Wardah Books of the Year 2023

Salaam Dear Reader.

The tide of the year turns. The monsoon darkens the sky and the edges of leaves glisten with silver raindrops. The mercury drops a little; the heat becoming slightly less oppressive for birds to rest and refuel on this island-oasis on the great annual migration along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Battered by wind and rain, these birds have no provision save for an inborn flight path — a fitrah, if you will — for success in this world. Their flight is not a show of mastery, but a testimony of surrender. And their wings beat with all the yearning and fragility of manifest hope and fear.

And still the tides and time ebb and flow. What is sown is eventually harvested. What man intends is either fulfilled or frustrated. A year draws to a close, and we look back. How has the year of reading and thinking been for us? How much of our days did we ease into the practiced posture of a reader and enter the familiar oasis of intellection, imagination, and identity?

We marvel at the speed and mastery with which machines compute, but readers, true readers, surrender themselves to a book and find joy. These machines of artificial intelligence will never taste the fulfilment of learning, or the satisfaction of comprehension, much less the thrill of the connection of minds.

This year has seen so many wonderful books and it was a challenge for us booksellers to come up with a list of books that we felt had an impact in their respective genres.

This past year has seen so many wonderful books and it was a challenge for us booksellers to come up with a list of books that we felt had an impact in their respective genres. One book of particular note is Depression & Anxiety: The Causes & Treatment According to the Quran. This book struck such a chord with readers that we sold over a thousand copies. And for an Islamic book, it gained unprecedented notice in the mainstream press, registering second place in the non-fiction bestseller list published in the Straits Times on 26 August of this year. May Allah bless the work of the Singapore publisher Nawa Books and the people who toil with sincere hearts to bring works such as this to light.

Here are the Wardah Books of the Year.