Time to Vote for the Top 10 Reads for 2023

[Anita]

After carefully reading the instructions, please post your top 10 titles for this year in a post below between now and January 3rd. Any book that is included must have been read (as opposed to published) in 2023.

If you would copy the format I use in my example below, that would be great.

You do not need to post your top ten in any specific order, but you are certainly free to do so, but please don't include numbers in your list.

We'd love to hear your comments on your top 10. Please post them below your list.

If you must make a change to your list after it is posted, please just note it by editing your existing post at the bottom to read:

EDITED: date, changed Title A to Title B

For fun, please post your least favorite title of the year at the bottom of your message.

Deadline for submissions: January 15th


****EXAMPLE ONLY**** Please post your choices using this exact same format.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies of a Silicon Valley Startup - Carreyou
Born a Crime - Noah
The Heart's Invisible Furies - Boyne
A Ladder to the Sky - Boyne
Educated - Westover
The Collector - Fowles
Blood Meridian - McCarthy
Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Thien
Three Little Words - Rhodes-Courter
From a Low and Quiet Sea - Ryan

[Robin P]

Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Facing the Mountain - Brown
The Colour - Tremain
The Bear and the Nightingale - Arden
The Running Grave - Galbraith
A Fine Balance - Mistry
Small World - Evison
Killers of the Flower Moon - Grann
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - Cannon
How Minds Change - McRaney

[Karin]

All the Dangerous Things - Willingham
The Ways of White Folks - Hughes
The Housekeeper and the Professor - Ogawa
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption - Hillenbrand
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Sutanto
Critical Threat - Eason


Least favourite book that I actually finished is tied and I can't say which I disliked more of these but I have not included the 2 nonfiction books that belong in this tie:

Dating Dr. Dil - Sharma
The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense - Lear
Native Son - Wright
Empress of All Seasons - Jean
12 Days: A Modern Twist on the Twelve Days of Christmas

[Theresa]

still whittling down mine to 10 -- I have a few more than that....

[Karin]

Theresa wrote: "still whittling down mine to 10 -- I have a few more than that...."

Mine was easy--I included every book I gave 5 stars to except one since it's one of the same authors.

[Anita]

Karin wrote: "Theresa wrote: "still whittling down mine to 10 -- I have a few more than that...."

Mine was easy--I included every book I gave 5 stars to except one since it's one of the same authors."

Karin,

Just to make sure I record yours properly - - you are just submitting 6 top titles, correct? The ones below the line are least favorite?

p.s. Delighted to see The Housekeeper and the Professor on your list. One of my all time faves.

[John]

Tom Lake - Patchett
Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Finders Keepers - King
Crimson Shore - Preston
When Bad Things Happen to Good People - Kushner
White Fire - Preston
She's Come Undone - Lamb
How to Sell a Haunted House - Hendrix
Big Swiss - Beagin
Lolita - Nabokov

[Olivermagnus]

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies - Goodman
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Sutanto
Killers of a Certain Age - Raybourn
All the Sinners Bleed - Cosby
The Winners - Backman
Margaret of Anjou - Iggulden
To the Bright Edge of the World - Ivey
Shadow of the Wind - Ruiz Zafon
Blacktop Wasteland - Cosby
Gone With the Wind - Mitchell

[Theresa]

Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Kafka on the Shore - Haruko Murikami
A Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
The Summer Before the War - Helen Simonson
The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship, and Liberation in the 1960s - Maggie Doherty
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

ETA: Worst: The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I am really forgiving about crime fiction/thriller but this only got 2 stars from me and a scathing review. I concluded that those who don't typically read crime fiction/thriller were the ones who were enthralled by it.

As for my best - I want to say that all were books that not just got 5 stars from me - and I had a really strong 5 star reading year - but each of these is still living with me. Perhaps the most surprising one was the JK Rowling - A Casual Vacancy - which has more negative reviews than positive from when it was published. For me it was just brilliant, demonstrating just what storytelling skill Rowling has. It was as far removed from HP as you could get as a writer or a reader - and I am sure that is one reason it was so poorly received - everyone expected an HP type read. Pays to wait years to read a book -- let it age a bit in the TBR Tower.

[Theresa]

John wrote: "Tom Lake - Patchett
Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Finders Keepers - King
Crimson Shore - Preston
When Bad Things Happen to Good People - Kushner
White Fire - Preston
She's Come Undone - Lamb
How to..."

John - I too have Lolita in my Top 10. It was a reread for me - several decades after my first read.

[Teodora]

Bad Feminist - Gay
The Running Grave - Galbright
Tilly in Technicolor - Eddings
With You Forever - Liese
Lolita - Nabokov
Fourth Wing - Yarros
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - Mandanna
The Golem and the Jinni - Wecker
The Beautiful Ones - Moreno-Garcia
House of Earth and Blood - Maas

[Holly R W]

The Chinese Groove - Ma
The Bird Hotel - Maynard
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - McBride
Absolution - McDermott
Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Moscow - Lance Rogoff

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Gottlieb
Games and Rituals: Stories - Heiny
The Bean Trees - Kingsolver
Hotel Cuba - Hamburger
Eventide - Haruf

**I don't have one that is the worst, but I have one that is off-beat and playful:

The Last Animal - Ausubel

[Anita]

Olivermagnus wrote: "The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies - Goodman
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Sutanto
Killers of a Certain Age - Raybourn
All the Sinners Bleed - Cosby
The Winners - Backm..."

I think you have Shadow of the Wind listed twice? Is that what you intended?

[Anita]

Excited to see Lolita on two lists. That's one of my all time greats.

[John]

Anita wrote: "Excited to see Lolita on two lists. That's one of my all time greats."

I loved the prose within it!

[Amy]

I saw Vera Wong twice and immediately upped it. I also liked that John read and loved the Kushner book. A lovely tribute for a man whose book is powerful and who passed away earlier this year.

[Sue]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Schwab
Firekeeper's Daughter - Boulley
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Bradbury
Children of Time - Tchaikovsky
The Library at Mount Char - Hawkins
Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Carrie Soto is Back - Reid
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - McBride
Tom Lake - Patchett
Calling for a Blanket Dance - Hokeah

[Joanne]

The General and Julia - Clinch
The Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Vreeland
Honor - Unger
The Winds of War - Wouk
The World Beneath Their Feet-Ellsworth
'The Lies of Lock Lamora - Lynch
Assassins Fate - Hobb
The Perfect Horse- Letts
River of Stars - Kay
The White Dragon - McCaffrey

Honorable Mention
The Summer Before the War - Simmons


The Worst-
Murder in Lamout - Feist

[Olivermagnus]

Edited 12/18/23

Changed second Shadow of the Wind - Ruiz Zafon to Gone with the Wind - Mitchell.

Thanks, Anita

[Joy D]

Victory City - Rushdie
Vintage Contemporaries - Kois
In Ascension - MacInnes
River Sing Me Home - Shearer
The Covenant of Water - Verghese
Flaubert's Parrot - Barnes
Babel - Kuang
Double Blind - Aubyn
Search - Huneven
Prophet Song - Lynch

Honorable Mention:
Tom Lake - Patchett
The Go-Between - Hartley
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest - Davis
Cold: Adventures in the World's Coldest Places - Streever

Most Disliked:
Carry Me Down - Hyland

[Joanne]

Sue wrote: "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - Schwab
Firekeeper's Daughter - Boulley
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Bradbury
Children of Time - Tchaikovsky
The Library at Mount Char - Hawkins
Demon Copper..."

Happy to see The Library at Mount Char get a mention, I thought it was so creative. It's not as dark as it sounds-it is strange and wonderfully weird. I loved it. Such a break from the routine of all the regurgitated fantasy that is out there.

[Shelly]

Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Sooner of Later Everything Falls Into the Sea = Pinsker
The Road - McCarthy
The Winners - Backman
Babel - Kuang
Ordinary Grace - Krueger
Interpreter of Maladies - Lahiri
The Word for World is Forest - LeGuin
Night - Wiesel
Empire of Pain - Keefe

[Ellen]

Chronicles of a Radical Hag - Landvik
All He Has Left - Zunker
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone - Gottlieb
In An Instant - Redfearn
Endangered - Box
The Lie Maker - Barclay
Black Cake - Wilkerson
Remarkably Bright Creatures - Van Pelt
The Secrets She Keeps - Robotham
Call Me American - Iftin

And the Worst:
Gray House - Petrosyan

[Robin P]

Least favorite

Early Riser
However Long the Day
The Darling Buds of May

[Karin]

Anita wrote: "Karin wrote: "Theresa wrote: "still whittling down mine to 10 -- I have a few more than that...."

Mine was easy--I included every book I gave 5 stars to except one since it's one of the same autho..."

Yes, so far six books BUT if I read another 5 star before the deadline may I add it? I just have a very difficult time narrowing done one favourite or one least favourite in life in general.

That that was a reread of The Housekeeper and the Professor, but I loved it both times and I'm not even a fan of baseball the way you are :)

[Anita]

Karin wrote: "Anita wrote: "Karin wrote: "Theresa wrote: "still whittling down mine to 10 -- I have a few more than that...."

Mine was easy--I included every book I gave 5 stars to except one since it's one of ..."

You can definitely update things up to the deadline. Please just mark it clearly as EDITED so I know to make any adjustments!

[Theresa]

Anita wrote: "Excited to see Lolita on two lists. That's one of my all time greats."

One of the things that amazed me was how very much I remember of the actual language from the first and only time I had read it -- and that was in my late teens. That's the brilliance of the writer.

Definitely now one of my all time greats.

[Theresa]

I just edited my post to add my worst read of the year and also a comment about my top 10 2023 list.

[Cora]

A Master of Djinn - Clark
One Person, No Vote - Anderson
All Boys Aren't Blue - Johnson
The Widows of Malabar Hill - Massey
The Things She's Seen - Kwaymullina
A Song Below Water - Morrow
Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone - Stevenson
The Man Who Died Twice - Osman
Untamed Shore - Moreno-Garcia
Circe - Miller

My worst rated read this year was The Ex Hex.

[Amy]

Cora, I totally agree about the Ex Hex! Did you see my total pan filled with abhorrent disgust? Lol. Very unlike me, so you know its bad.

[Theresa]

Amy & Cora - The Ex Hex almost made my worst of the year! However, Foley's The Guest List just inched it out.

Cora - love that you have the Master of Djinn and Widows of Malabar Hill - two of my favorite reads from past years.

[Amy]

Here it is!!!!

Was hard to narrow down:

Top Ten:

The Winners – Frederik Backman (2022)
Carrie Soto is Back – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Tomorrow x 3 – Gabrielle Zevin
Thank You for Listening – Julia Whelan
Spectacular – Fiona Davis
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
Deacon King Kong – James McBride
Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
The Nesting Dolls – Alina Adams
Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros

Honorable Mention:

Weyward – Emilia Hart
Sadie on a Plate – Amanda Elliot
Far From the Tree – Andrew Solomon
The Magnolia Palace -Fiona Davis
The House in the Cerulean Sea – TJ Klune

[Booknblues]

Best Books
The End of Drum Time – Pylvanen
The Last Train to London – Clayton White
Walking to Samarkand – Ollivier
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store – McBride
The Covenant of Water – Verghese
Swimming Back to Trout River - Feng
The House is on Fire – Beanland
Hamnett – O’Farrell
Stolen – Laestadius
How Lucky – Leitch

Too Many Honorable Mentions to list here. This is my year of honorable mentions.

Worst
Narrow Dog to Carcassonne – Darlington

[NancyJ]

See message 84 for final list.
These are my favorites out of 200 books. It was a good year. ⭐My top 10 will probably include a mixture of the three categories.

Books that were the most special to me personally (for very different reasons):
⭐Light from Uncommon Stars - Aoki, Ryka 
⭐Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk - Rooney, Kathleen 
Briefly, A Delicious Life Stevens, Nell
⭐Abigail - Szabó, Magda
⭐The Reading List - Adams, Sara Nisha 
⭐Remarkably Bright Creatures - Van Pelt, Shelby
Five Little Indians - Good, Michelle 
The Bird and the Sword - Harmon, Amy 
The Word for World is Forest -Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Tsar of Love and Techno - Marra, Anthony 
The Door - Szabó, Magda
Too Loud a Solitude - Hrabal, Bohumil
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane DiCamillo, Kate 
Unlikely Animals - Hartnett, Annie 
A Girl called Samson - Harmon

5 star books in general :
⭐Tom Lake - Patchett, Ann
⭐The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - McBride, James 
⭐Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver, Barbara
Hello Beautiful - Napolitano, Ann 
How High We Go in the Dark - Nagamatsu, Sequoia 
⭐Babel - Kuang, R.F.  (It wasn't as much fun to read, but it was essential to my year)
Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, #1) - Follett, Ken 
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena -Marra, Anthony 

Nonfiction that was essential to my year:
⭐Humankind: A Hopeful History - Bregman, Rutger 
⭐Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World - Klein, Naomi
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us - Yong, Ed
⭐ The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness - Montgomery, Sy
Enough - Hutchinson, Cassidy
Everything Sad Is Untrue - Nayeri, Daniel
Heart Berries: A Memoir - Mailhot, Terese Marie 
Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe - O'Brien, Keith

[Theresa]

@Nancy - I started with 18 on my list - and that was not all my 5 star reads. I actually found it easier to pare down than I originally thought - started by removing books I was not routinely recommending to others.

[Karin]

Amy wrote: "Here it is!!!!

Was hard to narrow down:

Top Ten:

The Winners – Frederik Backman (2022)
Carrie Soto is Back – Taylor Jenkins Reid
Tomorrow x 3 – Gabrielle Zevin
Thank You for Listening – Julia Wh..."

How is it that you have a book I LOVE and a book I LOATHE in the same list ;)? It's amazing how reading tastes vary. I want to read The Winners, but haven't had the emotional readiness to read the third book in that series. Deacon King Kong is the one I gave 5 stars to the year I read it even though I hated the beginning of it.

[Karin]

Theresa wrote: "Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Kafka on the Shore - Haruko Murikami
A Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
The Summer Before the War ..."

I'm so glad you loved The Summer Before the War!

[Robin P]

Fun to see what repeats - Demon Copperhead, Tom Lake & Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

I would have put Muppets in Moscow, but I read it last December, so I suppose I submitted it then. In 2022 I also loved Search and The Nesting Dolls, I'm so glad Amy loved it.

Not only did J. K. Rowling write a very different book in The Casual Vancancy, and I know many of the bad reviews were people shocked at the dark side of it. But then she has the fabulous Cormoran Strike series under the name of Robert Galbraith. I see Teodora also listed The Running Grave. That book took over my life, I couldn't think of anything else, which is rare for me. But you have to read the series in order to appreciate it.

[John]

Theresa wrote: "Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Kafka on the Shore - Haruko Murikami
A Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
The Summer Before the War ..."

A Casual Vacancy is one of those books that you either love or hate. Our library book discussion group was divided on it when we discussed it shortly after its publication. This was her first non-Harry Potter book before she began the Cormoran Strike series as Robert Galbraith. Personally, I loved it even though it was difficult finding any redeemable character. I thought it was as true to life as Harry Potter's fantasy was from it.

[Linda C]

Paris for One & Other Stories - Moyes
Piranesi - Clarke
Carrie Soto is Back - Reid
Hamnet - O'Farrell
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
Other Birds - Allen
The Measure - Erlick
Left Neglected - Genova
The Old Capital - Kawabata
The Memory of Love - Linda Olsson

Honorable Mention
Lessons in Chemistry - Garmus
Reading List - Adams
Project Hail Mary - Weir
Spinning Starlight - Lewis

My Favorites
I thought Moyes stories were her best work. I find her novels just OK.
Piranesi was an unusual kind of book but by the time I finished I loved it.
Reid's making bad girl Carrie Soto a sympathetic character was very well done.

Least Favorite
Hotel Iris - Ogawa
The story is of a 17-year-old girl drawn to an old man because of his voice and entering a sado-masochistic relationship with him. Not a very pleasant story. Very disturbing. Couldn't believe it was written by the woman who wrote The Housekeeper and the Professor

EDITED: 12/30/23, changed Spinning Starlight to The Memory of Love
Just read this and gave it 5 stars

[Linda C]

I am pleased to see that there are quite a few books on these lists that I picked up this year but haven't gotten to yet. I will have a lot of good books to look forward to next year.

[Theresa]

John wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Kafka on the Shore - Haruko Murikami
A Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
The Summer..."

John - I think Rowling wrote it to some extent as an antithesis palate cleanser in her writing from HP. It was so brilliantly constructed.

[Jen]

I've had a really weird reading year and have possibly been a tad harsh in some of my ratings (only 2 5*) so my top 10 is those which stuck with me out of the 4 stars and the 2 5 star ones. The first one will come as no surprise to anyone it was the first book I managed to get lost in enough to not drift off and think about stressors in life for a couple of years (very grateful to that book).

The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest - Boukreev
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - Kolbert
Virus: The Day of Resurrection - Komatsu
Deep Descent: Adventure and Death Diving the Andrea Doria - McMurray
Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written - Bickel
The Crucible - Miller
Shift/Dust - Howey
Upgrade - Crouch
Burn - Ness
Five on a Treasure Island - Blyton

Nothing Truly terrible this year....a few 2 stars but nothing that made me angry or that was genuinely terrible just a bit dated, bland or my problem due to my frame of mind rather than the Author/story.

[Doughgirl5562]

This was an Outlander year for me - which means that I had to re-read several books in the Outlander series in preparation for various retreats / book discussions / contests. As usual, when I do re-reads or deep dives into any Outlander book, I discover even more to appreciate about this series and fall in love with author's writing all over again.

Luckily, thanks to my book clubs I did broaden my reading beyond Outlander though - and there were some really good books.

Top Ten

A Gentleman in Moscow - Towles
The Swimmers - Otsuka
A Girl Called Samson - Harmon
The Searcher - French
Born a Crime - Noah
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Flagg
Christmas by the Book - Ryan
Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Gabaldon
A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #6) - Gabaldon
Echo in the Bone (Outlander #7) - Gabaldon

Worst book - Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So. Although I am a short-story fan, this collection of short stories mostly fell flat for me. IT focused on the interconnected experiences of Cambodian-Americans in California, mostly sons and daughters of immigrant/refugees who lived through the Pol Pot genocide. The cover of the book gives you a big clue to the attitude of several of the younger players who appeared multiple times in the stories. This novel had potential, but I couldn't grasp it enough to care.

[Robin P]

Jen wrote: "I've had a really weird reading year and have possibly been a tad harsh in some of my ratings (only 2 5*) so my top 10 is those which stuck with me out of the 4 stars and the 2 5 star ones. The fir..."

Wow, it's obvious you like survival stories! Even the fiction mostly goes into that vein. I am also a tough reviewer, giving very few 5's in a year. For me, 4 stars is very good, there has to be something extra-special for that 5th star.

[Claire]

This my top 10 in the order I read them this year:

Far from the Madding Crowd - Hardy
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Tokarczuk
Demon Copperhead - Kingsolver
Dear Edward - Napolitano
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Atkinson
Zorrie - Hunt
Sea of Tranquility - Mandel
Should We Fall Behind - Duggal
The Quiet American - Greene
My Name is Lucy Barton - Strout

My worst read was Lost for Words by Edward St Aubyn. I really didn't like this book - I find the author's writing pompous and self-aggrandising.

[Jen]

Robin P wrote: "Jen wrote: "I've had a really weird reading year and have possibly been a tad harsh in some of my ratings (only 2 5*) so my top 10 is those which stuck with me out of the 4 stars and the 2 5 star o..."

Yup my rating is the same as yours. For 5 stars it really couldn't have been better and I cared and invested while reading and after.
I used to read a lot of adventure and survival as did my dad but hadn't for a while (since Dad died) so I am in a bit of a binge of it at the moment having rediscovered it. My whole life has been survival in one way or another, never easy, so these people inspire me to keep going.

[Michelle H]

My Top 10 by Author's Last Name

Lead From the Outside - Abrams
The Codebreaker's Secret - Ackerman
Good for a Girl - Fleshman
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Jenkins Reid
Choosing to Run - Linden
Llama Drama - McNuff
Someone Else's Shoes - Moyes
The Thursday Murder Club - Osman
One Life - Rapinoe
The Lager Queen of Minnesota - Stradal

[Nicole]

The Woman Who Would Be King - Cooney
A Snicker of Magic - Lloyd
Annihilation - VanderMeer
Lanny - Porter
Nona the Ninth - Muir
Invisible Child - Elliott
Winterdance - Paulsen
Brain on Fire - Cahalan
Destiny of the Republic - Millard
Theo Story of More - Jahren

[Cheryl]

Remarkably Bright Creatures - Van Pelt
City of Thieves -Benioff
The Winners - Backman
Between Earth and Sky -Skenandore
Honor - Umrigar
Mill Town - Arsenault
The Warmth of Other Suns -Wilkerson
The Girl Who Drank the Moon -Barnhill
Crying in H Mart -Zauner
Project Hail Mary - Weir