and marries a rich man who’s the baby’s father. That is, however, to the protest of her cousin, Nini. 

‘The Splendid and the Vile’ by Erik Larson

In never-before-seen detail, Erik Larson gives history fans a lesson in Winston Churchill’s life, family and government in The Splendid and the Vile. “Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family,” the description reads. 

‘The Best of Everything’ by Rona Jaffe

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, which was originally published in 1958, follows five young employees of a New York publishing company. Among the characters are Caroline, an Ivy League graduate will sky-high ambitions, a naïve country girl name April who’s desperate to find a man to share her life with and Gregg, a free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity.

‘So Late in the Day’ by Claire Keegan

In Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day, the author explores three entirely different stories. “In So Late in the Day, Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently; in The Long and Painful Death, a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions; and in Antarctica, a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger,” the description reads. Each story more gripping than the other!