Our Favourite Books of 2023 - Nominations and General Chat

[Rachel]

I subbed out The Details for Kairos as someone else gave it a nomination further down.

[David]

A few books that haven't been nominated yet:
- The Most Secret Memory of Men
- This Is Not Miami
- Beyond the Door of No Return
- Hangman
- Let Us Descend
- Western Lane
- The House of Doors
- Old God's Time
- Recital of the Dark Verses
- Solenoid

I'm sure many others too.

[Rachel]

Since Lark also nominated Of Cattle and Men, I'll go ahead and also sub that out for This Is Not Miami.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Rachel wrote: "Since Lark also nominated Of Cattle and Men, I'll go ahead and also sub that out for This Is Not Miami."

OK, I have just added those two and klaudia's nomination to the list. In practical terms the nomination deadline will be about this time tomorrow morning (UK), when I will start the rankings thread.

[Ben]

I would nominate The Glutton by AK Blakemore.

[Peter]

My top ten for 2023. I have written [NOMINATION] next to the three books I wish to nominate (since 3 is the limit).

1. The Bell of The World by Gregory Day [NOMINATION]

2. In Memoriam by Alice Winn

3. Always Crashing in the Same Car: A Novel after David Bowie by Lance Olsen [NOMINATION]

4. An Ungrateful Instrument by Michael Meehan [NOMINATION]

5. Penance by Eliza Clark

6. The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

7. The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore

8. The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey

9. August Blue by Deborah Levy

10. Pet by Catherine Chidgey

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Nominations are now closed. I will add Peter's nominations and start the rankings later today.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I love the list here but I must admit I don’t like the rankings or think they work that well compared to prize longlists where a lot of the group will read a majority of the books. It’s also a bit weird having to rank books you very much liked (and which for others are their favourites of the year) say 23rd out of 25

[David]

Yes there are some very good books on the bottom half of my list. I always hate to see them get negative points.

I wonder what the Paul method might look like if the points for counted for more than the points against.

[Paul]

Well there is of course no perfect way of ranking books - have I mentioned that before :-)

Could see an argument for more of a top 10 here (vote 10,,,1 for top books) but that would be a popularity contest.

Or give each book a score out of 10

Or something - but its fun and how we do it now does usually lead to good winners (it's more one ends up with great books in the bottom quartile)

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I do not think this rating works at all when there are so many books with so few readers but if others find it worthwhile then fine.

[Lark]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I do not think this rating works at all when there are so many books with so few readers but if others find it worthwhile then fine."

I love this exercise every year, not just for Hugh's process and what it comes up with, but because I love to see other readers' rankings of what they've read this year. I like to think about what they wrestle with to choose their #1 of the year.

I read your reviews all year and many of them are books you love and it interests me to see how you compare them.

AND I like going through that process myself. It forces me to explain my own values to myself, if I take it seriously.

If I did this ranking for myself today, for example, I'd be wrestling with how to rank 1,2,3 the books

Grimmish (for introducing me to completely new thoughts, and also it's printed on the most amazing paper)

and

Reproduction (so close to my existing thoughts, my existing existence, that it reminded me I'm one with humanity)

and

Of Cattle and Men (because it's a supernaturally perfect novel, the way The Great Gatsby is a supernaturally perfect novel)

[Hugh, Active moderator]

I agree, the ranking system is inevitably something of a compromise, but we need some way to determine which of the many books on the list are more popular, and they do get better and more representative if more people participate. I don't see putting a book near the bottom of the list as negative - it just means that I liked the books I ranked above it more.

I still think that the penalty points for low numbers of ratings are necessary because before we introduced them the top few books were often only ranked by the person who nominated them.

Above all it is just a bit of fun!

[Lark]

Hugh wrote: "I still think that the penalty points for low numbers of ratings are necessary because before we introduced them the top few books were often only ranked by the person who nominated them..."

I understand the reasoning, but otoh these books have a unique value to this community vs. books we've generally already heard about and read.

[Sam]

I think if we consider the rankings based on personal taste rather than best, it makes more sense. But one issue I see is in comparing works that so disparate.

