Reported by KATE KNIBBS

This was a year for unwieldy, searching, big-swing books. Doorstoppers and sagas rose to the moment, providing insight into an increasingly inscrutable world even when they couldn’t provide comfort. As always, this is an idiosyncratic, incomplete, and subjective list, the result of one person’s avid but disorganized reading schedule. But these are WIRED’s best books of 2023. Here’s hoping this list helps you find your next great read.

Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World (by Yepoka Yeebo)

Try as we might to move past it, we’re still living through the golden age of grifters, so Anansi’s Gold is another timely read for 2023. Reporter Yepoka Yeebo unravels the riveting tale of big-time conman John Ackah Blay-Miezah, an audacious, globe-trotting Ghanaian who convinced investors from Philadelphia to Accra that he could access a gold fortune allegedly lost by Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah.

Yeebo pulls off something near-magical here. She excavates an overlooked historical narrative as juicy as any true-crime blockbuster, where every detail is both fastidiously researched and completely over-the-top—one of Blay-Miezah’s major adversaries in his quest to scam? Former child star Shirley Temple Black, of course!—while also conveying how the colonial system nurtured and turbo-charged this dysfunction.

Read full report: https://www.wired.com/story/best-books-of-2023/

Read book review from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/books/review/anansis-gold-yepoka-yeebo.html

Purchase in Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Anansis-Gold-Outfoxed-Washington-Swindled/dp/1635574730/ref=asc_df_1635574730?nodl=1&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=663403197494&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3213512092205387423&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9003565&hvtargid=pla-1678151314049&psc=1&mcid=0e0682794f6038d6a24bf4bacb493896&dplnkId=45004df3-9f3a-498e-a497-6acb7054940f