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End-of-the-Year Contest 2023

Congratulations to the winners of our 2023 End-of-the-Year Contest! One reader received all 44 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2023, while 11 others won four of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2023's Bets On selections.

If you would like to know more about these books, be sure to check out this video and podcast where Carol talks about each of her 44 picks.

Thrity Umrigar, author of The Museum of Failures

When Remy Wadia left India for the United States, he carried his resentment of his cold and inscrutable mother with him and has kept his distance from her. Years later, he returns to Bombay, planning to adopt a baby from a young pregnant girl --- and to see his elderly mother again before it is too late. She is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life. Struck with guilt for not realizing just how ill she had become, Remy devotes himself to helping her recover and return home. But one day in her apartment, he comes upon an old photograph that demands explanation. As shocking family secrets surface, Remy finds himself reevaluating his entire childhood and his relationship to his parents, just as he is on the cusp of becoming a parent himself.

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

October 2023

In Thrity Umrigar’s THE MUSEUM OF FAILURES, Remy Wadia is headed back to India for the first time since his father died. He and his mother have a very fractured relationship. She is tough and cold towards him, and he has no idea what he did to warrant this treatment. He has returned with a mission in mind: to adopt a baby. He is married and living in Ohio with his American wife, Kathy. Life there is full and brilliant, and he has a loving relationship with her family. But they both long for a child, and the opportunity to adopt an Indian baby has been shared with Remy's good friends in India. They know a woman who is pregnant and in the wrong relationship to keep her child.