Perhaps we might have some additional subcategories where a work that might not be an overall favorite might get recognition. For examples: favorite/best experimental, favorite/best Independent press, favorite/independent LGBTQ, favorite/independent book fiction by a POC. You get the idea and I was just suggesting possible subcategories. I am sure some of you could come up with better.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

In my view all best of lists are as much about personal tastes as any objective or measurable quality (and I rather doubt that those objective qualities even exist). The consensus choices often reflect what the tastemakers and prize judges have persuaded more of us to read. And there is clearly no way any of us can be expected to get through 70 books, even if we could get hold of them...

[Paul]

Just doing my rankings - and this list is less representative of my reading than last - of my top 15-20 eligible books only half are on the list (last year it had almost all of them), And I've only read 29 -which pro-rata to nominations is down a quarter on last year.

But that's my reading rather than this list - I passed on the Booker this year and read even more obscure small press books than previous years. Some of my favourite books (e.g. Wall by Jen Craig) I didn't nominate on grounds it's a bit pointless if no one has read them.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

There seems like a lot of love for Of Cattle and Men

For those interested to know a little of the protagonists life immediately before and after the book.

Between Dog Fights and Hog Slaughter

carbo animalis

[WndyJW]

Of Cattle and Men was a quiet, deeply layered book. One of my favorites this year.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I was very underwhelmed to be honest.

[Emmeline]

I loved it too. I don't think it was perfect but it just worked for me.

[Robert]

I liked it a lot - Cormac McCarthy goes to South America

[Paul]

It's a translated book by a small press so 3.5 stars from GY means 5.5. Bit like a 1 star review from me for a Booker-style, 600 page novel, written in English, from a male US author, with a zany narrator means 6 stars really (cf The Nix say).

Though I'm intrigued by why your review of the author's other work is directed to those intersex?

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I thought the hamburger scene was very heavy handed and I did not like the marking Israeli cattle with yellow paint at all, not sure if it’s meant to be funny but I had a sense of humour failure

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

To be fair on The Nix Paul you completely
Abandoned after 40 pages so your one star really was a one star.

Wellness will I think have a good chance of being in my list for next year - the UK publication is in 2024 - it’s such an entertaining and thought provoking book.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

For anyone in the UK interested in the Goldsmiths books I am doing a GiveAway over on Instagram (having won a full copy of the shortlist in a competition)

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "To be fair on The Nix Paul you completely
Abandoned after 40 pages so your one star really was a one star. ."

I guess what I meant though is that my dislike is due to things others would like. The book had zero chance of me not absolutely hating it just by it's existence.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Wellness will I think have a good chance of being in my list for next year - the UK publ..."

I may read the first 3 pages of that to fill my no star quota for 2024 - I am already seeing "hilarious" in the blurb and 624 pages in the description. I genuinely don't think the author exists - he is basically the ChatGPT answer to "Write a novel Paul will hate"

[Lark]

Paul wrote: "I may read the first 3 pages of that to fill my no star quota for 2024 ..."

this was about how far I got, Paul.

[LindaJ^]

Since I was traveling all of December and did not log onto Goodreads the entire month, I missed nominating. I love this list though and always find books on it that I love and would never have heard of but for the list. I've read fewer than usual - only 14, but 12 were a 4 or 5 star read. I also have 6 others in hand, so will move them further up on the to be read list.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

LindaJ^ wrote: "Since I was traveling all of December and did not log onto Goodreads the entire month, I missed nominating. I love this list though and always find books on it that I love and would never have hear..."

Welcome back Linda - hope you had a good trip

[LindaJ^]

Thanks Hugh. My husband and I were in SE Asia (Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) for most of December. We probably did more than we should have and are still recovering!

[WndyJW]

What a trip, Linda! I bet it was beautiful and fascinating. That would be worth recovering from!

[LindaJ^]

There were beautiful parts (walking with the elephants) as well as horrific ones (Cambodian killing fields). I learned a lot about Buddhism, as one guide had been monk and another a nun.

On this book list, Wendy, I just finished Of Talons and Teeth which you nominated but do not seem to have written a review for. I'd be interested in hearing why it was a "best of the year" book for you.

[WndyJW]

Thanks for reminding me, Linda. I want to write a review. I actually read a proof before Niall found a publisher, but it was published in 2023 so I counted it.

