Apple shares most popular podcasts and books of 2023

With 2023 almost at an end (yes, we know, it feels admire we celebrated the New Year yesterday), Apple has shared its top lists of most popular podcasts and books. The company offers both free and premium podcasts on its Podcasts app, which is available for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

The charts are localized for folks in nearly 100 countries and regions, so you’ll get a different list depending on where you are. In the U.S., the lists of most popular podcasts are dominated by crime shows.

Here are the full lists of the most popular podcasts in 2023 in the U.S., according to Apple:

Top Shows

1. Crime Junkie

2. The Daily

3. Dateline NBC

4. SmartLess

5. This American Life

6. Morbid

7. Up First

8. Huberman Lab

9. Hidden Brain

10. Stuff You Should Know

Top New Shows

1. Scamanda

2. The Retrievals

3. The Deck Investigates

4. Murder & Magnolias

5. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

6. The Girl in the Blue Mustang

7. The Coldest Case in Laramie

8. Murder in Apartment 12

9. The Girlfriends

10. Undetermined

Most Followed Shows

1. Huberman Lab

2. SmartLess

3. New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce

4. Scamanda

5. The Mel Robbins Podcast

6. Crime Junkie

7. The Retrievals

8. The Deck Investigates

9. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

10. On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Most Shared Shows

1. Scamanda

2. Sold a Story

3. The Retrievals

4. Huberman Lab

5. SmartLess

6. The Witch Trials of J.K Rowling

7. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra

8. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus

9. The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

10. True Sunlight

Most Shared Episodes

1. Huberman Lab: “What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health”

2. Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus: “Julia Gets Wise with Jane Fonda”

3. The Daily: “The Fight Over Phonics”

4. Hidden Brain: “The Paradox of Pleasure”

5. Sold a Story: “The Problem”

6. The Mel Robbins Podcast: “The ‘Let Them Theory’: A Life Changing Mindset Hack That 15 Million People Can’t Stop Talking About”

7. The Retrievals: “The Patients”

8. We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle: “Why We Love the Way We Love: Attachment Styles with Dr. Becky Kennedy”

9. Just B with Bethenny Frankel: “Reality Reckoning: Rachel Leviss (Part One)”

10. Serial: “The Alibi”

Top Free Channels

1. iHeartPodcasts

2. audiochuck

3. The New York Times

4. Dear Media

5. Serial Productions

6. Barstool Sports

7. ABC News

8. The Daily Wire

9. Scicomm Media

10. Cumulus Podcast Network

Top Subscriber Channels

1. Wondery

2. Dateline NBC

3. Pushkin

4. iHeart True Crime

5. Lemonada

6. Tenderfoot TV

7. TED Audio Collective

8. Freakonomics Radio

9. Radiolab

10. BBC Podcasts

Apple shares top books of 2023

Apple also revealed the top books of 2023, as well as a new Year in Review encounter, available on the iPhone and iPad. You’ll find it in the Read Now tab, under Top Picks, but only if you have at least three titles marked as finished.

Year in Review will tell you what type of reader you are (based on anonymized reader insights); for example, if you admire nonfiction titles, you’ll be designated as a Seeker, and if you hop across different genres, you’ll be a Wanderer. Other than that, the encounter will show you how many books you’ve read and how many minutes you’ve spent reading them.

You’ll need at least three books marked as finished in Apple’s Books app to see the Year in Books encounter.
Credit: Apple

As for the most popular books of the year, here are the lists according to Apple:

Top Nonfiction Books of 2023

1. Spare by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

2. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

3. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

4. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia and Bill Gifford

5. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Top Fiction Books of 2023

1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

2. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

3. Happy Place by Emily Henry

4. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

5. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Top Nonfiction Audiobooks of 2023

1. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

2. Spare by Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

3. Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia and Bill Gifford

4. The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

5. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

Top Fiction Audiobooks of 2023

1. Only the Dead by Jack Carr

2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

3. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

4. Happy Place by Emily Henry

5. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros