Favorite Books of 2023

This year, I read so much fantastic fiction. Having taken a break from writing classes with reading lists, I have instead been following the big prize nominated books… as well as picking up books that capture my curiosity.

The year is not over yet, but as of today my Top Ten 2023 Novels (in order) are:

1. Ed Park’s Same Bed Different Dreams (wow!wow!wow!)

2. David Diop’s Beyond the Door of No Return

3. Martin MacInnes’ In Ascension

4. Jess Row’s The New Earth

5. Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (Booker Prize Winner)

6. C. Pam Zhang’s The Land of Milk and Honey

7. Tania James’ novel Loot

8. Rebecca Sacks’ Rebecca Sacks’ The Lover

9. Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors

10. Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting

    Both C. Pam Zhang’s The Land of Milk and Honey and Rebecca Sacks’ The Lover (another book I really admired this year) were homages to Margarite Duras’ The Lover.

    Also: the following novels were not published this year, but are definitely included in the year’s top reads for me: Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise and Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri (Translated by Morgan Giles). I also LOVED Idray Novay’s Ways to Disappear, which will interest linguistics a lot, I think.

    This was also the year I discovered the great Percival Everett!

In addition to novels, I spent a lot of time reading linked short story collections. Especially noteworthy were Sidik Fofana’s Stories from the Tenants Downstairs; Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare (review coming in Kyoto Journal); Jamil Jan Kochai’s The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories and the breathtaking debut by Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You. As everyone knows by now, it was short-listed for the Booker Prize … I am halfway through Jamel Brinkley’s Witness, which is also magnificent!

Most beautiful coffee table: A Sweet Floral Life: Romantic Arrangements for Fresh and Sugar Flowers [A Floral Décor Book] by Natasja Sadi

Book that melted my heart: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Jesse Q. Sutanto)

Finally, This year’s most mind-bendingly wonderful fiction was the The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter and Uranians: Stories by Theodore McCombs (ALSO BEST COVER!!) I also loved the cover of Same Bed Different Dreams!

In nonfiction, I read two books that blew me away: The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel and Patrick Bringley’s All the Beauty in the World, which moved me to tears and I read twice. I also loved and highly recommend: How to Speak Whale: The Power and Wonder of Listening to Animals by Tom Mustill.

My favorite cookbook was Rintaro: Japanese food from an Izakaya in California

Two reading goals I didn’t achieve in 2023 were 1) I have not finished Pamuk’s Nights of Plague… it is dragging for me. And 2) I started a massive re-read of Moby Dick and am reading a dozen books about Melville and the novel…. these are all half-finished, including the charming book, Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel (lovely review here).

Looking forward to finishing Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem trilogy in early 2024 before the Netflix show starts in March!

Please tell me your favorite books from 2023!

Notes

• In 2023, I did not write many reviews except two in the Rumpus: on Pico Iyer’s new book Travels in Paradise and Sonorous Desert by Kim Haines-Eitzen— and in Kyoto Journal Karen Hill Anton’s transportive debut novel, A Thousand Graces and Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

• I attempted on Goodreads to write my first poetry review of a collection I keep picking back up, The Kingdom of Surfaces: Poems by Sally Wen Mao (Also am savoring Ben Lerner’s new collection).

• Speaking of which, this year I had a lot of fun participating in Roxane Gay’s bookclub where I read, C. Pam Zhang’s The Land of Milk and Honey, The Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor (an Opera best book of 2023 and overall citing in many “best of 2023” lists, it was intense!), and Yellowface by RF Kuang (Goodreads #1 in Fiction). She picked up more books than that but those were the only three I took part in. It was a lot of fun!

• I didn't love Lauren Groff’s new novel, Vaster Wilds, but I was totally blown away by this interview in the New York Times with her about her writers process, from burning her first draft and starting a second draft from memory (!!) to the number of books she reads a year…

• Here is a post on linked story collections

• Here is Lithubs List of Lists (they collate 62 lists from 48 publications to come up with their stats)