I agree with the message of this book which is that any economic system that makes human labor and natural resources commodities to be exploited is evil. Mostly, though, I love the way Niall Griffiths writes. He has a gift for language that is evident in his everyday speech and emails.

This paragraph at the beginning tells us what is happening:
“-More explosives Sion. And they drill. More nothingness they create. I know this noise and I know that it is the speech of a turning wheel and not only that no but too of the mountain as an engine, an engine entire. Itself a mechanism to be mastered. And the song of the men’s boots as they enter and exit the holes and also and this is important Sion, the dullness and trudge of Sir Herbert’s heart and others like his who do not find the ore, who do not mine the ore, who do not extract or raddle or crush or treat the ore yet by some strange and savage alchemy own all the fucking ore in these fucking hills. Every crumb and flake. Oh such men are miners too yet it is in the breasts of other men that they blast and hack and hew. Hear the moans in the darkness Sion. And these extractions both types the same do not improve the land but ravage the land. And both are exhausted. And both will break and soon. This I have been told and to it I hearkened. A badness is approaching Sion y Gof, the likeness of which I fear we have never witnessed prior.”

And this description of Sir Herbert is brilliant:
“Regarded from above by Sir Herbert hoisted aloft on his sedan like a seal on a rock. Swathed in blankets he is and has recently re-applied powders and pastes to his bulging face yet Lloyd can still see the legs and flickering carapaces in the periwig. A segmented brown thorax that appears for an instant amongst the weave to flex and throb.”

The description of a corpulent, sweaty man with thick face makeup and bugs in his wig gives us a visual image of how repulsive Sir Herbert is.

The inspiration for this book was the tale of a blacksmith named Sion y Gof who murdered his wife and daughter and threw their bodies in a well. He was convicted of the murders and as the only blacksmith in town had to build his own gibbit! Niall made this Sion a good guy though.

And a funny bit of trivia, my ex-husband’s name is Shaun Gough (pronounced Goff.)

I’ve read five of Niall Griffiths novels and loved each one.

What did you think of this book, Linda?

[LindaJ^]

Wndy, I found it bleak and depressing. The writing was fine. I was very engaged with the characters but would have liked for Sion, Catherine, and Catherine's son to have had a better end.

[WndyJW]

It is bleak. I don’t think Niall has written a book with a happy ending, but he is writing one now about love.

[Paul]

Are we "closing" the rankings (at least in terms of updating the league tables, no harm if people want to keep adding) as it's end Jan? I see Sam's added his so those could be built in.

Was tempted to get #2 daughter to fill in her rankings as I was proud to find that she thought Demon Copperhead was one of the worst books she has read - but I don't think she's read many more on the list so it won't help knock it down the list.

[Paul]

I think one might argue from prize nominations/wins, that Demon Copperhead and The Bee Sting were the two 'big' books of 2023.

I've read (and likely never will) either - but interesting to see the collective opinion on them from our votes here. On the 'Paul' system, Demon Copperhead comes first - and Bee Sting one from last.

[Alwynne]

Paul wrote: "I think one might argue from prize nominations/wins, that Demon Copperhead and The Bee Sting were the two 'big' books of 2023.

I've read (and likely never will) either - but interesting to see the..."

I haven't read them either, just didn't appeal.

[WndyJW]

I had no interest in Bee Sting so I can’t comment, but I read exactly half of DC and couldn’t continue.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Given the natural bias of the group towards experimental fiction, translated fiction and small presses it’s quite impressive DC is so high on the Hugh ranking system and “won” the Paul ranking system. Although I do not think any ranking works that well here.

Perhaps though less of a surprise given it’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize win - in its previous 9 years that had been won 6 times by a Goldsmith Prize shortlisted book (of which one was a Goldsmith winner and another written by a previous Goldsmith winner) and twice by a Republic of Consciousness Prize winning book.

[LindaJ^]

The rankings are pretty meaningless given that the most first places votes was 2 and the most read book only had 19 readers! But I love this list. I always find books I love that I did not know existed. I wish I had the time to read them all. Maybe one year I will give up reading books on the prize lists and just read the books on this list.

[Paul]

We all get very excited on other threads about lists that have only 3, 4 or 5 votes per book - otherwise known as literary prizes :-)